Supreme Courtship

CHAPTER 5

It was just after four o’clock on Monday, which gave Pepper less than an hour to give the President her answer.

The day’s taping had gone well. Buddy was in a good mood. She was summoning the courage to introduce the dreaded topic when he said, “You given any more thought to my idea?”

“What idea, sug?” she said.

“The prison,” he said excitedly, as if suggesting they hop on the next flight to Paris.

“Baby, something’s sort of… come up.”

Pepper took a deep breath and explained the reason behind the visit to Camp David. Buddy listened in silence. He looked like a man being informed by his doctor that the MRI had found something.

“I guess he is a fan,” Buddy said.

“It would appear.”

“So,” Buddy said, “what did you tell him?”

“Well, I wasn’t about to tell him anything until you and I had a chance to talk it over.”

Buddy let out what sounded like a sigh of relief.

“What was that?” Pepper said.

“Jesus, you had me going there. I thought you’d accepted.”

“No. But I’d kinda come around to thinking that I might. I need to call him with an answer before five.”

“Well, better call him.”

“Oh, thanks, honey. I really-”

“And tell him you can’t.”

Pepper stared. “Why would I tell him that?”

Buddy gestured, as if the answer were self-evident. “Baby, we’re going into Sweeps Week.”

“Sweeps Week trumps… this?”

“Ah, look,” Buddy said, “Vanderdamp’s a total loser. They’re about to impeach him. Look what happened to his last two nominees-and they were serious guys.”

“If you’re trying to talk me out of this,” Pepper said somewhat coolly, “you’re not going about it the right way.”

“Hey, I think it’s great he asked you. Fantastic publicity for the show. Hadn’t thought of that.”

“Buddy,” Pepper said. “We are not having a satisfactory conversation here.”

“What do you want me to say?”

“I don’t know. You might try something like, ‘Congratulations, honey. Right proud of you.’ ”

“Congratulations. Proud of you.”

“You left out the ‘honey.’ And don’t choke yourself getting too excited.”

“Baby, this makes no sense.”

“That’s what I told him.”

“Did you also tell him you have two years to go on your contract?”

“No, we didn’t really get into that.”

“You can’t just walk away from everything we’ve created,” Buddy said.

“Baby, it’s the Supreme Court. My country’s calling.”

“Well, tell it to call back.”

“Sweetheart-”

“You have obligations, Pepper. And not just to me. What about your millions of devoted viewers? Are you just going to tell them ‘Fuck off’?”

“Actually,” Pepper said, “I wasn’t going to put it quite that way. And if they’re really fans, I don’t suppose they’re going to shoot themselves on account of I’m moving on from a TV show to the Supreme Court.”

“This ‘TV show,’ as you put it so condescendingly, is the only reason you’ve been asked to sit on the Court.”

“I didn’t say it wasn’t,” Pepper said, folding her arms across her chest.

“I get it. I’m the one you’re telling to fuck off.”

“No,” Pepper said, “but keep this up and you might just hear those very words before this conversation is concluded.”

“You can’t do this to me.”

“I’m not doing it to you. And by the way, who appointed you center of the universe?”

“You want to go to court? Fine, let’s go to court. For breach of contract!”

“Well, aren’t you the thorny rose.” Pepper sighed. “Thank you for being such a honeybee for me and making the moment so special. I’ve got to call the President. You want to stick around and tell him yourself to go fuck himself?”