Bridget Wilder #3

by Jonathan Bernstein

  “He’s going to be sick,” bawls the mother, just as the baby unleashes a powerful blast of milky puke.

  “Pivot to your side,” Irina yells in my ear. I leap sideways to avoid being splattered and instead hurtle into the open doors of a display case crammed with basketball-size doughnuts topped with whipped cream. I am immediately overcome by a tidal wave of strange sensations. My hands sink into the doughnuts, my face is splattered in whipped cream, and I breathe in sugar frosting.

  “Bridget . . . um . . .” I hear Irina in my ear. She has no advice to give me.

  I peel myself off the display case, and that is when I slip on the puke and hit the ground butt-first.

  “Hold on to your wig!” Irina finally shouts.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Great First Impression

  Luckily, the first lady was amazing. She’s the definition of grace under pressure. While her campaign staff—none of whom have high enough security clearances to be entrusted with the secret of my true identity—freaked out, she picked me up and dusted me off. She smoothed out my clothes and escorted me away from Knudsen’s and into her huge luxury campaign coach.

  Her smile was radiant as we passed the bulging, astounded eyes of the Knudsen’s staff and customers.

  “You know what?” she told the crowds of staring faces. “No one’s perfect. What matters is how we deal with the little setbacks that life throws in our way, and if I know my daughter, she’s going to be laughing about this real soon. Won’t we, hon?”

  She gives me an encouraging nod. I feel relief wash over me. This might not be a disaster. I smile and roll my eyes at the crowd.

  “That’s my girl,” says First Lady Brennan. “And her father and I, we’ll be laughing right along with her.”

  But now that I have emerged, cleaned up and wearing unsplattered clothes, from the toilet of the Brennan campaign coach, Jocelyn Brennan is not laughing. She stares at her laptop, occasionally shaking her head in disbelief. The dozen or so men and women who work for her are glued to their phones, and they are not laughing, either.

  “It’s everywhere,” mutters a tense-looking woman.

  “It’s gone viral in places that don’t even have the internet,” moans a balding guy.

  “We’re down an eighteenth of a point in the polls,” frets a man wearing a baseball cap with the words Stat Hat.

  “Jamie,” the first lady says. “Let’s step into my office.”

  The big-screen TV at the front of the bus shows a slow-motion replay of Jamie Brennan staggering back from the display cabinet, face covered in whipped cream, and losing her footing on the baby puke. The news anchors watching the footage find it hilarious. I smile, too, at the hilarious slapstick before I remember I’m looking at myself. My dumb, clumsy self.

  “My daughter, Jamie!” First Lady Brennan says sharply. Right. That’s me.

  “My office,” she says. I follow her to the back of the bus and close the door behind me.

  The first lady’s office is dominated by a very big, very comfortable looking double bed that I would very much like to crawl into right now. I fight the impulse and stand by the closed door as Jocelyn Brennan sits at her desk and stares at me. It’s a long, hard stare devoid of any warmth. I shift awkwardly from foot to foot. The stare is punctuated by the vibrating of her phone, which she ignores.

  “Your sister was so sweet and charming,” says the first lady. “When Adina Roots told me that you were exceptional, that you were an experienced agent, I found it hard to believe, but then, I thought, why not? This is a nation of overachievers. Why wouldn’t both sisters excel in their own chosen fields?”

  “I’m adopted,” I retort.

  “I’m not surprised.” First Lady Brennan scowls.

  Gesturing to my face, she snaps, “Take that thing off. It’s eerie.”

  I touch a finger under my chin, and the nanomask slides off. I remove the wig. The first lady does not look impressed by what lies underneath.

  She lets out a weary sigh and rubs her eyes. “This is my fault,” she says. “Why would I agree to let you pass as my daughter? You soaked me with a fire extinguisher the first time we met. This was a terrible idea from beginning to end.”

  She picks up her phone. “I’ll arrange to have you sent home. It’s too close to the election for me to ask for Director Roots’s resignation, but if your antics today haven’t kept us out of office, I’ll take her job away.”

