"It would appear so. Yes." Dev braced herself for the pending explosion. But it never came.
"Oh, well," Lauren casually tossed the paper aside and took a sip of coffee, hiding her smile behind the rim of the cup, "if you'd keep your woman satisfied, I wouldn't be forced to look elsewhere for romance."
"Ouch!" Dev clutched her heart. "And just so cold about it, too. Gee, I have all the popularity of the plague. I can't catch a damned break. My live-in lover and my date threw me over for this Casey/Lacey woman. Who knew the morgue had such appeal?" Dev shook her head, sending her dark hair spilling over one shoulder. "Maybe I should try the other team. I'm batting zero with my own."
Lauren burst out laughing. She bumped shoulders with the older woman. "Don't tell me something in the press finally got to you? They've been writing about us for months. And the other team has its faults, too. Trust me."
"I just didn't want you to see this and explode," Dev explained sincerely. "It's just another attempt to get a reaction out of us." She leaned back and tried to act nonchalant about putting her arm over the back of the bench and dropping it down to rest lightly on Lauren's shoulders. I am sooooo pathetic.
Lauren jerked away at the feeling of Dev's arm on her shoulder. "What is it? A bug?" She began slapping where Dev's arm had been, her eyes searching her pale green blouse.
Dev threw her head back and laughed. "Might as well have been, the way my luck is running lately." She sighed and this time, decisively wrapped her arm around Lauren's shoulders, pulling the younger woman closer to her. "No, it wasn't a bug." She grinned devilishly and added a belated, "Mighty Mouse." I should just gather up my courage and ask her out. What's the worst she can say – no? That wouldn't be a big surprise either. I've got nothing to lose. "Uh... Lauren?"
Lauren blushed when she realized what Dev had tried to do and what her response had been. Sorry, Devlyn. And I'm glad it wasn't a bug. She happily snuggled closer. Is she going to? Oh, my God. Lauren crossed her fingers and toes. "Yes, Devlyn?" Ask me before I die!
"I was wondering... I mean... umm..." I am six feet of pure, unadulterated chicken shit. Good thing I don't run the government the way I run my love life. If I had a love life, that is.
Dev cleared her throat and lifted her chin. It was now or never. "Okay. What I wanted to know was-"
Liza opened the door to the rose garden looking slightly harried. She winced, clearly seeing she was interrupting something. "I'm sorry, Madam President..."
Lauren nearly groaned with disappointment, letting off a string of curse words in her mind.
Dev's mouth clicked shut, and her head dropped forward. That was not seven minutes!
"There is an emergency phone call for Ms. Strayer."
Friday, May 7th
The loudspeaker crackled, and the school auditorium was alight with excitement, when the school principal nervously announced, "Ladies and gentlemen, students, staff and faculty of Jefferson High School, the President of the United States!"
The high school band fired up 'Hail to the Chief', and Dev grinned at Liza as she stuck her notes in her jacket pocket. She tilted her head toward the drums. "Hey, they're not bad."
"No, Madam President. And they were very honored that you picked them to play for you."
Dev buttoned her jacket. "Well, for some of these kids it's a big deal." She shrugged. "Guess I'd better get out there, huh?"
This was another of Dev's many Community Visits. Her goal was to do at least one a month. They were already wildly popular, and requests from communities across the nation had come pouring in. Thus far, however, none of the visits had taken her too far from Washington. But she had plans to change that once she'd made a complete transition into office and things settled down.
These visits were held in high schools or community centers and were open to the public, but, at Dev's request, not televised. She wanted the most intimate setting and feeling possible, and she believed this was her chance to give something back and stay connected to the people.
"Bzzzz...." Liza sounded off like a cattle prod in action, just as Jane had taught her.
Dev laughed. "I'm ready. I'm ready. There's nothing after this, is there, Liza? I want to try and get home early tonight."
"No, Madam President." Pushing a few buttons, the tall assistant checked her electronic organizer and nodded. "This is it."
Dev leaned over to her assistant. "Don't suppose you've heard from Ms. Strayer."
"I'm sorry, Madam President. I haven't. I could call and have someone...?"
Dev's eyes strayed to her Secret Service agent, who was about to give her the cue to walk onto the stage. "No. That's okay. She'll call if she needs something." Like me, for instance. Dev inwardly cursed the cabinet meeting that morning that had kept her from flying out to Tennessee to check on Lauren herself.
Receiving a short nod from the dark-suited agent, the President strolled onto the stage of the high school auditorium. She smiled and waved to the crowd as a thousand cameras clicked furiously, their flickering flashes illuminating the room. Dev had learned to give everyone a moment or two before she tried to speak. This time she walked back and forth across the stage, waving and making eye contact with as many people as she could.
