The President

by Parker Hudson

  “You know, during these first few months of sleeping here I’ve sometimes wondered what I could learn if only these walls could talk.”

  “And I’ve often wondered,” she said, snuggling backward into him, “whether these walls might listen and watch, rather than talk. When the Secret Service says they guard you twenty-four hours a day, William, do you think they check on your breathing in here?”

  “That’s an interesting thought,” he agreed. He started to say, “Let’s find out.” But the words wouldn’t come. At an earlier time in their marriage the two of them would have given any potential eavesdropper something to listen to. What, twenty-five years ago? Even twenty? he thought as the new day outside their windows began to brighten. But not now. Not for a long time. He sighed quietly, but didn’t make a move.

  He and Carrie just didn’t do such things, not spontaneously. They hadn’t for years. He seldom thought about it except just for brief moments at rare times such as this, when the crush of being the president of the United States—or previously the governor of North Carolina or a busy lawyer— stopped long enough for him to consider their relationship.

  It was pleasant enough, he thought. What word could he use? Familiar? Comfortable? Set? Convenient? Friendly? Just There? They knew each other like two old friends. He had his habits, she had hers. She was loyal, concerned, and helpful. He was pleasant, friendly, and successful. They even occasionally made love on a sort of infrequent unspoken schedule. They went through life as a matched set, living together and trying to raise two children in difficult circumstances.

  But real love? Early morning passion? No, he thought, those emotions faded away years ago. Or rather, I stopped them. Not that he cheated on her. At least not recently. Several years ago when he was a busy, aspiring attorney flying from city to city he’d had a few brief flings. And then one serious affair with a beautiful, smart young attorney from their Charlotte office. Diana Johnson. She had wanted him to divorce Carrie and to marry her. He had considered it for months. She broke off their relationship when it was finally obvious that William wanted to stay conveniently married to Carrie and living with his children.

  No, he didn’t cheat on Carrie. Not now; not with AIDS out there and a political career. Except he cheated on her every day by withholding his innermost feelings and his most difficult decisions. Somewhere along the years they had lost the total sharing which they had experienced in the early days. Slowly and imperceptibly—then more quickly while he was spending so much time in Charlotte with Diana—he had built a wall between them. An invisible wall. Not of overt hostility. Just of constant and incredible busyness, every waking hour of the day. A wall of not sharing, and of not loving.

  During just the past few months he had come to realize how much Carrie was hurt by his years of withdrawal, but pride and habit kept him from reaching out. He was so busy! I don’t have time to share things she won’t understand anyway.

  They had been married in a firestorm of passion after his first year of law school. But after the kids were born and his legal practice grew, William found it harder and harder to relate to Carrie. She stayed at home; he was surrounded by equally intelligent, dynamic women in his business life. Diana had captured him with her youthful intelligence, her business sense, and her wit as well. He began sharing his aspirations and his problems with Diana when they met for weekend “company retreats.” Carrie didn’t know she was competing in a contest, but she lost nevertheless. Finally, completely he gave up trying to relate his world to hers, and he relegated Carrie to a second class position. Carrie became less of a partner and more of a fixture. The passion left their marriage, and Carrie couldn’t understand why.

  When Diana left him William’s exclusion of Carrie turned hostile for a few months. She couldn’t comprehend his constant putdowns. Then he seemed to mellow, and the hostility stopped, but so did all other feelings as well. He was neither hot nor cold toward her. Just completely aloof, it was like the door to his soul slammed shut, leaving her alone in the cold and the dark.

  As his first gubernatorial campaign picked up steam he concentrated totally on politics. She thought their relationship would return to normal after the election, but it never did. She tried for years to figure out what had happened, what she could do to be his wife and lover and soulmate again; but after a few years his aloofness became so well defined, and he seemed so uninterested in changing, that she finally accepted the way things were and made the best of it, hoping that someday, somehow, he would let her inside again.

