IN NEW YORK, in a penthouse atop a building that looked out over Central Park, the phone rang.
Pepper Cartwright opened her eyes, looked warily at the beside clock. 8:49. On a Saturday? She looked over at Buddy. Sound asleep. He’d come in after she’d gone to bed. As usual. This marriage needed to sit down and have a little talk about things.
She looked at the caller ID display. NSF THURMONT. What in hell was NSF Thurmont? She closed her eyes and listened.
“Hello. It’s Donald Vanderdamp-the President-calling for Judge Cartwright.” Pepper opened one eye and looked at the machine. “Would she be kind enough to call me back at 202-456-1414. Thanks very much. If it’s not inconvenient, perhaps she could call back at her earliest-”
Pepper picked up. “Hello? Who is this?”
“Judge Cartwright? Screening your calls. Can’t say as I blame you. I know it’s early, but I really would like to speak with you…”
He talked on as Pepper thumbed a Google search on her BlackBerry with her other hand. NSF Thurmont…
The first match came up: “ Camp David -Wikipedia, the free encylopedia.”
“Jesus Christ,” Pepper said, sitting bolt upright.
“Beg pardon?” said the President.
FOUR HOURS LATER she was in a U.S. Army helicopter descending onto the helipad of Naval Support Facility Thurmont, better known as Camp David, in the Cactoctin Mountains of Maryland, sixty miles north of Washington.
Through the window she saw aides waiting by a golf cart. She looked at her watch. Normally at about this time she might be meeting the girls for a Bloody Mary brunch, then squeezing in some Pilates. She wasn’t sure what she was doing here. The President wouldn’t say exactly what it was over the phone, only that it was “highly confidential.”
“Welcome to Camp David, Judge,” one of the aides greeted her. “The President is expecting you.”
The President is expecting you. She felt fluttery. She climbed into the golf cart, which made her feel somewhat ridiculous, like she was being given a VIP tour of Disney World. The aide, accustomed to nervousness in visitors, said, “My wife watches Courtroom Six every chance she gets.”
Moments later she found herself in a room that she recognized from news photos. It was paneled in knotty pine. In the news photos it was usually filled with world leaders wearing forced smiles, knowing that they’d been invited here to have their arms twisted while being fed navy hamburgers. Versailles, Camp David was not.
And there, suddenly, he was. The President of the United States. She’d never met one in person. He looked smaller than he did on TV. Bland-but-nice-looking. It was difficult to imagine him commanding huge armies and fleets, much less nuclear missiles. What was that he was wearing? Oh, my God. A silk bowling jacket embroidered: CAMP DAVID BOWLING LEAGUE.
“Judge Cartwright,” he said, grinning, shaking her hand. “I am sincerely sorry for interrupting your weekend like this.”
“No, that’s all right, sir,” Pepper said.
“Coffee?”
“No, thank you.”
“Well,” he said
“Well,” Pepper said.
“Do you bowl?”
The first moments of a presidential audience can be nerve-racking. Pepper froze. Had he just asked her if she wanted a bowl of something?
“A bowl, sir? Of…?”
“No,” he said, beaming, “bowling.”
“Oh. Sure. It’s been a while, but… yeah. Great. Why not?”
And so she found herself following the leader of the free world down a flight of steps. They were tailed by two silent men of football-player physique with earpieces. The President was saying something. Was he talking to himself, or her? He gave the impression of a man who might talk to himself. No, he was apparently talking to her.
“I bring world leaders down here. You can just see them rolling their eyes and thinking, Oh, my gosh, what a rube this guy is!” He chuckled. “But then what happens is-they love it. Just love it. Turns them into kids. Bowling isn’t that big in other countries. Though I’m working on that. Sometimes you have to drag them away, they’re having such a good time. Even the French president. Bet you he went home and told everyone at the Elysée Palace that the President of the United States is a bumpkin. But I will tell you for a fact that he couldn’t get enough of it. Now, I like the French. My staff is always telling me I can’t say anything nice about them in public. But I don’t listen to that. I went to France last year. And when I got there, the very first thing I did was to go lay a wreath on Lafayette’s grave-just like Pershing did in 1917. Did you know he’s buried under earth from Bunker Hill? I get choked up just thinking about that. Some of the French papers got their noses out of joint and said I was just trying to rub it in that we pulled their bacon out of the fire in World War One. And Two, of course. But that’s not why I did it. Nosiree, Bob. Wanted to pay my respects-and the respects of this country-to a great man. My staff, well, let me tell you, they had conniptions. But you can’t let the staff rule your life. Oh, no,” he said, as if savoring some hard-earned private wisdom. “No, no, no.”
She now found herself standing in complete blackness. He flicked on a switch and suddenly the room they were in was illuminated to reveal a single-lane bowling alley.
“Ahh,” he said, as if being massaged. “This makes all the rest of it worthwhile. Now, what size are you?”
“Size, sir?” What in hell was he talking about now?
“Shoe.”
The most powerful man in the world disappeared into a closet and reemerged, holding a pair of ladies bowling shoes, size eight. The shoes were red, white, and blue and had little eagles on the toes.
“I designed them myself,” he said, adding, “if you don’t mind, please don’t share that particular detail. I’ve got enough problems these days without the press having a grand old snicker about me spending my spare time-not that I have any-designing patriotic bowling shoes.”
“Not a word, sir.”
“It’s so gosh darn nice and quiet down here,” he said. “You wouldn’t know if the whole world was blowing up. Of course, they’d tell me if it were. They wake me up eighteen times a night to tell me things I’d just as soon not know. But I guess that comes with the plane and the limousine and the free housing. Well, Judge, here we are. Now, would I be correct in thinking that you’re saying to yourself, ‘What in the name of heck am I doing here and what does he want?’ ”
“That would be… yes, sir. It is crossing my mind about now.”
The President smiled and said, “I want to nominate you to the Supreme Court.”
Pepper stared. “The Supreme Court of… what, sir?”
“The United States.”
The President picked up a bowling ball, lined up his shot with care, and rolled his ball down the lane. It knocked down all but the two pins on either side. “Heartbreaking sight, the split,” he said. “Happened to Michaels at the Bayer Classic last week. He just couldn’t seem to find the pocket. Don’t suppose you…”
“No, sir, I missed that.”
“Heck of a tournament. Seat of the pants stuff. Bob Reppert made six X’s in a row.”
“Must have been quite something.”
“Oh, it was.”
The President bowled again, knocking down the tenpin.
“Big difference between nine and a spare. And here I was hoping to impress you. Your lane, Judge.”
Pepper’s first ball went into the gutter. The second one rolled slowly down the lane off center and knocked down all the pins, so slowly they seemed to go down one by one.
“Oh, beautiful, Judge. Beautiful. Sit down for a moment. You saw what happened to my last two nominees to the Court?”