style="font-size:15px;"> “Of a sort,” Frannie said.
A couple of minutes later, Frannie was knocking on the door of the penthouse.
“Wow,” said Sara. “Are you sure all the funds you collect go to unfortunate women? Or does the person who lives here get kickbacks?”
Frannie laughed. “All of your questions will be answered soon.”
“You’re not a secret organization of call girls, are you?”
“If I weren’t so glad to hear you cracking jokes, I’d bop you upside the head for that,” Frannie said, laughing.
Sara was about to respond to Frannie’s threat of violence when the door was opened by the Honorable Secretary of State, Eunice Strathmore. Sara had to mentally command herself to close her mouth because it was suddenly hanging open in surprise.
“Francesca!” the secretary of state cried, obviously delighted to see Frannie.
The two women warmly embraced.
A gentleman in full butler regalia closed the door and stood aside as if awaiting further instructions.
“Ladies, we’re lunching in the next room. The food is buffet style, but Avery is mixing the drinks. What will you have?” said the secretary of state.
“A mimosa,” Frannie said at once.
“Iced tea, please,” Sara said, trying to keep her tone relaxed.
“My pleasure,” said Avery, a tall African-American in his late sixties. His silver hair was thick and wavy, neatly trimmed, and combed back from a handsome coppery-brown face.
The secretary of state watched him go. She was in her midfifties, though she looked not a day over forty-five. Trim, attractive, she wore her short dark brown hair in a tapered cut that always looked freshly styled. A minimum of makeup graced the face that was known the world over.
Around five-five, she was rumored to jog every day and work out with weights three times a week, all to relieve stress. Sara guessed it was working for her, because her face was free of worry lines, and the twinkle in her eye appeared genuine.
Turning to Sara, she grasped her by both hands and peered up at her. “Welcome, Sara. Frannie has told me all about you. May I express my sympathy on the loss of your husband, Billy? My heart goes out to you. I, too, was a young widow.”
Sara remembered that the secretary’s husband had been in the military and had been killed in action more than twenty years ago. They had two children, a girl and a boy, both adults now, of course. She had chosen not to marry again.
“Thank you, Madam Secretary,” said Sara.
“Call me Eunice, dear. We’re all just women here.”
Eunice warmly placed Sara’s hand through her arm and led her into the next room where perhaps twenty women were sitting on couches and chairs enjoying luncheon on china plates and drinking from crystal champagne glasses. Conversation and laughter was heard throughout the room.
All conversation ceased, however, when Eunice reentered the room with Frannie and Sara in tow. Frannie was greeted with more warm hugs, after which she introduced Sara to everybody.
Sara knew she would not recall all of the names of the women who formed a multicultural group. They were of African, Asian, Hispanic and Caucasian extractions. Their membership was obviously not limited to African-Americans.
She recognized several famous faces. A couple of actresses; a CEO of a major company; a multimedia magnate who could have bought and sold all of New York City, she was so fabulously wealthy. Sara was slightly in awe of them but recalled Frannie’s admonition not to stare and tried her best to keep her eyes in her head.
She and Frannie were encouraged to partake of the buffet. Sara was glad for the opportunity to speak with Frannie in private. So, as they filled their plates at the buffet table, she whispered to her friend, “Oh, my God, that was Eunice Strathmore. I read she was in New York! But she’s supposed to be attending a summit.”
“She can’t be in meetings every minute. Whenever she’s in town, we get together to discuss business. Occasionally, one of us brings someone to be considered for membership. Today, that’s you.”
“But, why didn’t you ever tell me you knew the secretary of state and,” she looked around them, “Phylicia Edwards, my favorite actress, for God’s sake?”
Frannie bit into a large shrimp and closed her eyes in ecstasy. “Like I said earlier, all of your questions will soon be answered.”
As they turned away from the buffet tables, Phylicia Edwards called out, “Sara, Frannie, join me, there’s room on my couch.”
Holding their plates and placing their glasses atop coasters on the coffee table in front of them, they got comfortable.
Sara observed that Phylicia was every bit as beautiful as she looked in the movies. In her late thirties, she was petite and had delicate bone structure. Her golden-brown skin was unmarred by age or injury and her dark, liquid brown eyes seemed as guileless as a young child’s.
Sara knew her estimation in that instance was faulty. Phylicia was not innocent by any means. She had fought her way to the top in Hollywood. She was not one to mince words about directors and producers whom she’d left whimpering like babes in her wake. Nobody messed with Phylicia Edwards and got away with it.
She was a warrior.
“How old are you, darlin’?” Phylicia asked Sara.
She was eating fast, obviously enjoying her food. But she didn’t talk with food in her mouth. She swallowed first, then spoke.
“I’m twenty-four,” Sara told her.
Phylicia’s eyes stretched. “I would have guessed twenty-one. You look fresh out of college.”
“I graduated from college at twenty. I saw no reason to stay any longer than three years if I could get my bachelor’s degree in three years’ time. I went to graduate school at NYU once I came here. That’s where I met my husband.”
“I never went to college,” Phylicia told her. She speared a piece of melon, chewed it thoroughly, swallowed, and said, “By the time I was twelve I was an expert at avoiding the hands of my lecherous stepfather. Two years later, I left home because he became more aggressive. I went to L.A. to live with my older sister who knew all about the bastard. She hadn’t been as lucky. But she refused to allow that episode in her life to define her. She went to school and became a teacher. I got to go to high school in L.A. and when I was sixteen I went to test for a role on a sitcom, got it…”
“Hocus Pocus,” Sara said excitedly. “I used to love it when I was a kid.”
“Be careful, you’re dating me,” Phylicia joked.
Hocus Pocus had been a sitcom about a family of African-American witches. Kind of like Bewitched, but with more flavor.
“It didn’t last very long,” Phylicia went on. “But at least I got my foot in the door and the rest, as they say, is history,
