“Yes, sir, it was in the motorcade; we’ll get something sent up. One of Charlie’s agents is en route with his and Miss Morgan’s clothing; they’ll be here in an hour. Another has taken possession of the motorcycle pending the investigation.”
Megan looked confused. “What investigation?”
I knew the answer already, but I nodded to the agent to explain. “The President’s son was injured while the President was present. Was it an accident? Or was it part of a plot to get the President somewhere he was vulnerable? There will be an investigation.”
“That’s crazy! He landed on a downed bike!”
“That will also be investigated.”
Before Megan could say anything, I laid a hand on her arm. “Don’t worry. I am sure that it was an accident. These guys are professional paranoids, but they have to be. They simply have to investigate everything. I was almost killed a year ago. It kind of goes with the territory.”
The agent nodded and moved away. Next through the door were Frank and Will, both of whom came up and asked how Charlie was doing. I gave the ‘I don’t know’ speech again, and Will took off to find a doctor. Frank simply went to work with the weekend administrator and talking on his phone. I just ignored them. I turned my head to Megan and said, “I think we are going to be here for a bit. Tell me about Megan Morgan.”
“Me?” came out in a squeaky soprano.
I smiled and nodded. “You just landed on the front page of every newspaper in America. What are they going to be reporting about you?”
“What!?”
“Welcome to the nightmare. Oh, crap, that reminds me, I have to call the girls!” I grabbed a phone and called Holly and Molly. I told them what happened, and what we knew so far, which was diddly, and they both promised to get out there by that evening. Molly would bring Bucky with her. After hanging up with both of them, I told Frank to make it happen, and he didn’t even blink, but just grabbed his own phone.
Doctor Tubb returned a minute later and reported that Charlie was in surgery. We should expect something more in about an hour. After that, I looked back at Megan and said, “Now, where were we? You were going to tell me how you met Charlie.”
She gave me an odd look. “How do you do that?”
“Hmmm?”
“Switching back and forth like that, how do you do it? It’s like you are running five different conversations in your head!”
“Ahhh, yes, that.” I nodded and shrugged. “It drives Marilyn nuts, too. It’s just how I cope. In this job, if you can’t manage your time and compartmentalize things, you will be very unhappy and not get much done. It’s just the way it is. Not everybody can do it. Marilyn certainly can’t.”
“It seems so… so…”
“Cold blooded?” Megan didn’t answer, but I could see in her eyes she agreed with me. “Don’t worry, I’ve heard it before, from my own wife. It is simply how I manage to cope with everything. I just keep everything separate. I don’t mix business with home, although in this job you have to. Still, I try. It doesn’t always work, but I try. Tell me about your folks. What do they do?”
For the next hour or so, I got Megan to open up and tell me about her life, although every five or ten minutes I had to turn that part of my life off and turn back into the President for a few minutes. She basically told me what I had already learned about her. After a bit, I simply told her, “I need to ask a very personal question. Are you and Charlie serious? About each other, I mean.”
“Yes, I think so.”
“You think so? Please, I am not trying to be rude, but I was not kidding when I said you were about to be on the front pages of newspapers. You saw some of the hoopla over Molly’s wedding. Charlie is much better known than my girls are.”
She smiled at that. “He kind of likes the attention, you know. Anyway, yes, I think we are getting serious. I mean, he hasn’t asked me to marry him, but we are both being exclusive about each other. During the spring he told me that he had never dated a girl more than a few weeks before, and we were already at four months by then. I had to laugh at that.”
I smiled. “That’s pretty much been my son’s pattern, as long as I’ve known him. What about you? How do you feel?”
“It’s strange, but I feel the same way. No, I never swapped boyfriends every few weeks, but there is something there. I think I knew it back in the summer. Listen, have you ever heard of the casting couch?” she asked.
I looked askance at her. “You mean, in Hollywood?” She nodded. “What, having to do a, what do you call it, a ‘horizontal audition’ to get a job? That’s real?”
“Yeah. I mean, it’s only that blatant with some of the slimier producers and directors, and I always managed to stay away from them. Still, there’s a more subtle version. Maybe you get an invite to a dinner or a party as a date, and everybody knows how the date is going to end, that sort of thing. Charlie knew I was auditioning for this one role on a sitcom, and he knew I had been to various parties, but he never really understood some of what happens behind the scenes. I mean, I could have told him it was simply something I needed to attend, and never told him what was really involved, and maybe I could have landed the spot, and he might never have known what happened, but I didn’t. I turned down the date and spent the weekend with Charlie, and I never thought twice about it. My agent was furious, but I didn’t want to have to lie to Charlie.”
She looked kind of guilty about admitting to some of what happened in Hollywood, and by implication, some of what she had participated in. I simply reached out and squeezed her hand. “Megan, I am the last guy to start casting judgment. Charlie’s no saint, and before I met Marilyn, I wasn’t one, either. If I had to rank the virtues, I would rank fidelity considerably higher than chastity. Regardless of what you two did before you met, if you can hold your head up after, that’s just fine with me and Marilyn.”
She looked relieved at that. Marilyn kept snoozing on the gurney, and now began to snore loudly. Megan’s eyes widened, and she turned to stare at the First Lady of the United States snoring like a drunken lumberjack. I simply grinned at her and said, “We all have our crosses to bear. There’s mine!”
“That’s awful!”
“Marilyn would agree, and then punch me.”
There was a bit of commotion at the door, and Doctor Tubb came in with another doctor, this one in some clean scrubs. Tubb brought him over and introduced him. “Mister President, this is Doctor Whiteman. He was the lead surgeon for your son.”
“Mister President,” he said, glancing over at Marilyn snoring in the corner. “Uh, should we wake Mrs. Buckman?”
I glanced at him and Tubb, and then over at Marilyn. “Doctor, it’s probably best if you tell me first. This is Megan Morgan, Charlie’s girlfriend. How bad is he?”
“He’s going to make it, Mister President. He’s in rough shape, but he’s going to make it.”
The entire room let out a collective sigh of relief. At that, we sat down at the conference table, and Will and Frank joined us. The lead agent also sat down. I introduced them and explained they needed to know what was happening. Then we got into the specifics. “Your son is still unconscious, but that’s a good thing for now. There are two separate issues here. The first is that he has a lot of bone damage. It looks like he was lying on his left side when everybody landed on top of him. Almost all the damage is on his right side. His right arm is broken in a couple of places, and his right leg is broken in at least five more.” I cringed at that. “Worst of all is that he has multiple broken ribs, a condition known as a flail chest. That’s pretty serious. Because of the way the ribs hold the chest muscles in place, your son is on a ventilator for the time being; we are worried about a possible pneumothorax. That’s where his lung begins to collapse. We have his bones stabilized for now. All of this will require some extensive surgery and a lengthy rehabilitation, but it’s not medically the most serious issue.”