  The first lady starts to make the call.

  I have saved the world twice. I have brought two huge criminal organizations to their knees. I’m not going to be sent home because of a doughnut and a puking baby. I may have to live with the fact that my mother thinks I’m a screw-up, but I’m not having the first lady of the United States of America treating me like that.

  “Wait,” I say. “Let me fix this.”

  “Do you have a time machine?” she asks, her finger hovering on call.

  I shrug off the first lady’s attempt at sarcasm. I want her to understand who she’s dealing with here.

  “There’s a fund-raiser ball in Santa Barbara tonight, right?”

  “You’ll be able to watch the highlights on CNN,” replies Jocelyn Brennan.

  “Let me go to the ball,” I beg, and I immediately wince as I hear how that comes out. “Not like Cinderella. Like a spy. Like a smart spy with a plan to undo the damage she did.”

  There’s fire in my eyes and a firmness to my tone that takes First Lady Brennan by surprise. I venture further. “You asked why the director of the Secret Service would recommend me. Because she knows my reputation. I’ve saved lives. I’ve stopped wars. I protected you from a paralyzing sting by a mutant insect. Yes, I slipped on baby puke and fell over, but you know what else I do?”

  I give the first lady of the United States my own long, cold stare. She blinks at me in confusion.

  “What?” she says in a quiet voice.

  “I get back up.”

  “What does that mean?” asks First Lady Brennan.

  Oh. I hoped my forceful delivery would be enough to restore her shaken faith in me, thus giving me time to come up with a plan. I guess not.

  I begin to pace the length of her velvet-carpeted office. Long strides, shoulders back, head high: a professional deep in thought. “It means,” I tell her, “that I’m going to put on that mask and that wig. I’m going to make some phone calls to some powerful people who you don’t know and you don’t need to know. And, by the time you’ve done your hair and put on your party dress, I’m going to do something that will get the name Jamie Brennan trending for all the right reasons.”

  Jocelyn Brennan’s big eyes are even bigger. “What are you . . . ?” she begins.

  “Leave it up to me,” I tell her. “I’m Bridget Wilder, and I’m a spy.”

  Her face softens. She chews on her lower lip and then gives me a nod.

  “Okay,” says the first lady. “We all make mistakes. But you can’t afford to make another one.”

  “I’ve got this,” I brag, my hands on my hips, looking her straight in the eye.

  The first lady gets to her feet and points a finger at me. “Then you shall go to the ball.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  POTUS

  It might seem like being a spy has done wonders for my previously nonexistent social life. I get to meet interesting people and go to parties. But the interesting people usually want to kill me, and the parties are never that much fun. Tonight, I’m going to a party with the president. I’ve been in the penthouse suite of the super-posh Hidden Willows hotel in super-posh Santa Barbara for the past two hours. I spent a fraction of that time putting on my nice white party dress in preparation for tonight’s fund-raising event, and the rest avoiding the disapproving glances of the campaign staff, who clearly blame me for the president slipping another twenty-ninth of a point in the polls.

  “What’s she going to do for an encore?” I hear the tense-looking woman whisper.

  “I liked
her better when we couldn’t find her,” moans the balding man.

  Doesn’t really put you in a party state of mind, does it?

  First Lady Brennan—or FLB, as I now think of her—emerges from her room at seven o’clock, looking like a seven-foot-tall goddess with her big hair piled up, her high heels, and her sparkly silver dress.

  “Doesn’t Jamie look adorable?” she demands of her staff, who make mumbling yes noises but don’t look very enthusiastic.

  FLB pulls me close to her as if she’s going to give me a motherly hug.

  “I’m going to take you to meet the president,” she says softly. “He’s a very busy man with a lot on his mind. He’s been briefed by Director Roots about who you are and what function you’ll be serving while you’re with us.”

  Okay. Time out. I’m meeting the president. I haven’t even been a spy for very long, and I’m meeting the most powerful man in the world. I think I’m allowed to feel a little bit proud of myself. Not bad for a gimmick, huh, Adam Dumbface Pacific?

