Dreamspinner Press Year Nine Greatest Hits

by Michael Murphy

  David took a deep breath before extracting his cell phone from his coat pocket. The number he needed was on speed dial. This was not a call he was looking forward to making. He could give bad news—he did it every day if needed—but this was bad news to someone he really, really liked and respected.

  “Jacques, it’s David. I’m so sorry, but it looks like we’re not going to make it tonight after all. Gray’s been pulled into some sort of urgent situation. I thought it would be quick, but it’s still going on. I’m so sorry to do this.”

  David heard a sigh on the other end of the line. “I understand,” Jacques told David. “These things happen. I can’t talk now. I need to put a bunch of tables back into service since you’re not coming, and see if I can get anyone to fill them.”

  “I’m so sorry, Jacques.”

  “Don’t worry, David,” Jacques said, but David did worry. It was what he did.

  “Tell me how much income this cost you tonight, and I’ll cover the cost,” David said.

  “No, that’s all right.”

  That task completed, David headed back upstairs to the residence. While some might view living in the White House as luxurious, to David it felt more like living in a formal prison than anything else.

  Nights like this he desperately missed his old house and especially the life he had once shared with Gray while living in that house. The White House was too much like a museum and not enough like a home for his taste.

  With his clothes changed, David knew he had to get something to eat—he was starving. Still learning how things worked, David didn’t know if he’d be able to get something from the kitchen. After all, they’d told the butler and the kitchen staff that they’d be going out and wouldn’t need anything for the remainder of the evening.

  Rather than call, David just walked downstairs to see if there was anyone there and to see if someone could prepare something quick and simple for his dinner. Rather than go back upstairs to eat by himself, David took a seat at a counter in the kitchen and, when his food was ready, ate it right there.

  He took his time, eating slowly, enjoying the food, but at the same time missing the tastes he had been prepared for that didn’t happen. Afterward he snagged a quart of his favorite ice cream and a spoon and headed back upstairs to the residence, where he stretched out on the sofa, turned on the television, and slowly started eating the ice cream. “Happy anniversary,” he muttered to himself as he took the first bite of the ice cream.

  Two and a half hours after they were supposed to leave for dinner, Gray finally reappeared, rushing into the residence living room and breathing heavily from having run all the way up the stairs. He was immediately apologizing.

  “David, babe, I’m so sorry. I couldn’t…. It was way too involved. I wanted…. I’m so sorry.”

  “It’s not your fault, Gray. You can’t control when these things happen,” David told him, his tone neutral.

  “I’m so sorry. I know how much this meant to you.”

  Without even looking at Gray, David quietly commented, “I thought it meant a lot to both of us, not just to me. As I recall, it was your suggestion that we go out, so I think it would be more accurate to say that it meant a lot to us. If that isn’t correct, then I’d like to know, because it changes how I’ve been thinking about things. Today is our anniversary, not just mine, but yours and mine.” David’s emphatic reaction seemed to catch Gray by surprise.

  “Yes, it did. It does. I’m sorry. Poor choice of words. I apologize. Is it too late to go now?”

  “Yes. I cancelled the reservation several hours ago. They’re probably about to close for the night.”

  “We’ll find another night and we’ll go,” Gray said.

  “Not there, we won’t,” David said.

  “What do you mean?” Gray said.

  “You do know, don’t you, that we can’t go back there again.”

  “Why not?” Gray asked, clearly not understanding what David was saying. “It’s your favorite place,” he protested. “Of course we’ll go back there.”

  “Do you know how disruptive the impending arrival of a President of the United States is for a small restaurant and its owner? The agents had to go on-site in advance to inspect the place and to secure the location. They had to do their job, but it made a major disruption to the owner’s day, not to mention to his income because he had to take half his tables out of service tonight for our presence—and then after all that, we didn’t even show up. Put yourself in his shoes for a minute, Gray. Would you want to go through that again to maybe have us there? They paid the price and got none of the benefit of having you as a guest.”

  “Having us,” Gray tried to correct.

  “No, Gray. This time it’s you. It’s you that they care about, and you know that. You bring them status. I’m irrelevant. And that’s fine. I don’t want to live my life in front of the cameras.”

  “Babe, you’re wrong. You are the husband of the President of the United States. Sure, I would bring them attention, but don’t minimize your role. You would do the same. And remember, it was you that knew of the place when we met. You took me there. You’ve been going there longer than I have.”

  “But you’re now the President. You bring them status. You are free advertising for them. I can’t do that for them. Having the President of the United States dine in his restaurant would pay huge dividends for Jacques in the future. All they associate with me now is conveying the bad news that after all that work we’re not coming.”

  “It’s both of us,” Gray argued. “Sure, they want me, but you are the First Gentleman, so you bring clout by your presence as well. But I’m sorry about this evening.”

  “I know,” David said. “Gray, call downstairs and get something sent up to eat while there’s still someone on duty in the kitchen.”

  “I hope you’ve eaten,” Gray told him.