  She ached when she thought about it, so she tried to avoid the subject by making herself busy and helpful. Always hoping. Always knowing that she was excluded, but not knowing why. For several years she had consoled herself with the bottle; but finally her own pride pulled her out of that pit, at least on most days. When they “made love” she sometimes had to bite her lip to keep from crying. Where did you go, William? And why? What did I do? Please share with me. Please let me inside. Please love me again!

  For his part, since the end of the presidential campaign William had reflected on several occasions how awful he had behaved toward Carrie over the years. At times there seemed to be a battle going on inside him, one force telling him to continue to ignore her, that he didn’t have time to relate to her given the incredible responsibilities his team felt to implement their programs for improving the nation. But occasionally another voice reminded him of their early days together and urged him to restore their relationship. He felt that tension this April morning, but did nothing, not wanting to open a potential cauldron of emotions when it was almost time to start another important day as president of the United States.

  So the president and first lady lay together in their private bedroom in the White House for another ten minutes without speaking. He kept his arm around her but was careful not to squeeze too tightly. His mind quickly turned from their relationship to the more immediate events of his day. She held his hand loosely, her head turned away from him. She, too, tried to think about all she had to do that day; but for once in a long while the pain and the emptiness of their lost love crashed through into her emotions, and, unseen to him, a single tear ran down her cheek.

  NORFOLK, VIRGINIA—Thomas Dobbs, a bachelor and a lieutenant commander in the United States Navy, could hardly bear the sound of his alarm clock through his hangover. Why had he done this to himself on a weeknight, knowing he had to report to his duty station early the next morning?

  Well, it was a great celebration, he thought, as he slowly lifted his still sleeping date’s arm from his chest and swung his feet to the floor of his tastefully decorated Virginia Beach apartment. But now he was paying the price for last night’s liquor and late-night transgressions. And what was this young thing’s name, whom he had picked up at the bar? Oh, yes. Pat, he remembered.

  Too bad his steady of two years had been transferred to a Mediterranean base three months earlier. What a joy it would have been to share yesterdays news that he had finally received orders to be the operations officer on a guided missile cruiser. Not the newest warship in the navy, but still an excellent assignment. He had not known which to do first: write the new president a letter of thanks or celebrate with his friends at the bar. Unfortunately for his pounding head this morning, the bar had come first.

  Fifteen minutes later he had shaved, dressed, and taken several aspirins with strong coffee. He decided to leave a note and some money for Pat. He hoped this pick-up would not steal him blind later in the morning. Gathering his things, he placed a note on the bedside table where Pat couldn’t miss it on awakening.

  Thomas unlatched his apartment door and thought how nice it would be to come home to Pat after a hard day in the navy. That pleasant thought was the best medicine for his hangover. Yes, he would call the apartment in a few hours and invite Pat to stay with him for at least one more night.

  RALEIGH, NORTH CAROLINA—At about that same time, Mary Prescott finished her usual morning quiet time. She rose from the
comfortable seat in the nook of her bedroom by the large picture window. The first light of dawn was backlighting the early buds of spring in the heavy foliage around their home in suburban Raleigh.

  Mary walked quietly to the kitchen for another cup of coffee and fixed one for her husband, Graham, who would momentarily awaken to his alarm clock.

  She heard the shower running upstairs in her daughter Sarah’s bathroom. The stereo beat on the ceiling of their dining room meant Sarah’s younger brother, Tim, was also awake, “gearing up” for the ninth grade.

  Her husband had been right. Even with the recent addition of a grandson from Jonathan and his wife, having Sarah and Tim several years behind Jonathan had kept her feeling young for an “old woman” of fifty-two.

  Thirty minutes later, with everyone dressed, the Prescotts were sharing a large breakfast that was still their tradition, despite the health warnings about most of its contents. Her husband, a loving man from a large family, had insisted as their schedules became crazier that they at least share breakfast together during the week as a touchpoint. And the two children, now a junior and a freshman in high school, had been sharing it for so long that they, too, missed this family time together on those rare occasions when one of them had a conflict.

