Broken Politics Read online

  “Hello Mrs. Kingston-Plank.” He said to Nora in a deep voice.

  “Good Morning Ray. This is the reporter I briefed you on. Kayla Johnson.” Nora said to Ray who was obviously a member of the Secret Service.

  “Good Morning Ms. Johnson.” He said giving me a nod and a warm smile.

  “Good Morning Ray and you can call me Kayla.” I said trying to be cool. Inside it was another story. I was a ball of nervous excitement. I was actually talking to a Secret Service Agent.

  “He is expecting us.” Nora then said.

  It was like the world was moving in slow motion as I watched her hand reach to the doorknob and she turned it. The door then opened and Nora walked inside. I just stood there frozen. Ray gave me a reassuring nod and I followed Nora into The Oval Office. I was struck with the pure power that this office held. Nothing could have prepared me for this exact moment. I’d seen countless photos and videos of this office. I knew where everything was, but I still couldn’t believe I was actually here. It was larger than I’d imagined it to be. I was standing behind one of the two couches that sat facing one another. I turned and there was THE Resolute Desk with The President of the United States sitting behind it on the phone.

  “Yes… alright… of course Madame Ambassador…. You have a good one also. Bye now.” The President, Matthew Von Hansen said before he hung up the phone. He looked up from the phone. His eyes first landed on Nora and then they landed on me. His green eyes seemed to instantly meet mine. I inhaled a breath. He was much more attractive in person. His jawline was strong and it was pretty obvious that under his suit he was built nicely. I couldn’t believe it, but I was being dragged in. What had been infecting women all over the country was now infecting me. There had been no denying that he was incredibly attractive, but standing right in front of him was another story. I instantly hated myself in that moment.

  “Mr. President this is Kayla Johnson the reporter from MetroGirl that will be shadowing you for the time being.” Nora said. I then remembered that I’d inhaled and hadn’t let my breath go. I quickly let my breath go. The President stood from his desk. Nora nudged me to walk towards him. I tried to keep my legs from shaking with anxiety as I approached his desk. He extended his hand and I took it into mine. His hand was warm and obviously strong as he shook my hand.

  “A pleasure to meet you Ms. Johnson.” He said to me.

  “The pleasure is mine Mr. President.” I said my voice slightly shaky. “And it is fine to call me Kayla.” The President’s eyes stayed on mine. There was something about them. There was this feeling that rushed over me. I couldn’t shake it and truthfully I didn’t want to. It felt good.

  “Mr. President I have a meeting to attend to, but I will be back later before my briefing.” Nora said. The President didn’t respond, but his eyes stayed on mine. Nora then cleared her throat and the eye contact he shared with me broke and he looked up to Nora.

  “Yes Nora that’s fine. I will see you later.” He said. I turned to see Nora give him a nod before she turned and walked to the door. She then disappeared out of the room and I was left alone with the President.

  Standing there I didn’t quite know what to say or do. I held my bag tightly over my shoulder. His eyes then returned to mine. I felt my cheeks becoming warm and my heart beating fast.

  “Umm… Where should I sit?” I asked.

  “Anywhere you please.” He said giving me a smile and gesturing to the many places in the room where I could take a seat. I made my way to one of the two couches and sat down. I pulled my laptop from my bag and sat it on my lap. I looked to see that he’d sat back down at his desk and was looking at some paperwork. I didn’t know where to start.

  “So… Mr. President… You’ve completed your first 100 days in office. How does it feel?” I asked him. I felt like this was a completely lame question, but it was one of the questions that Kizzy insisted be asked. I had some better questions in here, but I figured why not start slow.

  He chuckled a bit and looked up from his papers at me. I tried my best to look serious about my question. “Firstly please call me Matt. All my friends call me Matt… well they used to call me Matt.” He looked a little conflicted over it.

  “I could imagine that having friends is hard when you’re president.” I said looking at him. He looked down at his desk for a moment and back up at me and he simply nodded.

