DUTCH AND GINA: A SCANDAL IS BORN (2 page)

But right now, Dutch had Gina on his mind.
 
He leaned back and ignored the back and forth between Crader and Max.
 
He was too busy praying that those vultures in the DC press corps didn’t drag his wife into yet another one of their sick, perverted games where twisting people’s words to fit some sound-bite narrative was their one and only goal.
 
He didn’t even want to see it on TV.
 
He didn’t want to hear any staffer give him a blow-by-blow.
 
He wanted to hear it from Gina.
 
He wanted Gina.

TWO

“It’s not true, Dutch,” Gina said as soon as the president arrived at the White House and made his way into the second floor Residence.
 
She had been staring out of the lunette window within the West Sitting Hall, unable to remain still, when she saw him walking in.
 

Her expressive, flustered face, with its smooth-as-silk dark brown skin and that worried, almost distressed look in her big, brown eyes, broke his heart.
 

There she stood, in her smart skirt suit and heels, her curvaceous body straight and tall with African braids dropped along her back, her arms folded across her busty chest in what Dutch could only imagine was a defensive pose.
 
As if she wanted desperately to shield herself from the onslaught.
 

She was a wonderful lady with a big heart, Dutch thought as he looked at her.
 
Yet he’d never known another human being who had to endure such harsh, unfair treatment.
 
He knew it was mainly because she was his wife and his political enemies would stop at nothing to discredit him.
 
But he also knew it was because she stood her ground; because she refused to let them continually piss on her and call it rain; because she wasn’t interested in giving up who she was for what they wanted her to be.

LaLa was also in the West Sitting Hall, a room which, for all intents and purposes, was the First Family’s informal livingroom.
 
LaLa was seated on the couch holding in her arms little Walter Robert Harber, Jr, or Little Walt as Dutch and Gina ended up calling their baby boy.
 
She stood to her feet when the president walked in.

“I’ll go give him back to Nurse Riley,” LaLa said, certain the couple wanted to talk privately given the events of the day, but Dutch walked up to his son.

“Hey, little fellar,” he said with a smile, and gladly took him from LaLa’s arms.
 
LaLa smiled.

The baby grinned with unbridled joy and started wiggling with excitement at the sight of his father; at that sweet cologne smell he now knew so well; at the warmth of his father’s big, powerful arms.
 

“How have you been, precious one?”
 
Dutch said, his heart so filled with love he could hardly contain it.
 
He never dreamed he’d be the father of a child.
 
Other than Caroline Parker, his former fiancée, he never wanted any of the women he fooled around with to have any child of his.
 

Until he met Gina.
 

He wiggled his child’s buttonish nose.
 
“How is my little blessed one doing on this glorious day the Lord has made?”

Gina, too, was always overcome with emotion whenever Dutch held their son.
 
It was as if their father-and-son bond was so strong that she just knew it would never be broken.
 
Usually it was the mother that bonded first, but not where their Little Walt was concerned.
 
He was a daddy’s boy from the day he careened out.
 
And for that press to take something so pure and beautiful and turn it into a cheap, made-for-TV scandal was unconscionable to her.
 
She was as angry as she was hurt.

Dutch, forgetting that LaLa had offered to take the child to the Nursery, took the child to the Nursery himself, talking sweet, happy talk to him as they went.
 

LaLa looked at Gina and shook her head.
 
“That little black boy is going to be one spoiled Negro when his daddy gets through with him,” LaLa said with a laugh.
 

Gina smiled too.
 
LaLa always reminded her of Phaedra from that
Real Housewives of Atlanta
TV show, not just in appearance, although they favored heavily, but especially in the way she phrased her words.
 
A little sass, but lots of southern in her phraseology.
 

LaLa, however, who had been told by more people than she cared to count that she favored and acted like Phaedra the lawyer from that Atlanta Housewives show, kept on talking anyway.
 
“He loves that boy to death,” she continued.
 
“Loves you too, girl, although I’m not sure which one of you he loves the most.
 
And that’s saying something.”

Gina smiled.
 
To have a man who loved her child more than anything else on the face of this earth was a God-sent to her.
 
That was what she wanted.
 
That was what she always dreamed would happen.
 

Besides, she thought, she knew her value to Dutch Harber.
 
And it would indeed take something as remarkable as the birth of a wondrous baby boy to dethrone her reign as number one in his heart.
 

“Anyway,” LaLa said, grabbing her Coach shoulder bag, “I’d better get going.
 
Long day ahead of us tomorrow, especially after that little run-in with the press.”

“Don’t even mention it,” Gina said, her smile shrinking directly in proportion to her thoughts of that encounter with those reporters.

“Don’t let those fools steal your joy,” LaLa warned.
 
“Those reporters were as wrong as they could be to even suggest such a thing.
 
And the way those cable news channels are playing it up now is shameful.
 
They knew you were joking.
 
Hell, you even laughed before you gave that answer.
 
