Large gray storage containers lined one wall. About four foot square and just over two feet tall, each wheeled container held presidential china. We kept the most popular patterns closer to the kitchen, and since this particular room was the farthest from our work center, it held the china patterns we used least. I pushed at the closest of the gray monsters-this one held Lyndon Johnson’s pattern-to access the boxes I intended to scavenge.
Every year, grinning with holiday spirit, Henry made the trek down here to pull out fun things for the kitchen staff to use during the holiday season. He loved decorating the kitchen himself. Kendra and her staff didn’t mind because none of what we used was ever seen by the public. Henry usually waited until the entire White House was completely finished before exercising his decorating muscle. He called the final kitchen embellishment his pièce de résistance.
I liked Henry’s tradition, and I intended to continue it. With all that we’d gone through recently, however, I believed our festive mood needed a boost sooner rather than later.
I pushed another of the big bins out of the way, but realized, in doing so, I’d blocked my path out. There was only one solution: I pushed the two out into the hallway, and pulled out the boxes of tchotchkes I planned to make use of.
There was not, unfortunately, any type of cart I could use to transport my treasures to the kitchen. With my tender arm and splinted finger, I wasn’t in the best position to carry the boxes myself.
Heading out again, I started for the electrical shop with two purposes in mind: getting a cart, and talking with Manny again, if I could pin him down. Based on our prior conversation, there was little reason to believe he would have checked out my floating neutral question. But I’m nothing if not tenacious.
Manny was nowhere to be found, but Vince sat on a stool at a small workbench, eating. “Do you have a minute?” I asked.
Startled, he just about fell off the seat. “You scared me,” he said around one stuffed cheek. His gaze took in my bandaged arm and splinted finger.
“Sorry.” I wandered in. “What do you have there?”
He held up half a sandwich. “Chicken.”
Unsurprised, I nodded. Tradesmen generally didn’t eat in the lower-level cafeteria. They went out, or brought their own food in. This was a throwback tradition from the White House’s early days, when the household staff was mostly black, and the tradesmen white. Because nineteenth-century black employees couldn’t find establishments to serve them in the nearby D.C. area, the White House provided meals. White tradesmen, having no such difficulty, went out for lunch or dinner each day. Over time the White House staff became infinitely more diverse. Of course, now blacks and whites occupied all staff levels, but the tradesman tradition-if you could call it that-continued. To this day, regardless of their race or ethnicity, tradesmen rarely ate in the White House cafeteria.
He stared at me as I moved closer. I got the distinct impression he didn’t like the idea of the chef entering the electrician’s lair. His constant jumpy glances toward the doorway behind me led me to believe he was expecting someone. Probably Curly. I’d have to make this quick. “Did Manny say anything to you about floating neutrals?”
Vince moved the wad of food from his cheek and chewed it before answering. I’d expected him to nod or shake his head, but he waited till he swallowed to say. “Uh… yeah.”
“And?”
Vince glanced past me toward the doorway again. “And what?”
“Did you guys check? Was there something wrong with the ground when Gene got electrocuted?”
A voice boomed behind me. “What the hell are you doing here?”
I turned and there he was. Surly Curly, in the flesh. Knowing I could no longer press my question, I changed direction and offered him the friendliest smile I could. “I have to carry a few boxes to the kitchen, but…” I held up my injured hands. “No way to get them over there. I was wondering if you had a wheeled cart I could borrow?”
His mouth worked, as though pushing his angry grimace to one side. “Yeah, I got one.” Shuffling to a nook just out of view, he came back with a gray dolly. “Boxes, you say?”
When I nodded, he switched the handle of the dolly, converting it from vertical to horizontal. “Here,” he said, “easier to manage. You bring this back, you understand? I don’t want to go hunting for it when I need it next.”
“I’ll bring it right back.”
Vince hunched his shoulders as though to render himself invisible. I thanked Curly and headed back to the storage area, wondering if I’d ever get anyone to give me a straight answer to the floating neutral question.
FOUR HOURS LATER, AFTER HAVING DECORATED the kitchen to best of my holiday abilities given the collection of cute pot holders, trivets, and dish towels I’d pulled out, I headed back to the storage area to put the empty boxes away and to return Curly’s precious dolly.
I wheeled it into the storeroom and had intended to replace the first box in its nook, when I realized that the china storage containers were not the way I’d left them. The Johnson china was pushed far to the right, completely out of place. That was odd. No one usually used this storage room except kitchen staff, and I couldn’t recall anyone else mentioning a visit here in the past few hours.
Curious, I tugged the big gray bin, wondering what else might have been rearranged. Most of the time it wouldn’t matter, but on the rare occasion we needed supplies from this area, I liked to be confident they were here. The idea that items had been shifted peeved me just a bit. Storage space was at a premium at the White House, and this area was designated for kitchen items only. Another department must have tried to encroach on our space, hoping no one would notice a stray item or two.
I pushed the wheeled bin of Johnson china out of the way and found an unfamiliar square brown box, crudely marked STORAGE on one side and along the sealed top. This did not belong to the kitchen. Worse, it hadn’t been here this morning. Someone had snuck it in here, very recently.
I did a quick, cursory examination of the room to locate any other stray boxes, but within a few minutes I realized this was the only unexpected addition to our stash.
There were no other markings on the box, and no way to tell which department had tucked it in here. I sighed with exasperation. I could just leave it here-it didn’t take up an enormous amount of space-but doing so invited further incursions. Although this seemed like a trivial matter, and unworthy of the analysis I was affording it, I still suffered from the newness of my executive chef position. Sure, I’d earned the title, but I also needed to command respect. Were Henry here, I imagined he would nip this little nuisance in the bud.
I lifted the box onto the gray bin. I didn’t have a knife to slice open the seal, but the dolly had metal clasps that Curly had used to readjust the handle. I pulled one of the silver clips from its anchoring hole, and pushed the metal end against the paper, ripping it. Within seconds I’d scored both ends and the center seam. I dropped the clip into my pocket and repositioned the box on the floor for leverage before attempting to open the flaps.
Whoever had sealed this thing had done a masterful job. I yanked three times before the first flap ripped free. The second flap snapped up with a quick pull and I pulled away excelsior to find out what was so important that had to be stored in my department’s area.
More excelsior.
Finally, my fingers hit something hard. Metal or glass, I couldn’t tell. I was on my knees, wrapping my fingers around the item’s cylindrical shape, tugging upward. Stuck. Stray stuffing obscured my view of the article, but my fingers traced along its sides. Bottle-shaped, it seemed light enough, but as I pulled more shredded paper from around it with my left hand, my right discovered that both ends of the bottle were connected by wire to a flat board at the box’s bottom.