This chapter is long. I'm warning you now.
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
An address I've thought about countless times in my career, never believing for one second that I would ever get an opportunity to step a toe past the heavily guarded gates. But here I was, driving to my first day of work at the White House.
I looked down at the center console of my car for what seemed like the millionth time since driving away from my empty apartment. I had only moved in two days prior, so most of my boxes were still left packed up. I had a bed to sleep on, a couch for guests, a TV to watch, and the barest necessities in the fridge. Just enough to survive without going crazy.
I checked to make sure that my badge was still where I put it. It hadn't moved, but that didn't stop me from checking again a few minutes later.
My official White House badge.
I watched as the stone building ballooned up in my windshield. It was way bigger in person that it ever appeared in pictures. It could easily fit 50 of my apartments within it's walls and the thought made my heart pound in my chest as I got closer to the gate.
I turned off the main street, pulling in front of the main gate. Two men walked over to opposite sides of my car, keeping one hand at their gun on their hip. I rolled my window down and held up my badge to the officer at my side. He took it from me, inspecting it, and I turned my head to find out where the other officer had gone. My badge was handed back to me and I smiled, but it wasn't returned. "Can you open your trunk for us, Mr. Fields?"
I reached down for the little button, watching the trunk in my rearview as it stayed open for a few seconds and then was promptly closed. The officer behind my car nodded and his voice floated up through my window. "All clear."
I received a tight-lipped grimace from the officer at my window. "You're all set, Mr. Fields." He raised him arm to the guard controlling the gate and it opened faster than I thought the heavy iron could move.
"Thank you." I murmured under my breath, knowing that he probably wasn't listening to me anyway.
There was a second gate, this one leading into the parking lot. There was one guard behind what I'm sure was bulletproof glass who glared at me as I reached my badge out to the sensor in order to get the arm to raise up. Still, I smiled. D.C. was not going to turn me into an asshole. I made that promise to myself before I even left my hometown. If money-hungry corporate couldn't do it, power-hungry politics couldn't either.
I took a deep breath as I closed my car door, taking in the air. It smelled fresher on this side of the fence, although I knew that was realistically just a placebo effect. The air over here was no different than the air two blocks away.
But it was a nice thought.
I arrived at one of the east wing entrances. Having studied the map this morning, I knew the entire layout of the building, from top to bottom. Or at least, that which was public information. I'm sure there were a lot of private rooms and hidden stairwells that I would never get a chance to see. But I knew enough to get my to my boss' office that morning and that was enough for me.
Like I said, the White House was nothing like you saw in pictures. It was better. Everything looked more fragile, more intricate, busier. Way busier. No one looked at me strangely because no one knew who I was. There was no way to know every single person in the building at any given moment. And quite frankly, no one cared. They all had their own lives, their own jobs, their own priorities. If they didn't need to know you, they didn't care to know you.
I could see the similarities from the corporate world already.
I was heading for the Chief of Staff's office. My boss. Secondhand to the President of the United States. That meant that I was closer to the president than billions of people ever would be. Hell, just by being in the building I was light years ahead of everyone else.
I reached the door that I was aiming for and it was closed, just as I expected. I knocked, three raps, hard and swift, and pressed my ear to the door. It was hard to hear anything with all of the commotion in the hallway, but after focusing, I was able to make out a woman's voice clear as day. "I said, come in."
I gripped my briefcase tightly and opened the door, making sure I closed it behind me. I turned to face the voice with a smile on my face and was met with yet again, another frowning one.
Well goddamn, did anyone smile in this place?
"Good morning." I glanced down at her nameplate. "Ms. Wilson." I recognized the name from emails. She was the Chief of Staff's Secretary. "Nice to meet you. My name is Parker Fields. I have a meeting with the Chief of Staff."
She rolled her eyes and I refrained from groaning outwardly. "Yeah, well, no meeting in this house is certain. He's meeting with the President currently, so you'll have to wait. You have some work to do. You're already late."
"I'm an hour early."
She glared at me. "Which means you're two hours late." She typed away at her computer and I took the moment to glance over her desk. It was practically bare, the neatest desk I'd ever seen. Did she function like this daily? How?
