But it wasn’t until the motorcade believed to be carrying the First Lady emerged from the White House gates and made its way to Capitol Hill did the already supercharged atmosphere rise to electrifying proportions.
“Who does she think she is, Michael Jackson?” Caroline asked her aunt as they watched it all unfold on TV; as the cameras followed every move the motorcade made, speculating wildly on which car contained the First Lady; as the major anchors discussed this sordid mess with a panel of well-known Washington insiders as if they were discussing the presidential State of the Union address.
And the speculation was rampant. “What will she say?” commentators from ABC to Fox to MSNBC to CBS were asking across channels. “Will she admit the affairs but deny the drug use? Will she deny all of the allegations? Will she turn the tables on her accusers and accuse them of some sort of wrongdoing? Will she indict the media?”
It was rank speculation of the first order and none of those watching who viewed themselves as having skin in the game, not Roman Wilkes nor Max nor even Caroline Parker believed for a second that Gina Harber would ever admit to what they all knew were blatant lies.
But inside the hearing room the atmosphere was so charged that if felt like the early stages of a NASCAR race where anything could happen; where at any given moment a wreck to end all wrecks could suddenly flip mangled cars in the air, and human lives right along with them.
And for that very reason, every committee member was already seated behind the long, winding podium in the hearing room ready to question the First Lady. The paparazzi that were traditionally allowed to take what they called quick shots of the witness before the gavel went down, were already ten rows deep in front of the witness table. There were, in fact, so many photojournalists that they barely had enough elbow room to click their cameras.
At LaLa’s house in Georgetown, Crader McKenzie was seated on her sofa viewing the events with rapt attention. LaLa, too, who returned from the kitchen carrying a couple cans of Coke, could not take her eyes off of the television set. She handed Crader a coke barely looking in his direction, and sat next to him.
Then she frowned. “What in the world is that?” she asked, when the pool camera shot the scene in front of the witness table.
“Photojournalists,” Crader said, popping open his can. “They get to take a few pictures before the chairman calls the hearing to order. It’s a tried and true tradition for these types of hearings.”
“But what if Gina doesn’t want them flashing all of those bulbs in her face?”
Crader shook his head. “She has no choice,” he said. “She’ll just have to sit there and grin and take it.”
LaLa shook her head. “Poor Gina,” she said. “I knew this was going to be a big day for the media, but I never dreamed it would get this big. It’s so frenzy that it almost seems like we’re getting ready to watch the OJ Simpson trial all over again, not some dull congressional hearing. How in the world is she going to handle all of this?”
But as soon as the doors to the hall opened, and Walter Dutch Harber, the President of the United States, came walking in alone, and his wife was nowhere to be seen, it quickly became clear that Gina was not going to have to handle any of it; but that her husband, instead, was taking care of this.
Dutch walked in proudly, his tailored-to-perfection suit fitting his muscular body as if it were stitched on; his jet-black hair brushed back into a freshly cut mane that highlighted his gorgeous jade-colored eyes and strong, sexy jawline. He knew he was the center of attention as soon as he dawned those doors. He knew everybody were amazed that a sitting president would reduce himself to attend some congressional hearing on sex and drugs in the White House, but he refused to allow his mind to drift to any sideshows that would distract him from his singular purpose. His eyes, so intense they seemed glass-like, stared straight at the committee members who called this travesty of a hearing in the first place, as if he wanted them to not only know, but to feel his displeasure.
The shock that reverberated around the room when the spectators realized the president was going to address the assembly became so loud and life-like that a collective, audible gasp could be heard from one row to the next. And suddenly people didn’t know what to do. Some started applauding, others started elbowing their neighbors, others still were too shocked to do anything but stare.
But everybody, including the committee members on the podium, stood to their feet at the president’s arrival.
“I should have known something was up when they told me I didn’t have to come in today,” Penelope Riley said as she and Caroline watched in amazement too. “But I just assumed they would let that LaLa Land person keep Little Walt. I had no idea the First Lady was going to stay back and keep him.”
