Dreamspinner Press Year Nine Greatest Hits

by Michael Murphy

  “No. It didn’t happen. And it never happened again. My fear was replaced with anger. And from there onward it just spiraled totally out of control.”

  “I am so sorry about that,” Gray whispered, unable to meet David’s eye. “I had been assured that it would be comfortable and that your every need would be tended to and that you would have absolutely the best care possible.”

  “Someone lied to you, Gray. Someone lied to you or there was a horrible gap in communication somewhere along the line. The fact that it could happen also scared me. It made me wonder what else wasn’t working the way you’d been assured it would work, and it made me wonder how you would ever know about it, if it happened the same way. It made me wonder about the fallout that would come your way when the wrong thing happened to the wrong person and the shit hit the fan when they went to the media.”

  They sat quietly for a moment, neither speaking, neither looking at each other, both appearing deep in thought.

  “And then when I got back to the White House—and didn’t find you waiting for me when I landed, didn’t find you at the door when I walked in, didn’t find you waiting to do any of the things you’d spoken of doing. When I found that, it was bad. But when I got upstairs and found you were not there and were not going to be coming upstairs for dinner that night because you were out of the country―that sort of clinched it for me. I was furious for days.

  “By the way, I need to know,” David said. “Did you get any of my messages, any of the messages I left for you while I was in San Francisco?”

  “What messages?” Gray asked.

  “Just as I thought. I left messages for you every day, asking you to call me. I even told the operators to make sure that the lord of darkness didn’t see those messages. I told them that no one from his evil empire was to even know that they existed. Those messages were for you and you alone. But I suspected that it didn’t work, and I guess I’m right.

  “And then, the last time I tried to call you, to hear that you were out to dinner with that man…. And to hear that each of the two evenings before that one you’d left the office around six. It told me that I was the problem and that I needed to remove myself from the picture so you could do your job the way you needed to do it, and if I wasn’t there, maybe you’d treat yourself better.”

  “David, no. I never got any messages.”

  “All right, Gray. I know that your advisers didn’t want you to have a cell phone, but I want you to carry a cell phone. I’m sick of this idea of having to go through someone to get to you. They wanted to keep total control of access to you, but enough is enough. Get a goddamned cell phone. I’ll buy it for you if you want.”

  “Yes, I can see your point, and I completely agree. Can… no, I’ll take care of it,” Gray said.

  “Why didn’t you try to call me?” David asked softly.

  “I… I don’t know. I was incredibly busy, with just about every minute booked with something or someone. I remember that I barely had time to pee. But I should have thought to call you. I don’t know why I didn’t think to call you.”

  “Not good enough, Gray. If that’s where you placed our relationship in your list of priorities, that’s just not good enough.”

  “What can I do to make it up to you?” Gray asked earnestly.

  David leaned back in his chair, stretched out his legs, and thought for a moment. “It sounds like you’ve made a good start in getting a more humane schedule for yourself. But a lot depends on the follow-through you’re able to achieve.”

  “What else?” Gray asked, seeming to sense that David had something else to say.

  “You probably don’t want me to answer that question, Gray.”

  “Yes, I do. I want to hear what I can do to fix this, to make it better, to apologize.”

  David was silent for a moment, thinking.

  “I’ll think about it, but offhand I can think of a couple of things. If you want to hear them, I’ll tell you, although I don’t expect any of them to happen. Thing one, fire your chief of staff. He was never your chief of staff, but was simply someone you inherited. Fire him and put someone you know and trust in the job.”

  “I’ve already done that.”

  “Excuse me?” David said. “You have?”

  “Yes. He’s gone. I took care of that the day—the morning—you moved out. What else?”

  “You’re kidding. You… you fired him? I was sort of figuring that you two were just one step away from picking china patterns for your wedding.”

  “I’m sorry I didn’t listen to you sooner. I’m sorry it took me so long to see what you had seen so much earlier. Listening to that conversation he had with you clinched it for me. I was speechless with shock at what I heard him say. He’s gone now.”

  “Okay.”

  “What else?” Gray asked.

  “I want you to swear an oath to me that is as important to me as our marriage vows were. I want you to swear that you will never lie to me or deceive me again. When you lied to me after the whole Marburg thing, I felt like you stabbed me in the heart. It felt like the man I trusted more than anyone else in the world, the man I trusted with my life, if it came to that, had betrayed me.”

  “I’m sorry I hurt you. And yes, I can swear that I will not lie to you again. I will always be honest with you and not conceal anything from you, except for national-security stuff, of course.”

  “Okay. Thank you,” David said.

  “What else?” Gray asked.

  “I want you to stop working so many evenings and weekends and start spending time at home, like you used to do, for your health, for your sanity, and for our relationship. And I’m not saying that because I’m greedy and want you all to myself. I know that while you’re living in that house, I have to share you. I say this because I need you to treat yourself better than you have been. The Presidency has aged you, and it will continue to rob you of years of your life, years when we could have been together in the future. I don’t care how you see this, but it must stop. This point is not debatable. You don’t have to spend time with me if you don’t want to, but you absolutely must start taking better care of yourself. Start doing something physical again, start swimming, start doing something other than work.”