  “It’s incredibly hard. You can’t really have an impromptu poker night when you’re president and all your friends have to go through intense security screenings just to get in.” he said still looking directly at me. “Now to your question Kayla… My first 100 days have been a challenge. I never realized how much being president is a balancing act between what you want to do and what others say you can or can’t do.”

  “Can you clarify?” I questioned.

  “I’ve gotten behind multiple pieces of legislation, but Congress keeps voting it down. I’m trying here and they won’t even try and find middle ground with me because I am a republican and they have the democratic majority.”

  “Obviously you aren’t trying to get to halfway with them.” I said looking straight at him. He looked taken aback by my change in tone. “Like the last bill that you sent through that raised the number of US troops in the Middle East when sending troops obviously hasn’t been working, so why send more?” I was questioning the president. I felt good to do so. These were things that bothered me. This administration seemed to backtrack on everything that the last administration had put in place. The last president was doing his best to bring troops home because our involvement in the conflict obviously wasn’t helping, but President Von Dumb Ass wanted to do the opposite and send troops.

  “Obviously you and those in the House didn’t read the bill clearly because it simply doesn’t increase the number of troops, but switches many of them out while still bringing many troops home.” He attempted to explain to me, but I wasn’t buying it. I rolled my eyes and found him smirking at me. My heart skipped a beat in that single moment as I watched him smirk.

  “Let’s hypothetically say that is true.” I said determined to stand my ground with him. He simply laughed.

  “Hypothetically? Really?” he said shaking his head at me.

  “Yeah let’s say hypothetically that it’s true. Then why does the bill cut billions of dollars in veteran’s services if you are to bring troops home?” I asked him point blank.

  “Yes it does cut billions of dollars in veteran’s services, but billions of dollars in pointless services like sports programs. The bill puts those billions towards rehabilitation programs, job placement, and mental health programs for said vets…Ms. Johnson.” The way my name rolled off his tongue was infuriating to me only because it slightly turned me on in the strangest way.

  “Well…well…. Yeah.” I truthfully didn’t have anything else to say. He’d stumped me. I typed a note to give that bill another look when I got home.

  “What’s with the political questions? Don’t you write for MetroGirl the sex magazine with headlines like The Secret Behind Blow Jobs?” he was questioning me. I looked at him and sighed.

  “MetroGirl does have a Political Lifestyle column that I write for. It’s why I’m here. They want me to interview you. Plus MetroGirl isn’t a sex magazine. It is a Contemporary Lifestyle magazine for the everyday DC woman.” There I was lying again about the lack of integrity of my magazine.

  “Well, you set me straight.” He then said clearly mocking me. I rolled my eyes and started typing. We both didn’t say another word for a few minutes. I glanced up to see him looking at me intensely.

  “So Mr. President… How does it feel to be the first single president in the last 130 years?” I asked in a dull voice. It really wasn’t the question I wanted to ask, but I felt like I had been a bit forward asking some of the hard questions right away. He looked at me and grinned.

  “Asking the MetroGirl questions now are we?” he questioned smirking at me again. I was starting to hate t
hat smirk a lot. I watched as he ran his fingers through his chestnut brown hair. “And I told you… call me Matt.”

  “I’m doing my job…Matt.” I instantly said. “Unlike somebody.” I spat under my breath.

  “I heard that…Kayla.” He said. I wasn’t sure if he was infuriated or actually enjoying this. “To answer your question it’s lonely. I mean going on a date would be nearly impossible. I spend my days working and head back to my empty residence with no one there to greet me at the end of the day. People see that I have women throwing themselves at me and they think that I’m getting all the loving and the sex when truthfully I’m alone.”

