Supreme Courtship

CHAPTER 19

The President looked as though all the cares of the world rested upon his shoulders alone.

“It’s not going to happen,” he said to the somber faces around the table. “They will not become a nuclear power on my watch.” No one spoke. “Is that clear?” he said, his voice grave. “Are we all on the same page here?”

Heads nodded reluctantly. The Secretary of State had gone ashen, slumped in his chair.

“All right then,” the President said. “Let’s quit dicking around. Send in the Nimitz.”

“Cut.”

“What was wrong with that?” Dexter said.

“The line is, ‘Let’s quit messing around,’” the director said. “We can’t say ‘dicking.’ We’ll get fined by the FCC.”

“Don’t worry about it. I know the chairman of the FCC. He’s been to dinner at my house. We’re pals.”

“That’s great. Always nice to have friends in important places. But for now, let’s stay with the script. By the way, Senator, the energy in that scene-great. Amazing. I was blown away. Weren’t you blown away?”

The assistant director nodded. “Totally.”

President Mitchell Lovestorm grumbled assent. They reshot the scene. Lunch was called.

He remained at the table while the other actors dispersed in the direction of the craft services table, adrift in reverie. He was finding it harder and harder to turn his character on and off. One day, discussing it with the makeup lady, she’d told him about something called Method Acting, where you stayed in the character you were playing. He’d decided to try it. It worked. His wife, Terry, didn’t quite get it and seemed to resent it when he told her not to “tie up the hotline,” but generally it worked.

Dexter looked up at the screens about the Situation Room table. They depicted the paths of incoming missiles. But also outgoing missiles. Oh, yes. Yes. After lunch, they would shoot the scene where the Chief of Naval Operations informs him that cruise missiles launched from the Nimitz carrier group were on their way to destroy the presidential palace of Mumduk bin Shamirz-“Mad Ali” as he was known-the America- despising ruler of Badganistan. Our friend Mad Ali has a nice warm surprise headed his way. Oh, yes. Yes. Yes. Dexter visualized the two cruise missiles, hurtling in tandem toward their target, contour-hugging Badganistan’s wild and rugged terrain, zooming past a minaret, their rocket engines torching the muzzein in the tower as he called the people to prayer. The muzzein falling to the ground, a human torch, screaming. Nice touch. Clever, those writers. Overpaid, but clever. Well, it had to be done, didn’t it? Mad Ali had given him no choice. He’d tried to reason with him-again and again and again. He’d gone to the UN. He’d offered concessions. Trade agreements. Medicine for oil. An exchange of ambassadors. All rebuffed. Okay, then, Ali, my friend. Have it your way. But for this President, no more dicking- messing… whatever-around. Mitchell Lovestorm was not going to sit around and cool his jets while this towelhead went nuclear. Hell’s bells, even the French are with us this time. Allons, enfants de la Patrie…

And yet… how lonely it felt. At such a moment, only a president, on whose shoulders these matters ultimately rest, could truly know the terrible loneliness of command, the terrible isol-

“Dex.”

“Um? Oh. Yes, Buddy. What is it?”

“You looked like you were heading past Pluto there. You okay?”

“Yes. Yes. Just… reviewing the situation. Going over my lines.”

“The loneliness of command, huh? It’s a bitch, isn’t it?”

Dexter stared at Buddy. You have no idea. But then, how could you?

“You going to eat something?”

“Not hungry,” Dexter said.

“We got a lot of scenes this afternoon. Don’t let your blood sugar drop. We need you in the zone, baby.”

Baby? This was no way to talk to the President.

“I’ll get something,” he said. “Buddy-a word?”

“Sure.”

“It’s about the First Lady.”

“What’s up?” Buddy said cautiously. Ramona Alvilar was on fire as the ironically named Constance Lovestorm. Her steamy flirting scenes with National Security Director Milton Swan had even the crew breaking out in sweats and adjusting their trousers. “She’s doing a hell of a job, don’t you think?”

“Yes,” Dexter said. “She’s a fine actress. It’s not that.”

Buddy nodded. “So?”

“I just feel… she’s my wife, Buddy. She’s the First Lady of the United States of America. Why is she rubbing the thigh of my National Security adviser?”

Buddy stared. “That’s the story line, Dex.”

“Well, I’m not sure I’m comfortable with it.”

“Ramona is helping to make this show hotter than one of those cruise missiles you just launched. Nothing’s broken. Let’s not fix it.”

