The First Lady Escapes

by Verity Speeks

  After they had landed, Rosa introduced Conchita to her, explaining that her daughter lived here with Rosa’s mother, who was Dio’s cook. The little girl shook Natalia’s hand softly, gazing at her with dark eyes fringed with long eyelashes, and welcomed her politely in perfect English. Natalia was enchanted. Rosa said that Dio enjoyed having a child in the house, especially one that was essentially a prison for him. “His own children…there are too many to count,” she joked, “live with his numerous ex-wives and ex-mistresses in secret compounds of their own, scattered across Mexico.”

  The first thing out of Dio’s mouth when Natalia had met him was, “Do not worry, Señora Funck. I do not have sex with women over the age of eighteen.” Then he looked her up and down and added, “If I ever made an exception, it would be you.” She sensed from the leaden tone of his voice that he had only said it to flatter her, not because he really meant it. At least that’s what she told herself.

  Natalia heard the jingle of what sounded to her practiced ear like 14-karat gold. An elderly woman wearing bangles on both arms, no doubt to hide her loose, crepe-like skin, and a short yellow sundress that was much too young for her, approached. “Greetings, Madame Funck,” the woman said in a gravely smoker’s voice that reminded her of her mother’s. Her Juvedermed, Botoxed, and plastic-surgery-planed face also reminded her of Ingrid.

  Natalia guessed: “Señora Reyes?”

  Dionisio’s mother held out her hand. The emerald-cut diamond on her ring was larger than Natalia’s, perhaps 20 karats, and she wore it on her middle finger. As the mother of a drug lord, perhaps it is appropriate that she wear it on her “fuck-you” finger, she thought.

  “Welcome to our beautiful home. Please call me Isabella.”

  Natalia shook Isabella’s hand, trying to decide what to say next: Not happy to be here? Please don’t let your son kill me? She glanced down at the glass of wine she was holding. “Your son makes excellent wine,” she said. In her mind, she added: But it’s weird to drink wine here that’s the color of blood.

  Isabella attempted to smile, but her lips barely moved. Natalia recognized it as a sign of too much Botox on her upper lip. She had once had that problem herself. Seeing it now on this woman made her vow never to get Botox again.

  “Are we ready?” Across the room, Dio drained his wineglass and handed it to a white-uniformed Mexican butler. “I want to contact your husband, Señora Funck, and settle the business I have with him. I am eager to get down to business I find much more exciting: helping Señor Smith photograph my house for Architectural Digest.”

  Natalia was about to join Dio, but Isabella stopped her. “Before you go, there’s a favor I must ask.”

  “Certainly,” she said.

  “I’ll be in Miami next week.” Isabella touched her cheek lightly. “Time for a little touchup, you know how it is,” she said in a conspiratorial whisper. She waited for a response. Natalia just smiled. “Anyway, it has always been my dream to visit Beau Rivage. Is that something you can arrange? I know your husband may have a problem with my son, but I have many aliases, many passports.”

  “Do you?”

  As if eager to close the deal, Isabella added, “You can tell your husband that I am willing to make a substantial donation to his favorite cause.”

  “I’m sure he’ll appreciate that,” she said. Especially because his favorite cause is himself, she thought. She turned to go, then remembered something and turned back to Isabella. “My mother is a member of Beau Rivage. She has lunch there five days a week. If you’d like, I’m happy to ask her to take you to lunch there as her guest.”

  Isabella clasped her hands together gratefully. “How lovely! Thank you!”

  “You two will love each other.”

  Chapter 57

  The White House

  December 20, 9:00 p.m.

  “This is a fucking disgrace! A total fucking disaster!”

  Pacing his bedroom, Rex Funck hurled his can of Diet Coke at the TV screen. It bounced off, leaving droplets of brown liquid, like dirty tears, on Christian Anderson’s face. The CNN anchor was interviewing a psychiatrist about the President’s decision to lift the economic sanctions on the Russian oligarchs.

  “Dr. Frankenberg, do you agree with The New York Times’s implication that President Funck’s latest decision reveals an unsound mental capacity?” asked Anderson.

  The bald, elderly psychiatrist twisted the tip of his waxed gray moustache. “POTUS’s abrupt about-face on a far-reaching economic decision, combined with his recent episode of apparent mysophobia, germ phobia, is more than worrying.” He shook his head. “Worst-case scenario, the President could be on the verge of losing contact with reality!”

