THE PRESIDENT'S GIRLFRIEND (19 page)

     “I just don’t want her hurt,” Dutch said and both of his assistants looked at him.

     “Well then you should not have invited her into your life,” Max admonished.

     “She’s certainly different than your usual fare,” Allison said.  “Maybe the fact that she is different, that she’s not some rich belle, might work in our favor.”

      “Oh, Allison leave it out!”  Max yelled, rejecting that notion out of hand.  “You know how these people are.  They won’t show her any mercy, and I mean none!  The fact that she isn’t some rich belle will probably work against her even more.  Remember who critics are.  They’re the same people who come from the same walk of life she comes from.  And because their lives haven’t turned out the way they had hoped, they will dump on her, criticize everything about her.  They will be terrified that her life just might turn out better than theirs.  It’s like crabs in a pot, is what it is.  They see her trying to crawl out, they’ll try their level best to snatch her back in with them.”

     Allison stared at Dutch.  “Your relationship with this one,” Allison asked him, “is it serious?  Is she Miss Right, or Miss Right Now?”

     Dutch exhaled.  Hesitated.  “Yes, it’s serious,” he said. 
And how
, he wanted to say.

     “But why her, Dutch?” Max asked.  “You want a black woman, fine, have a black woman, I don’t care.  The country doesn’t care.  But let her be a Condi Rice for crying out loud.  Not some gotdamn Cleopatra Jones!”

     Dutch ran his hand through his hair again, tousling it again.

TWELVE

News of the arrest broke overnight on most of the cable news stations, and Gina, who had a tendency to oversleep whenever she felt stressed, woke up late on Tuesday morning to the sound of knocks on the bedroom door.  She nearly fell out of bed reaching for her cell  phone and then, realizing that it was actually a door knock and not a phone ring, leaned back down. 

     “Come in,” she said.  She had decided to stay at LaLa’s house for the night, to avoid any reporters who might be sniffing around hers.

     When LaLa walked in, she smiled.  “I hate to disturb you, Tore, but I don’t think you planned to sleep this late.”

     Gina ran her hand through her braids.  “What time is it?” she asked.

     “Nearly ten.”

      “Dang.”  Then she looked at LaLa.  “Why aren’t you at the office?”

     “I’m not leaving you here alone to get into
idon’tknowwhat
.”

     Gina actually smiled.  “Any rumblings on the airwaves?” she asked her.

     LaLa took the remote and turned on the small, flat screen TV in the room.  From CNN to MSNBC there were comments.  From conservatives blaming the president, to progressives blaming Gina.  It was all a blame game. 

     “It’s like you robbed a bank fifteen years ago the way they’re carrying on.”

     “Turn it off,” Gina said, and LaLa obeyed.  Then sat down on the edge of the bed.

     “Heard from the president?” LaLa asked.

     Gina shook her head.  “That protest march didn’t even enter my mind once, La.  I had forgotten all about it.  They make it sound like there was a crime committed and then I was arrested, but it wasn’t like that.  We were taken down as a group for disturbing the peace in a protest march that got out of hand.   And what’s crazy the charges were dropped that same day and we were let go.  It was nothing.”

     “You know it, girl, and I know it’s nothing.  But DC has nothing else to do and to them this is major news.  Your life will be an open book.”  Then LaLa paused.  “How did the president take it?”

     “Bad.  He just seemed so taken aback, you know?  Like why didn’t I tell him, I don’t know.  And that Max Brennan.”

     “He’s an asshole, isn’t he?”

     “It’s just that he wasn’t so concerned about the arrest as the fact that I was once a card-carrying member of USJ.”

     A private line cell phone Dutch had given to Gina began to ring.  Understanding what that meant, Gina quickly grabbed it. 

     “It’s a mess,” LaLa was saying.  “New phone?” she asked, looking at the phone.

     “So it seems,” Gina said and answered the phone.  “Hi,” she said. 

     It was Dutch.  “How are you this morning?”

     “Still reeling,” she admitted.  “You?”

     “I’m okay.  But I think you need to come here, let your trusted business partner run the day to day business affairs and you come and stay here as my guest for a while.”

     “But won’t the press go nuts about that, too?  They may claim we’re shacking up in the White House.”

     Dutch laughed.  “Then just come for the weekend.  How’s that?”

     “That’ll work.”