"I'm sending you a briefing on this hour's crisis." This hour's? "Read through it. Find a solution. All of the supplementary information is in the boxes on the floor in there." She jerked her head towards his office door. "The Chief of Staff will see you eventually. Have something to give him and don't fuck it up. So far you aren't annoying. I'd like you to stay."
"I'm...not sure what to say to that." I tilted my head, looking at her curiously. She could tell I wouldn't be annoying by the two sentences I said to her?
"You don't have to say anything. Just get in there and do your job, Mr. Parker." She cut her eyes away from me back to her computer and I knew the conversation was over.
After closing the door to his office, it went completely silent, almost like it was soundproof. It wouldn't surprise me if it was. I ignored the boxes on the floor, choosing to step over them. There were way more there than I wanted to even think about and I decided to take my own look around first.
The bookshelf was boring. Not much there, nothing that stood out at least. In fact, the whole room was boring, much like Andrea's desk. I wondered if she ever came in to straighten up in here. I didn't want to open any drawers or cabinets. I wasn't that nosy. The only thing that I found of interest was the picture frame on his desk. But instead of finding a picture of his wife or kid, it was a picture of himself.
Who the hell had framed pictures of themselves just around? Having it as a screensaver on your phone was one thing, but this was something else entirely.
I set up my laptop in one of the chairs and I sat on the floor in front of it. I found it more comfortable to work on the floor when I didn't have a desk.
I took a minute to read through the briefing. Great, my first day and I was tasked with figuring out how to stop two political parties from shutting down the whole government because they couldn't get along. All over a policy that doesn't affect either one of them as much as it does the rest of America.
Alright, time to get to work.
It took hours just to read through the entire policy, but I did. It was a lot of fluff, but I drafted several options that I felt confident would appease both sides.
And now I didn't know what to do.
I opened the door to peek my head out. "Hey Andr-" I looked up to lock eyes with the Chief of Staff, my boss. "Mr. Abernathy! Nice to meet you." I jumped back, extending my hand out in greeting.
He pushed his way through the door, ignoring my hand.
At this point, if anybody smiled at me, I was gonna have a heart attack.
"Show me the solution to my problems Mr. Parker."
I rushed over to my papers and arranged them before handing them over. He took them from me and began to flip through them before glancing up at me. "I know you don't expect me to read all of this myself." He snapped his fingers. "Rundown. Now. I don't have all day and neither do you."
"I don't see why we can't raise the amount to $20 billion to appease the Republicans."
He frowned, flipping again. "Because the Democrats won't go a penny over 15. Next."
Well, that wasn't in the brief, but okay. "Okay, to appease the Democrats, remove the piece about adding to defense."
"You seriously think Republicans are going to go for that?"
"They might if they get more money in other areas."
He stopped rifling through the papers and tossed them onto his desk. "Might? I don't pay you for mights." Well, technically, I hadn't been paid at all yet. Speaking of, I needed to set up my direct deposit. I shelved that on my mental to do list. "It seems like what you're getting at is that you don't have anything for me. You do realize that this has to be resolved today, right?"
Was this man insane?
"None of that stuff was in the brief. How was I expected to know all of these things if no one told me?"
He straightened up, making me feel about two feet tall even though he wasn't that much taller than me. "If you're looking for a boss that's going to hold your hand all the way through your job, then this isn't the place for you. Washington isn't the place for you. We aren't CEOs just playing around with a business. We're running a goddamn country. Clearly, you aren't cut out for this job. Thanks for wasting my time. Thank yourself for wasting yours."
He turned to walk towards the door. "Andrea will help you collect your things." His eyes scanned the room, landing on my bag. "Although, I see you may not need the help."
"Wait, wait, wait. I'm fired?" There was no way. No way. I just moved out here, changed my entire life for this. No way.
"Firing implies that you were hired in the first place. You didn't even last a day. I want you out of my office by end of business." I know I wasn't supposed to stand around with my mouth open, but I was in shock.
Something about the click of the door made me want to crumple to the floor. It was so soft. So final. But I wouldn't do that. Not here.
