Front Page Affair Read Free

“I could use a hand.” She couldn’t have been much older than Kitty, twenty-one or twenty-two at most.
    â€œI have no time for this nonsense,” her husband muttered. “Do what you want, and come find me when you’re done.” He strode back toward the crowd on the lawns.
    â€œDon’t mind Hunter.” Aimee Cole turned to Kitty. “His bark is worse than his bite. And he thinks he can get away with anything because the Coles go almost all the way back to the Mayflower … Shall we?”
    Kitty followed her into the clubhouse.
    â€œHave you heard of them?” Mrs. Cole opened the door to the powder room.
    â€œThe Coles? I’m afraid I haven’t.”
    â€œDon’t worry.” Aimee Cole giggled. “Before I married Hunter, neither had I. My family goes back a whole two generations. All the way to Brooklyn!” She stared at her reflection in a gilt-framed mirror above a porcelain sink and said wistfully, “You wouldn’t believe that I was rather pretty once.”
    Kitty felt sorry for the young woman. “Let’s clean up this mess.”
    â€œYou don’t look like a reporter.” Aimee Cole turned around.
    Kitty smiled and asked the attendant for talcum powder and a towel.
    â€œYou seem pretty competent for someone your age.”
    â€œI’ll take that as a compliment.” In addition to a basic education, Kitty’s boarding-school teachers, the Misses Dancey, had taught their charges how to speak, read, and write in French, German, and Italian; memorize poetry; sketch from life; play an instrument; and run a household. They hadn’t taught the girls politics, algebra, or any of the sciences.
    Mrs. Cole wiped the greasy residue from her dress, and Kitty dusted powder on the stain.
    â€œThat Lizzie Chilton bumped my arm and made me spill my canapé.” Mrs. Cole frowned, then added, “Don’t put that into your report.”
    â€œI won’t be writing about any of this.” Kitty waited for the powder to soak up the grease and then brushed off the remains. “Better?”
    Mrs. Cole stood back and looked in the mirror. “Much better, thanks.”
    â€œI’m so clumsy, I rarely eat at parties,” Kitty confessed to her.
    â€œIf I didn’t eat at these things, I wouldn’t have anything to do.” Mrs. Cole laughed. She seemed in a more cheerful mood.
    Kitty checked the time on her watch. It was almost four o’clock. “I think we should get back.”
    There was no sign of Mr. Cole when they came out on the terrace.
    â€œWhere could he be?” Mrs. Cole looked around. She said she would wait for her husband at the children’s tables and thanked Kitty again for her help. “It means a lot to me.”
    â€œIt was no trouble at all.” Kitty returned to her position by the pillar.
    From a stage on the lawns, Mrs. Basshor rang a bell. The crowd went quiet.
    â€œYour attention please.” The hostess addressed her guests. “Please join me in welcoming our visitors who’ve traveled here all the way from Yokohama to delight us with the daylight fireworks that are the specialty of Japan!”
    Mrs. Basshor brought her hands together, and everyone joined her in an enthusiastic round of applause. Two kimonoed men in wooden sandals emerged from behind the trees and took a quick bow in military unison. They were joined by a third with a bandana wrapped around his head, who slowly and deliberately beat a round brass gong.
    The sound faded into silence.
    All Mrs. Basshor’s guests waited under the blazing summer sun. A toddler in a sailor suit cried out and was hushed by his nursemaid. The air was still, and the waiters seemed frozen, trays suspended in midair. Groundskeepers looked on from behind the bushes, and even the stable lads had come up to watch the proceedings from a safe distance. When nothing happened, some of the ladies exchanged glances,