The Road Narrows As You Go (55 page)

Frank shook off the horror, but it came right back, and he spoke in this very different voice from the voice she knew. I'm going. I must go.

Wait for me? Wendy tried to hold his hand. He cringed and pulled away.

I can't stay here another
second
. I might vomit on a flag.

Where should I meet you?
Motorola, he said and ran.

She took a long time in the ladies' room composing herself in front of the mirror, and then accepted a tour of the White House rose garden. The rose garden led fortuitously into the chocolate and candy shop. There she met up with the astronaut and the televangelist who had just bowled a few lanes together in the White House alleys. Wendy ate two of the president's chocolate bars and a few chocolate squares, drank the president's blend of chocolate milkshake, and finished it off with the president's preferred chocolate hoo-hoo cake. She felt better now.

As the sugar high kicked in, Wendy got lost in an image from her childhood, her mother asleep on the couch in the living room. Her mother never had a bedroom, just a pullout couch. Here in the opulent halls of the White House, the home of America's president, his wife, their grown children, and all their staff, Wendy saw the sadness of this memory. She saw the sadness with a clarity that seemed stupid of her to have ignored for so long. Crying in the presidential candy shop, she hid her face perusing a shelf of syrups.

An aide touched her gently on the shoulder and said she was next. She wiped her eyes outside the Oval Office. Now the time had come to meet her father. Her heart was on fire, frozen, pumping madly, and stopped.

She went in.

The Oval Office smelled as though the president snuck in a second helping of the baked apple pie that came as one choice on the dessert menu at lunch, and as he strode across the carpet to greet her, arms open wide, he seemed to pause for a moment to swallow a last bite. They embraced. He smelled of baked apple pie. She swooned.

I guess you know why I invited you, he said as he went around the side of a sofa and then sat down on it. She followed him to the conference area of the oval and sat down on a sofa facing his.

Yes, she said.

These lunches are a treat for me. I've met many of my favourite Americans this way, he said, and learned a lot about how this country thinks. I want to thank you for bringing your humour and warmth and weirdness to the funny pages. Do you want a jelly bean?

Yes, please, said Wendy and scooped a handful from the glass bowl on the coffee table between them.

My candy chef makes my jelly beans for me right here in the Oval Office.

I tried a hoo-hoo, she said and blushed. My palate did a backflip.

Anyway. Your strip's my favourite and I'm not just saying that.

Oh no?

No, I used to say that my favourite was
Peanuts
.

Peanuts
is my inspiration.

These days so many funnies are
mean
-spirited. I wish the guy who draws Opus would quit. Time's up, buddy. Too cynical. Charlie Brown gives you a laugh of compassion. That's eternal. More eternal than politics and parody, don't you think?

I love how he draws
Bloom County
. It's funnier than
Eek & Meek
or
Ziggy
.

No. Your lost pets, they spread love. Opus spreads fear. I read
Strays
first. Breaks my heart, busts my gut. Your hilarious pets get my day going. They
deserve
owners. Won't you ever give them to people to care for?

They scrape by with each other.

Those
are
good hoo-hoos, aren't they?

She nodded. She wanted to reach out and touch Reagan. Instead he leaned forward and touched her hands.

He laughed. His laugh laughed. Those apple cheeks. He was made of pie, that's how happy Reagan looked. So happy Wendy thought they might both start to cry.

I guess you know why I invited you, he repeated.

My mom never got over you, she said.

Reagan asked her if she was Christian.

Well, Wendy said, my
mother
was Jewish so …

What happened to her?

She passed away. Angina. Second act of
Inherit the Wind
community production.

Oh, how sad.

I was sixteen. Been on my own ever since.

And your father?

You're
my father.

Reagan blinked. Of course, he said. Of course. I blanked for a moment. The president sat back in his sofa and brushed flat his suit pants. Well, I know it's hard. Some say life is a pickle we endeavour to turn back into a cucumber.

Mom never talked about anything other than showbiz. Always showbiz. To her, the stage was God.

An aide knocked, delicately opened the door. He pointed to his wristwatch and mouthed a few words.

Reagan nodded, and when father and daughter were alone again, father sighed and said this would probably be their one and only chance to meet.

So Wendy asked the president if he had any questions for her, and he laughed and said, Will that cat detective Tom Clues ever catch his culprit?

Yes, said Wendy. If you'll give me a kiss.

They flew home that night on Hexen's private 747—this long cylinder seemed very hollow, and they kept to separate areas. Frank didn't speak to her except politely to suggest she take a sleeping pill. He was poring through contracts with his interns looking for a solution in upcoming
mergers and acquisitions. There was no way he could
quit
. The idea was appalling, that was the word he used. He
looked
appalled. Shaken to the core, eyes bloodshot, toupée aslant.

She didn't tell him about her meeting with Reagan; he didn't ask. Frank seemed to forget she'd even had a meeting. He was so absorbed in his strategies.

The attendant offered to thread a movie for her when she didn't go right to sleep, so Wendy spent the night slumped in a leather chair watching Hollywood action films alone with a sketchpad in her lap and a bowl of buttery popcorn.

To us it was astounding. She had done it, she'd met the president. And he claimed her as his daughter, denied nothing, and even felt something.

I feel for Frank, she told us when she got home. He's a mess. He went straight from the hangar to his office. I don't think he knows how to deal with bad news. I feel very peaceful, though. I met my father. It wasn't what I expected at all. It happened so quickly and yet it left such a lasting impression. I feel like I walked through a door in myself. It could have been a disaster like Frank and I wouldn't know until I was out the door. But when I came out of the Oval Office I felt light on my feet and calm. The calm didn't last but I feel more connected to myself having kissed him.