  Sitting there I looked at him. I couldn’t help, but be shocked because he was completely different that I’d imagined him. I imagined someone who was full of himself and prided himself on being a so called sex-symbol, but in the end he seemed like a guy who just wanted to do his job. I now knew what I saw in his eyes. It was loneliness. He couldn’t spend time with his friends like he had done in the past and he didn’t have a special someone in his life. In the moment I truthfully felt sorry for him. He was a man with so much power and prestige. He was the leader of the free world and in the end he got lonely like the rest of us.

  “Thanks for being honest.” I said to him. He simply gave me a weak smile and went back to his work.

  HOURS SEEMED TO pass quickly. I’d stop writing to ask him questions and he seemed to be as honest as he could be with me. I liked that he was so open. Most times, when I did get to do interviews, people were closed off and not always truthful, but he’d allowed himself to be an open book for me.

  I looked at the clock noticing that it was getting near noon. Which explained that rumbling in my stomach. I’d been so nervous that I hadn’t eaten breakfast and now my body was begging me for food. I heard Matt clear his throat. I looked up from my laptop at him.

  “I’m going to go have my lunch. You could join me if you want though I don’t think MetroGirl readers care that I’m just going to have a turkey and cheese sandwich for lunch.” He said with a small laugh.

  “No I don’t think they would care much.” I said as I closed my laptop. “I’m actually going to see if I could meet a new friend for lunch, but thanks for offering.” I said giving him a smile. I packed my laptop and notebook away in my bag before standing up. “I guess I will be back later, but if not I hope you have a good day.” I said sweetly to him. It seemed as if he did work hard, but he could have been acting for me. I guess my next months here would reveal as much.

  “Thanks I hope you do also.” He said. I started to the door. I gave him one last look before I left the Oval.

  I made my way down the hall and back to the elevator that I originally took up. I went down to where the Press Corp offices were and I found Julie standing at her desk. She picked up her purse and looked up. She saw me and waved me over. I weaved through the desks and made my way to her desk.

  “Hey I was wondering if you were still around. I didn’t see you after Nora came through here with you.” She said in her southern accent.

  “I was in the Oval all morning.” I said to her.

  “WHAT?!” she screamed out. She stood there with her mouth open. Others in the room were staring at us. I tried to lower my voice when I spoke to her.

  “Yeah I’m doing a MetroGirl piece on the president and I’m going to be spending most of my time here with him.” I answered to her in my low voice.

  “Girl, you get to spend your time in the same room with President Von Hansen? You are one lucky lady I tell you.” She said as she fanned herself for effect. I simply laughed. “I’ve got to meet him once. He came through and shook hands one day. That was it. He rarely takes questions from our row in the Press Corp so I’ve never gotten to ask him any real questions, but you get unprecedented access to him. My goodness.” She seemed blown away.

  “I was going to get some lunch. What places are good around here?” I asked her as I felt my stomach rumble once more.

  “I was heading out. There is a great little café not far. They have some tasty things.” She said. “Want to come?”

  “For sure, I’m starving.” I said.

  JULIE AND I chatted all the way to the café. She grew up in Biloxi, Mississippi and was the daughter of a former Congresswoman. Julie grew up with politics and it was in her blood, but she didn’t quite want to be a politician so she settled for writing about politics. She wrote blog posts for the Conservative Daily one of the online conservative publications that I loathed. Oddly Julie seemed nothing like the people you’d expect to write garbage for that site. Julie had a great sense of humor and wasn’t uptight. She was engaged to the chief of staff to the current junior Senator from Mississippi. They were to get married over the summer.

  We sat in the café having lunch together. This place was packed with everyone who was anyone in the DC political scene. I saw a couple congressmen having lunch in the corner table and a few notable journalists having smoothies. This seemed like it was the place to be and I was all for it.

  “So I told her she could either wear the dress or her ass wasn’t going to be a bridesmaid anymore.” Julie said talking about the bridesmaid that she recently kicked out of her very large wedding party. “She said she wasn’t going to wear the dress so she is out. One less chick I have to worry about.”

  “Are you guys still friends?” I asked as I sipped my soda.