  “Try to act normal, and don’t break anything,” hisses FLB.

  FLB marches across the eight spacious rooms that make up the penthouse suite. I trot along at her side. We stop at a closed door flanked by two Secret Service agents. FLB gives me an appraising look up and down. She grabs my wrists and peers at my arms.

  “They teach you to wash yourself where you come from?”

  I follow her gaze to my forearm. There are very, very faint marks where the words Cadzo Army used to be.

  “Get her a jacket,” she orders one of the Secret Service guys. She nods at the other one, who opens the door.

  Inside, the president sits with his feet up on a huge desk, watching a football game on his laptop. A crushed Diet Coke can sits alongside him.

  FLB coughs loudly. The president looks up and an expression of guilt flashes across his face. Then he grins and swings his feet off the desk. As he stands up, I see he has the size and build of the college athlete he used to be. But he doesn’t seem all arrogant and into himself like the middle school athletes I know. He seems nice.

  “Here’re my girls looking all pretty,” he drawls, walking across the huge room toward us.

  “Mr. President, this is Bridget Wilder,” says the first lady. “Agent Bridget Wilder, on special assignment from the CIA.”

  The president’s grin fades. He stops in the middle of the room.

  FLB gives me a nudge.

  “Mr. President, this is an honor and a privilege,” I declare, attempting to summon up the kind of sincerity Natalie would bring to such an important moment. “For you to put your trust in me is something I do not take lightly, and I want you to know—”

  “Joss,” he interrupts, looking over my head at his wife. “It’s kind of creeping me out. Can we switch it off? Is there a chip or something?”

  “Chester,” FLB says with a tight smile. “Bridget is an experienced agent who . . .”

  “I’ll have one of the tech guys mute it,” says the president, reaching into his pocket for the phone I clearly see sitting on his desk. He checks his jacket and pants and then throws up his hands in frustration.

  “I hate machines,” he shouts, and then gives me an apologetic look. “No offense.”

  Wait, what? Why would he say that? Unless . . .

  Does the president think I’m a robot?

  “Mr. President, I’m not a robot,” I say.

  “He knows you’re not a robot,” the first lady assures me.

  The bemused expression on the president’s face does not convince me of this.

  I touch a finger under my chin, and the nanomask comes off.

  The president lets out a cry of shock, and Secret Service agents burst into the room, guns out.

  “It’s fine,” says FLB. “Return to your posts.”

  The two agents leave. The president stares at me. All of a sudden, he breaks into a smile and holds out his hand.

  “Can I see that real quick?”

  I look at FLB. She shrugs. I hand the nanomask to the president. “How come I don’t have one of these?” he says.

  “We’ll get you one,” the first lady tells him. “Now, we should head downstairs to the fund-raiser.”

  “How’s it work?” he asks me.

  “You know Shazam?” I say.

  “The music gizmo? What, you just hold it up to a film of the person whose face you want to steal?”

  “It has a facial recognition chip and enough memory for a hundred thousand faces,” I tell him excitedly. “You select the person you want to be, and it turns you into him or her.”

  “What’s it feel like when you put it on?”

  “Scary,” I admit. “Claustrophobic, at first. But you get used to it so fast, you forget you’re wearing it.”

  “Chet,” the first lady interrupts. “You can talk to Agent Wilder about the clever toy at the ball.”

  “Who’s Bridget again?” asks the president. Then he breaks into that big grin and punches me on the shoulder. “Just kidding.”

  “He’s always kidding,” says the first lady, with a tight smile.

  Secret Service agents open the door. Time to go.

  I walk with the presidential party. As we’re escorted to the elevator—with me now hiding my hideously disfigured arms inside a blue jacket—President Brennan leans in close and says, “I like it when people underestimate me. That way, they don’t see me coming.”

  I gape at him. “You just summed up my entire existence.”

  The president laughs out loud. “I think you and me are going to get along fine, Bridget Wilder.”

