THE HOUSE OF CHEN Chapter 10

Personal Secretary to the Analyst
courtesy photobucket.com

     

The day finally came for the departure back to the USA, and the Ambassador had decided to return by boat.  

This gave him time to relax and go over his new assignment with his remaining staff.

Cheri was to be the personal secretary of Ambassador Anderson.  

 

He was no longer an Ambassador but a Political Analyst whose job was to advise policy makers in how best to deal with foreign governments especially in the Far East.

There was a big party held to introduce the new liaison person (Anderson) for the trade with the Far Eastern nations.  

All of his staff were there getting acquainted with the people of other nations they would be interacting with.

Cheri was well received because she could speak the language of many of them, and understood much about their culture.  

 

While most of the main decisions were to be made by the Policymakers, never the less they wanted Anderson to advise them on how to proceed with their negotiations.

Cheri made mental notes of their names and offices they held.  She excused herself a couple of times and wrote the information on a piece of paper she managed to conceal on her person.

Cheri had dressed down but couldn’t hide how beautiful she was and before the night was over several men tried to make their move on her.  A couple of them had some new lines different from what she had experienced in the Orient but basically it was all the same.  

The young ones were easily put off but the men with seniority thought they were supposed to have special privileges.  While the guests conducted themselves with proper decorum; it was the ones working in the associated fields that were the jerks.

Each day there were meetings scheduled and Anderson had to depend on Cheri to prep him for the meeting.  The result was the counterparts were surprised that he was so well prepared and when at times he deferred to Cheri she knew the subject completely.  

After a month the office was running smoothly with only two or three people having to be let go.
       
Anderson’s daughters were constantly trying to set Cheri up with a date but for the most part she put them off.  

There was a new young man, Lemond who had been working in the Soviet Union but had been transferred back to the States.

He was placed on the staff of the Policymakers so he had to interact with Anderson much of the time.  

When Anderson’s daughters found out about Lemond, they made every effort to get his attention.  While he was cordial he would never it go farther than discussing the niceties of the day.

Because the office of Anderson was involved with most all of the other government departments he was constantly asked to attend parties for one reason or another.  He in turn would want Cheri to be there with in case he didn’t know the answer to some problem.

She had become a lot more pleasurable in saying, “I will have to get back to you on that tomorrow” when someone would hit on her.  Lemond usually was required to be there also.  With all the prompting from the Anderson girls Cheri couldn’t help but notice Lemond and she found him to be very pleasant and efficient in his position.

As the evenings wore on he would engage Cheri in conversation that went in another direction and was of a more personal nature.  

 

He began to enquire about her past, and before he got very far she said, “You know the answers to all these questions for I know you have read my files, but what you really want to know isn’t to be found in them, isn’t that right?”

He looked stunned by her forthrightness and the fact she seemed to understand where he was heading.  

 

She said, “Why don’t you come right out and ask what you want to know and I might answer you or not depending on how personal you want to get.”

He starred at her for a moment and turned to walk away for it was obvious he was embarrassed.  

 

Cheri reached out and took his arm and said, “Let’s get something to drink for there are several people here I need to get acquainted with that you know.” 

To be Continued