  “Hell no. If you are going to disrespect the dress I pick out for you to wear to my wedding as a bridesmaid then you obviously aren’t my friend.” She said in her very sassy voice. “So... you really aren’t seeing anybody right now?”

  “No I’m beyond single at this point.” I said with a laugh. I hadn’t been on a date in forever. Most guys I met around here just didn’t seem to get my ideals or me. They were all about being the breadwinner and not letting me bring home a little bit of my own bread.

  “I know this guy. He is a congressman. I think you two would go great together. He is a democrat like you and I think you’d mesh real well. I can set it up for you.” She said as she sipped at her sweet tea.

  “I really don’t mind dating someone who isn’t a democrat. They just have to respect my ideals.” I said truthfully.

  “I am going to work up a few dates for you. I seriously know so many people around here. We are going to get you a man.” She practically sang. I think I’d given her a new project that I was instantly regretting, but at the same time I wouldn’t mind going on a few dates and seeing what was currently out there. Simone had been begging me to try a few dates for months now. I was going to walk into the fire and there would be no turning back.

  Chapter Two

  Matthew

  THIS WAS THE ONE thing I think I truly hated about this job. The media was already bad, but then there was those bloggers who felt like they could simply say anything about me. This one blog in particular really got under my skin. I knew I shouldn’t read these things, but it was hard to not look away. I needed to see what people were saying about me the good and the bad. Some of the worst came from this blog Broken Politics. I could only hope to meet this K person face to face and have a real debate with him or her.

  It seemed to be my life now day in and day out. I was constantly berated, made fun of, and ridiculed by people who didn’t know me or know anything about my life. These people made assumptions about me and about how I did my job. It was infuriating and as much as I knew that I couldn’t do anything about it, it still kept me awake at night.

  I thought I had tough skin. I was raised in politics. I was raised on Capitol Hill and I thought I knew what I was doing. I was the youngest congressman in my state and I actually made changes happen. Maybe it was me being cocky or maybe it was divine intervention, but one day a voice told me to run for president. With the upcoming election I knew I’d just make it with my age. I was 33 when I started running. The constitution implies that by the inauguration a president must be 35 years of age. I won my election in November
when I was 34, my birthday is in December and by the time I took the oath of office in January I was 35 years old. I’d done it. I was officially the youngest President in US History.

  There was something that people hated about my youth I guess. They also hated my looks, but they can’t blame that on me. That is purely genetics. I’m also single. People peg me as a playboy when really I just hadn’t found the right girl. No girl had sparked my interest enough to want to make her my wife. I wanted someone willing to challenge me, someone who was intelligent and had her own ideals. I wanted a girl who had a good head on her shoulders and was willing to fight for what she believed in.

  The press loved to drag me under the bus at every chance they got. I was always grateful for the good press I could get and with all the bad press I guess that is why I agreed to this article series in MetroGirl. I wanted people to see me as a human being. I wanted to not be seen as a God or a Demon, but a man who just wanted to do right by his country.

  I closed the Internet window on my laptop and looked out at my empty office. It was past noon and I was surprised that Kayla hadn’t arrived. She’d been here for a week asking me questions for the MetroGirl article and sitting either on one of the couches or in a chair in the corner writing. I couldn’t place it, but I felt like I actually missed her presence. As much as I found myself missing her there was no doubt that she infuriated me. She seemed to question my decisions and she didn’t seem to back down from a debate. Most people were afraid to go head to head with me simply because I’m the president, but not Kayla she went at me head on. I didn’t see how a girl with such a great political mind was writing for a publication like MetroGirl, she was well above and beyond that.

  Just as I had the thought the door to my office opened and there she was. She looked different today. For once her hair wasn’t in a tight bun, but her curls were set free. I loved the way her kinky curls moved with her. She looked a little flustered as she tried to keep from dropping her bag while holding a sandwich in one hand. She sat everything down in a seat and I watched her take a breath.