  “Agreed,” Gray said. “What else?”

  David was shocked by how this was proceeding. He took a deep breath before going on. “The next thing is probably going to be really difficult.”

  “More difficult than firing the White House chief of staff? Oh, this is so not going to be good. Okay, go ahead. Hit me with it.”

  “I want the summer vacation with you that we didn’t get this year. It needs to be a vacation where you don’t work, where we go off and do things together, where we go hiking together, where we walk on the beach holding hands, where we just sit together reading, where we just relax and unwind, where people are not popping in every five minutes with new issues, new briefings, new needs for decisions. You need it, I need it, and we need it.”

  Gray sighed and leaned back in his chair. “I understand. It’s not an unreasonable request. But… it is going to be next to impossible to do before next summer. Several weeks at a stretch is a lot of time, and it can only really happen over the summer when Congress is on recess. Plus, your schedule doesn’t allow for something like that to happen, either, now that the semester is underway.”

  “True. I know that it probably can’t happen. But you asked what I wanted and those are the big things I wanted.”

  “Maybe we could take some long weekends at Camp David,” Gray said. “I know you don’t like the place. One thing I want to do is to find an alternative to Camp David for us. I don’t know what or where, but I’m going to do it. Kennedy had a farm in Virginia he went to on weekends, as well as his family estate in Massachusetts. Roosevelt had Warm Springs, Georgia as well as his home up in the Hudson Valley. Nixon had San Clemente. I’m going to find a place that can be ours for long weekends.”

  “Those men were
rich, Gray. We’re just average guys without the deep pockets they had.”

  “I know. But let me work on it a bit and see what I can come up with. This is important to me too. I want us to have a place to retreat to. To have a weekend in the midst of chaos would provide a much-needed chance to recharge. Like I said, let me work on this one a bit and see what I can figure out.

  “Is there anything else I can do to help make this right?” Gray asked.

  “Maybe you need to woo me,” David said with a hint of a smile, but an otherwise very serious expression on his face.

  Gray leaned a little forward in his chair, bringing himself closer to David. “What? Like take you out on a date?” he asked.

  “Invite me out on a date,” David corrected, his smile a touch bigger. “There’s no guarantee that I would accept an invitation from you right now, but you could invite me. And it would take far more than just a date—try a series of dates over a couple of months. And maybe some roses.”

  “Roses. Got it. Red?”

  “Of course. And come to the door to pick me up―assuming I agree to go out with you.”

  “Do I need to meet your parents too, before we leave?” Gray asked.

  “No, not for the first date. But if it turns into anything and you want to keep seeing me, then, yes, you will need to meet my parents,” David said. But a quick glance at his watch told him that time was up. “Sadly, I have to go teach a class. This has been lovely and an unexpected surprise to have you back for at least a short while.”

  Gray gave him a sad smile before asking, “What are you teaching this afternoon?”

  “Believe it or not, this afternoon I’m talking about viral hemorrhagic fevers and other rare infectious diseases. Talk about irony, huh?”

  Gray paled momentarily, but recovered quickly. “I hate those things. They scare the crap out of me. Can I walk you to class?”

  “Are you going to carry my books for me too?”

  “If you want, sure.”

  “Well, you’re in luck, kind sir, since my iPad is all I carry, but I don’t even need that today.”

  Looking serious, Gray asked, “How are you going to teach this class if you don’t have a book or notes or something?”

  “It’s all outlined in my head. I’ve got all the facts I need to pass on. It’s a simple thing. I’ve got a bunch of slides created and saved on the server here that I’ll call up, things like images of the viruses, images of patients who are infected, things like that. But mostly it’s just telling them what I know.”

  “It’s a simple thing to give a two-hour lecture on rare infectious diseases… without any notes?”

  “Yes. I do it all the time. Well, not this exact topic, but this is how I teach. I find it helps them to learn if I’m focused on the students, having a conversation with them, rather than standing and reading slides to them. So I totally immerse myself in the subject matter before I teach, and then rather than lecture, I just talk with them. I like to think I’m very good at what I do.” David smiled.

  “I had no idea that this was how you taught. I’m beyond impressed, babe.”

  “I knew that it would happen if I could just get your attention long enough.”

  With their army of agents, they walked slowly across the campus to the classroom. But rather than just leave him at the door with his own agents, Gray asked, “Would you be thrown off your game if I sat in on the class for a few minutes?”

  “No,” David answered hesitantly. “But why would you want to do that?”

  “I learned something new about you today. I’d like to see you in action. And it would give me a chance to check out your hot body.”

  David blushed. His cheeks reddened slightly and felt warm. “I have no problem with you sitting in. It’s open seating, so wherever your agents feel most comfortable positioning you. They’re probably all about ready to shit a brick from this unexpected change in schedule.”

  “Probably,” Gray agreed. “But they’re very good at their jobs and adapt well to changes.”

