THE PRESIDENT'S GIRLFRIEND (12 page)

     Gina really didn’t want to deal with him or anybody else right now, but it sounded as if it was business-related, so she let him in. 

     Her house was neat and clean but extremely small, with a living room so tiny that Frank, the first time he had come over, mistakenly referred to it as her foyer. 

     “Have a seat,” she said as he entered.  “Want anything to drink?”

     “No, I’m good.”  He sat down in the chair.  She put her laptop on the coffee table and sat on the sofa, tucking her feet underneath her butt. 

     Frank leaned back with that satisfied, snarky look on his face.  He was an attractive man, and he knew how to turn on the charm, but it was a phony, forced charm to Gina.  And although LaLa and
Demps
swore by the man, and wanted desperately for him and Gina to hook up, she wasn’t feeling him. 

     She tried to like him like that, she even went on a couple dates with him, but she finally had to end up telling him what they should have already known: they could be friends, and business associates, but that was all there would ever be between them.  Frank agreed easily, as if it was no big deal to him, although
Demps
later told Gina that she had broken the man’s heart.

     “So what’s the big news?” she asked him when he seemed perfectly content to just sit there smiling and chillin’. 

     “I know you aren’t asking me about big news.  I saw you on MSNBC telling President Harber that he could take that award and shove it where the sun don’t shine.”

     Gina was horrified by his characterization.  “That’s not what I said at all, Frank, why would you say something like that?”

     Frank laughed.  “It was funny, though, you got to admit that.”

     Gina failed to see the humor, but she wasn’t about to go there with Frank.  “So what’s up, you said you had some good news?”

     “Well, Miss Regina,” he finally said, “I do have good news.  I’ve found a brand new sponsor for BBR.”

     At first Gina was thrilled.  They needed every sponsor they could get, which would mean a new infusion of cash.  But for some reason her hackles were up.  “Who?” she asked him.

     “Who?” he said with that nervous smile of his that always made Gina think of a mad man.  “Does the ‘who’ matter?”

     “Yes, it matters, Frank.  Because I don’t want it to be you.  You’ve given all you need to give to BBR.  We won’t accept anymore favors from you.”

     “That’s ridiculous, Gina.”

     “So you’re the new sponsor?”

     “My firm, yes.”

     “No, Frank, no.”

     “We support many worthy causes every year.  Why won’t you allow us to support BBR?”

     “Because you do support BBR.  Your financial advice has been invaluable.   Expert financial advice nearly every week, and you don’t charge us a dime, are you kidding me?  I’m not taking your money, too.”

     But he wouldn’t let up.  He talked about how he knew BBR was hurting financially, how that Congress was going to continue to cut programs that help the poor, how she would, in essence, be the fool of fools if she didn’t take his money.  But Gina took the opposite view.  She would be the fool of fools if she took money from a man even her best friend believed was nuts about her. 

     What saved her from his unrelenting pitch was her cell phone.  It began to ring.  When she looked at her caller ID and saw that the call was coming from Christian Bale, she excused herself, went into her bedroom that was just off from her living room, and closed the door.  Frank, immediately suspicious, stood up.        

     “Hello, Christian,” she said into the phone.           

     “Hi,” Christian said, and then added: “Just a moment.”

     Frank made his way to her bedroom door, careful not to be heard, and leaned his ear against it.  Gina was seated on her bed Indian-style and was leaned forward.  She hadn’t expected to hear from Christian or anybody related to the president ever again.  But now, a week later, Christian calls.  To no doubt do Dutch’s bidding.  She really felt bad for Christian.  He was treated more like a pimp than a political aide, it seemed to her. 

     Christian came back onto the line.  “Sorry about that,” he said.  “I had to give some information to Max Brennan.  But how are you, first of all?”

     “I’m good,” Gina said, “how are you?”

     “I was phoning, I’m good, too, but I was phoning because the president is scheduled to be in your city on Saturday night.” 

     There was a pause, as if he was expecting Gina to say something.  She simply sat mute.  “He’s touring some of the more successful urban renewal projects in the city and afterwards he was going to attend a private fund raiser with Mayor Booker, the Governor, and some big money donors from across the state.”  Another pause.  Gina wondered why was he telling her all of this.

     “The thing is, Miss Lansing,” he finally said, “the president would like for you to come and see him while he’s in town.”

     Nearly a whole week and not a word from him.  He comes to town for some fundraiser and expects her to drop everything and go and see him?  “Sorry, no, I can’t make it.”

     “I can pick you up around ten,” Christian said, as if she had accepted wholeheartedly. 

