The Era of Good Feelings
Chapter 5: Wandering Around the West Wing
So Monday afternoon, I put on my suit and tie and went to the White House. Despite the overall weirdness of the situation, I’ve gotta say I was a bit excited, even if I wouldn’t dare confess that to anyone. I mean, as burned out as I was about politics and politicians, this was the White House. Matter of fact, when I was in grade school—before I’d discovered the Political Fuckwad Theory—I’d even done a big project on the White House, complete with floor plans and everything.
So I showed up at the appropriate gate with my letter and a million forms of ID, just like I was told. The cops and the Secret Service people checked my letter and my ID, and they escorted me into the West Wing lobby.
Where I met the same woman who scheduled the interview over the phone. And now I was positive that she had been busy when she scheduled the interview over the phone, because she was just as distracted now. And from the way she was sitting behind her desk—and the fact that she waved me down the hall instead of escorting me to the appropriate room—I was equally positive that the source of her distraction was sitting under her desk. Or kneeling, more likely. I didn’t look; I didn’t want to pry.
So I went into the hallway, and I closed the door behind me, and I realized I had a problem: she didn’t tell me which way to go for the interview. I thought that maybe the right office would become obvious, or that someone would steer me in the right direction if I wandered around for a little bit, and I didn’t want to look foolish by going back and asking her. I also didn’t want to interrupt what she was doing with the person under her desk. Or what the person under her desk was doing with her. Whatever.
So I looked around, and I didn’t see an obvious office, and I didn’t see anyone who could help me, and that was when I realized I had a bigger problem. It’s probably not a good idea to wander anywhere in the White House unescorted, but if I remembered my school project correctly, I was in a very, very bad place to wander unescorted. Matter of fact, I was somewhat alarmed that I’d even been allowed here unescorted.
Although in that moment, one nagging suspicion stopped nagging me—the suspicion that this whole Better Living Through Constant Sex scheme was a huge government conspiracy. Or if it was a huge government conspiracy, the President obviously didn’t get the memo; otherwise, surely his staffers would have been made immune to the scheme’s effects. At least, immune enough to keep job candidates from wandering around the West Wing unescorted.
I looked down the hall, and saw no one. I turned the corner and looked down the next hall, and saw no one. That’s when I got really alarmed, because I was pretty sure I knew which rooms were attached to this particular hallway, and there was no way anyone in those rooms would be involved in a would-be intern’s first interview, and really, shouldn’t someone be out in this hall, watching these doors?
So I did something that probably wasn’t smart. I kept walking, hoping I’d find an open door and someone who (a) could help me, and (b) wouldn’t be alarmed by a job candidate wandering around this part of the West Wing.
Nope, that door was closed.
Nope, that door was closed, too.
And now I was in a corridor with two closed doors. If I remembered the floor plan right, one door didn’t lead to an office. The other door did.
So I did something else that wasn’t smart. I opened the other door. Not sure why—curiosity killed the would-be intern, I suppose.
Except that curiosity rewarded me this time, because I discovered I’d remembered the floor plans correctly.
Big oval-shaped room? Check.
Big-ass rug with presidential seal? Check.
Big-ass wood desk? Check.
Flags behind the desk? Check.
Window behind the desk? Check.
Anyone behind the desk, or in the room? No. Thank goodness.
Because that would have been fun to explain. “Whoops, sorry to disturb you, Mr. President, but, uh, could you steer me toward the intern interviews?”
OK, so with my curiosity satisfied—replaced with a sense of dread because now I’m wondering if there are any video cameras recording this, and if Secret Service agents are now on their way with guns drawn—I prepared to close the door when I hear a woman’s voice calling, “Hello? I’m in the study!”
I also remembered the study from my grade school project; some Presidents use it as their real working office. And other things for least one President, although my civics class was strangely silent on that notorious bit of US history.
Now I knew I should have closed the door and kept on wandering. Plausible deniability and all that. And although the woman sounded only slightly older than me—meaning that she probably wasn’t a top White House official or anything like that—I had no idea who else might be in the room with her. But this was the first sign of life I’d seen since I left the lobby. And I still needed help. And she did say “I” and not “we.” And plausible deniability wouldn’t work if there were video cameras recording this.
So I did one more dumb thing. I walked through the Oval Office in the direction where I’d heard the voice.
I found the study, and behind the desk, I found a dark-haired woman in sweats digging through piles of paperwork. I decided I was wrong about her being roughly my age; she had to be in her early 30s at least, probably older. OK-looking but not a knock-out, although she was looking pretty frazzled so I might not have caught her under the best of circumstances.
And no one seemed to be under the desk, and she didn’t look like she wanted to jump me or anyone else, which was a refreshing change of pace from the past few weeks.