  The agents got Gray situated in a back corner of the room, several surrounding him as the students started to come into the room. When most of the seats were filled, agents took up positions around the room and near the door. When David moved to the front of the room to start the class, all conversations ceased instantly before he had even started to talk.

  “‘From ghosties and ghoulies and long-leggedy beasties and things that go bump in the night! Dear Lord, deliver us,’ goes the old Scottish prayer. Or a more up-to-date version could be, ‘From Ebola and Marburg and dengue and things that kill lots of people, Dear Lord, deliver us.’

  “Today’s topic is something that you absolutely must know about. It wasn’t a big part of the medical curriculum just a few years ago, but now it is of paramount importance that you know about these deadly pathogens. You may go your entire career without ever seeing a case of any of these—if you’re lucky—but the odds are that you will all encounter one of these diseases sometime during your careers. And trust me, if you see one, you could very well see a lot of cases, and they could inundate you, and you could have a major health crisis on your hands with no warning whatsoever that it was coming.

  “I had never seen a case of Marburg disease, one of the viruses we’re going to talk about today, until this summer. I had read all the textbook information, I had read all the journal articles and updates, but seeing a patient with Marburg was something else entirely. When I did see a case, it wasn’t just one but several all at the same time and in… not the most ideal circumstances.

  “Viral hemorrhagic fevers and other rare infectious diseases scare the crap out of a lot of people. Two points: one, good, and two, they are manageable from the point of view of keeping yourself and other health-care providers safe from infection.”

  “Dr. Hammond?” one of the students interrupted him politely.

  “Yes, Ms. Ho?”

  “Sir, are you… going to introduce your… special guest?”

  “Oh, my apologies. I thought by now you all knew my own best and favorite Secret Service representative, Agent Hamilton.”

  “We all know him,” someone said. “No offense, dude, you’re a kick-ass kind of guy.” David thought he saw a hint of a smile on the agent’s face.

  “Who, then?” he asked with his best poker face in place.

  “I think they mean me, babe.”

  “Him?” David said, pointing to Gray.

  “Yes!” a couple of them told him in an annoyed tone of voice.

  “I thought he was here with one of you. He just sort of strolled in here like he owned the place.”

  “I have a special in with the teacher,” Gray told the room. He stood and walked to the front of the room. “Hi, everybody. I’m Grayson Alexander, husband of the incredible Dr. Hammond. I hope my presence here today will not be too disruptive. If it is at all problematic, please let me know, and we’ll get out of the way. But I wanted to hear David talk with you about this particular topic if possible.”

  “Who are you, sir?” David asked, trying to sound ticked off.

  Gray leaned forward, his face close to David’s. “Can I kiss you to show them who I am?”

  David quietly considered Gray’s request for a few seconds, looking for a dignified way to tell him no. “Make it quick,” David told him.

  “Oh,” David said following the kiss, “him. Yes, I have some vague memory of being married to a man like him at one time. I don’t see much of him lately—”

  “Which is my fault and for which I am supremely sorry. And it’s partly why I’m here with you today,” Gray told him quietly.

  “Disrupting my class, I might add,” David scolded.

  “You going to spank me later?” Gray whispered to David.

  David’s eyes went wide with shock. He didn’t respond at first, fighting to keep a smile off his face. “If you make me hard while I’m up here trying to teach, I’m going to be most unhappy with you, and yes, I likely wi
ll, at a minimum. For the moment, sit down. You will need to stay after class so we can discuss your recent behavior. I rule nothing in or out.”

  “Deal,” Gray said, licking his lips slowly so only David could see. “Just remember the Secret Service is always listening.”

  “Tell them to take notes because they’ll probably hear you make some new sounds they haven’t heard before,” David said as Gray returned to his seat, where for the next few hours, he listened to David talk about infectious diseases with rapt attention. He had originally told David he would stay for a few minutes, but David noticed Gray stayed for the entire lecture and paid great attention to everything.

  Gray shook hands with any of the students who wanted to do so, and posed for a few photos with some of the students, but eventually it was just David and Gray along with a dozen of their favorite Secret Service agents.

  “I was blown away, David,” Gray told him. “I… I… just, wow. You did something amazing with them. You took a dense, complicated topic that is scary as hell and made it approachable, understandable, and clear. Hell, I think I could even diagnose a case of Ebola now, as well as know how to do preliminary treatment.”

  “Well, don’t tell everybody that or I’ll be out of a job.”

  “You’re too good a teacher for that to ever happen,” Gray told him, wrapping his arms around David for a hug.

  “Thank you, Gray. I was amazed you stayed through the whole three hours. Your staff must be about ready to send a lynch mob for me for keeping you away from the office all day today. You should probably get back to the office before they send out a search party.”

  “No. They knew I was off on a vitally important mission.”

  David nodded at the words.

  Gray added, “David, I want to take you to dinner, but I don’t have time today before I leave. I want to take you home to the White House. I want to take you with me on this trip. I never want to let you out of my sight ever again. I’ve delayed my departure as much as I can, but I will not leave town until you tell me if you will agree to let me take you to dinner next week when I get back.”