“Never assume anything when it comes to those two,” Caroline warned, a twinge of hurt rifling through her.
Dutch, she now fully realized, would do anything for that black bitch, even to the point of disrespecting the office of the presidency by attending some hearing she’d be willing to bet no other sitting president had ever bothered to attend. And by attending he would be the one taking the fire.
But that wasn’t what Caroline had wanted. She wanted to see Regina under fire, not Dutch. She wanted to see that wife of his melt like cheap plastic under a withering cross. She wanted to see beads of sweat on her forehead and bitterness in her eyes. She wanted to see her destroyed, and in her destruction, given his inexplicable love for her, Dutch’s own destruction too.
But it wasn’t going to be. Even Max, who sat alone at a long bar counter in Boston, could see that Dutch had decided to spare his wife the embarrassment. Which unnerved him even more; which made him question his decisions even more; which caused him, as he watched Dutch, as he sat amazed to this day by the man’s beauty, to feel a profound sense of loss every time he realized that he would never again be in close proximity of the only human being he had ever loved.
LaLa, however, was less amazed by Dutch’s appearance than by the fact that nobody, not even Gina, had clued her in.
She looked at Crader. “Did you know about this?” she asked him.
Crader shook his head. “No, I didn’t.” And then he smiled. “But man is it brilliant.”
LaLa looked at the television set, saw the flustered committee members, saw the excited audience members, and she smiled too. “Yeah,” she said, agreeing. “It is brilliant.”
Once it was realized that the president would be the person sitting at the witness table, the photojournalists, who could hardly believe their good luck when the president entered the gallery, was just as quickly crushed when they were ushered out of the room without being allowed their traditional quick shots.
What struck the committee members, who were as awed as the spectators by this turn of events, was the fact that the president had come alone: no lawyers, no advisors, not even the subject of the hearing itself, his wife.
And when he sat down, the chairman, confused and somewhat perturbed that he was not notified in advance of this monumental change in plans, gaveled the hearing to order.
“Good morning, Mr. President,” the chairman began. “I must say we weren’t quite expecting you.” Laughter from the gallery.
Dutch, however, was in no mood for their humor. “Good morning,” he said.
“Would I be wrong in assuming, sir, that your wife is on her way?”
“Your assumption would be wrong, that is correct.”
The chairman glanced at the co-chairman and then placed his hand over the microphone and leaned back as the committee’s own lawyers whispered in his ear.
At the White House Residence, Gina sat in the Nursery rocker with Little Walt in her arms. She was still smarting over the fight she and Dutch had had last night about his decision to go to Capitol Hill himself. She had every intention of going. This was her battle, this was her fight, and she never in her life backed down from a fight.
But Dutch wouldn’t hear of it. No wife of
his was going before those vultures, he made clear, even invoking the over my dead body analogy. For days they had been arguing this very point until Gina had decided to give it a rest, since he couldn’t be persuaded, and on the day of the hearing simply dress and go.
But he literally wouldn’t let her. For the first time in their marriage he didn’t suggest that she not do something, he told her she wasn’t going to do it. And because he refused to even entertain her wishes, it was on. Their biggest battle yet. Last night was the worst of it. Dutch argued and she argued and it became so heated that he literally pinned her against the wall and pressed his body against her to keep her there.
“You want to defend yourself,” he said. “I know that’s what you want. And I want that for you too. But not like this. I will not have you, my wife, my lover, my life going anywhere near that firing squad. You hear me? You will not be proving any points in front of them because they aren’t calling you there to hear your point of view. They don’t give a damn about your viewpoint. All they want is to crucify you, and in hurting you, hurt me. That’s what this circus is going to be about. Make no mistake about it, Gina. They want to decimate you.”
