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Norn de Prom. In Milwaukee, Pat knew Beth Jenkins, a close friend of Luci's and daughter of former White House Aide Walter Jenkins. When Beth arranged an expedition to Washington in June 1965 to help celebrate Luci's graduation from National Cathedral School, Pat went along. Beth also suggested that Luci be Pat's date at the Marquette senior prom. Freshly unpinned from her most recent steady boy friend, Luci went to Milwaukee with her Secret Service escort, an outrageous blond wig, and a nom de prom (Amy Nunn) to assure privacy. The escapade was successful on all counts —so much so that she invited Pat to go back to Washington to attend her formal acceptance into the Catholic Church on her 18th birthday.
It was to be Luci Johnson's first serious exposure to the pitfalls of being a President's daughter. Having already been christened in the Episcopal Church, she did not, strictly speaking, need a second baptism at the time of her conversion. Luci nonetheless requested and received the sacrament, prompting public complaint that she had gratuitously slighted the Episcopal Church and ecumenical spirit.
Aseptic Good Looks. Though the flurry was short-lived and Luci obviously had no intention of offending her mother's denomination, she was shaken by the outcry. Last month, in the White House solarium that has served her as study, sanctuary, party room and private meeting place with Pat—it had previously been Caroline Kennedy's nursery-schoolroom—Luci sat on a well-broken-in sofa, tucked her legs beneath her, and allowed that the baptismal storm had after all wafted Pat her way. "I didn't know what to do," she explained. "I was frightened. Lynda and my mother were away. So Pat said: 'I just can't go home and leave you here by yourself. It just isn't fair. I'm going to get myself a job and an apartment.'"
Though Washington is besieged each summer by youngsters in search of work, Pat quickly whistled up a job on the staff of the District of Columbia Advisory Committee on Higher Education. "So I went out with him every night," she recalled, "and it just stayed that way." They went paddle-boating, with a Secret Service agent paddling in their wake. They had picnics along the Potomac, flew up to New York to see the World's Fair and a Broadway show. They zipped around Washington in Luci's green Sting Ray convertible for a while, but this nettled Pat's pride; he borrowed his father's 1963 Plymouth until he bought his own car. Yet it was several weeks before Washington gossips realized that Students Jack Olsen and Paul Betz, Luci's previous best beaux, had a successor. The reason for the recognition lapse was simply that her new escort, with his aseptic, athletic good looks, short blond hair and modest mien, resembled any number of the Secret Service agents in Luci's orbit.