“So where’s he at?” Jimmie said. “The president.”
“Most days, he’ll be right on the other side of that door with the brass T on it, in the Oval Office. Right now, however, he’s in a meeting with his top-level advisors. Once we have your dot-gov e-mail set up, you’ll be receiving daily updates with President Trump’s schedule. I don’t think I have to tell you how important it is to keep this information to yourself. If somebody-some outside agitator-were to get ahold of such vital information…”
“Understood,” he said. “My lips are sealed.”
“You built an entire career out of digging up dirt on celebrities. I strongly doubt it was a one-way street. There’s a fair amount of trading gossip in your line of work, am I right?”
He didn’t say anything.
“I’m not judging you,” she said. “It’s not my call, anyway-it’s the president’s. And you’re his guy. We had to give up considerable assets to bring you home. The relationship between our countries is strained at the moment, as you’re well aware. President Trump sent me to personally negotiate the transaction.”
“What’d they want for me?”
“Adam Sandler.”
Jimmie nodded. Depending on your comedic sensibilities, America had either gotten the better of Mexico or been ripped off. “You said the president is a fan of mine. What about you? Have you read my stuff?”
“What I think is irrelevant.”
“Just out of curiosity, what do you think?”
She leaned forward. He could see that her blue eyes were shaded with green. “What do I think? I think-”
The door behind Jimmie flew open, startling him. He turned to see a man clad in a sharp gray suit whose pits were sopping wet.
“We have a situation,” the man said. “And it rhymes with ‘muclear.’”
Chapter Seven
First Impressions Are Everything
Jimmie’s pulse shot through the gold-trimmed ceiling, but Emma was nonplussed. Maybe there was another word that rhymed with “muclear” besides the obvious. “Heather Locklear” almost rhymed. So did “Spooktacular.” Had Heather Locklear pulled out of this year’s White House Spooktacular?
“You couldn’t have just phoned me?” Emma said. “I’m in the middle of something.”
“Your phone went straight to voice mail,” the man said. “The Security Council is convening in the Boardroom right now.”
She found her phone in her desk drawer. “Could somebody dig up Steve Jobs’s corpse and get it to make a phone that doesn’t need to be charged every six hours?”
“We can find out who’s in charge of Apple now and put some pressure on them,” the man said. “Or, better yet, we can draft a bill mandating batteries on smartphones last seventy-two hours. And if they don’t do it, we punch them in the face.” He pulled out his own iPhone. “Hey, Siri, tell the CEO of Apple to call the White House pronto.”
The phone beeped, and Siri’s voice replied, “I’ve added it to his schedule for tomorrow at three PM eastern time.”
The man caught Jimmie’s astonished expression. “Come on,” the guy said. “The amount of data these things collect on you-of course that works.”
Emma tossed her phone back into the drawer. “Corey, I’d like you to meet Jimmie Bernwood. You’ll be seeing him around quite a bit-he’s President Trump’s new ghostwriter. Jimmie, this is Corey Lewandowski, the press secretary. You may remember him as President Trump’s campaign manager. Or maybe not.”
Lewandowski crushed Jimmie’s hand. “You’ve got some pretty big shoes to fill,” the man said. Then he turned to Emma: “We’ve really got to hustle. They’re waiting-”
“Fine, fine,” she said, following Lewandowski out the door in a huff.
Jimmie watched them leave. He flexed the fingers of his right hand, trying to regain feeling. What was he supposed to do now? He didn’t have a desk of his own, as far as he knew. She’d talked about setting him up with an e-mail, so he assumed he should find someone in their IT department. Even though he was sitting just a few steps away from the president of the United States’ office, he was struck with déjà vu. It was that Not only do I have no idea what’s going on here, but I’m also not entirely sure anybody else knows, either feeling.
Emma poked her head back into the office. “Well, are you coming?”
“He said something about a Security Council?” Jimmie asked. He swallowed a burp. “That sounds top secret. I didn’t think I’d have clearance.”
“That badge on your lanyard gives you the same clearance as the POTUS.”
He fingered the badge. His clearance level was listed as “ORANGE.” Just underneath a terrible picture of his face. Or maybe it wasn’t the picture that was terrible-maybe it was his face. Shaving the beard had done him wonders, but there was that Sarah Palin saying: You can’t put lipstick on a pig. Jimmie had grown up in rural Iowa, and damned if he didn’t know that to be the truth.
“What’s POTUS?” he asked, trailing Emma into the hallway.
“You really don’t follow politics, do you? POTUS,” she explained, “stands for President of Trump’s United States.”
Jimmie had the same security clearance as the president. The president of the United States. He couldn’t believe it. Somebody had to have screwed up.
While they were waiting at the mirrored doors of the elevator, who to his wandering eyes should appear but Cat Diaz. She was on the warpath, absorbed in her phone, when she glanced at Jimmie out of the corner of her eye. She returned to her screen but immediately did a double take and slammed on the brakes.
“Jimmie,” she said. There was a look of confusion on her face.
“Cat,” he said. “You work here now? That’s crazy, meeting like this.”
Her gaze went straight down to his badge. As she read his clearance level, her brow only furrowed further.
My eyes are up here, he almost said but thought better of it. He was staring into her cleavage like it was the abyss.
“I’d heard you dropped off the grid,” Cat said, looking up at him.
“Turns out, if you want to buy a clean pair of boxers, you need to get back on the grid.”
The elevator opened behind him. “You can catch up later,” Emma said, shoving him in so hard he almost knocked over the bonsai tree on the decorated pillar in the corner.
Jimmie gave a little wave to Cat as the doors slid shut. He had no idea why he’d brought up his boxers, but all in all, not a bad chance encounter. He was looking forward to catching up later-not romantically, of course. He kind of had an eye on Emma. Was there a Mr. Universe in the picture?
Emma pressed the button marked “B.”
“The White House has a basement?” Jimmie asked.
“Why wouldn’t it?”
“I don’t know, I thought it was like the Alamo.”
“The Alamo has a basement,” she said. “It’s a secret military facility. If you ever visit, take your badge along, and they’ll be happy to give you the full tour.”
“Next thing you know, you’ll be telling me there are aliens at Area 51.”
The elevator lurched. Jimmie’s stomach fluttered.
“There aren’t any aliens at Area 51,” Emma said, staring ahead as they descended. “We keep them at Area 61.”
“What’s at Area 51, then?”
“Souvenir shops, mostly,” she replied, “and the frozen bigfoot corpse. But in 2021, the biggest Trump casino yet.”
Before he could ask if she was kidding, the elevator came to an abrupt stop. Jimmie’s stomach capsized. Its contents catapulted up his esophagus with violent speed. The doors slid open, and Jimmie Bernwood showered the president of the United States of America with half-digested rice and beans.