Dutch had to settle back down, to calm himself. Gina was amazed at his passion. Tears, in fact, were in his eyes. “When you agreed to marry me,” he said, “it was the happiest day of my life. I knew this was going to be a tough road for you. I knew bringing you to Washington wasn’t going to be anything but tumultuous. But I loved you so much.” Dutch leaned his forehead against Gina as tears began to well up in her eyes too.
“I can’t allow it, Gina. Do you understand me? I need you to let me handle this for you. Not because I think you can’t. Not because I think you’re weak and I have to come to your rescue like some knight in shining armor. But because the game is rigged, honey. They don’t want information from you at that hearing, they want dirt from you. And if you won’t give it to them, they’ll just sling it themselves. And I’ll not have that. I’ll not have you as the scapegoat for all that ails this country. I won’t have it.”
He had to settle down yet again. Gina placed her hand on the side of his face. “You have got to trust me on this one, Gina,” he said.
“But I can handle it, Dutch.”
“I didn’t say you couldn’t.”
“I’m an attorney, remember? They aren’t going to trip me up or make me say ‘yeah, I had an affair, yeah, I’m a crackhead,’ when I know I didn’t and I’m not.”
“But they won’t give you that kind of opportunity, Gina. This won’t be some sedate court of law. You’re fresh meat to them, and they plan to eat you alive. That’s what this is about.” Dutch closed his eyes, to steady himself.
When he reopened his eyes, they were as cold as ice. He was about to assert himself with finality, Gina could see it in those eyes. “I am not asking you anymore,” he said to her. “I am not pleading with you anymore. I am telling you that you will not be going to that hearing. You will phone Nurse Riley, you will tell her that she will not be needed tomorrow at all, and you will stay in the Residence and take care of our baby. Call it male chauvinism, call it overreach, call it anything you want, Gina. I don’t give a damn. But no wife of mine is going anywhere near that place tomorrow. Do I make myself clear?”
Gina could have continued the fight. It was in her nature to fight back. But she couldn’t pull herself to do it. Because she understood what Dutch meant. And she didn’t call it male chauvinism. She didn’t call it overreach or anything like that. She called it love. He loved her. He wanted the best for her. And she just had to trust him to represent her.
“Yes,” she said. “You’ve made yourself clear.”
And now the day had arrived and he was seated at that witness table facing the firing squad for her. And somehow, she thought, as she hugged Little Walt tighter and kissed him on his forehead, Dutch looked head and shoulders above those committee members. He looked, it seemed to her, like the man in command, not the other way around.
The chairman finally stopped conferring with his counsel and returned to the microphone that sat in front of him. He smiled. “I would assume you would like to give an opening statement before we launched into our questioning? Or is your appearance here today statement enough?” The gallery laughed.
Dutch didn’t so much as crack a smile. “I have no opening statement.”
Again, the chairman, not expecting that answer, reared back in his seat and conferred once more with counsel. When he leaned forward, to the microphone, he smiled again. “We won’t bother with swearing you in, Mr. President, since that already occurred at your inauguration.” More laughter.
“I’ll begin the questioning,” the chairman said. “Mr. President, why are you shielding the First Lady from facing the American people?”
Dutch’s jaw tightened. Gina could tell he was raging inside. “Next question,” he said.
“Next question?” the chairman asked. “Why won’t you answer that question?”
“When you want to be serious, and ask me a substantive question, then I’ll be pleased to answer it. But I’ll not play your game.”
“Game? What game?”
“You know damn well, Jake,” Dutch said to the chairman, “that I’m not shielding my wife from any American public. You also know damn well that your question was meant to imply that I was. So ask me another question or shut the hell up and give your colleagues a turn.”
The gallery was amazed. The committee members were amazed. The network commentators were amazed. President Dutch Harber, they all now realized, didn’t come here to lose. There was no contrition, there was no apology, there was nothing but contempt in his voice and demeanor.
The chairman, realizing it, cleared his throat. “Were you aware that your wife was having an affair with Roman Wilkes?” he asked the president.