  “Yes, I did, but you haven’t, and it’s getting quite late.”

  “I had a sandwich about an hour ago.”

  The remainder of their evening was subdued, very quiet, conversation kept to an absolute minimum.

  “I’m so sorry I’ve made this problem worse, and today especially,” Gray said. David didn’t look up or acknowledge his remark in any way. “I so desperately wanted to make you feel better, to maybe help you shake off some of the doldrums that seem to have settled over you in recent months. But all I’ve succeeded in doing is making the problem worse. Let’s go tomorrow night instead,” he suggested to David.

  Without looking at him, David answered, “Can’t. I’m teaching a senior-level seminar tomorrow evening from seven to ten. I won’t be home until sometime around eleven.”

  “Then let’s go the next night.”

  “Can’t. You’re speaking at some event at the Marriott in Bethesda that night.”

  “Then the night after that,” Gray said, sounding increasingly desperate.

  “Can’t. You’re in California.” For the first time during the present conversation, David looked up at Gray and asked, “Why is it that I know your schedule better than you do?”

  “We’ll….”

  “We’ll what?” David snapped, his bad mood finally escaping his careful mask of neutrality.

  Gray jerked back. David did not yell or get angry, so he knew doing so now was obvious to Gray.

  “We’ll find a day and a time and go out as soon as possible,” Gray said.

  “Fine, whatever,” David said neutrally, turning his attention back to the television. “You’ll have to find a new restaurant too. I leave it all up to you, Gray. Do whatever you want. I don’t care.”

  Nothing more was said the remainder of the evening about that or any other subject. Gray spent most of that evening on the telephone while David looked at the television without really seeing what it was showing.

  When Gray tried to cuddle up with David that night and kiss the back of his neck as the prelude to something more, David shoved Gray away with his elbow and told him
, “Go to sleep, Gray. I’m not in the mood.”

  “Excuse me,” Gray said, sitting up. “Who are you? The David I married couldn’t get enough.”

  “He’s with the Gray I used to know. Now go to sleep.”

  David had given Gray conclusive evidence that things were indeed desperate.

  Chapter 11—The Best Laid Plans

  IN THE days that followed their abortive attempt at going out to dinner like normal people, Gray was gone more than he was present. His travel schedule that week was especially intense. David knew that Gray seemed to thrive on the intensity of those trips, until he got back, when he crashed and slept for twelve hours.

  David had also come to realize the extent to which he was miserable and decided he had to do something about how he felt. He couldn’t wait for Gray to come riding to the rescue, but David was not about to give up who he was. He decided that rather than sit at home alone, he would use some of his time to help out some of his colleagues in the hospital.

  With nothing else to do, David volunteered to take a couple of extra shifts in the Georgetown University Hospital Emergency Room each week so some of his colleagues could go to family events, attend their kid’s soccer games, or just have a night off. Everyone benefitted. David needed to keep busy, and he’d always liked working in the ER. It kept him fresh, it kept his skills up-to-date, and he liked the wide range of situations that presented during the course of an ER shift. He’d always felt that to teach, you also had to do; you had to deal with patients and with crises. So that week, David worked a number of days in the ER, even taking one overnight shift, something he generally despised.

  It happened that the overnight shift was on the night Gray was due back from his California trip, but David knew Gray would be tired and distracted, so he saw no problem with him not being there when Gray got home.

  When he wasn’t working, David spent more time in the White House gym, sometimes working out two hours each evening. When he’d been ordered to give up his gym membership, David had spent some of their redecorating budget and had a wall knocked down upstairs to double the size of the gym. With that space, he’d ordered a bunch of equipment and now had a decent, workable gym that was set up for a variety of cardio workouts as well as all sorts of weight training.

  David also increased the time he allotted to his karate training. Those two very physical activities helped him relieve some of his pent-up frustration and anger. He didn’t like being this off base. He’d always prided himself on feeling centered, able to balance things in his life and not be easily rattled. He was quietly concerned with how much his frustration was seeping into the rest of his life, and he found the physical activity to be a perfect outlet for that negative energy.

  David also spent some time sequestered in the White House theater down on the main level, watching movies that were showing in theaters. They of course couldn’t go to a theater, but why would they want to when they had their very own theater with much more comfortable seating. He watched more movies in those weeks than he had in years, and for the first time ever was actually watching movies as they came out and could hold his own in conversations with people at work who always saw things when they first came out.

  His times with Gray, already limited by the way Gray was working and by his travel schedule, had become almost nonexistent. On the evenings when Gray was upstairs in their living quarters, it was not at all unusual to have a seemingly nonstop parade of people dropping in to consult with him on one thing or another. David quickly learned that if he wanted to read or watch television, he had to find another place to do so. It only took a couple of times of Gray asking him to turn the volume down so he could talk with someone for David to seek out an alternative.

