The President's Daughter - Mariah Stewart [88]
“You quit your job over a story?” Her eyes narrowed.
“The legal department wanted me to name sources, and I couldn’t do that. My editor wouldn’t back me up. I didn’t feel I had much of a choice.”
Dina seemed to be digesting his words. “So you decided to write a book about it.” Dina nodded. “Without naming your sources—”
“Right.” Simon changed lanes again.
“That takes a lot of nerve.”
Simon floored it and eased around the back of an 18-wheeler, muttering, “I hate 95.”
“What?”
“I hate driving on I-95.”
“So I guess when you were given the opportunity to work on this book, it must have seemed too good to be true.”
“And obviously was.”
“You think he was using you so that you wouldn’t put anything in your book that he didn’t want made public?”
“Yes.”
“Maybe that’s not necessarily a bad thing, when you consider the people who could be hurt.” She bit her bottom lip and looked pensive.
“You sound like Norton. That’s pretty much what he said.”
“How astute of him.” Dina settled back again, studied the scenery, then asked, “Do you drive through D.C. to get to Arlington?”
“No. We can, but we don’t have to. Why?”
“I was just thinking. . . .”
“About . . .”
“About maybe seeing the place where Blythe lived.”
“Do you know the address?”
“Yes, I have it written down. Betsy said that she lived on Connecticut Avenue not far from the zoo.”
“Easy enough to find. We can take a little detour.”
“Do you mind?”
“Not at all. Arlington’s only across the bridge from the city. We have all afternoon.”
“Thank you. Betsy said she had an apartment in a lovely old Art Deco–style building that’s still standing. And someday—not today, but someday—I’d like to see the park where she and Betsy used to walk. Betsy said there was an old gristmill there called Pierce Mill that she and Blythe used to stop at. And I very much want to see Dumbarton Oaks.”
“You’ve never been there?”
“Oh, yes, many times. They have the most wonderful gardens there.” Dina sighed. “Glorious at every time of the year. They were designed by Beatrix Jones Farrand, who was one of the first women landscape designers in this country. She designed some of the ironwork gates and the garden sculptures.”
“Sounds like she was a very creative lady.”
“She’s my idol. When I was in school at College Park, I used to come into the city every chance I got to visit the gardens there, which are still for the most part as Farrand planned them, though of course they belong to Harvard now. Their Center for Studies in Landscape Architecture offers wonderful workshops and lectures, many of which are open to the public. I had planned to attend a symposium there a few years ago but had to cancel.”
“What was the topic?”
“Environmentalism in landscape architecture.”
“Sounds very intellectual.” Simon raised an eyebrow. “I always think of gardening as being a little more down-to-earth. No pun intended.”
“There’s room for both dimensions in every field, the ideological as well as the practical.” Dina smiled for perhaps the first time since their journey had begun. “I’m surprised you’ve never been, since it’s right there in Georgetown.”
“Well, I’ve been to the museum. When I was a junior, I took a course in pre-Columbian art and a visit to the Dumbarton gallery was a must. They have a world-class collection of both Byzantine and pre-Columbian art.”
“Betsy told me last night that Blythe was a volunteer there while she lived in D.C.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Isn’t that incredible? I’d been there as a student, so many years later. We walked the same paths. . . .”
“That is a pretty incredible coincidence.” Simon paused to reflect.
“I thought so. It appears we may have had more in common than I originally thought. And it’s funny, too, that I spent all those years at College Park—I got my master’s there as well as my bachelor’s—just a few miles from D.C., and now I find that I have connections to the city