Mark Winegardner - The Godfather returns

A news broadcast came on. The lead story of course was the swearing in of the toothy new president. Kay looked up. In a shot of the crowd, she saw Tom and Theresa Hagen. She put her head back down, profoundly alone, and cried herself to sleep.

D RESSED IN a pink ball gown that barely contained her swollen breasts and clutching a pair of Superman pajamas, Francesca Van Arsdale, six months pregnant with her second child, chased her first one (two-year-old William Brewster Van Arsdale IV, whom they were calling Sonny) through the maze of boxes in their apartment on Capitol Hill. Sonny was naked except for the gold Notre Dame football helmet he’d gotten for Christmas from her brother Frankie. She heard Billy’s Dual-Ghia and looked out the kitchen window. The sight of the woman getting out of Billy’s ridiculously expensive car stopped Francesca in her tracks.

She dropped the pajamas. It wasn’t the babysitter. It was her. That Woman.

Francesca braced herself against the kitchen sink. But no. It wasn’t. On second glance, the babysitter was about fifteen and looked no more like the woman Billy had cheated on her with-another member of the Floridians for Shea staff-than would have any other willowy blond beauty who was everything Francesca was not.

“Ready, Francie?” Billy called, opening the door.

Sonny, ecstatic, sprinted toward his father and gave him an inadvertent but savage header to the crotch. As Billy moaned and crumpled into a chair, Francesca scooped up the pajamas and then Sonny, too, and gave the girl-the little sister of someone Billy knew from Harvard Law School-an agonizingly thorough set of instructions.

“You look fantastic,” Billy said, holding the car door open. “Gorgeous.”

Francesca was quite clear on the fact that she looked like a big pink cow. She struggled to get into that low-slung car with some semblance of dignity. Billy didn’t seem to notice. When she was in, he leaned down and kissed her, chastely at first, and then passionately. When the kiss was over, he thanked her. Thanked her!

It had been like this for weeks. Her own mother had told her to forget about the affair. Men are going to have their goumada s. You know why surveys say that fifty percent of men cheat on their wives? she’d asked. Because the other fifty are liars. But once in a while, she’d said, you can pretend to be surprised to learn about some woman-which, if you don’t do it too often, can spark enough guilt to make your husband treat you like you were courting. In contrast, Francesca’s sister’s advice had been to kill him. But Kathy had never liked Billy. She was also (despite a string of boyfriends in London, where she was getting her Ph.D. in Continental literature) not a mother. Being a mother changed things more than anyone who was not a mother could possibly imagine. What was Francesca supposed to do, get a divorce? Raise two children alone? So far, her mother seemed to have been dead-on. But Francesca didn’t trust Billy’s newfound devotion. Despite all his penitential tenderness, he’d made love to her maybe twice since she started to show. When she’d been pregnant the first time, Billy had been turned on by it, had wanted to do it all the time.

“You should see my office, babe,” Billy said. Right after the inaugural address, Daniel Brendan Shea-the president’s brother and new attorney general-had assembled his staff and had a meeting. This didn’t bode well for Billy working fewer hours than he had during the campaign (though maybe in this case those hours would be more exclusively devoted to work). “It’s small, but it’s on the same floor as Danny’s.”

“You’re calling him Danny ?” You’re calling me babe?

“That’s what he said to call him.” Billy actually stuck his chest out with pride. This was not a gesture she found endearing, though maybe she once had.

“On a first-name basis with the attorney general,” she marveled. Did he call That Woman babe, too? “I’m proud of you.”

Which, despite everything, was true.

“The third youngest attorney general in the history of the United States,” Billy said. “Before he’s done, don’t be surprised if he’s considered the best one, too. He has an incredible combination of intelligence and-this doesn’t sound like a compliment, but it is-ruthlessness.”

“Sounds to me,” she said, “like he’s the right man for the job.”

On the way to the ball, they made quick stops at parties at several different embassies and hotels. As if by magic, Billy knew where to go, where the valet parking would be, the names of the hosts, and how to find them. When Francesca got inside, she had to pee-she always had to pee; it was like having a truck parked on her bladder-and she always guessed wrong about which way the bathroom was. She couldn’t help but be dazzled to be in these ornate mansions-especially the French embassy, which gave her an evil thrill, thinking about how jealous Kathy would be when she heard about it. And everywhere she turned, she saw a famous face or met a powerful person. But at the same time, she was miserable. Strangers kept pawing her, presuming that they could touch her belly, and Billy never once told them to keep their filthy hands to themselves. Her back was killing her. And she felt inadequate and out of place, as she had for most of her marriage. The pregnancy aside-and it was never aside; this kid was going to be a giant-no one looked like her (the Italian embassy was not among their stops). The women were either tall, WASPy, and glamorous, with their hair piled high and sprayed perfectly in place (like That Woman, in other words), or they were Washington wives: elegant matrons in fat pearls who somehow managed to be both unobtrusive and lively.

At every party, though, except for during her trips to the restroom, Billy stayed by her side. It was painful to watch him thwart his instinct to abandon her and work the room, but not so painful that Francesca was ever tempted to tell him to go do what he needed to do.

They finally arrived at Constitution Hall and were walking up the steps when she heard a high, unfamiliar voice calling her name. She turned and couldn’t see where it was coming from.

“Bee-Boy! Bee-Boy!”

Francesca’s heart soared. It was Mary Corleone and Uncle Mike. She hadn’t seen them since her wedding day, more than three years before. Her uncle looked like he’d aged ten years.

She reached down to pick Mary up and then thought better of it. “I hardly recognized you,” Francesca said. “You’re huge.”

“You’re huge, too,” Mary said, rubbing Francesca’s belly. Mary was her cousin. She could rub until her heart’s content. “We both have on the same-colored dress. That’s a baby in there, right? I’m smart. I’m seven years old.”

Uncle Mike asked if he could touch it.

“Of course,” she said. “You are smart,” she told Mary. “It is a baby. A big one, I think.”

When the baby kicked and Michael recoiled in delight, Francesca noticed her cousin Tony, standing behind his father. She bent down to hug him, too. He smiled but didn’t say anything. There was a man in a long coat behind them, too, who must have been a bodyguard.

“My brother doesn’t talk much,” Mary said. “But he’s not retarded. When he sings he can say anything. People are going to sing at the fancy ball, did you know that?”

“ You’re retarded,” Tony said, perfectly well.

“I was hoping I’d see you here,” Francesca said. “When did you get in?”

Michael looked at his watch. “Fifteen minutes ago.”

“Are you staying long?” Francesca asked. “We’re not really moved in, but I’d love to have you come see our apartment.”