  He found his solution upstairs on the third floor. He took over one of the guest bedrooms one floor up from their living quarters and on the same level as his gym, and converted the space into his own personal retreat, a combination home office and study. He moved all of his books there, as well as his laptop. He had a sofa moved into the space as well as a comfortable chair and a couple of reading lamps, and he added some decorative pillows and warm blankets for cool nights.

  Most evenings, whether he’d seen Gray or not, David automatically retreated to that room. When he closed the door to what he considered his own personal sanctuary, where he was out of the way, he could read uninterrupted or even watch television if he wanted to do so. Several nights he simply pulled a blanket off the back of the sofa and fell asleep there, spending the night in the room.

  One night when David returned to the residence to look for something after spending his entire evening upstairs in his study, he was surprised to find Gray sitting in the residence living room alone. Their paths had not crossed in a number of days, since David had slept upstairs the previous two nights.

  “I’m sorry,” Gray said without preamble.

  “About what?” David asked quietly.

  “About making you so unhappy.”

  David gave Gray a shy half-smile. “Don’t worry about it. I just need to learn that our lives are no longer our own, and that we can’t do what we once did. I’m learning that. I’ll get there.”

  “I want to make plans to go out to dinner with you sometime soon. I want us to spend some time together without business getting in the way. Can I have my scheduler call your office and speak with your scheduler?”

  “My what?” David asked.

  “Your scheduler? Or your secretary?” Gray tried. “Who handles your appointments, your schedule?”

  “I don’t have any of those things, Gray. You know that.”

  “I thought your office in the East Wing had staff devoted to those jobs.”

  “How should I know?”

  “What do you mean you don’t know?” Gray asked, his tone of voice irritating David.

  “I’ve never seen a need to even go over there, so I couldn’t tell you anything about what’s there or how it works.”

  “Really? Okay. Tomorrow I’ll have my scheduler call you and work out a time when we can go out to dinner.”

  “You’re assuming….” David stopped himself in midsentence, took a deep breath, and said, “Okay.”

  It took two and a half weeks to get their calendars coordinated enough for them to plan a dinner out. On the night that had been selected and scheduled, David was home from work on time, showered and changed into something he felt would work for an evening out at a restaurant.

  But when he expected Gray to return to the residence to get ready, there was no sign of the man. David was unsure how to handle the situation. He wasn’t as invested in this restaurant as he had been in the previous one, which had been his favorite restaurant in town. He didn’t know anything about this one, so while he was unhappy at their evening seeming to be delayed, he was calmer about it.

  David was not at all surprised when an agent approached him about five minutes later with news.

  “Sir, the President’s party was substantially delayed in departing from the hotel. His speaking engagement ran longer than anticipated. Unfortunately their late departure put them into rush-hour traffic. Their route encountered several accidents, and they’ve had to detour extensively out of the way. They are still a fair distance away from the White House.”

  “Any guesses on when they might finally get back here?” David asked.

  “Difficult to say, sir. My guess, and this is simply a guess, would be about an hour.”

  David changed out of his suit and into a pair of sweatpants and a sweatshirt before heading downstairs. He had originally been heading to the kitchen to get something for dinner, but he changed his mind.

  “I’d like to go out for a run,” he told his agent.

  He hadn’t gone running since they’d been in the White House, but he needed some way to release some of his pent-up anger and frustration and thought running would be just what he needed.

  Since this was not part of their daily routine and the route was not predete
rmined or fixed, four agents accompanied David. He waited while two of the agents got changed to run with him. Two others trailed along beside them in an unmarked, black SUV.

  It was dark outside by the time they were all ready to go. Since he hadn’t jogged around there before, he didn’t have a particular route or destination in mind. Instead David ran mostly along a route that the traffic lights permitted. If a light was red one way, he went the way that was green.

  Running was indeed a great way to burn off energy and to bleed off some of the frustration he’d been feeling. At the same time, because he was out of practice, he got winded more quickly.

  David nonetheless pushed himself relentlessly, going what turned out to be too far before admitting that he had overdone it. Completely winded, with muscles in his legs aching and screaming in frustration, David stopped, leaning forward, trying to catch his breath.

  More worn out than he realized, he gratefully got into the SUV that had trailed them while they’d jogged to ride back to the White House.

  “Thanks, guys,” David told the agents as he headed inside the house.

  He tiredly dragged himself upstairs to the residence, bypassing Gray in the living room and heading directly to the bathroom to shower away some of the sweat.

  When he stepped out of the shower, Gray was standing there holding up a bath towel for him. Grabbing it to towel dry, it was impossible to ignore the man, but David managed a curt one-word response. “Thanks.”

  “David, I’m so sorry this happened again.”

  No response from David as he finished and returned to the bedroom, naked, to pull on some sweatpants.

  “Not even going to say anything?” Gray half demanded, half begged.

  “What’s there to say?” David said.

  “I screwed up. Okay? I know it. And I’m sorry.”

  “Okay. Good to know.”

  David ordered something from the kitchen and sat down at the dining room table with a book while he ate.