     “All right good.  I have to scram, but I want you to stop worrying, all right?  Don’t watch the news.  Do your work, get it done, and then I’ll see you Friday.”

     “Okay, Dutch.  See you Friday.”

     There was a pause.  Then he said goodbye and hung up.  Gina held her phone a moment longer, and then shut it off, too.

+++

They sat quietly at the dining room table, upstairs at the White House residence.  Gina could already see a change in Dutch, even though he seemed pleased to see her earlier.  But now, she could see the strain.

     “I never thought a decision I made over fifteen years ago could be so interesting to anyone today.”  She said this with a smile.

     “That’s how it works in Washington.”

     “That’s stupid.”

     “Of course it is,” he said, and then looked at her.  “But it’s politics too.”

     She didn’t like the way he had looked at her, as if he was trying to make some point.  “I know it’s politics,” she said.

     “No,” Dutch said, “I don’t think you do know.”

     “What’s that supposed to mean?”

     Dutch sat his fork down on his plate of half-eaten food.  “I told you, Regina, that this was a fishbowl.”

     “I know that.”

     “I told you they were going to be brutal.  But instead of thinking hard and making sure that there are no skeletons in any closets, you behave as if we’re talking about grown-ups here.  There are no grown-ups in Washington, just a pack of blood-thirsty wolves who’ll do whatever it takes to bring my presidency down.”

     Gina stared at him.  “You make it sound like I was concealing that information from you.  You make it sound like I knew about it, but just decided not to tell you about it.”

     Dutch leaned back.  “That’s not what I mean at all.  I know you didn’t remember it.  Hell, I wouldn’t have remembered something like that if I was in your shoes.  But this is new to me, Gina.”

     Gina frowned.  “What’s new to you?”

     “Having the woman I love castigated on national television, night after night, over something so trivial it makes me want to resign right now!”  Dutch stood from the table and began to pace the room. 

     Gina stood too, and went to him.  He pulled her into his arms.  Then she smiled.  Looked up to him.  “So I’m the woman you love, hun?” she said.

     He smiled.   “Somehow I knew that little line would be the main point to you.”

     Gina laughed.   “It’s not every day the president confesses his love for a girl.”

     Dutch’s look turned serious, somber.  “It’s not every day the president falls in love.”   Dutch rubbed her hair, which was now straight and down her back.  “I love you, Regina,” he said.

     Gina’s breath caught.  “I love you, too, Walter.”

     Dutch pinched her behind.

     “Ouch!” she said. 

     “Call me Walter again and that spanking I promised you will soon come to past.”

     Gina laughed.  Pinched him back. He reacted by swaying forward, his penis ramming her.  And the sudden contact caused both of them to smile no more.  Dutch put his hands on the sides of her face, and began to kiss her so gently, so sweetly, that Gina found herself enraptured.

+++

Back in Newark at BBR, LaLa and Dempsey were going over the monthly receipts when Frank came in asking if they had seen the news.

     “Stay away from the news,” Dempsey said.  “At least until they get off of their Bash Gina kick.”

     But Frank turned on the office television anyway.  There was a press conference in the White House briefing room, with Allison and Max at the lectern. 

     “She’s not his girlfriend,” Max was saying and both LaLa and Dempsey looked up at the TV screen. 

     “But why is he cavorting with a socialist?”

     “She’s not a socialist,” Allison said.  “And you know it, Dale.”

     “The fact remains,” another reporter shouted, “that the president’s girlfriend was arrested--”

     “She’s not his girlfriend,” Allison insisted.

     “Can I finish my question?” the reporter asked.

     “No,” Allison said.  “Not if you’re going to distort facts.  She’s not the president’s girlfriend.  Let’s get that straight.  She’s a friend.  He has many female friends, and she’s just one of them.  But she’s not his girlfriend.”

     Frank looked at LaLa and Dempsey.  “Not his girlfriend,” Frank asked, “but his whore?”

     Dempsey looked at LaLa.  “Frank’s right,” he said to her.  “Not his girlfriend, but she spends every weekend with him now.  With
Wham, Bam Harber
, the hit and run specialist.  And when he finishes his hit, and he runs, where is that gonna leave Gina?”
     LaLa leaned back.  Dempsey began to worry more than he already had.  And Frank, who sighed outwardly, was inwardly thrilled that that lame president of theirs would be dumping Gina sooner rather than later and pave the way for him to worm his way back into her heart and, eventually, into her bed.