  “You’ll get along even better if you refrain from calling her Bridget Wilder when we’re in a public place,” says the first lady.

  “Consider my wrist slapped,” the president replies, giving me a wink like we’re friends.

  The elevator doors open. FLB pulls me back and leans down. “He’s easy,” she says. “You’ve got a lot more people to win over. Don’t mess it up.”

  No pressure there.

  She hustles me into the elevator, and I look at my reflection in the closing door. I am standing in between the president and the first lady. We are surrounded by Secret Service agents and campaign staff.

  President Brennan touches my shoulder. He leans down and talks quietly. “You’re already doing better than Jamie. Usually, she gets halfway to where we’re going and either says she’s got a headache or she needs to pee real bad, and that’s the last we see of her.”

  The elevator reaches the ground floor. The doors open, and I see the cameras and the crowds of people in the hotel lobby craning their necks to get a closer view.

  I suddenly need to pee real bad.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Shake It Off

  Think of the most expensive, most exclusive, most impressive hotel you’ve ever visited. Now think of the litter box where your cat poops. That’s how Santa Barbara’s Hidden Willows Resort and Spa compares to your dream hotel. I wish I were able to enjoy my luxurious surroundings, but ever since I made my way out of the elevator and walked with the presidential party through the hotel into an outdoor restaurant that overlooked the calmest, bluest bay, every eye has been on me. I’m not being self-obsessed when I say that. Everyone in Hidden Willows, from the super-rich guests to the hotel manager to the guy who cleans the toilets, has been shooting me judgmental side-eyes. She slipped in baby puke. What will she do to ruin this beautiful evening?

  All that is required of me is to stand with the Brennans at the restaurant balcony and be a silent smiling presence as guests are ushered toward them. I’m close enough to hear the first lady whisper their names in the president’s ear and to watch him call out each name with a delighted laugh as if each one were a long-lost friend, though it’s obvious he has no idea who they are and will forget them the moment the fifteen-second encounter ends.

  After a half hour—it seems much longer—every hand is finally shaken. We get to sit down at our table, but the
first family’s duties are far from over. Before we get to enjoy our dinner and then dance to the band that is noodling away politely in the background, there are speeches to be given praising the president, and, more important, Chester Brennan has to let the rich guests know that he needs them to keep pumping money into his campaign. It’s going to be a long, boring night.

  I excuse myself from the table.

  “Make sure she doesn’t get lost in the bathroom,” the president yells. “It’s been known to happen.”

  Two Secret Service agents follow a few paces behind me as I weave my way through the restaurant.

  Just then, a waitress backs away from a table, carrying an armful of dishes. My whip-fast reactions enable me to sidestep out of her path inches before we collide. That’s when I almost slam straight into a frazzled, breathless mother carrying a shrieking baby.

  I hear a collective gasp from the assembled guests. She’s done it again! The phones brandished in my direction bathe me, the three of us, in a shimmering spotlight.

  The drummer of the band starts knocking out a beat that I feel in my gut.

  The mother, the waitress, and I all start shaking our hips in unison.

  The mother throws her baby over her shoulder. One of the Secret Service guys catches it.

  The waitress throws her dishes over her shoulder. The other Secret Service guy catches most of them.

  The rest of the band starts playing in as funky a fashion as they are capable.

  I look around the restaurant and see mouths hanging open in confusion and horror.

  The mother tears off her blouse to reveal a Reindeer Crescent Cheerminators uniform underneath.

  The waitress does the same.

  They do cartwheels behind me as I continue shaking my hips.

  And then . . .

  Six more Cheerminators dance their way through the tables and take up position behind me and the other two girls. The cheerleaders standing right behind me clasp their hands together. I walk backward and very carefully step onto their hands. As the music swells and the band really starts to cut loose, I am lifted into the air, and I step onto the shoulders of the Cheerminator behind me and point my fingers skyward. Okay, me and cheerleaders? We’ve had our differences over the years. But I’ve got to admit, being perched high on the apex of this Cheerminator pyramid—it’s kind of a thrill.