The Foreign Service Journal, November 2008

developed just one goal: to be ignored. It figured, then, that with five or six people remaining, they called my name along with P’s. As a buzz arose in the room, the only voice I heard distinctly was that of Amanda, my arch-enemy, say- ing, “Oh, wouldn’t you know.” P and I chitchatted awkwardly as we headed to the FSI cafeteria. Where was I from? Westchester. Cone? Political. College? Georgetown. I didn’t have anything to ask him, since Amanda, who had finagled the responsibility of introducing him to the class, had done so at considerable length. I knew that he had joined the Foreign Service right out of college, that his overseas postings included Bonn, Cairo and Jerusalem, and that he was the youngest under secretary ever. Amanda hadn’t mentioned a wife and children. In the cafeteria, he took in the long line of people waiting to get trays and silverware and looked at his watch. “How about if we go over to the department?” he asked. Fifteen minutes in a Lincoln Town Car later, we were in the eighth-floor dining room. An hour after that, when my class- mates had long since finished what in many cases turned out to be not just their first but also their last encounter with their mentors, we were still talking. The meal was not much better than the usual department cafeteria fare, but neither of us paid much attention to the food. Over the next two weeks, we met for after-work drinks at Kinkead’s, dinner at the Old Ebbitt Grill and a ballet at the Kennedy Center. All through the ballet, we kept look- ing at each other and smiling. As he was dropping me off at home, he looked into my eyes and said, “Would it be all right if I …” “Yes?” I asked. “… If I asked the ethics office if mentor and mentee fall into the category of prohibited romantic relationships?” he asked. It wasn’t the most romantic overture I’d ever received, but at least I knew where I stood. I said yes, the lawyers gave us their blessing, P resigned officially as my mentor, and we were off and running. Or, more precisely, off and walking. It would have taken a much more grounded person than I not to be swept away. I mean, think about it. I was 24, in A-100, living in a group house, and he was … well, he was P. Somehow, though, I got the idea that the way to hold onto him was to be unavailable. Or, rather, to act unavailable. In truth, I was as available as sand on the beach. But I acted like Doris Day, occasionally turning down dates because of made-up schedule conflicts and claiming every single night that I had to get up early the next morning. It was all an act, of course — I was a nor- mal 21st-century girl, not Tess of the d’Urbervilles. What did we talk about? Pretty much the same things I’d talked about with guys at Georgetown. The Middle East. Whether sanctions work. The idiotic editorial in that morning’s Post . The difference was that these conversations took place not at G.U. student hangouts like the Tombs, but at Washington power-bro- ker hangouts like Café Milano. And instead of hanging out with his frater- nity brothers, we ran into people from his crowd: the New York Times glob- alization guy, the deputy national security adviser, and the head of the Senate’s Asia subcommittee. Meanwhile, back in A-100, the knives were out. They had been from day one, when I stood up along with every- one else and did my two-minute, all-about-me presenta- tion. I’d emphasized my international relations major and my interest in Third World conflicts and glossed over my previous employment, muttering something about having done a little acting. After we all finished, Gray asked me what I’d acted in, and I told him the name of the hospital soap opera I’d had a small part on for the past year. “Oh, my God!” he yelled. “I knew you looked familiar! You’re Nurse Melanie!” By the time the break was over, everyone knew. I hate telling people I used to be on television. There are only two possible reactions. The first one is, “How could you leave?” A surprising number of my classmates took this line. It made no difference that Gray was the only one who had ever actually seen the show. No one bought my explanation about how long and exhausting the hours were, how the pay wasn’t all that great, and how the work was basically meaningless. “But you were on television,” they protested. I could understand this if I’d left the soap for a job at, say, a bowling alley, but here I was working for one of the most prestigious institutions in the country, more or less N O V E M B E R 2 0 0 8 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 69 After only a few weeks in the Foreign Service, I had developed just one goal: to be ignored.