'Well, now that's over with', the new American President sighed, mock-wiping her brow and smiling broadly to her assembled staff. 'We did it, we made it, and we will make history'. A large round of applause, handshakes, embraces followed, and a general feeling of good will filled the Oval Office. It was now Madame President, the first and only one in the two hundred some odd years of the Republic. 'Now, these curtains have to go'.
During the campaign and in the four years of the Biden presidency, Kamala had had many meetings in the Presidential chambers and each time, she winced. 'What God awful taste', she thought. A hodgepodge of curios, old furniture, and uncomfortable chairs. 'It all has to go', and each time she sat patiently while the President rambled on about something or other - the border, Putin, or Zelensky - her eyes wandered around the room.
That ridiculous cowboy - a bronze Remington - would have to go and some flouncy Dresden figurines the lacey, embroidered kinds would replace it. And that God-awful painting of Gainsborough - why Joe wanted a picture of a cute little boy all dressed up in a frilly blue suit is beyond me, except perhaps....well, no, I won't go there...but still the painting has to go back to whatever airless museum he got it from.
Now that she thought about it, just about everything would have to go. This was to be her office, not the man cave forty-odd presidents decorated, or rather threw together as men do, never a thought to matching or complementary colors. Ugly, ugly, ugly! Those ghastly yellow curtains! And that ridiculous florid valence! And those flags! This is the President's office not some army barracks with sweaty men saluting at reveille.
Here the President shook her out of her reverie with some nonsense about the bloody border. What in God's name was she supposed to do? Rush right down to Nogales or Piedras Negras and put up her hands and yell, 'Stop!'? Hardly, and of course he won't go down there by himself, can barely make it off the bus let alone down to the river, and here he was asking her of all people to tell these brown and black people to go back where they came from? Hell, no, they are my bread and butter, my people, my votes.
Joe of course wandered off message and began talking about his childhood summers in Rehoboth, and Kamala took a good look at the miserable carpet under her feet - this ghastly thick blue thing with the Seal of Office right in the middle. Ok, it's emblematic, I get that, but why something so big that you felt you would trip over it. No, a nice silk Bukhara would do nicely, a bit of the exotic East, a nod to my oriental origins and exquisite.
She had seen the carpet she wanted at the Met in New York, displayed as a wall hanging, alone underlit, and magnificent - an ancient installation piece which the moment she saw it, she wanted it and knew exactly where it would go.
As Kamala left the President with warm goodbyes - especially warm because the old fool had no idea what was coming, soon to be left on the curb by none other than yours truly, and about time. I've waited four years for him to topple over into his soup, and he's still standing so getting rid of him is the only way.
'Four more years', she said disingenuously, a big smile on her face. 'Four more years of greatness'. Old Joe smiled back, gave her a wave, and out she walked into the Presidential corridor past photographs of Democratic luminaries- all men except Rosa Parks, that bloody woman who did nothing but refuse to give up her seat when I, as Senator and Vice President have done more for my people than she ever did, and had just the portrait of herself in mind to hang after relegating Rosa to somewhere less conspicuous.
The time for old icons has come and gone, she reflected - Rosa Parks, King, Abernathy and the rest of them. This is the dawn of a new age, one in which the black man will ascend to the top of the human pyramid where he - or she - belongs, heroic, primal, an example of the best and brightest of humanity, and I will be the one to put him there.
A Tiffany lamp here, a Chiparus there, a Mucha above the door, she thought as she proceeded westward and to her own chambers - chambers which she would have to occupy for only a few more impatient months, but such was life on the Potomac, and she could wait, for Destiny awaited her.
All that was history of course, and now that her victory had been won and she sat in the President's chair the real business of governing would begin; but as she shuffled the briefing papers on her desk, she couldn't help noticing the sofas, nasty-looking things as uncomfortable as a Shaker chair and without a note of style. If people have to sit, let them sit in something elegant. Here she thought of Macron's Elysees offices - the French had the right idea, show off the magnificence of la fille ainee de l'Eglise.
A bit busy perhaps - I would tone it down a bit - but I would retain its....Here as she searched for the right word, she looked around the Oval Office and shuddered. A misshapen bust here, a scratchy 17th Century drawing there, and those posed, archaic, dull photographs...splendor. Yes, splendor, that's what I'm looking for.
'Madam President', began Kamala's chief aide, 'I'm sorry to disturb you, but it's time for your Cabinet meeting'.
Ah, yes, in her reverie she had forgotten the Cabinet, her Cabinet, a Cabinet that looks like America, too many gay boys if you ask me, but that I had to do and I must attend to business; but all she could think about where those bloody curtains again and those military-looking flags, and those stuffy, formal presidential portraits. If we have to be together in this room, she thought, it should have a woman's touch, something pretty - not frilly and cute, but queenly, that was it. Here she thought not of Queen Victoria, that stodgy old biddy who lasted far beyond her pull-by date, but of Cleopatra, Queen of the Nile, her hero, her Doppelganger, her idol. Something regal, something imposing, something jeweled and...
Again her reverie was interrupted by her Vice President who was opening the session. He droned on for what seemed an hour, thanking each and every member of the Cabinet in advance for their contribution to the new Presidency and the health of the nation, touching on every item of interest to Education, Social Welfare, Interior, yada yada until finally he sat down and waited for her to speak, which she did, summarily for a change, for these meetings were as boring as ice melting and she had other more important things on her mind.
It felt good to be President, far better than it ever felt as Vice President, a cipher office, a nothing, an add-on in case the President cashed in his chips. No, this felt good, really good, and when her planned redecoration was finished, she would be sitting on her throne on her barge
The barge she sat in, like a burnish'd throne,
Burned on the water: the poop was beaten gold;
Purple the sails, and so perfumed that
The winds were lovesick with them; the oars were silver,
Which to the tune of flutes kept stroke, and made
The water which they beat to follow faster,
As amorous of their strokes.
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