She was crazy, dumbstruck—what was she doing? Would someone, anyone
save her from herself?
She waited in expectant silence for an answer from the voices in her head and was more than a little disappointed to
hear nothing. They were never around when she needed them, her better angels. Their timing was gold. As…was hers.
After much contemplation
in the mirror, she tossed her hair up in a clip and went on her way. Hair was
a struggle, one among the many she didn’t need today. She unplugged her cell from its charger and groaned miserably
after looking at the onscreen clock. She was so late.
It did not pay to sit to the right of the nation’s highest seat of power and be late. She yanked her prepared outfit from its hangers and threw herself into it, hoping—beyond all hope,
really—that she wouldn’t suffer a wardrobe malfunction that would shame her mother’s tender sensibilities
and haunt her for the remainder of her living days. She wouldn’t bet the
well-being of the Free World on it.
She drove very calmly—at 70 miles per hour—and had only nice thoughts about the motorists who honked at
her and gave her the one-fingered peace sign. Ah, the nation’s capitol,
home sweet home.
She came to a sudden arboreal stop at the security gate and came just short of actually ramming into the aforementioned
rod-iron fence. Groaning at her life and all the ways she’d like to ram
this gate down the Secret Service’s throat, she rummaged around her bag for her hard pass and began to get a deeply
sinking feeling as she checked around for the third time. It wasn’t there. Damn it! It wasn’t in her purse.
She sighed, because she really felt like being hauled down to interrogation again. This seemed to happen to her on every important date of this administration. Was it her constantly her fate to be CNN’s comic relief? Because
she did not relish the role.
Non-threateningly, she held up her hands and said, “I don’t seem to have it with me, but I do have one.”
The young, new—what luck!—security guard looked warily at her.
“I’m gonna need to call this in, ma’am. Please, wait right here.
I’d also appreciate it if you could keep your hands where I can see them.”
“Sure, no problem.” She drummed her busy fingers on the steering
wheel as she muttered to herself. I come to this building six days a week
and the one day I need to get going in a hurry, they leave Junior with the keys to the castle. Great management there, Agent
Gerald.
As soon as she had a spare moment, she was telling
the head of White House Security all about himself. Not that there was anything
she could say that he already didn’t know, since he was a self-absorbed idiot at the best of times. Oh, don’t get her wrong, he was good at his job. The
President had survived Athena only knew how many dozens of assassination attempts by this second year of his third term—yes,
his third-- and it was all thanks to Special Agent Rodney Mitchell Gerald. The
last time she’d checked, there were twenty-four webrings dedicated especially to hating him. She was joining one as soon as she got home tonight.
“Junior, Security Boy” – as Fenn had taken to think of him as—nodded his head sagely at the
advice of clearly superior voices and turned to her, trying desperately not to appear sheepish.
“Ms. Ames, I’ve spoken with Agent Gerald and he ordered me to let you in immediately and to wish you a
good morning.”
Fenn’s eyebrow rose slowly as though it had gained its own personality—and was clearly unimpressed. She restrained herself from an outright glower and tried to be content with the redness
at the tips of his ears. Poor kid, she thought, he’s so not cut
out for this post.
“I’ll have to thank Agent Gerald for
his prompt assistance. And you—what is your name, by the way?”
He rubbed her pudgy hand down his dark blue uniform tie. Now that he knew
who she was, he was a whole lot more nervous about talking to her.
“M—mine?”
She smiled faintly, tipping her head in a display of absolutely false patience.
She would like to be going now, but she wanted to know for future reference.
As Deputy Chief of Staff, there was no telling what sort of information might come in handy.
“Of course.”
“Thomas Ringo.”
She grinned, snickering like a schoolgirl on the inside. Oh, the memories
of the Beatles; she’d be singing “Yellow Submarine” all day.
“Nice to meet you, Thomas Ringo. Welcome to the White House.”
“You, too!” He slammed on the red button inside the security
booth window and the forbidding stainless gate receded.