  Rex muted the sound. He pointed his stubby finger at Gretchen, who was sitting on a sofa next to Pricker, both their faces hidden behind sanitary masks. “This is all your fault, First Daughter. I should spank your ass!”

  Sitting with Sally-Ann on the sofa across the room, their faces also masked, Moon snickered. I bet POTUS and the First Daughter would both get off on that, she thought.

  “Oh, calm your body down, Daddy,” said Gretchen, as if scolding one of her children. “What choice did we have? I mean, even if President Popovich doesn’t make public the photos he’s got of Natalia and her hottie, now we’ve got this selfie to explain away.” She pointed to the TV screen: Christian Anderson was commenting on a selfie of an unidentified old Mexican man in a straw hat posing with a bald woman in a Mexican peasant blouse who looked uncannily like the First Lady.

  “Tell them it’s fake!”

  “At least I’m doing something that’s getting good ratings,” said Moon, her voice muffled by the face mask. She nodded to the TV screen. CNN was running a video shot this afternoon: The First Lady walking into a Breast Cancer charity fashion show, Sally-Ann trailing behind her. FLOTUS looks glamorous in a long, sweeping Dolce and Gabbana dress imprinted with portraits of famous women from Joan of Arc to Frida Kahlo. The audience, including celebs Sarah Jessica Parker and Cindy Crawford, gives her a standing ovation. Sarah urges Natalia to model her outfit on the runway. Natalia hesitates, but Cindy brings over a small stepladder and helps her up onto the runway. Like the famous fashion model that she once was, FLOTUS does the “walk” down the runway. She is poised, elegant, a smash. The crowd goes wild.

  “They loved me!” said Moon, tears in her eyes.

  Sitting beside her, Sally-Ann checked that Gretchen wasn’t watching, then pulled down her face mask, revealing her wide grin. “You rocked!” She stealthily high-fived Moon.

  The Skype tone wah-wahed on Rex’s desk computer.

  “If that’s Popovich again, tell him to shove it,” he said to Gretchen. He grabbed another Diet Coke from the mini-fridge behind his desk. Gretchen hustled over to the computer. “It’s from someone named ‘Dionisio’ in Baja California,” she said, reading the screen as she sank into his desk chair. “Isn’t that some Greek god?”

  “Don’t answer!” He cracked open the can and swigged the soda.

  “He’s texting.” Gretchen read his words on the screen, her eyes widening. “Holy shit! He says he’s got Natalia! She’s his hostage!”

  “I don’t believe it! It’s fake! Hang up!” He flopped down into an armchair and put his stockinged feet up onto the coffee table, knocking off a bottle of Purell. Sally-Ann hastily put it back.

  “Daddy, wait! He wants to trade Natalia for his brother, Pancho Reyes. He says Pancho’s in a federal supermax prison in Colorado.”

  “Pricker, check to see if we’ve got a greaser named Pancho Reyes in supermax,” said Rex.

  Pricker googled on his laptop. “Yeah, we do.”

  “What’s he in for?”

  Pricker scanned his screen and summarized: “He’s awaiting trial for killing twelve undercover DEA agents in Baja. His brother is Dionisio Reyes, head of the Baja cartel. Listen to this: Talk about a dufus. Pancho Reyes was nabbed by the feds when he was partying with some bimbos on a yacht o
ff Cabo.” He chuckled. “They were all bare-assed!”

  “Got any photos of that?”

  “Nope. Here’s all I got.” Pricker turned his laptop around to show his screen to Rex: a photo of Dionisio Reyes snapped on the sly in an airport, and a mug shot of Pancho Reyes. “Dio—that’s what they call the older brother—is the ugly one. But you can see his younger brother Pancho’s kinda hot. At least he thinks so.” He enlarged Pancho’s photo. “Looks like he plucks his eyebrows and does Botox and filler. Must be gay.”

  “That’s not just for homos,” said Rex. “Lots of heteros do it.”

  Yeah, like you and your sons, fucking Funck fucker, thought Moon. She winked at Sally-Ann, who winked back.

  “Check one more thing for me,” Funck said. “How much is this cartel boss, Dionysus, or whatever the fuck his name is, worth?”

