From the Heart

for it, if and when I can give him an outline and some firm names. I suppose seeing Amelia Thaxter at the embassy started the wheels turning again.”
    “A remarkable woman,” Myra commented. She smiled, somewhat dismally, as the fruit salad was placed in front of her. She wasn’t the sort of woman who liked moderation, even gastronomically. “As dedicated as they come, and quite devoted to her constituents. Quite sincerely devoted. She made a choice between marriage and a career long ago. Some women can’t mix the two.” She smiled at Liv then and plunged her fork into a chunk of pineapple. “Oh, I’m not talking out of school. She’d tell you herself if asked. I believe she’ll be quite interested in your project. Yes, and Margerite Lewellyn—nothing she likes better than to talk about herself. Then there’s Barbara Carp . . .”
    Liv listened, not touching her own lunch as Myra rattled off names of women political figures and the wives of some of Washington’s top brass. This was a great deal more than she had expected. And as she spoke, Myra became more animated with the idea.
    “What fun,” she concluded. “I believe you’ll do a marvelous job of it. I think I’ll make a few phone calls when I get back.”
    “I appreciate it,” Liv began, hardly knowing what to say. “Really I—”
    “Oh, fiddle.” Myra waved away the thanks with her fork. “It sounds a great deal more fun than planning another dinner party. Besides”—she gave Liv another of those blinding smiles—“I fully expect to be interviewed myself.”
    “That is an opportunity I wouldn’t miss for the world,” Liv said sincerely. “Myra,” Liv said, and applied herself to her own salad, “you are amazing.”
    “I do try to be. Now, that’s all the business nicely settled.” She gave a self-satisfied sigh. She liked this girl. Oh, yes, she liked this girl very much. And when Myra Ditmyer made up her mind about someone, it was as firm as one of her husband’s court decisions. “I must tell you, I had no idea when I made that little arrangement about the bridge party that you and Greg knew each other. I love being surprised.”
    “He was a very good friend.” Liv poked at her salad. “Seeing him again was good for me.”
    Myra watched her carefully. “I said I was surprised. But then . . .” She saw Liv’s eyes rise to hers. “It didn’t take me long to put the pieces together. When he was in college, Greg had written me often about Livvy. I remember hoping he was enjoying a nice, sweet romance. He was certainly captivated by her.”
    “Myra, I—”
    “No, no, now, let me finish. Greg was always a faithful correspondent. So refreshing in a young man. He wrote me that his Livvy was involved with his roommate.”
    “It was all so long ago.”
    “My dear.” Myra placed a hand on hers. “I apologize. But Greg was very intimate in his letters. I suppose he needed a sounding board for his feelings. They were quite real to him at the time. He was desperately in love with you, and as close to Doug as a man can be to another. Being in the middle was difficult for him, and perhaps because I was removed, he talked to me through his letters. He told me everything.”
    The look, the press of the hand, told Liv that Myra wasbeing literal. There must be nothing about those years that she didn’t know. Liv stared at her helplessly.
    “Now, dear, have some more wine. I don’t mean to upset you. We all learn to cope, don’t we,” she went on in an easy voice as Liv obeyed her. “To live with loss and pain and disappointment. One can’t have lived to my age and not have run the gamut. It must have been dreadful for you. You probably thought you’d never live through it.”
    “No,” Liv murmured. “No, I was sure I wouldn’t.”
    “But you have.” Myra patted her hand again, leaned back and waited.
    Perhaps it was Myra’s skill in dealing with people, perhaps her genuine interest in them that caused Liv to respond to Myra’s silence more than she would have to a dozen well-meaning questions.
    “I thought for a while it would be better to die than to have to live with the pain. There didn’t seem to be anybody . . . . My family,” she said on a long breath. “I suppose they tried; in their way they were sympathetic, but . . .” She stopped and let out a quiet sigh that tugged at Myra’s heart. “I wanted to scream; I wanted to tear something apart. Anything. They simply never understood