17

IN THE MASTER BEDROOM of the White House, the president, a slick cracker who has spent his entire political career decrying the same “pointy-headed intellectuals” who, at Harvard and then Yale Law, taught him much of what he knows about the intricacies of the American election process (except how to get around it, which he learned as a congressman), stops doing what he is doing while the First Lady, her head all but shaved in order to accommodate the wigs she wears as a matter of course, keeps on doing it. The president’s bed continues to creak as she works harder to convince him in the only way she knows to ignore the bedside phone with the unique ring: the Star Spangled Banner in blues tempo.

“Dwayne, honey, don’t you dare answer that.” It is half demand, half plea.

The leader of the free world rolls off. “Hon,” he grunts. “This one I got to.”