  Pricker googled again. “According to the FBI, $53 billion.”

  “Fuck the FBI. They’re morons. I bet he’s worth more.” Rex walked over to his desk, yanked his daughter out of his chair, and sat down. “Gretchen, baby, take the call.” She leaned over and clicked the mouse on the prompt.

  Moon crept from the sofa to a spot behind the desk so that she could see the computer screen. Sally-Ann joined her. Neither Rex nor Gretchen noticed.

  On-screen: A man with a scarred face standing beside a baldheaded Natalia.

  “Shit,” said Rex, surveying their faces. “Looks like we need a couple of paper bags for you two. Honey, what the fuck happened to your hair?”

  “Hi, Rex. And how are you?”

  “I wish I could say ‘happier’ now that I see you.”

  “But you can’t, right?”

  “You said it, sweetheart, not me!”

  “What the fuck?” Dio scowled. “I thought you were one happy family. Let’s make this quick. You give me my brother, Pancho. I give you back your wife.”

  “What if I don’t want her?”

  “Daddy, you don’t mean that,” whispered Gretchen.

  Moon would have laughed, but she feared for Natalia’s life.

  “So Dio whatever, how about I build a Funck International Hotel in Cabo? Funck is a much bigger brand than Four Seasons, Rosewood, or Hilton. My son just went to Cabo to check them out. He says they’re shit. A total disgrace!”

  “A disgrace? I own the Four Seasons, Rosewood, and Hilton in Cabo! They’re not a disgrace! They’re great! They’re terrific! Do you want your wife back or not?”

  “Look, I…I need to think about this,” said Rex. “I have my trusted advisors here in the room. Go get a drink, or take some drugs. Hell, it’s okay with me if you want to fuck my wife. I’ll Skype you right back.”

  Rex nodded to Gretchen; she clicked off Skype. Moon and Sally-Ann crept quietly back to their places on the sofa.

  “Daddy, you have to make this deal,” Gretchen said. “We need FLOTUS here. People love Natalia!”

  “People don’t love Natalia.” He pointed to Moon. “There’s the FLOTUS everyone loves.” He beckoned her over to his desk. Moon reluctantly stood up and walked over. “What’s your price, Moon?”

  “For what?”

  “What will it take for you to stick around and be FLOTUS forever?”

  She didn’t know whether to laugh or scream. “You’ve got to be kidding!”

  “What do you want? You’ll have your own bedroom, of course. And you can be damn sure I will never, ever set foot in there, or make you come to mine. You can buy all the designer clothes, all the diamonds and expensive jewelry you want. How about a house on St. Barts? I have one there I’ll give you. I hate St. Barts. Too many goddamn gays!”

  Moon flinched. “I’m not gay, I’m a trans.”

  “Whatever. How about a million dollars? Two million?”

  “Don’t forget the girlfriend from Trinidad,” piped in Pricker.

  “Right, I forgot. I hear you’ve got a black girlfriend from Trinidad.”

  “Moon’s got a girlfriend?” Sally-Ann shook her head, confused.

  “Her name’s Eliza,” added Pricker. “Like in Hamilton.”

  “What’s Hamilton?” asked Rex.

  “Keep Eliza out of this,” said Moon.

  “I hear she’s got visa problems. I could make them disappear, just like this.” Rex tried to snap his fingers. They were so short, the snap sounded to Moon like a ffft.

  “Y’know what, Mr. President?” She bristled with indignation. “Living here in the White House with you has been a truly unique experience. I am grateful for that, really. It has even been a smidgen, and I mean a teeny-tiny smidgen, fun. But you know what’s astonished me the most?”

  “That I’m so great?” Rex put his stockinged feet up on his desk, in Moon’s face. “Great enough to be king of the world?”

  “Are you joking?”

  “Not really.”

  “Mr. President, what has amazed me most is that you, and also your beloved daughter, are ten times… No, make that 1,000 times crueler, stupider, and more incompetent than any piece-of-shit human being I ever could imagine!” She turned abruptly and started toward the door.

  Gretchen nodded to Pricker, who hustled over and grabbed Moon’s arm. Gretchen walked over until she was nose-to-nose with her. “How about Daddy pays for your complete transformation?”

  “What?”