  Graham Prescott was an engineer, like his wife’s retired father, Thomas, who was still going strong at seventy-eight. Raised on a farm, Graham had met Mary Harrison at a college fraternity party. They had fallen in love, and as was the custom at that time, they had been married in the summer after their graduation. Their first son, Jonathan, had been born ten months later. He was now married and a father himself, giving them a grandson, Peter. It seemed to Mary only yesterday that her two younger children, Sarah and Tim, had been born. How the generations ran together!

  She smiled across the table at her two children as they discussed the most recent developments at school. “Hey,” Tim asked Sarah, “isn’t today the day they’re going to tell us about that new computer?”

  “Yeah,” Sarah said. “It’s supposed to be something amazing.”

  Their father, who enjoyed computers, looked up from his breakfast. “Tim, do you know anything about it yet?”

  “Not much. But some bio-tech firm in the Research Triangle supposedly bought this really advanced computer just last year. Only now they’ve had to buy an even newer one. So they’re donating their ‘old’ computer to our school, I guess because so many of the kids’ parents work in the Triangle.”

  “Sounds interesting,” Graham said.

  “This thing is supposed to be just awesome!” Tim went on excitedly. “It’s like a hundred thousand times faster than anything available until just a few years ago. They’re going to run terminals to most of the classrooms, and we’ll be able to use it to solve all sorts of problems.”

  “And someone even said it can do virtual reality,” Sarah said. “I guess that means,” she added, “we’ll be able to put on headsets during breaks and travel anywhere we want to go or see anything we want to see.”

  “It all sounds wild to me,” Mary interjected, as she finished her coffee. “I just hope you can spell and do math when you graduate without having to turn on some black box to do it.”

  “Oh, Mom,” Sarah said, finishing her breakfast and rising, “you know we can do that. This computer is just going to make school a lot more interesting.”

  Glancing at the clock, Mary said to Sarah, “Well, you and Tim had better get going, or you’re going to miss that special assembly.”

  After another thirty minutes Graham also left for work, and Mary quietly dressed for a busy day of appointments as one of Raleigh’s most successful real estate agents.

  ATLANTA, GEORGIA—Rebecca Harrison, Mary’s younger sister, did not have to wake up so early that morning. Her only child, Courtney, the product of a short and tempestuous marriage while Rebecca was still in college, had graduated from the University of Georgia and was a management trainee with a large bank in Denver.

  Rebecca, who had never remarried, had thrown herself into her nursing career to provide for herself and for her young daughter. But that had been more than twenty years ago. Now, at age forty-four, Rebecca was a senior Ob/Gyn nurse at Peachtree North Hospital, one of Atlanta’s largest and most prestigious private hospitals. Or, that is to say, semi-private. Since passage of the National Health Plan a few years earlier, there was virtually no truly private health care available in America. Every hospital, including Rebecca’s, had to participate in the plan and follow the guidelines if it wanted to survive financially. So there was now a much greater mix of client types than in previous years.

  Because Rebecca was working on the afternoon/evening shift at the hospital that week, there was no reason for her to wake up so early. Except for Bruce Tinsley. Six years younger than Rebecca and originally from Boston, Bruce was the first man in years she had allowed herself to become seriously involved with. They had first met at the Buckhead Health Club where Rebecca worked hard to make her body look half as old as its forty-four years. She had believed him, three weeks later, when he told her he thought she was thirty-two. She had fallen for him almost immediately. He had moved into her apartment in January.

  On almost every morning for the three months they had lived together, Rebecca got up, even when she didn’t have to, in order to fix her younger lover’s breakfast. Their relationship and his doting over her had picked her up immeasurably, and there was now a bounce to her step and a lilt to her voice that had long been buried by single-parent responsibilities and the demands of her profession.

