THE PRESIDENT 2 (4 page)

“Oh, come now, Jimmy.
 
You actually believe she loved that Frenchman?”

“I believe it, yes.”

“Surely only because she thought he was rich.”

 
“He
was
rich,” Jim assured her.
 
“Until the roof caved in.
 
Until the authorities in Saint-Tropez caught up with his Ponzi scheme of a business.
 
But by then she was deeply in love with the man.”

“Now he’s in prison and she’s broke.
 
Now she’s ready to deal.”

“She’s ready,” Jim said, “and you’re ready.
 
But is that son of yours ready?”

Victoria folded her arms, a gleam in her eyes.
 
“If you only knew how much my son loved her, you’d understand my confidence.
 
Yes, he’ll be ready.
 
He’ll dump that black whore as quickly as it takes for him to fall into his real woman’s arms.
 
I assure you of that.”
 
She smiled.
 
“He’ll be ready.
 
Don’t you worry.
 
He’ll be ready most of all.”

Jim, however, still couldn’t wrap his brain around the motive.
 
“But what I don’t understand is why,” he said.

“Why she accepted our terms?”

“Why you’re offering them to begin with.
 
Why you’re willing to give a woman you obviously despise all of that money.
 
We’re talking a million dollars, Vicky.
 
Even for you that’s real money.
 
Why would you be willing to give up that kind of cash?”

“I’ll give up even more if I had to,” Victoria stated with conviction.

“And what do you want from her in return?”

Jim immediately noticed that this question caused Victoria’s hard blue eyes to sparkle.
 
“Simply put,” she said, “I want her to end my son’s marriage.
 
I want that farce of a marriage over before a child is produced.
 
Because I’ll accept a lot of things.
 
I have accepted a lot from that son of mine.
 
But I will not have
that
in my family.
 
Not as an heir to my son’s fortune.
 
Not as any grandchild of mine.
 
Do you understand me now?
 
I’ll not have that.
 
I’ll not have it!”

Jim stared at the mother of the President of the United States; stared at this liberal icon known the world over for all of her good work on behalf of the poor and disenfranchised.
 
But if there was ever a more hateful woman, a more spiteful, dangerous woman, Jim Yerks had yet to meet her.

***

The limousine stopped in front of the DC Center for Social Justice in the heart of the hood and the press pool assigned to follow the First Lady were waiting in force when they drove up.
 
Gina, dressed in an African-styled professional pantsuit, was seated in the backseat with Christian Bale, her husband’s former personal aide.
 
Christian had developed such a fond attachment to Gina that he had asked Dutch directly if he could become her personal aide.
 
The president, who thought of the young, devoted, blue eyed, blond-haired Christian as a son, agreed.
 
There was no-one else, he had said at the time, that he would trust more with his wife.
 

Also in the limo was Gina’s assistant and best friend, Loretta “LaLa” King, a short, smart, outspoken woman on the verge of plumpness who used to be her business partner when they ran the Block by Block Raiders back in Newark.
 
LaLa was Gina’s girl, the one friend she knew she could always count on.
 

They all waited patiently for the secret service to give the all-clear so that they could step out.
 

“The vultures are circling,” LaLa said as she glanced out of the dark tinted windows and saw the line of reporters waiting for them.
 

“I’m so over those reporters that it’s not even funny,” Gina replied, twirling around a bracelet.
 
From her braids to her big earrings and beaded necklace, she was all Afrocentric today.
 
A style LaLa loved.
 
Her biggest fear, when Gina became First Lady, was that she would morph into some politically-correct, mainstream maven and would lose her own identity.
 
A fear, LaLa was fast learning, that was completely unfounded.
 
Gina was as much the same person today as she was when she said I Do.

“They can be appalling, can’t they?” Christian said, his big smile lighting up his cherubim face.
 
“I mean, they’re doing their jobs and all, but good grief.
 
They don’t let up.”

“I know,” Gina admitted.
 
“Now they’re actually trying to blame Dutch for those students getting kidnapped.”

“Ain’t it crazy?”
 
LaLa said, refusing to change an iota herself since becoming an assistant to the First Lady.
  
“If those college students weren’t rich and from Harvard, but was a bunch of Joe Blows from the hood, I’d bet they wouldn’t be so obsessed with bringing them back home.”

“I pray for their safe return, don’t get me wrong,” Gina pointed out, that sincere look her husband loved blanketing her face.
 