“She wasn’t having an affair with Roman Wilkes.”
“But how can you be so certain that she wasn’t, sir?”
“How can you be so certain that she was?”
“Max Brennan, your own chief of staff, said that she and Wilkes were lovers.”
“Believe Max Brennan at your own peril.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” the chairman wanted to know. “Isn’t he your best friend?”
“Max and I were close once upon a time, yes. But not anymore. He’s no friend of mine.”
“Why isn’t he your friend anymore? Because he told the truth about what’s going on in that White House?”
“He lied about what’s going on in the White House.”
“But why would he lie, sir? Why would he claim your wife was having affairs if she wasn’t?”
Dutch didn’t hesitate. There was a time he would jump in front of a train for Max Brennan. Now, after all of the hurt and pain his lies had caused Gina, he’d throw him in front of the train himself.
“Max Brennan is a homosexual,” Dutch said to gasps from the audience, “who despises the fact that he’s homosexual. Max Brennan is obsessed with, some may say in love with me, and he is disgusted by the reality of that fact. Every woman that I have loved he has found a way to undermine. The First Lady was just his latest target. You believe Max Brennan at your peril.”
The chairman attempted to smile. “You think mighty highly of yourself. Brennan in love with you, obsessed with you, targeting women you love? And that’s why he supposedly lied on the First Lady? But come now, Mr. President. If he was lying, what about Paul Davenport? He lobbed accusations against the First Lady too. Is Mr. Davenport lying also?”
“Yes.”
The chairman, again, smiled. “But how do you know that? By Davenport’s own admission, you were never in the White House when his trysts with the First Lady took place. How can you be so certain?”
“Because Paul Davenport cited three precise dates when he was in the White House with the First Lady, making love to her he claims, and also witnessing her smoking crack.”
“That’s correct.”
“On two of those three dates the First Lady wasn’t even in the White House. She wasn’t even in DC.”
Gina smiled as the chairman frowned. She halfway expected him to yell, what you talkin’ ‘bout, Willis? But that, she realized, would have been too human-like for that robotic clown.
“What do you mean?” the chairman asked the president instead.
“I mean exactly what I said. If this Congress would have bothered to do its homework and simply ask a few simple questions, you would have known those facts yourselves. But instead you chose to play politics and jump on the Trash the First Lady train. Well the train stops here, Mr. Chairman. You and your committee, and anybody else who believe that they can drag my wife’s good name through the mud, can call that good Christian lady a whore and a crackhead and any other derogatory name you can find it in your hearts to call her, and expected me to sit back and let you do it, doesn’t know me very well.”
Gina wanted to shout amen, but she was too riveted to the TV.
“The days of bashing my wife, my family, are over,” Dutch continued. “We refuse to participate in our own destruction. I will not parade her nor my child before you or anybody else. Not now nor ever. We will not give answer to any more of these scurrilous attacks, I don’t care what direction they come from. You can believe an alien birth my child, I don’t give a damn anymore. You can believe my wife is a socialist/Marxist/communist, everything the worst human being ever created could ever be, I couldn’t care less. Believe it as much of that garbage as you care to believe.”
Dutch made a point of making eye contact with each committee member when he said this. “You can castigate me until my presidency is crippled with castigation,” he went on, and I still wouldn’t care. And I still won’t give you what you ultimately want and resign. The Harber family will never quit to appease our enemies even though we hate every hour of every minute of every day of this fishbowl existence. But we will never quit. And if you don’t like my resolve, if the American people or the world at large find me arrogant and getting a little too ahead of myself, then tough. To hell with them too! Impeach me if you find me incompetent. Kick me out of the White House if you find me that objectionable. You’ll be doing me a favor, to tell you the truth. But don’t ever again expect me or my wife or our precious son to aid and abet in your hate.”
DUTCH AND GINA: A SCANDAL IS BORN Page 12