  When Bruce finished his shower and came into the kitchen, clad only in a towel, he found Rebecca still in her nightgown and robe. She was humming a tune and stirring their oatmeal on the stove. “So, how is Ms. Harrison this beautiful morning?” he asked, as he came up behind her and kissed her gently on the neck. She shivered and laughed. “Not bad for an old broad with two jobs: nursing a floor of patients by day and keeping a younger man by night.” She turned and smiled up at him.

  “Well, if I haven’t told you before, I really appreciate how you do both,” he said, returning her smile.

  “The night job I understand why you appreciate,” she said, running her finger down his chest. “But what do you know about the day job?”

  “Well, I don’t want to turn too serious this early in the morning, but I do read the newspaper and watch television. I know what all of you at the hospital have to go through. Just to get to your jobs some days, you have to run the gauntlet of those crazy abortion protestors. And now the medical board is gearing up to fight your patients’ right to die when they want to.”

  Rebecca knew that Bruce’s younger brother had died tragically of AIDS several years before. Bruce was quick to blame the government’s lack of research and intervention for his brother’s early death. He had become an activist where medical care was concerned, belittling those who protested any part of the activist agenda, including abortion, euthanasia, or AIDS research.

  “So that’s why I appreciate so much what you do,” he concluded with a smile, putting his arms around her.

  “Well, you’d better not let my sister, Mary, hear you. Though you and brother William should get along famously!”

  “How can two people from the same family be so different?” he asked.

  “Beats me. As we’ve all grown older, Mary has become even more set in the ways of her faith, and William has perfected Mom’s liberal agenda while moving to the top of the political ladder.”

  Bruce shook his head and chuckled, “When your family gets together there must be some real explosions!”

  “Sometimes there are,” she admitted. “But at least little brother Hugh and I are not as outspoken, so we try to keep peace between the older two. You’ll see for yourself when we get together at Camp David for Easter.”

  “Are you sure you really want me to come? Do you think your extended family’s ready for the new perks of presidential living and a live-in boyfriend for
the little sister?”

  “Absolutely. It’ll do them good!” She grinned. “After all, my brother promised to change the country for the better. And I figure having you move in right after his inauguration was my own personal contribution to making life better, at least for one overworked and underpaid nurse!”

  “Well, I definitely want to come. But just remember I warned you,” he finished, still smiling and pulling her closer to him.

  “Noted,” she said, then gave him a gentle push. “Now please sit down and let me finish cooking this oatmeal before it all boils away.”

  ATLANTIC OCEAN ON BOARD THE USS FORTSON—Hugh Harrison, the youngest of the four siblings in the president’s family, began that same April morning two hundred miles out in the Atlantic ocean as his guided missile cruiser steamed westward at an economic speed, expecting to make their homeport of Norfolk, Virginia, the next day. Hugh, as the weapons officer on the Fortson, had been invited with the executive officer and the other four department heads to Captain Robertson’s cabin for breakfast, a first for Hugh during his two months on board.

  To the untrained eye the Fortson looked like the most modern of fighting warships, with an anti-aircraft missile launcher forward, anti-ship missiles and torpedoes in canisters amidships, a helicopter platform and five-inch gun aft. Her modern radar and communications equipment was in every way state-of-the-art, and they had scored several kills in Operation Desert Storm, belying her thirty-nine years of age. But belowdecks the Fortson was a dinosaur, the last capital ship in the navy to operate on high pressure steam, rather than on the jet engines that powered all of her younger cousins.

  No one knew why the Fortson was still steaming. The logical answer was that she had been completely overhauled and upgraded in the early nineties, so there was no economic reason to discard her. But all the other ships of her class had met that fate. Many sailors believed that the admirals running the navy kept her around as a visible link back to the days when steam drove all the navy’s ships, and jet engines were found only on airplanes. But whatever the reason, there was a great sense of pride on the Fortson, and her clean decks and sparkling spaces looked newer than most others in the fleet.