• • •

That evening George took Maria Summers out to dinner for her twenty-ninth birthday.

He was worried about her. Maria had changed her job and moved to a different apartment, but she did not yet have a boyfriend. She socialized with girls from the State Department about once a week, and she went out with George now and again, but she had no romantic life. George feared she was still mourning. The assassination was almost two years ago, but a person could easily take longer than that to recover from the murder of her lover.

His affection for Maria was definitely not that of a brother. He found her sexy and alluring, and had ever since that bus ride to Alabama. He felt about her the way he felt about Skip Dickerson’s wife, who was gorgeous and charming. Like his best friend’s wife, Maria was simply not available. If life had turned out differently, he felt sure he might be happily married to her. But he had Verena; and Maria wanted no one.

They went to the Jockey Club. Maria wore a gray wool dress, smart but plain. She had no jewelry on, and wore her glasses all the time. Her hairpiece was a little old-fashioned. She had a pretty face and a sexy mouth, and—more importantly—she had a warm heart: she could have found a man easily, if only she had tried. However, people were beginning to say that she was a career girl, a woman whose job was the most important thing in her life. George did not really think that could make her happy, and he fretted about her.

“I just got a promotion,” she said as they sat down at the restaurant table.

“Congratulations!” said George. “Let’s have champagne.”

“Oh, no, thank you, I have to work tomorrow.”

“It’s your birthday!”

“All the same, I won’t. I might have a small brandy later, to help me sleep.”

George shrugged. “Well, I guess your seriousness explains your promotion. I know you’re intelligent, capable, and extremely well educated, but none of that counts, normally, if your skin is dark.”

“Absolutely. It’s always been next to impossible for people of color to get high posts in government.”

“Well done for overcoming that prejudice. It’s quite an achievement.”

“Things have changed since you left the Justice Department—and you know why? The government is trying to persuade Southern police forces to hire Negroes, but the Southerners say: ‘Look at your own staff—they’re all white!’ So senior officials are under pressure. To prove they’re not prejudiced, they need to promote people of color.”

“They probably think one example is enough.”

Maria laughed. “Plenty.”

They ordered. George reflected that both he and Maria had succeeded in breaking the color bar, but that did not show that it was not there. On the contrary, they were the exceptions that proved the rule.

Maria was thinking along the same lines. “Bobby Kennedy seems all right,” she said.

“When I first met him he regarded civil rights as a distraction from more important issues. But the great thing about Bobby is that he’ll see reason, and change his mind if necessary.”