Heather had been put in charge of this silly little parade, which was officially the Inauguration of the Fiftieth President. By counting Shaunsen, the boss gets a significant-looking number—and he wanted that. I don’t know if he’s becoming more presidential, but his marketing instincts are getting sharper. Maybe that is becoming more presidential.
Ramirez would be leading and conducting the New National Band, and the only evidence he had that all his hard work mattered was Heather’s interest—which I’m faking as hard as I can, so I sure hope it works. All she knew about music was that it came out of funny-looking machines, and you didn’t want to marry the people who made it.
They decided without much fuss that the band would play whatever songs popped into Ramirez’s head along the two-mile route of the march, “America the Beautiful” as they passed the reviewing stand, “Hail to the Chief” when Graham went up to the rostrum, and “The Star-Spangled Banner” just after the Pledge of Allegiance.
“Remind everyone of the word change on that one,” Heather said.
“One indivisible nation under God,” he said. “We’ve been practicing. Nobody’s told us why.”
“Because Graham Weisbrod is a fussy old professor, and grammatically that’s closer to right, and there are a large number of people, some with guns, out there, who have doubts about whether we are really one indivisible nation, so we’re supposed to say we are. And Graham says that ‘under God’ was wedged in there in the first place, decades after the Pledge was written, because a lot of Rebs who wouldn’t admit they’d lost the war wanted to separate the ideas of ‘indivisible’ and ‘nation.’”
Ramirez glanced around first, and kept his voice low. “You’ve known President Weisbrod a long time?”
“Twenty-one years. More than half my life.”
“Do you think he’s up to the job?”
“I think he’ll do his absolute best to do it,” except of course when he’s reveling in having his ego massaged—and whatever else Allie is massaging for him.
Meow, she self-critiqued. She knew that wasn’t completely fair, and hell, a few months ago, if Graham had found a younger, intelligent girlfriend like Allie… Well, but I have to clean up the mess that this made of Arnie to keep our Genius in Chief functioning, and deal with Allie’s complete devotion to Graham’s career; used to be he had a chief of staff who would tell him when he was being an idiot, not encourage it. It seems dumb in an egotistical way, Graham, I just want to say that to you and have you listen, I just want you to consider it.
“I guess that’s all we can really ask of anyone,” the bandleader said.
His words fit her thought so well that it took her a moment to retrace the conversation. “I wish I knew for sure that Graham Weisbrod’s best would be as much as we need. I wasn’t really trying to evade your question, or not much, anyway. It’s just that there’s three questions behind it. Will Graham do his best? He always has, as long as I’ve known him.” Crossed fingers. “Will his best be good enough for the job? I wish I knew.” Crossed till the knuckles bleed. “And could anyone’s best be good enough to do the job, or is it just impossible? Only God knows that.” And You’ d better be crossing Your fingers, too.
The man nodded. “Well, tell him we all pray for him to succeed.”
“He knows, but I’ll tell him again.”
Comparatively, arranging the Rangers was easy; they knew how to march, they all knew where they were going, they’d march there. “I don’t think we can get lost,” Captain Parmenter said, grinning. “We know we’re between the band and the screaming junkpile.”
She grinned back. “Thanks for giving me a one-minute break between people with difficulties. Congratulations on the unit honor and I’m going to applaud my brains out when you receive it.”
Her next stop was at the “screaming junkpile”—the experimental coal-dust turbine car from Evergreen State that was going to be carrying the mayor, the governor, and the base commander from Lewis. Its best feature was also its worst; the experiment with putting a damped hydraulic into a double-bowed axle, so that the whole thing could run on steel-rimmed wheels, seemed to be working, but with only a greased axle for a bearing, it made a horrendous grinding squeal. At least it would keep people from noticing any mistakes by the band. Actually it could easily keep people from noticing a fire engine, an air raid, and Rainier erupting.
The two engineering professors in charge of it were warming it up, so it was hard to hear each other over the whoosh and howl of its exhaust, but she figured they knew that they were supposed to follow the Rangers and not drop back where their foul blue exhaust might annoy the president, who would be riding with General McIntyre, the new Secretary of the Armed Forces, in a ceremonial coach, pulled from a museum, in which an early governor of Washington had once ridden.
And if Allie is in there with them, I’m going to rip her hair off to use for wadding when I ram her puny tits down her throat. The least he could do is make a First Lady of her; they should be thinking about how it looks to have the Chief of Staff be the presidential skank. Whoa, that thought came naturally. Guess I’ll have to keep working on those professionalism and civility issues. Maybe HR will offer a seminar or something.
Behind Graham Weisbrod and Norm McIntyre, there would be a wagon with the rest of the Cabinet-To-Be, mostly politicians with a scattering of professors and businesspeople, all from Washington and Oregon.
Heather made sure the new Cabinet were all there, ready to “walk and wave.” Heather told them that as far as she was concerned, it would be fine if Commerce and Future held hands during the parade; made sure Education’s backup wheelchair would stay within easy reach; and reassured Treasury and Foreign Relations that this wasn’t too much like a circus coming to town. Not too much. Actually I’m afraid it may not be enough.
Wonder if anyone will even notice that Graham Weisbrod reorganized and renamed half the jobs in the Cabinet? Let alone that he should have waited for Congress to do that, that it’s their prerogative.
After the Cabinet, there was the agglomeration of volunteer organizations and units whose positions Heather had allocated by rolling dice, which she privately thought of as the Department of Everything Else: everyone who just wanted to be in the first inaugural parade ever held in the new national capital. There were Boy Scout troops, fragmentary high-school bands, and the GLBT Small Apple Growers (it had become clearer once she realized that it was the farm, not the apple, that was small); several unions, veterans’ associations, and the Daughters of the World Wars; antique machinery buffs driving steam combines and highwheels, a diving salvage company that was pledging to be the “first back in the water,” and the “Portland to Reno Reconstituted Pony Express, Orphans Preferred.” She wasn’t sure she wanted to speculate about how you reconstituted a pony.