Kennedy's Secretary

Chapter 28

(Daily pic of Bobby, you guys! Can't remember if I posted this or not 😂 ~Dani 💖)

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I slid the aged key into the rusty latch hole and after a few tries it finally gave way and we soon walked into the apartment. I turned the light on and then proceeded to take off my jacket and hang it up on the hook behind the door. Robert brought in his initialed leather overnight bag full of clothes and toiletries and set it down on the couch.

"I see it's still as plain as it was when Ethel and I were here." Robert quipped as he sat down in the easy chair positioned closely by the door.

"I knew you'd say that." I laughed aloud.

"At least I'm honest." He smirked at me.

Cheeky bastard.

I laughed  at this and said nothing in reply as I proceeded to walk to the sink in my bathroom to wash my hands and eventually put my briefcase on my bed.  As I came back out after doing these minute tasks, I noticed the gray carpeting we had ordered and put down a few weeks before seemed to glow in the faded light coming from the small lamps, giving it a very soft and romantic light as the sun was setting and the faint sound of the cars below were heard.

I proceeded to sit on the couch opposite him once he returned and we did not do anything but look at one another for quite a while, as if we were studying each others face for a sculpture.

"Can I get you something to drink to start off?" I asked awkwardly in an attempt to break the ice after a few minutes of fidgeting and staring.

"Sure, what do you have?" He asked back, sounding relieved

"Well we have a few bottles of soda and of course water from the tap." I smiled weakly, ashamed of my meager offerings.

"Soda is fine." He answered as I turned on the tap and it flowed freely. I turned around to see him get up off the couch and walk over towards the new television set I had bought as if he were going to turn it on...and then he stopped to look up at the wall behind it, his hands behind his back as he did so.

On the wall above the television was a small painting of Queen Victoria that I had picked up at a jumble sale back home a few years before. I had packed it in a suitcase after taking it down from my bedroom wall and figured it would make a good centerpiece in the living room. Robert looked so fascinated by it as he stared at the sovereign monarch of Britain holding the symbols of royal rule on her coronation day, a high point in her days of youthful and exuberant frame and state of mind.

"Victoria, eh?" He smiled at me as we exchanged glances and he took his glass of water from me.

"Indeed, sir. Victoria is a personal favorite of mine. When I was a very small child, I used to pretend I was her and all my stuffed animals were my royal court. You can imagine me holding a baseball and one of my old curtain rods sitting in a small chair, and the rest you can imagine." I laughed at this recollection.

"I believe she would have found that to be very flattering and amusing all at once." Robert smiled yet again at me as he sipped his water.

"I would very much have liked to have met her, to have had a conversation with her. To have truly known the woman behind the crown, you know?" I answered meekly as he walked around me and I gazed in full view of her.

"Indeed, she was a very powerful woman. And as you know," he purred as he crept up behind me and hugged me very closely from behind and nuzzled my neck, "she was very fond of her Albert."