So I went with a variation on my original excuse. “I’m terribly sorry for interrupting you, but I was told that the intern interviews would be down the hall, and I couldn’t find anyone, so I just opened a door, not realizing the door went there!“ I pointed toward the Oval Office. “Would you happen to know where the interviews are being held?”
The woman sighed as she stood up behind the desk. “Figures. No, it’s not your fault, it’s just.... Anyway, I think I know where the interviews are supposed to be held, and I apologize for the lack of directions. I can take you over there...oh...” She trailed off as she stared at me. For a moment, I thought I was going to see the Pre-Sex Significant Look yet once again, but she didn’t do that. Instead, I thought I heard her mutter “shit” under her breath before she said, “I remember now...you’re the candidate Jeanette mentioned. Something about a car wreck?”
I nodded.
“Richard, right? I’m Natalie.”
We shook hands. “Please, call me Rich. Pleased to meet you!”
She walked over to a side table that held a coffee maker and the usual coffee-related accessories. “You too, thanks. Er, if you don’t mind my asking, when was the wreck?” As she was asking this, she pulled the full pot out of the coffee maker and started absent-mindedly pouring sugar and creamer straight into the pot.
“Umm...” I got distracted for a moment; it was hard to see a coffee pot without thinking of Meg and coed naked coffee tasting. “Sorry, uh, August.”
“And were you really, uh...”
“Out? Yeah. I didn’t wake up ‘til the day after Thanksgiv—did you mean to do that?”
Natalie stopped drinking from the coffee pot. The handle and top were plastic, so she wasn’t touching the hot glass, but why the coffee wasn’t scalding her, I still don’t know. She stared at the pot for a second as if she wasn’t quite sure how it got there, and then she turned beet red. “Sorry, I’m not used to other people being back here for long. Let me find another pot, and I’ll get a cup for you before I—”
“No, I’m good, wasn’t what I meant. What I meant was, uh, did you mean to use the coffee pot as a mug?”
She turned even redder. “Well, I’m up all hours, so I need caffeine, and a lot of it, and it just seemed pointless to keep filling my mug up, and, uh, yeah.”
OK, this was strange. But I’d handled stranger things lately, and at least sex wasn’t involved this time—c’mon, quit thinking of Meg—so I figured it was best to just roll with it. “No problem. Oh, speaking of hours, what are the working hours for interns, or would my interviewer be a better person to ask?” My real question was, “Am I gonna have to drink coffee straight from my own pot to keep up with this job?” I almost asked the question, but I wasn’t sure if she’d find that funny, and I didn’t want to embarrass her again.
“Good question—probably depends on your assignment. I’m an intern myself, but I’ve got a weird assignment.”
“You are? But I thought the program was for juniors and seniors.” Yes, I more-or-less told Natalie she looked too old to be an intern. Yes, I am, in fact, a borderline idiot.
“Well, I’m not really an ‘intern’ so much as a ‘grad-student researcher on special assignment’ or something. Like I said, weird assignment.”
“Grad student? How old are you?” OK, that completely slipped out of my mouth. Go ahead and scratch the “borderline.”
“23—yeah, I know, I look like shit. Sleep deprivation.”
Oops. On second thought, replace “borderline” with “complete and utter.” “No, no, no, that wasn’t what I meant—”
“That’s fine, I kinda got you off track there, I was going to ask how you’ve been doing since you, uh, woke up.”
“Oh, pretty good. Therapy took a little longer than expected”—I wasn’t about to go into details—“and I got out last week.”
“Has it been hard getting back into the swing of things, trying to catch up on all the latest news, and”—she took a sip of coffee—“sorry. Living here, especially working here, you assume everyone follows the news 24-7.” Another sip as she watched me over her coffee pot.
“Well....” I’d spent the past few weeks pretending that all of this was normal, so to this day, I’m not sure why I said what I said next. Maybe it was because she’d actually been carrying out a normal non-sex-crazed conversation. She’d even mentioned the news herself without triggering the bedroom-eyes thing. Even so, I still tried to choose my words carefully. “Maybe this is just a side-effect of the accident”—oh great, I thought, if she reminds the interviewer of the accident, I’ve just torpedoed my chances at this job—“but I don’t remember everyone being so, oh, romantic before.”
Natalie snorted at my choice of words. “Yeah, things got a bit...weird while you were out. Not sure why. Nice thing about my assignment is I can hide here and get real work done, while, uh...sorry to change the subject, but that reminds me of something. I think the receptionist was supposed to escort you to the right office for the interview. Did she happen to say why she couldn’t escort you?”
“She didn’t really say.” And I didn’t want to get her into trouble with anyone about the person under her desk.
