a thousand furnished rooms

Marnie, meanwhile, applied herself, when she applied herself, to projects that she thought would give her visibility with the right people--the Speaker of the House, Lieutenant Governor, or, her ultimate target, the Governor himself. Despite our bureaucratic, waiting-for-Godot-like existence, Marnie was certain that an opportunity would emerge for her to shine. If something crossed the transom that suggested visibility, Marnie was on it.

One day a call came in about a study that was being commissioned on re-regulating horse racing in the state. After jotting down notes from the call, I quipped to Marnie, "Here's a hot one."

"Let me see," she said, reaching over the notes I had just written. "You think this has juice?" Juice was Marnie's word, borrowed from the career pols, for a project or issue that the public and press would take an interest in. Something either had juice, and you spent time on it, or it didn't. Otherwise, it was "bullshit," and no one with any sense worked on "bullshit."

I knew in a millisecond that horse racing re-regulation lacked juice. Jesus, only about ten people cared about horse racing, and five of them were toothless. I teased Marnie about it, and realized she was a little flustered. And it occurred to me that Marnie wasn't completely unflappable. Sitting opposite me wasn't the master of the universe. She might become that in time, but she wasn't yet. Her hair may have been curling under her perfect chin, and her summer dress may have been revealing the slightest hint of the loveliest cleavage the world had even seen. She might be Harvard and she might spend more in a day than I do in a year, but at this moment she was only 19, and she was blushing.

A long time has passed since that moment, but the memory is still electric. They say d�j� vu is the sensation that you are experiencing a moment you have experienced before. This was just as profound a sensation, but was distinctly different. A cousin of d�j� vu. But instead of a feeling of a moment relived, it was as if I knew all at once that I was experiencing a fundamental truth of the universe for the first time. In this case, it was that there is no sight more fetching than a beautiful woman blushing. And I resolved to make it happen as many as I could in the few weeks of summer that remained.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This momentary blush spawned a series of incidents where I would tease Marnie, or play small practical jokes on her. After answering the phone and putting a call on hold, I would say,"Speaker's Office, line 2." She would snatch up the phone and answer brightly, "Marnie Adams speaking," and I would watch her smile turn to a scowl as she realized she was talking to a clerk from some obscure commission. It was amazing how many times I got away with this kind of thing. And I don't know what was cuter--how easily she was duped or how great she looked flipping me the bird.

This lead to my elaborate practical joke on Marnie, and everything that changed in our relationship after that. In connection with my mosquito control project, I had written a letter one morning, in the name of a legislator, to the Army Corps of Engineers. The secretary and I printed it out on the legislator's stationery; I signed it, and off it went. I was musing about how {amorphous} this all was--a nameless soul in one place forging the signature of someone, and sending it off to a place where it would never be dealt with--or, perhaps, only read by another nameless soul who worked for the person to whom the letter was addressed. I was writing a kind of fiction--an incredibly boring fiction to be sure, but fiction nonetheless.

So I decided to write a fiction to put Marnie in action. I tailored it to her combination of ambition and naivet�. Using a piece of the speaker's stationery, I wrote a memo requesting that an intern from our committee write a summary report of all the projects the interns were doing over the summer. This summary report should be delivered to the speaker's office on the last day of the internship.

I left this memo in our inbox one morning, knowing that Marnie would find it. Marnie had been looking for visibility all summer, and this was going to be it. She sprang into action. Within a week, Marnie had the entire group of interns in an uproar. These are people who hadn't done a thing all summer, and were now expected to account for themselves.

But Marnie wouldn't be denied. She brought all her skills to bear--charming those who needed to be charmed and intimidating those who couldn't be charmed. To the few of us who actually had done some work all summer, she was her most winning--learning our projects in enough detail to write cogent summaries of them, flattering us to give her time and her project enough attention. She spent an entire morning interviewing me, and halfway through the morning she was as expert at mosquito control as I would ever be. I found myself marveling at her, and thought at several moments that I wish this were a real project and not just a practical joke.

To be continued