I even laughed.”

Gina nodded, although it didn’t assuage her concern.
 
“I know.”

“Anyway, girl,” LaLa said, heading for the door, “see you tomorrow.”
 
And then, thinking about that lonely, empty home she was heading to, she thought of something.
 
“And G,” she said, turning back, her face now a little more circumspect, “don’t forget to ask Dutch about that man.”

This threw Gina.
 
She frowned.
 
“What man?”

“You
know
.
 
The one we saw on TV with the president and Speaker of the House today.
 
His point person on immigration reform.
 
That guy from Florida.”

“You mean Crader McKenzie?
 
The former senator from Florida?”

“Yeah, him.
 
Although more like Hunk McKenzie to me,” LaLa said with a smile.
 
“You said you’d find out more about him from Dutch.
 
If he was married, that sort of thing.”

 
“I’ll find out, but I don’t know, girl. I heard Crader McKenzie was a tough nut to crack.
 
He’s good looking, I’ll give him that, but he’s always been all business the few times I’ve been around him.
 
I’ve heard he doesn’t suffer fools well and has about as much patience as a bull in a china shop.”

“But is he a married bull, that’s what I want to know?
 
Does that bull have a steady lady?”

Gina smiled, waved her hand in the air.
 
“I’ll find out.”

“Thanks G.
 
Not that I want anything serious.”
 
Then she frowned.
 
“I don’t really know what I want, to tell you the truth.
 
It’s just that after my breakup with Demps, after being with him for so long, it’s been hard to be alone.
 
To go to bed alone.
 
Know what I’m saying?”

Gina nodded.
 
“I know.
 
But why Crader?
 
Especially how you said repeatedly that you have a preference for black men.
 
Especially how you wouldn’t even entertain getting together with anybody I suggested for you.
 
I’m surprised a man like Crader would catch your eye.
 
He’s great looking and all that, even I can see he’s a very attractive man, but why a no-nonsense, button-down dude like him?”
 

“Maybe because he is no-nonsense,” LaLa said.
 
“Maybe because Demps wasn’t button-down and you see where that got me.”

Gina looked at her friend.
 
“Heard from Demps at all?”

“Not at all, girl,” LaLa replied.
 
“And don’t want to, either.
 
I heard he found him some skank from the Jersey Shores who had him twisted right around her little finger.
 
But that’s his problem,” she said in a way that made Gina know the pain was still there.
 
“And that’s the thing.
 
When I saw that Crader person on TV with your husband, something just clicked in me.
 
It was like he seemed familiar, like I knew him when I knew I didn’t know a thing about him.”

Gina looked at LaLa.
 
“That sounds crazy, La.”

LaLa laughed.
 
“I know it does.
 
But it’s true.
 
But gots to run, for real this time.
 
Christian wants to take me to a movie tonight and I need to go home and change first.”

Gina looked at her.
 
“But you’re going with him?”

“Of course I am.
 
Christian makes me laugh for some reason.
 
I enjoy his company.”

“And I’ll bet he enjoy yours.”

LaLa stared at her friend.
 
“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means what’s wrong with Christian?”

“As a friend or something else?”

“Something else.”

“Get real, G.
 
I’ve got almost ten years on that boy.
 
What I’ll look like dating some twenty-five year old, or however old he is?”

“You’ll look like an intelligent sister having the time of your life with an intelligent, caring, wonderful young man.
 
That’s what you’ll look like.”

LaLa shook her head.
 
“Bye, girl.
 
See you when I see you.”

“Or
see ya’, don’t wanna be ya’
?” Gina asked, and LaLa laughed as she left.

 
Gina stood there momentarily, thinking about her best friend and how coming to DC was possibly the worst thing that had ever happened to her.
 
Before Gina married Dutch and became First Lady, LaLa was her business partner at Block by Block Raiders, a social justice agency in Newark, New Jersey that helped gang bangers and prostitutes change their lives around.
 
LaLa was happy and in love with Dempsey, another partner in the agency, and all seemed right with the world.
 

But when Gina moved to DC and saw the sharks circling, she panicked.
 
And wanted her best friend at her side.
 
And that was why LaLa and her longtime beau Dempsey agreed to move to DC too and work on her staff.

But being around power of such high magnitude would either make your inner core stronger, or make you a prey to its lusts.
 
Demps fell prey to its lusts and he and LaLa were on the skids within a few months of their arrival.
 
When LaLa found out he was unfaithful, that was the end of that.
 

But it wasn’t the end of Gina’s guilt.
 
She often wondered if her friends would still be together had they remained in Newark.
 
LaLa didn’t think so.
 
If he would cheat in DC with the bright glare of lights in a town like this, she reasoned, he’d cheat anywhere.
 

But whenever Gina saw that pain deep within LaLa’s eyes, it still gnawed at her.
 
But she exhaled.
 
Worrying about other people’s problems wasn’t helpful at all, especially now that she had her own major league problems to contend with.