“Ralph going down on her again?”
“Uhhh....” OK, apparently the person under her desk was common knowledge. “Sorry, I didn’t look.”
The intern laughed. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have sprung that on you, but like I said, things got weird while you were out. What sort of weirdness have you noticed?”
“Well...” You try answering an open question like that.
She laughed again. “Sorry I keep springing all these questions on you, but I think you’re the first person I’ve seen in months who hasn’t been weird, and I was beginning to think it was me! So lemme think of something less vague.” She took another drink from the pot. “OK, I was gonna sugarcoat this, but you’ve already seen what happened in reception, so I might as well be blunt. Have people been hitting on you since you woke up?”
“Erm...”
“I’ll take that as a yes. And I was gonna ask if you’d taken any of them up on it, but as badly as you’re blushing, I think I know that answer as well. No need to explain, almost everyone’s been behaving like that since September.”
“September?“
“Yeah. ”
“So why haven’t we been...I mean, I guess you weren’t affected by whatever...or do you even know?”
She paused for a moment. “Yeah, but it’s a long, gory....” Her answer faded out as she turned toward the multiple TVs in the corner of the room—yeah, they were all tuned to different channels, just like in the movies—and her head gradually tilted sideways.
Then I turned around to watch the TVs, and the next thing I knew, my head was tilted sideways. “Um, is that angle even possible?”
Natalie’s head flipped to a different angle in sync with the TV action (and so did mine). “Until a few seconds ago, I would have said no, especially not at his age”—she nodded at the screen—“but unless C-SPAN2’s gone CGI instead of live-action...”
I laughed until her words and the network logo on the news ticker finally clicked, and I realized why the room on the TV screen looked familiar. “Wait, is he really doing it with—whoever that is—on the Senate floor?”
“His wife, I think.” Just then, we got a better view of the woman’s face on TV. “Yeah, wife. I met them here at some Senators’ breakfast thing a few weeks ago. They were carrying on then too, come to think of it, but not like this.” We both kept staring at the screen.
“But the Senate floor?”
“Looks more like a desk on the Senate floor to me, but yeah. In fact, I think it’s...” She peered a little closer. “Yeah. Daniel Webster’s desk. Damn, I didn’t think that was allowed.”
“Sex on the Senate floor, or sex on Daniel Webster’s desk?”
“Either one, knowing Senate rules. Especially since the Webster desk isn’t even his.”
We watched the Senatorial acrobatics a bit longer. “So is this why shit actually seems to be getting accomplished in Congress now without all the gridlock?”
“Yeah, probably.”
She didn’t sound quite as bemused as before, so I turned away from the TV to look at her. She looked tired and old, almost as old as the couple doing the horizontal tango—at least sometimes they were horizontal—on the Webster desk.
She caught me looking and put a smile back on, not without effort. “You really think things are working better now?”
“Yeah. It’s nice to have people talking civilly and doing something useful again instead of screaming at each other and posing for sound bites and opinion polls.”
Now her smile was a little less forced, and she nodded toward the C-SPAN2 TV. “You think this is useful?”
“Compared to before? Yeah. I mean, everyone was still screaming over health care when I, uh, when the wreck happened. I don’t know what the hell happened while I was out, or how it got worked out, or who won the health care fight, but you have no idea what a relief it was to wake up in a hospital to find out something got worked out somehow.” As I talked, her eyes seemed to mist over a bit. “Besides, at least everyone seems to be screwing around with their own spouses and partners, instead of mistresses or interns or—”
Natalie burst out laughing, which also seemed to stop the misty-eyed look. “OK. Time to stop watching the Senior Olympics, and....” Unfortunately, we both made the mistake of glancing at the TV just as the Senator and his wife were...were...OK, I’ve seen the video a few times since, and I still don’t know what that position’s called.
After they got themselves out of that position—still don’t know how, either—she turned away from the TV, shuddered, and said, “Anyway. Let’s get you to the interview; I think I know where she’s holding them.” She led me back through the Oval Office and through the hallways, turning here and there; at one point, she looked over her shoulder and said, “I don’t know how she thought you’d be able to find the right office—never mind. Ralph. She wasn’t thinking.”
Finally, she stopped at a door and reached for the handle, but stopped herself. She motioned for quiet as she listened at the door. The quiet wasn’t necessary; a few seconds later, we both heard the sounds. And a few seconds after that, we both stopped pretending we couldn’t recognize the sounds, and she quietly motioned me back the way we came.
“Her husband,” Natalie explained once we were out of earshot. “They like to go out for lunch, except sometimes they never quite make it out of her office. Looks like they took another long in-office ‘lunch’ hour again, which is why she wasn’t looking for you—sorry about that.”