When I was sure that I could maintain my composure long enough to I make it to the bathroom, I made a break for it. Thankfully, Andrea wasn't at her post so I didn't have to spend time doing the walk of shame.
I don't know why I expected the hallways to be quieter. They weren't. I twisted and turned my way through the corridors, pushing myself into the first bathroom I found. No one was inside.
My lucky day.
I shut myself in one of the stalls and pressed my forehead against the door and just let the tears fall. They were silent, but inside my mind was racing.
I'd never failed like this before. Matter of fact, I didn't even fail! I had been fired for something I had no control over. I was damn good at my job and I was getting the boot over the fact that I couldn't read minds.
Why did I want to come here?
I knew why I wanted to come here. I wanted to make a difference. People always talked about how politicians and people in government didn't care about anyone but themselves. And maybe that was true.
But it wasn't for me.
Why had one interaction reduced my normally high confidence to abnormally low levels?
"First day?" I jumped in my own stall even though the voice was coming from outside of it. Was he talking to me?
"Um," I cleared my throat trying to shake an unsteady voice. "Erm, yeah it is."
"Well, the bathroom in the West wing is usually less busy than this one." A hand holding a tissue appeared over the top of my door followed by a head. "Perfect for nervous breakdowns."
I took the tissue cautiously, studying his face, trying to ignore the bizarreness of the situation. He had a nice-looking face. He couldn't have been too much older than me, if at all; maybe 28, at the most, 30, but I doubted it. "Thanks."
Instead of climbing down from the chair like I thought he would, he stayed looking at me as I cleared my face. "Who ya working for?"
I swallowed. "Abernathy."
He grimaced. "Sheesh, worst of them all right off the bat. You a sucker for torture?"
I shook my head. "No, I just thought...Hell, I don't know what I thought."
"You thought you were gonna make a difference?"
I glanced back up at him. "Is it that much of a pipe dream?"
He shrugged. "No...But you can't change the world in a day."
"Well, I wouldn't know. I've been fired."
He eyes widened. "The hell did you do?"
"I was drafting a policy for him and I couldn't read his mind, so he fired me."
"Oh, the budget, right?"
"Yeah, how'd you now?" Clearly, everybody else knew but me.
"I'm the Press Secretary. It's my job to know."
I couldn't do anything but laugh. This day could not possibly get any weirder. "I have a job to get back to, but uh, piece of advice, don't give up."
"How am I supposed to not give up when I've already been fired?"
He rolled his eyes. "So what? I spent my first day crying in the bathroom too and now, between me and you, I have one of the most important jobs in this office. Stop taking no for an answer. There are no free handouts here. If you want it, you're gonna have to fight for it the best way you know how, even if that means learning to read minds. In Washington, you're either one step ahead or five steps behind. You got yourself in the door. It's your job to keep yourself from getting kicked out."
He paused, tapping his hand on the stall door. "Oh, and don't forget, to pass a budget, you don't need all the votes. Just a majority of them." His head disappeared before I even had a chance to comprehend what he'd told me.
I fumbled to unlock the stall door, catching him as he was leaving. "Hey, what's your name?"
He narrowed his eyes at me. "It's your job to find out. Google me, Parker." And with that, he let the door close softly behind him, leaving me to stare at my own reflection.
He was right.
It was my job to keep myself from getting kicked out.
What the hell was I doing here crying in a bathroom?
I was better than that.
I know better than that.
Andrea was there when I returned back to his office and she gave me a look of pity. "I had high hopes for you."
"Oh, don't count me out yet Andrea."
She was taken aback. "Andrea? What happened to Ms. Wilson?"
I rested my hands on the edge of her desk. "I figured if I'm going to be here a while, we might as well get friendly with one another. "
She humphed, turning her eyes back to the monitor. "Abernathy wants you out of his office."
"By the end of the day, he said."
She looked at the watch on her hand. "Well, they go in to vote on that budget in four hours. Abernathy meets with the President in an hour to discuss, so really, you've only got 45 minutes to make a miracle happen."
"Well, then let me not waste any time."
It took me almost the whole hour, but I finally got it. That was probably the fastest research I'd ever done in my entire life.