Waving, she rolled graciously into the fortress, physically restraining herself from slamming her foot on the gas. Work was like a drug; it gave her a rush, kept her thin, and made her nauseous seven
out of twenty-four hours a day. As she slammed her door shut, she considered
rehab, i.e. the unemployment office. She thought she’d probably miss her
Armani dresses after she’d sold them for food.
Astonishingly, she passed through the seventeen security checkpoints between the front door and the West Wing bullpen
in less than half an hour--the bulk of which was spent explaining her identity to the sentry she’d spoken to every morning
for six years. She threw her coat on her assistant’s desk and made a mental
note to learn how voodoo dolls were made. She planned to put poxes on half a
dozen people. The plague!
Fenn sat down behind her desk and logged onto her computer. She had 50
million e-mails waiting for her attention. Okay, twenty-two, which was twenty
more than she had time for right now. Scrolling down quickly, she picked the
most urgent-sounding one and clicked.
Her office settled into blissful silence as she examined the contents of the message.
There was some nodding, a bit of sighing, and a great deal of annoyance. Executive
Order Number Blah to the Infinite Power had been handed down and it was even stupider--yes, it turns out that was actually
possible-- than Executive Order Number Blah to the Infinite Power Minus One. It
read as follows:
My fellow servants of the People,
It has come to my attention that
a number of us are struggling under the incredible weight of the work we do. Some
of us are falling under the influence of personal and professional demons. That’s
all right; we all falter at times. The pride of this Building, though, the glory
of it is that we always rise again--as in history, as now.
Therefore, as your Commander-in-Chief,
I ask you to take a deep breath and smile. We have a gym and a sauna for your
use and a commissary for your enjoyment. Remember, God bless those who bless
America.
At
the end, some keyboard savvy busybody had taken it upon himself or herself to construct a picture of a peace sign completely
out of punctuation. Admittedly, Fenn laughed at that, shaking her head. Her boss amounted to probably the most idiotic man to ever take the Oath of Office. She still marveled often that he’d been elected at all.
~~~
Dragging
himself from an abysmal fifth place Darwin Burroughs had no expectations or supporters for a win. It was his sheer pig-headed determination—in addition to a well-timed tabloid cover that sealed the
fate of the man in the position ahead. The untimely passing of the third-place
candidate Alma Nyland’s husband ended her wildly popular participation in the race for Leader of the Free World.
The first two were fierce contenders: street smarts and education divided an already divisive Republican Party and
the democrats were staunchly behind Houston-raised Helen Blaise. She was a woman
who’d carried herself to success since age twelve when her mother was killed in a drunk driving accident involving a
teenager. Having no other surviving relatives, she’d become a ward of the
State’s Foster Care System. It hadn’t all been roses, but eventually
she found a place to call home again, and culminated in that success with the ultimate victory to become to youngest female
student to graduate the University of Houston with a Bachelors of Science in Political Science at the age of nineteen.
Her closest opponent was Wesley Cairn and he was smarter than the average Mid-West Conservative. He spoke four languages fluently and was close friends with Prime Minister Tony Blair’s wife, Cherie. He would’ve been eligible for professional football after high school if not
for a hellified knee injury that permanently removed him from the arena of intensive sports.
Following that, he had attended Stanford for a law degree and had then gone on further to attain a Masters in Psychiatry. If he had done anything in the duration of his campaign, he had psychoanalyzed America. He had the stay-at-home mother pegged with his handsome, wholesome smile and heartthrob
hair. He owned the everyman and the distinguished male. The United States could’ve done a lot worse. And it
had.
Thanks to an idealist who was no longer employed by this administration, they’d expertly concealed their candidate’s
considerable intellectual shortcomings and had managed to do it while not lifting a negative finger against Wesley Cairn or
Helen Blaise.
The tensions of the parties following the sudden death of President Isaac Hamilton had reached entirely new levels
of acrimony once Vice President Darwin Burroughs was sworn in. Something he had
undertaken with gusto. No one ever said they were glad he’d survived the
yacht sinking.
Next Part