STRAYS

37

Frank never came out of panic mode after his one-on-one with the president. He was at his desk in the Transamerica Pyramid twenty hours a day in an attempt to do what the president could not, and use his weight in the bonds market, his financial acumen and salesman's smooth tongue, his lobbyists, his Hexen team and his half-formed financial quango, all to influence the politicians who wanted to see a curb to the credit market.

That whole month, ABC aired commercials every hour for the upcoming cartoon special, five times an hour primetime. The trailer flashed a montage of our animation with the theme music and a voiceover that promised viewers
Look out, Santa! What better way to find out the true meaning of Christmas than to try celebrating in the summer? That's what your favourite animals from
Strays
seek to find out.

TV Guide
put Wendy on the cover in between her characters and the headline
Are You Ready for Christmas this July?

Then, two days before the National Cartoonists Society Awards, a letter from Solus First National arrived at No Manors to notify Wendy that the interest rate on her mortgage just spiked thirty percent. The same
day a courier arrived and asked her to sign for an official letter from the United States Senate asking that she appear before a subcommittee in Washington, D.C.,
tomorrow
.

Out came the Motorola. Her palms were soaked. Her jaw was gnashing. She never used the phone attached to the wall in the kitchen anymore. She walked in and out of No Manors using the cellular, distracted, in a blind panic. As soon as he picked up she said, Frank, I just got some
things
in the mail today I need you to explain.

I got one, too. A letter to appear before the subcommittee on blah blah blah.

What
is
this? D.C. is across the country.

A fishing expedition, Frank said. We have to go, though. I alerted the pilots to warm up the 747.

Okay so hold on, listen, before my aneurism. Second thing. Suddenly my mortgage on No Manors is up, and by up I mean
thirty percent
up— from last month. Any idea what's going on?

There was a pause on the line and she heard a truck's horn bleat. Then Frank told her, Wendy, listen, go cash out as many stocks and bonds at Solus as you can and cash out your chequing account. Whatever else. They're going belly up. The credit market is in a fast-freeze. Go talk to Chimney right now. Put the screws to him if he resists. Can you do that? Bring luggage to pack up the money. Put the money and copies of your cartoon special and whatever else you value in the bedroom safe. Right away.

Jesus. Who pulled the emergency bell?

Wendy, the economy is walking drunk along the ledge of a tall building right now.

Gee, make me grind my teeth again or
what
, Frank.

Once this dip is done dipping, all will be fine. Jonjay's formula predicted this, as always, and saved me. Can't move all the money out of the way of this but some. It sort of is hell. Meanwhile, caught up in the middle of a political witch-hunt. For becoming a powerful and formidable
opponent to the old bluebloods running things in Manhattan, you and I must now go do penance, and act docile and incapable in front of this subcommittee of kangaroos. To wound me, they drag you into the fray. However, it's all for show.

We better be home in time to see my premiere, she said. I don't want to be stuck in a hotel room for it. I want to be at No Manors, drunk.

One day. In and out. We'll be home in twenty-four hours.

Frank, for once I need you to tell me the truth.

This is the truth.

No, I know something's going on. You ask for my trust, then I need to know the whole unvarnished truth. Otherwise I'm liable to be persuaded what this subcommittee claims to know about you.

Okay, said Frank. I'll tell you everything and you can decide for yourself.

What follows are the questions members wanted Wendy to answer at the hearing before the House Energy and Commerce Committee's Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee:

Rep. John Dingell, Michigan, Chairman: The Chair wants to emphasize that the subcommittee's proceedings today are neither civil nor are they criminal. The function of the subcommittee today is to make a series of inquiries. The Chair will observe that these are not criminal proceedings. The constitutional rights of the persons appearing before the committee will be very, very carefully protected with equal care and equal vigour. Our intentions today are legislative in nature and concern the adequacy and effectiveness of our laws. The Chair recognizes the honourable representative from Virginia, Thomas Bliley.

Rep. Thomas Bliley Jr., Virginia: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The hearing today and the hearing scheduled for tomorrow are for the purpose of examining possible irregularities in the trading of high-yield bonds. Specifically with respect to transactions between an underwriter and affiliates of the underwriter. We are making this examination through a study
of three particular cases involving the firm of Hexen Diamond Mistral. The high-yield bond market has exploded in the last few years as these securities are increasingly used for a variety of corporate purposes. Our objective is not to debate the value of high-yield bonds generally. Their economic importance, in my view, is indisputable.

John Dingell, Michigan, Chairman: Miss Ashbubble, are you aware of why you have been asked to appear today before the House Energy and Commerce Committee's Subcommittee for Oversight and Investigations?

Ron Wyden, Oregon: I'd like to start the questions by asking how long you have known the junk bond banker Frank Fleecen?

Dennis Eckart, Ohio: Where did you first meet Frank Fleecen?

Jim Slattery, Kansas: Are you, or have you ever been, a Satanist? Let me rephrase that. Are you, or have you ever been, in league with the devil? Just one more follow-up question. Have you ever signed any pacts with the devil or been part of any secret witches' covens?

Gerry Sikorski, Minnesota: Have you ever practised any of the following: sodomy, rape, incest, cannibalism, or murder? Think carefully before you answer.

Rich Boucher, Virginia: Have you ever buried a child alive, or been buried alive in a ritual sacrifice to Satan? Have you eaten human flesh? And how can you be so certain about that?