God, it seemed like when you really had to get somewhere, everyone wanted to walk as slow as they possibly could. I'd been in these hallways all day and everyone was moving with purpose. Well, not anymore.
"Excuse me...excuse me...excuse me." The hallway seemed endless, but I finally arrived at the door I was looking for and standing in front of it was a tall and muscular Secret Service agent. "Hi, I need to speak with the Chief of Staff."
He didn't move, didn't even look down at me, his eyes continuing to scan the hallways. His skin was smooth and dark and I resisted the urge to stare. "The Chief of a staff is in the meeting with the President. No interruptions."
I nodded, fiddling with the corner of the folder I was holding. "I'm aware. But it's urgent and it pertains to the meeting that they're having. I'm certain he'd want to know about this."
He finally looked down at me. "No interruptions."
"Look, I'm the Chief of Staff's assistant and if you don't let me in there, the whole government is going to shut down. You won't be getting paid for God knows how long. I'm trying to help. Please." I gave him my best pleading face and while he didn't move a muscle in his, he did turn towards the door.
"Yes! Thank you!" I came closer, trying to push myself into the office.
He held out his hand, pushing it against my shoulder and that was my first taste of how strong he had to be. "No, you stay right here." I rubbed my shoulder, trying to make the slight burning sensation go away.
He went inside for literally a few moments before the door opened again and with him came Abernathy. He did not look happy. "I thought I told you to get the hell out here." He hissed.
I ignored him. Instead, I shoved the folder I'd crafted into his hands. "Look at it. It's perfect. All the changes you need are in that folder. I know who's gonna vote which way and why. It's enough."
"Mr. Parker, I don't want-"
"Just look in the goddamn folder." I said, surprising him and myself. But I didn't regret it. I was sick and tired of hearing no.
He flipped through it quickly, like he did my last one. And I didn't have to explain this time. Whether he liked it or not, I knew he saw that I'd figured it out. He looked up, closing the folder with a sigh. "Stay here." The Secret Service agent opened the door again and Abernathy was gone again.
Great. Just me and the agent, doing nothing but standing here. We couldn't even stare at each other because he wouldn't even look at me for more than two seconds. "So, uh, you do this often?"
Parker, why the hell did you just say that?
"Sorry, that was a terrible question. I don't know why I said that." I pressed my back against the wall, trying to sink into it.
"That was a horrible question." My head snapped towards the agent. He was talking to me, but his eyes were still scanning the hallway.
I shook my head. "Yeah, sometimes I just get this word vomit and I say things that probably should stay in my head and then it's like I can't stop. So I just have to-"
"Like right now?" The guy was joking with me. You couldn't tell by his face, but I was getting used to the fact that no one smiled here. He was definitely joking with me.
I smiled. "Yeah, like right now." I left our conversation at that and I started to scan the hallways too, pretending to pick up little details that I thought maybe a Secret Service agent would. It was like a calculated iSpy and I was having fun for a little while, until the door opening shocked me back into reality.
Abernathy walked out, glaring at me like he always did. Great. "He would like to see you."
"Who would like to see me?"
He sighed, looking pained. "The King of England."
Heavy with the sarcasm there. "The President? Why?"
He threw up his hands, turning around. "How should I know? Excuse me while I go print off hundreds of these." What? He was using my revisions?
"Hey, does this mean I'm still fired?" I called after him.
He picked up his arm, gesturing back to me. "You live to see another day Parker."
I pumped my first into the air, spinning around. "Yes!...Yes!"
"I don't think you want to keep the President waiting, Mr. Parker." The Secret Service agent was still holding the knob to the door, waiting on me.
That's right.
I stopped in my tracks, immediately looking down to smooth out my clothes.
The fucking President wanted to see me!
There was no way.
And yet, here I was, walking into his office.
The Oval Office.
It was more picturesque in person. Like a painting almost. Everything you saw in pictures was there in real life. Every single thing. I had a feeling nothing in this room was touched except for his desk. It seemed to be a running theme in this building. Made you not want to spend too long in any given place.
He was standing, looking outside of the large window, a glass of water in his hand that he was sipping on.