“Should I go back to the lobby and wait, or...” I wanted to ask, “Should I go back to the lobby and watch Ralph work his magic on the receptionist until my interviewer and her husband finish working their magic on each other,” but I couldn’t come up with a nice way to phrase it.
“No need. Come back to my office, and I’ll see what I can do.”
Seemed kinda odd to hear a grad-school intern-research-special-assignment-whatever in sweats speak of the Oval Office study as her office, but I figured people probably get blase about the place once they’ve worked there long enough. “If you don’t mind, that’s great, but I don’t want to interrupt your work...”
“No, actually, I think I can go ahead and get paperwork going for you.”
“Paperwork to reschedule my interview?”
“No, actually, it’s, uh, some of the secondary paperwork that goes with the process. Security clearance, appendices to the application, that sort of thing.”
Once we got back to the study, I asked Natalie, “So, you said you’ve got a theory as to why all this is going on?”
“Yeah. You?”
“Well, it’s more of an observation than a theory, but...is it me, or are politics making people horny?”
Natalie laughed. “I wasn’t sure if you’d had the chance to see that, but no, it’s not just you. Kinda obvious from the news and C-SPAN, huh?”
“Well, yeah, I know the politicians and the media can’t keep their hands off each other, but—sorry, that came out wrong—”
“Actually, I’ve seen a few politicians and media types hook up with other—yes, on camera!”
“Great. Now I’m getting a mental image about Meet the Press—thanks!”
“I take it you haven’t watched Meet the Press since you woke up?” She grinned over her coffee pot.
“Um...don’t even wanna think about it. Anyway, what I meant to say, it’s not just the professionals that are running wild. Seems like everyone turns horny whenever the conversation turns to politics or news! Except us, I mean.”
“No, you’re right. That’s what I’m seeing too. Any idea why?”
I shook my head. “Not a clue. I thought maybe one party or the other had figured out a way to break the deadlock through sex, but as far as I can tell, both sides are equally horny. The compromises seem to be pretty equally balanced too, so no one’s getting the advantage there, as far as I can tell. Like I said, other than the constant sex, everything simply seems to be running a lot more smoothly now. Has anyone tried to do anything about it—the sex thing, I mean, not everything running smoothly?”
“I don’t think anyone has...geez, this is embarrassing,” Natalie said as she realized she’d drained her coffee pot in the short time we’d been together. “Here, let me fix you some coffee before I drink it all again—I’ve got a clean pot, don’t worry!”
“No, I’m good, I want to be ready for the interview—”
“Don’t worry about her“—she nodded in the direction of my interviewer’s office as she grabbed another pot from a shelf under the table—“I think we can work around that.” She waved the pot. “Be right back!”
“No, really, I don’t need—” But she kept going, and once again, I was alone in the West Wing of the White House.
Fortunately, I didn’t have much time to worry about something breaking or the Moscow Hot Line ringing—yeah, yeah, I knew the Hot Line didn’t work that way, but I wasn’t thinking clearly at the time—because she quickly came back with the pot full of water. “Like I was saying, I don’t think anyone even realizes anything’s wrong—you’re the first person I’ve met who’s said anything!” She quickly got the pot prepped and brewing as if she’d done it thousands of times before. As quickly as she went through the last pot, she probably had. “So I’ve been trying to figure out what to do in my copious spare time, whatever that is.”
“But why you?”
She suddenly looked older again. “Partially because...I didn’t start here in the White House. I was doing psychology research with NIH—that’s my real field, not this”—she waved her hand around the office—“when things got weird. I was the only one in the office who was actually still working without constant sexy-time breaks, so they asked me if I could do this, that or whatever. So my workload started piling up, and next thing I knew, I was getting transferred to help out in higher and higher offices because I was actually getting things done without non-stop quickies, and then my boss—whoever my boss was by that point, I lost track with all the transfers—had some meeting here, and he mentioned my name and how good I’d been with my work under the circumstances, and that got the White House’s attention because they were having the same problem—as you’ve noticed—and I got transferred from NIH to here. Where I’m doing everyone’s work.”
“Wow. I know this is gonna be a tourist question, but how much contact do you have with him?” I nodded toward the Oval Office. “Or is the study where you usually work?”
“Naw, they’re all at Camp David. More quality time with the First Lady—surprise, surprise. That’s why I use the study—fewer distractions back here when the big boss is out.”
“Ah. And meanwhile, you’re trying to figure out who caused this mess because you’re the only person around here not getting laid 24/7.”
“No. I’m trying to figure out how to fix this mess because I’m the only person around here not getting laid 24/7. I already know who caused it.” Natalie took a deep breath before quietly adding, “Me.”