  “From a man to a woman. I mean, I know you’ve already got the tits, the nose, and the ass, but there’s more work to be done, right? I hear the operation takes all day and you hurt like hell for weeks, but they’ll get rid of that hideous Neanderthal ridge…” She tapped her finger on Moon’s brow, then the lump covered by Moon’s neck bandanna. “And your golf ball of an Adam’s apple.”

  “Don’t touch me!” Moon swatted her hand away.

  Gretchen grabbed Moon’s crotch and squeezed until she yelped. “Best of all, they will cut off your balls and take your beloved penis and turn it into a pulsating pink pussy!”

  Chapter 58

  Middle of Nowhere, Baja MX

  December 20, 7:00 p.m.

  “So the lovely little girl grew up into a kind, generous, and beautiful lady. One day her grandmother said, ‘My darling granddaughter, it is time for you to climb up to the top of the mountain and marry Zlatorog.’”

  “Zlatorog?” Conchita looked up at Natalia from where she lay in a pink, canopied, four-poster bed right out of a fairy tale. She was clutching a small pink-piglet plush toy. “But you said Zlatorog was a mean, selfish mountain-goat god who kept all his gold in a cave, and that he was guarded by a dragon with a hundred heads.”

  “He was,” said Natalia, sitting beside her.

  She had asked Rosa if she could tell Conchita a bedtime story to take her mind off the question haunting her: What would Rex say when he Skyped back? Dio was expecting his call any minute. If Rex refused to trade Dio’s brother for her, would he kill her? If Dio was as evil as her own husband, she knew it was entirely possible.

  Conchita wrinkled her brow. “If Zlatorog was so bad, why would the beautiful lady’s abuela, her grandmother, want her to marry him?”

  “Because her grandma said that if Zlatorog met a beautiful lady who was kind and generous, that he would change from a hideous monster into a handsome prince as kind and generous as she was.”

  “And then he would slay the dragon?”

  “That’s right. And he would invite all the people in the valley to climb up the mountain and take whatever gold they needed to live a happy life.”

  “So what did the beautiful lady do?”

  Natalia brushed strands of Conchita’s dark hair off her cheek. “What do you think she should do?”

  The child stroked her small pink-piglet plush toy, thinking. “Do what her abuela said and marry Zlatorog?”

  Natalia read the confusion on Conchita’s face. “You know what, darling? When you grow up, sometimes it’s okay not to do what your abuela, or your mother, says.”

  “It is?”

  “Grandmothers and mother
s are usually right, but not always. Sometimes they think something is true because they hope it is true. But hoping it’s true is not the same as something really being true. So someday, when you are all grown up, no matter what anyone else tells you, even your mother or grandmother, you have to do what you know in your own heart is right.”

  “You mean the beautiful lady did not follow her abuela’s advice?”

  “In her heart, she didn’t believe that an evil, selfish monster could ever change into a kind and generous prince, even if she married him. She thought once a monster is a monster, he can’t change and become good, not even with a loving wife.”

  “So what did she do?”

  “She didn’t climb the mountain to Zlatorog’s cave, that’s for sure! She ran back to the little village where she grew up and lived her own happy life. A good life. One in which she helped other people and—”

  “The White House is on Skype.”

  Rosa stood in the doorway of Conchita’s bedroom.

  Natalia tucked the little girl’s pink covers under her chin. “I really enjoyed telling you that story, Conchita. I hope you will always remember it.”

  “I will.” She tucked her little pink-piglet plush toy under the covers beside her.

  “Good.” She kissed her on the forehead and stood up from the bed.

  Rosa came over and kissed her daughter. “I love you, Conchita. Sleep tight.” She followed Natalia to the door.

  “I love you, Mama. I love you, Natalia,” said the little girl as Rosa dimmed the lights and closed the door.

  As they walked down the hallway toward Dio’s office, Natalia noticed that Rosa was crying softly. “I’m the one who should be crying,” she said. “Rex is going to have me—”

  “You will be safe. I feel it in here.” Rosa touched her heart. “And I want you to take Conchita with you.”

  “What?”

  Rosa looked behind them to make sure no one was listening. “My sister Carla and her husband in San Diego don’t have kids. They tried, but nothing worked. They’d love to take Conchita. They’ll be good parents. Better than I could ever be.”