"It's an honor to meet you, Sir." He turned around at the sound of my voice, a small smile on his face.
Talk about picturesque.
I knew he was young. At 36, Nicolas Rowe was the youngest president to ever sit in office. His father was president before him. He grew up around politics and the country loved his father, so they were eager to get him in. It made sense.
But what didn't make sense was how good he looked.
"Get it together Parker." I mumbled.
"What was that?" His smile grew wider as he looked at me curiously.
Wow. So people here did know how to smile.
I walked a bit closer, reaching out my hand. "Sorry, an honor, Mr. President, Sir."
He took it, his hand practically swallowing mine. "Oh please don't start that. Sir is fine if you must, but when there aren't people around, I really prefer people to call me Nicolas. Just please not Mr. President. And definitely not both." He laughed. It was contagious and I found myself laughing too until I realized he was still holding my hand. And suddenly it was like my hand was on fire.
I pulled gently, getting him release his grip and he did, clearing his throat as he led me around to the front of his desk. "I hear you saved the day today."
I rolled my eyes. "Really? Mr. Abernathy told you that?"
He nodded, stepping away from the desk. When I tried to follow, he pressed a hand to the same shoulder his Secret Service agent did, instructing me to stay put without saying anything at all. "He did. He also told me he fired you." He walked over to his water cooler, filling up another glass before coming back and offering it to me.
"Thank you." I took it graciously, taking a sip. "Okay, I'm not even kidding. This is the best water I've ever had."
He raised an eyebrow, pulling his mouth to one side in a smirk. He had a dimple on his left side, but didn't have one on the right. You couldn't tell things like that in pictures. "You can taste water?"
"I don't trust people that can't."
He grinned. "Atta boy."
This was so...normal. The more I thought about it, the more uncomfortable I got. He's was the last person in this building I expected to be normal and yet, he was the one person in this building who was.
"So, tell me why he fired you."
"Because I couldn't read the si-" I stopped, sighing. "Because I wasn't thinking ahead. I was five steps behind."
He chuckled. I know I said I wanted smiles, but I'd gotten so used to not seeing them that I didn't know how to function. "I see you've spoken to my Press Secretary."
"How'd you know that?"
"Markus is the only one who uses that phrase. It's always five. Never three, never two, always five. He's very dramatic." He reached past me to set his glass down and I couldn't help but inhale his cologne.
It was woody and masculine, but also had a hint of vanilla and I closed my eyes briefly, just smelling.
I really needed to get a grip.
I expected him to move back, but he didn't. "So, Parker, you plan on sticking around to help me keep this country running?" He was close enough to me that he was able to speak lowly and it was distracting. His lips were distracting. His eyes were distracting. They were a greenish brown, earthy.
"Um, yes...Sir. Nicolas, I mean, Sir. I'm here. Whenever you want." Wow, that came out exactly how I didn't want it to. I might as well lay out on his desk now.
He laughed again, stepping away from me and I finally felt like I could breathe again. "Good to know. I have a feeling you could really help around here."
I cleared my throat. "Of course."
"You take the rest of the day off. I have a feeling you'll have a busy day tomorrow." He walked back over to his window and I had a feeling that was my queue to leave.
"Thank you Nicolas." I couldn't believe I was on first name basis with the President of the United States.
He turned his head back around to me. "See you tomorrow Parker." He winked at me, sending chills through my body.
Okay, definitely time to leave.
The door opened for me before I could open it myself and I was back into the commotion of the hallway, with no one knowing what just transpired between the me and the President.
What just transpired? Did anything even transpire? Was I reading too far into the whole thing?
"Thanks Secret Service Agent guy." These guys didn't wear nametags.
"It's Cliff." I spun back around, my mouth open in surprise, and he looked away from me. "Don't make this a thing Parker." His eyes came back to mine briefly, before looking away.
Oh, we're friends now. No going back.
I grinned. "Thanks Cliff. I'll see you tomorrow." This time he only nodded.
I decide not to press my luck any further.
The day couldn't get any better than it already was.
Except maybe with some Chinese food.
I was starving.
What ya thinking?