Caroline clutched a letter from George as she made her way to the temporary quarters for the Department of Commerce. Someday, she was sure, the Department of Commerce would be one of the largest departments in the government, but for now it occupied two rented floors in an office building on Fourteenth Street. The rooms were eerily vacant as she walked down a hallway, searching for George, since there were no clerks to ask.
The empty rooms would soon be filled, as his letter indicated. He needed to hire dozens of secretaries and clerks to get the department up and running and had offered Caroline her choice of several positions.
She found him at the end of the hallway, arguing about lighthouses with a balding man as he paced the floor in frustration. “If we are to oversee coastal ports, it makes sense for us to handle lighthouse oversight as well,” George said.
“Lighthouses are the purview of the Corps of Engineers,” the bald man replied. “I see no cause for them to be transferred to Commerce.”
George finally noticed her standing in the open doorway. “Caroline! Come inside and tell me if you think the Department of Commerce should add lighthouses to our list of responsibilities.The president has already charged us with the inspection of coastal ports. I think lighthouse oversight is a logical extension. What do you think?”
“Is this a test?”
“Yes. Of your political acumen. Are lighthouses a good match for us?”
“My political instincts tell me to side with the man on top rather than the man taking notes.”
“Excellent answer!” George said. “All right, Mr. Soames, step outside for a few minutes while I interview Miss Delacroix. If we can hire her, she will brighten each day at Commerce.”
She waited until the older man left. She still held George’s letter, not wanting a job for herself but rather for the first set of young women graduating from Petra’s school. Ludmila and fourteen other women were now trained in typing and clerical skills. When she explained this to George, his brows lowered.
“I won’t be hiring frontline staff for months. I need high-level operation management. That’s why I want you. Your political instincts are as good as anyone I’ve met. I’d like you to manage my office.”
Merely looking at the files stacked on George’s desk made Caroline tired. She had loved her work at the White House, but the prospect of leaping back into the governmental whirlwind as a new department took shape was exhausting.
“Come, Caroline,” George gently scolded, “I’ve always known you could do more than host tea parties or manage Ida’s volatile moods.”
“Ilikeplanning tea parties. And it turns out I couldn’t quite manage Ida’s volatile moods, as we all know.” It hurt even to broach the subject, and George’s eyes softened in sympathy.
“Perhaps if you write to her?”
She shook her head. “Any letter I send will be returned unopened. I’ll never stop hoping for a reconciliation with Ida, but it’s best done in person. I’ll go to Ohio someday soon.”
Her voice trailed off. She couldn’t go to Ohio until after Nathanial returned from the Florida Keys. He wouldn’t be in town long before he’d be rushing off to Milwaukee, and she didn’t want to miss him. It was foolish to schedule her life around a man always so willing to dash off on missions, but she couldn’t help it. She thought of him every hour of each day.
“As soon as the Holland investigation is complete, I’ll be able to think about going to Ohio,” she said. “Once Nathaniel is back in town, I’ll know when I can leave.”
“But he returned two days ago. Didn’t you hear?”
She blanched. Nathaniel hadn’t raced to her side the moment he was back? “Where did you hear that?”
“He’s been holed up with John Wilkie, working on something. I stopped by to discuss tax revenue, but he was in a meeting with Nathaniel and a few other men I didn’t know. He told me he couldn’t meet until the Milwaukee project was launched.”
The wordMilwaukeestruck fear into her. If Nathaniel had already been back in town for a while, he might leave at any moment. It was mortifying to be left dangling by a man who couldn’t even be bothered to come see her after returning from Florida.
She stood. “If you’ll excuse me, I think I need to go see John Wilkie.”
Caroline mounted the steps at the Treasury Department and headed straight to Wilkie’s office. This building contained over two hundred rooms and a dozen different agencies. She had no idea where Nathaniel was stationed, so she marched straight to Wilkie’s office to find out.
“Nathaniel is very busy,” Wilkie said, glancing up from the papers on his desk.
“He’salwaysbusy. I’d like to see him before he becomes busy in Milwaukee.”
Wilkie took off his eyeglasses and sighed in exasperation. “Don’t bother him, Caroline. He’s doing very important work. Leave him alone.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Tell me where I can find him, or I’m delivering a basket of artichokes to the White House kitchen overnight, and you know I can do it.”
“Room 207,” Wilkie promptly said.
She headed off toward the stairwell. Her threat about the artichokes was serious, for Luke had finally confided how they had been smuggled into the White House. Partially finished ventilation tunnels in the basement had been abandoned when Ida ordered the White House renovations to stop. The tunnels were covered over but not fully sealed, and Philip took advantage of it. Now that plans for the west wing were back on, that gap would be closed, but Wilkie didn’t know that, and another delivery of artichokes would be a huge embarrassment to the Secret Service.