The last time she had done one of these Community Visits, she'd gone down into the audience, causing the Secret Service, and David, to go nuts. But after her Chief of Staff had lectured her incessantly, she did promise to be good.
Once the audience settled down, she took a seat in a high back, bar-like chair. She smiled at the crowd and said, "Hi."
The auditorium exploded into applause.
* * *
Lauren shifted in her chair as she watched her mother sleep. Dark circles ringed the older woman's eyes, and her fair hair looked thin and lifeless. They were in Nashville's St. Andrews hospital, in the same wing where Lauren had visited her mother on several other occasions. The very hallways stirred up dark memories she'd rather forget, and, at this moment, the writer was wishing herself anyplace but here.
Earlier in the week, Howard Strayer had called and calmly explained to his daughter that Anna's depression had taken a turn for the worse... that her mother had steadily been going down hill since Christmas, really. And that she had tried to take her own life.
Lauren's mother had gone grocery shopping and fed the cat before stripping naked and climbing into the cold, empty bathtub. Howard wasn't sure why, but for whatever reason, she didn't bother to fill it with any water. Using his razor sharp, fish scaling knife, she had slit both her wrists to the bone and closed her eyes, patiently waiting to die.
Anna had burst into uncontrollable, gut-wrenching sobs when Howard had come home in search of an aspirin and found her still alive, bleeding profusely.
Lauren stared bleakly at her mother's ghostly white figure. The sight of her, combined with the antiseptic smell of the hospital, and the stomach churning tension of the last day, made her shiver. But Lauren couldn't honestly say she was surprised by the suicide attempt. The older woman had fought nearly debilitating bouts of depression all of her adult life. This was the third suicide attempt that Lauren could remember, the other two haunting her otherwise unremarkable childhood like annoying, out of place specters.
When Lauren was eight she'd walked in on her mother trying to cut her wrists. The woman was weeping and fumbling helplessly with a safety razor, whose blades she'd somehow popped free of their plastic casing. Lauren had tried to calm her, but in the end was forced to wait until her mother actually passed out before she could get near enough to her to help.
On her second attempt Anna Strayer tried sleeping pills, but ended up vomiting before they could do much damage. The result was a killer headache and six months of institutionalization, at the end of which, she was functional. She was sent home with an armload of anti-depressant drugs and, ironically, a prescription for sleeping pills... in the event that her insomnia should make a reappearance.
But those days seemed far away, even
as the pain from this most recent attempt came in fresh waves. Howard had gone to the cafeteria for a much needed cup of coffee, leaving Lauren alone in the room with her mother.
Spring sunshine poured in through the sparkling clean windows, warming the room that was painted in soothing tones of green. The writer's eyelids felt heavy, but she knew she was too wired to sleep. Instead, she sat quietly, watching over the person who was supposed to watch over her.
Lauren felt chiefly sad. But there was also anger and a crushing guilt, because a big part of her wondered if her mother wouldn't be better off finding the peace in oblivion she so obviously craved. Was it selfish to force her to continue when she so clearly didn't want to? This was no cry for help. Howard was supposed to be gone for the morning, and, unlike Anna's other attempts, this couldn't be painted as half-hearted. She had wanted to die. It was as simple and as complicated as that. Who were the doctors, or Lauren herself, or her father, to tell her that she couldn't?
Anna stirred, slowly turning her head toward Lauren and opening her eyes for the first time since the day before. "Hi, honey," she said softly, when her gaze landed on her daughter. Anna's expression was the very picture of despair, and Lauren watched in agony as her mother's face contorted with pain as she took in her surroundings, realizing what had happened, and what the likely outcome would be.
"Hi, Mama," Lauren croaked weakly. Her chin quivered slightly, but she took a calming breath and slowly made her way to her mother's bedside. What could she say? 'I'm glad you're alive, even though I know that you're not. Daddy and the doctors saved you, only so you can spend God knows how long back in the institution or spaced out on drugs'?
Anna tried to lift her arms. She looked with wide, dazed eyes at the strong bindings that strapped her to the bed. "I can't do anything right, can I?" she whispered brokenly, then turned away from Lauren, wallowing in just one more failure.
A soft knock on the door caused Lauren's bowed head to swing around.
Anna Strayer tried to sit up, confusion written all over her face. A low keening sound suddenly erupted from her throat. Why wouldn't everyone leave her alone?!
"Shh... rest now, Mama," Lauren said quietly, doing her best to block out the almost inhuman noise that was hurting her ears and shredding her heart. She tenderly straightened her mother's covers, intentionally keeping her eyes away from the wide leather straps that tightly held her arms and legs to the bed, and the stark white bandages that wrapped her wrists. "I'll go see who it is."