“But to blame Dutch for those kids going over there in the first place?
 
That’s what I can’t get over.”

LaLa looked at her.
 
“How is the President anyway?” she asked.
 
“I saw him on TV this morning at that press conference, looking very gorgeous I might add.
 
But they were brutal, girl.”

“I figured as much.
 
I don’t even watch anymore.
 
But he’s doing okay.”
 
Then inwardly she smiled, remembering how Dutch took her to their bed after that press conference and made love to her so long and so hard that she still could feel the poke of that thick rod of his.
 

“How long have you known the president?” Christian asked her.
 

Gina smiled.
 
“Why would you ask that, Chris?”

“Because y’all are so close.
 
It seems like y’all had to have known each other longer than just last year.”

“Oh.
 
We met before then.
 
Ten years before then.”

“You knew each other for
that
long?”

“We had a one, we met briefly
once,
and then nothing for ten years, and then I was at the White House to get an award for Block by Block Raiders, and we hooked up again.”

“Oh,” Christian said.
 
“And now you’re in the fishbowl with him.”

“More like a circus if you ask me,” Gina said.

“The president has always been good with the press,” Christian said.
 
“He’s used to the circus.”

The door of the limo opened.
 
“But I’m not,” Gina said as she began to step out, “and I don’t want to ever get used to anything this crazy.”

As soon as her face was seen, photographers like paparazzi snapped their pictures and the press hurled their questions fast and furious.
 
One reporter’s voice, Nora Tatem from Slake magazine, was able to break through the chatter.
 
“Mrs. Harber, why are you here?” she yelled.

Gina found her question so odd that she actually had to stop to answer.
 
This, she viewed, was an opportunity to educate.
 
She was wrong.
 
“Why am I here at the Center for Social Justice?” Gina asked.
 
“I’m here because this is a wonderful organization that helps the poor find competent legal representation.”

“But is this an appropriate place for a First Lady to come?”

“Come on, G,” LaLa whispered, gently taking her friend and boss by the arm.

“Why wouldn’t it be appropriate?” Gina wanted to know, moving her arm from LaLa’s grasp, her bright brown eyes riveted on the reporter.

“Isn’t it obvious?” the reporter said.

“No, it’s not obvious.
 
Perhaps you can enlighten me.”

“It’s in the ghetto, ma’am,” Nora Tatem pointed out and some of the reporters grinned.

“Yes, it is,” Gina said, failing to see the humor.
 
“But what’s inappropriate about it?
 
Because it isn’t where the rich and well-connected are, I’m not supposed to come here?”

“Not unless you want to be referred to as the Ghetto First Lady.”

Gina could hardly believe her ears.
 
And this was Nora Tatem, a reputable reporter from a reputable magazine, not some tabloid yellow journalist.
 
“Because I’m visiting American citizens at an American Center in an American neighborhood that happens to be in a poverty-stricken area, I’m the
Ghetto
First Lady?
 
Seriously?”

“Don’t you think you’re behaving low class ghetto right now, ma’am?
 
For a First Lady, I mean?”

Gina’s anger flared.
 
“
Oh, so because I called your ass out I’m behaving ghetto?”

“G,” LaLa started.

But Gina would have none of it.
 
“Because I didn’t let you get away with your racist hogwash I’m low class?”

“Why are you dressed like that?” the same reporter asked.
 

Gina frowned, looked down at her professional pantsuit tailored with African Kitenge cloth.
 
Then looked back up at the reporter.
 
“Why am I dressed like what?”
 

“Like some African Jungle Lady.”
 
Again, laughter from some in the press pool.
 
“Is that an appropriate way for an American First Lady to dress?” the reporter added.

“Come on, ma’am,” Christian intervened, certain that this could quickly get out of hand.
 
If it hadn’t already.
 

But Gina was too amazed by the nonsensicalness of it.
 
“So I can’t wear an African outfit in America now?”

“Not unless you want to be the African First Lady.”
 

Gina stared at the reporter who had a dead serious look on her face.
 
“You sound like a fool, you know that?”

By now LaLa and Christian both had Gina well in hand, and was pushing, practically shoving her into the Center.
 
A Center that erupted in applause as soon as the First Lady dawned its doors. But Gina, still reeling from her brief interplay with that reporter, once again couldn’t stop thinking about shoes.