“But where’s the dignity? Mitchell Lovestorm is a good and decent man. President of the United States. He’s fighting off the Islamic hordes and the Russians and the-”

“Little yellow bastards. Don’t forget them. They’re still shitting themselves in Shanghai over the Nimitz’s little visit there. Ha-ha.”

“Yes, meanwhile, my wife is reaching for the zipper of my right-hand aide. And he a former Navy SEAL commander. A decorated war hero…” Dexter shook his head distastefully. “To me it just feels… demeaning. To everyone.”

“Look,” Buddy said, “ Milton hasn’t boinked her. We haven’t even decided if he’s going to boink her.”

“I for one would greatly prefer that he not boink her.”

“We’re having a script meeting on that very point this afternoon. I’ll definitely-we’ll take a good hard look at it.”

“I just don’t think that the President of the United States ought to be made out to be a-cuckold.”

“I respectfully disagree. To me, it enhances your humanity.”

“How?”

“Didn’t Abraham Lincoln have some problems along those lines? And look at how well he’s regarded.”

“No, no. No. His wife was a nutcase, but she wasn’t diddling the help. Look, according to all these amazing reviews we’re getting, the viewers like President Mitchell Lovestorm. They admire him. Shouldn’t we respect their feelings?”

Buddy resisted the impulse to swat Dexter with the rolled-up script in his hand.

“Dex,” he said, “to me, to them, all this personal stuff makes you an even greater president. Look at the situation. The whole world is on fire, the economy’s crashing-through no fault of your own, remember, it was your predecessor’s reckless fiscal policies that screwed everything up. Meanwhile, your wife is trying to give the National Security adviser a hand job under the cabinet table. This is precisely where your dignity comes in. Do you let it get to you? No. No, sir. Mitchell Lovestorm rises above it. I see tremendous dignity in that. I see greatness in that.”

“From where I’m sitting,” Dexter said, “it’s the NSC Director who’s doing the rising.”

“Your wife is a beautiful, highly sexualized being-from the barrios of Puerto Rico. So, okay, she’s a bit frisky.”

“Frisky?” Dexter snorted. “She’s a complete slut.”

“Hey, that’s the First Lady you’re talking about. No. I think that’s a tad harsh. Passionate. Latina. En fuego! And any guy whose crotch she was stroking would rise. Lazarus would rise from the dead again if Ramona were reaching for his wiener. But you’re forgetting about episode fourteen.”

“What about it?”

“The reconciliation scene? On Air Force One? Talk about hot. I got blisters on my fingers just from holding the script when I read it the first time. You’ve won the war. Mad Ali’s on his way to a month of serious CIA waterboarding. Connie’s come to her senses and realizes that it’s you she loves, not Milton Swan. You tumble into the bed on the plane. Through the window while you’re ripping each other’s clothes off, we see F-16 fighter escorts framed in the setting sun. Jesus, I get a hard-on just thinking about it. I want to put a warning after the opening credits, like the ones they have for the pills? In the event this episode causes an erection that lasts more than four hours, seek immediate medical help. Then, in episode fifteen, what happens to NSC Director Swan? Hel-lo? The Russians put that radioactive shit in his borscht at the state banquet at the Kremlin and the next thing you know, he’s glowing like a lava lamp. And you and the First Lady-going at it like rabbits. I need a cold shower just from thinking about it.”

Dexter considered. “What about if it turned out that Swan was working secretly for the Russians? Yes. And they didn’t want that to get out, so that’s why they killed him.”

Buddy sighed. Actors. He yearned for the day when they were computer generated. “Why,” he said patiently, “would your National Security Director have been working for the Russians?”

“I don’t know,” Dexter said with annoyance. “Can’t the writers figure that out? Isn’t that why you pay them so much?”

“It’s an intriguing idea. Let me discuss it with them. Meantime, let’s stay with the program, okay? Speaking of which, did you see that write-up in People?”

“No,” Dexter lied. “I didn’t. Was it good?”

“Good? ‘Monday nights this season, vote Dexter Mitchell for President. He’ll give you goose bumps every time he says, “Send in the Nimitz!”’ ”

“Nice,” Dexter said aloofly. “Yes.”

“Nice? By the end of season two, they’ll be screaming to have you in the real White House. Now, go get some lunch, would you please, Mr. President? You don’t want to send in the Nimitz on an empty stomach.”