Lauren bent and placed an awkward kiss on her mother's cheek, then headed for the door, which was already being pushed open by a heavy-set black nurse. "Yes?" Lauren asked, wondering why she'd bothered to knock.
"Ms. Strayer?" The woman's voice was deep, her thick accent drawing out each word and adding syllables where there were none.
"Yes."
"You have a phone call, ma'am. It's from the White House," the nurse said, awe reflected in her warm chocolate eyes. "The doctor said you could take it in the conference room, even though it's for staff only. You need to come now. It's urgent, ma'am."
Lauren nodded slowly, another kernel of worry blossoming in her belly. What now? “One second." She turned back to her mother. "I need to take this call for work, Mama. I'll be right back."
For a moment she thought her mother hadn't heard her. But then Lauren noticed that the gray eyes, whose color so closely matched her own, were vacant and unseeing, staring off into space. She was awake but somewhere else. Lauren had tried to understand... tried to figure out where her mother went when she just disappeared inside herself. Tried to reach her and begged her to come home...
It wasn't until she was a teenager that Lauren fully grasped that that far away place would forever be Anna Strayer's alone. Despite her best efforts, in her heart she fully believed that there was no bringing her mother back, no helping her find her way home. Ever.
With a soundless sigh, Lauren stepped out into the hall with the nurse. "Let's go."
At the end of the hallway was a small room with a round table and six chairs, a coffee maker, and a phone with video link. That was all.
"You can take the call in here, ma'am. When I get back to the nurse's station I'll tell the operator to transfer it."
"Do you-"
"I'm sorry," she nurse said sincerely. "I don't know anything more." She shut the door quietly, and Lauren wrung her hands for the thirty seconds it took for the video link to fire into life.
An image of Jane, from the shoulders up, appeared above the phone and across the small table from Lauren. The older woman's eyes were teary, and lines of worry cut deeply into her forehead. "Lauren?"
Lauren paled at the expression on Jane's face. She licked her lips. "Yes?"
"I'm sorry to have to be..." Jane paused for a moment to collect herself, and Lauren felt her anxiety ratchet higher. Whatever it was, it was bad. Very bad. "It's Dev... there's been an accident. Umm... no, that's not right," Jane corrected herself quickly. "She's been shot, Lauren."
Lauren blinked, staring stupidly at Jane's image, the secretary's words not quite penetrating her brain. "Wh... what?"
"Devlyn's been shot, Lauren." This time Jane's voice was firm. "About twenty minutes ago. David asked me to call you."
Lauren swallowed around an enormous lump in her throat. Devlyn's been shot? Someone shot her? Jesus. She felt sick. "Is she... is she?" The blonde woman choked out the words.
Jane shook her head. "Not at last report, dear. But we don't know how bad it is yet."
Lauren's eyes fluttered closed. "Oh, thank God," she muttered softly, her stomach still roiling. "Thank God." She let out a shuddering breath and scrubbed her face with slightly shaking hands. "What happened?"
"She had a speech at a local high school today. When she was leaving the stage someone opened fire. We're still putting all the information together." Tears leaked from Jane's eyes and trickled down her round cheeks. "David wanted me to call you. He didn't want you to think... well, he wanted to make sure you didn't just hear it on the news."
"So... so, the kids were at home. They didn't see. They're okay, right?" Lauren asked in a rush, her mind desperately trying to process what she was being told. I need to get back there. I need...
"The children are safe with Emma and Amy. They haven't been told yet. We didn't want to tell them until we had some real news." Jane hesitated, knowing she was putting Lauren in a terrible spot just by mentioning it. But she needed to. "Should I tell David you'll be coming back? Or..."
"No! I'll be there just as soon as I can." There wasn't a second's hesitation. She could tell her father on the way out of the hospital. "Where is she?"
"David will send someone to meet you at the airport. They'll take you to her then. Her location is classified. They'll be doing a press announcement in about five minutes."
"Classified? Shit! Fine. I guess I'll come into Dulles. I'm not sure when." Lauren rubbed her temples. "And I'm not sure what airline. Maybe I can book a private plane or..." She was starting to panic.
"Lauren, calm down, dear. I'll make all the calls. Just go to the airport. We'll get you to her no matter what. I'll call you on your cell phone and let you know where to go."
Lauren nodded furiously. "Okay, okay. I'm leaving right now." She jumped to her feet, swaying a little as her knees threatened to give way. Lauren was on her way out of the room before she realized she hadn't said goodbye. She turned back to Jane. "You tell Devlyn... well... just... you tell her not to do something stupid like die, okay? I'll be there as soon as I can, Jane." Without waiting for a reply, Lauren ran out of the room, leaving Jane to hear the fading sound of her pounding footsteps as they echoed down the hospital hall.
Madam President Page 19