     “I said no, Christian, I can’t make it.”

     “You have to make it, ma’am.”

     “Ex
cuse
me?” Gina said, astounded by his comment.  “Why do I
have
to make it?”    

     “Because he’s the President of the United States and he’s asking you to.  You have to make it, ma’am.”

     Gina closed her eyes.  What on earth had she gotten herself into?  She had slept with the President of the United States.  The president!  She opened her eyes.  “Did he say what it is he wants to see me about?”  As if it wasn’t as obvious as the nose on her face. 

     Even Christian hesitated on that one.  Sex
, duh
, she could imagine him saying. “No, ma’am,” he said, instead.  “He didn’t say.”

     Gina felt trapped.  Any other man and she would have told him what he could do with his invitation.  But it wasn’t any other man they were talking about.  It was the President of the United States, a man who had the power to veto any legislation that would defund the very program that was her life blood.  Besides, Christian was right.  You don’t say no to the president.  “I’ll see,” Gina decided to say.  “Call me back Friday morning.  I’ll let you know if I can make it.”   And she clicked off.

     When it was clear to Frank that the call was over, he hurried back down into the living room.  He had been only able to hear her side of the conversation, but that was enough to anger him nearly beyond reason.  And although, when she returned to the living room, he smiled and continued to convince her how foolish she was not to take his money, inwardly he raged. 

     “
That bitch
!” he kept saying to himself.  “
Out of my sight one night, she spent just one night in DC, and already spread her legs for some joker!  Probably some Mandingo nigger with a dick longer than a gotdamn telegram pole!  That’s what she likes.  That’s why she won’t bother with me.  I’m not good enough for her, not big enough for her.  But that’s cool, that’s all right.  I’ll get mine.  And when I get finished with her the last thing on the face of this earth she’s going to want is some dick, Mandingo or otherwise
!” 

     And he kept smiling, kept trying to convince her that BBR needed all the financial backing it could get and his firm was willing and more than able, while he kept inwardly calling her a bitch, over and over, like a mantra.

+++

Block by Block Raiders was a large, converted warehouse on a dead-end street.  The staff consisted of eighteen workers, mostly social workers and counselors, with half in the field and the other half in the office doing the paperwork that would get a gang banger relocated away from his community, or a prostitute a legitimate job, or a drug addict some treatment.  Any legal issues, and there were usually many, were referred to Gina or Dempsey. 

     The board of directors, Gina, LaLa, Dempsey Cooper and Frank
Rotelli
, were in the office in the back, seated around a conference table, reviewing the organization’s financial records.  It wasn’t a pretty sight.  Their private donations were so few that the dollars just weren’t there.

     “How long?” Gina asked and everybody looked at Frank. 

     Frank pinched the bridge of his nose and then looked up, revealing tired, blue eyes.  “Two months, three if we’re lucky.”

     LaLa was astounded.   “That’s
all
?  Damn!”

     Gina was astounded too, but she was more interested in answers.  “Any word from the
Crader
Foundation,
Demps
?”

     Dempsey was LaLa’s old man, a handsome, smart, corporate attorney who was also their best fundraiser.  “Yes, there’s a word, and the word is still no.”

     Gina leaned her head back in frustration.  Frank stared admiringly at her long neck. 

    
Demps
rubbed the top of his low-cut fade.  “It’s just a fact of life these days, Tor,” he said.  “Everybody’s broke.  They want to give, they just don’t have it to give anymore.”

     “And if the president doesn’t veto that appropriations bill, we’re done for,” LaLa said.  “For real this time.”

     Earlier, exactly one week and one day after Gina laid in bed with Dutch Harber and told him about that very budget bill, it squeaked through the House of Representatives largely on a party line vote.  The Senate had already passed the measure.  Now it was up to Dutch.

     “Is the bill still in conference?” Frank asked Gina.

     “Yup,” LaLa answered.  “Once the House and Senate versions are reconciled then it goes to the president’s desk.  Which means,” LaLa added, looking at Gina, “the president is our last hope.  Our only hope, really.”

    
Demps
, too, looked at Gina.  She had told LaLa about that phone call from Christian, and the invite for Saturday night, and LaLa had told
Demps
.  They both came over to Gina’s house that night and made a special plea for her to go see the president and lobby him hard.  If he vetoed that bill and sent it back to Congress, they still stood a fighting chance.  If he passed it, they were doomed. 

     “We’re doomed,”
Demps
said now as he had that night, “if President Harber doesn’t see the light.”

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