Supreme Courtship

“I don’t care what they say.”

“I know. But you might try. This midwestern imperturbability can be overdone.”

On the TV screen, the President and Pepper were sitting side by side on the fauteuils in front of the fireplace, cameras snapping away, a boom mike hovering like a bat above them.

“Mr. President, do you watch Courtroom Six?”

“Never miss it,” the President said. “My favorite show. After Bowling with the Stars.”

“Judge Cartwright, are you qualified to sit on the Supreme Court?”

“I doubt I’m qualified to be a clerk at the Supreme Court.”

The reporters laughed.

“Then what are you doing here?”

“What I’m told.”

“Judge Cartwright, is it true you’re pla

“If you were in my position, would you quit your day job?”

More laughter.

Vanderdamp chuckled and slapped Graydon on the knee. “That’s my girl. You tell ’em, Pepper. Oh, this is going to be rich. Rich, Graydon.”

“Rich indeed.”

They watched. The President said on TV, “Judge Cartwright may not be a traditional Supreme Court nominee, but I believe that, given the atmosphere in this city, and perhaps in the country as a whole, she is just what these times call for. She knows the country and the country knows her. She’s a hands-on, commonsense, workaday judge. Calls them as she sees them. And I call on the Senate Judiciary Committee and the full Senate to approve her. Without delay.”

“Nice touch, that, ‘without delay,’ ” Graydon murmured. “A little final flick of the cape in the bull’s face.”

“Yes,” President Vanderdamp smiled, “I thought you’d like that.”

A WAR ROOM OF SORTS was arranged at the Retropolitan Club, a few blocks from the White House, where Graydon Cle

Tables had been arranged to approximate the Senate Judiciary Committee dais. A name card in front of Hayden Cork’s place indicated he had the role of Senator Mitchell. Other senators were played by various White House and Justice Department people, as well as by a few seasoned proxies Graydon brought in. He himself sat aloof, serene, off to the side wearing his most eminently gray expression, in a leather armchair that looked like it had borne the weight of establishmentarians going back to the New Deal.

Pepper arrived, took in the surroundings, and said, “I was looking for the Cartwright event. This looks more like a Nuremberg trial.”

Hayden nodded curtly and opened an enormous loose-leaf binder stamped CARTWRIGHT / CONFIDENTIAL.

“All that, about me?” Pepper said. “Didn’t think I’d been alive long enough to leave a paper trail that thick.”

“Judge Cartwright,” Hayden began in a plummy voice, “what makes you think you’re qualified to sit on the Supreme Court?”

“Never said I was. Senator.”

“Then I’m asking you now. Are you?”

“I think I’ll leave that to you distinguished-looking folks.”

“It’s a straightforward question. Just answer straightforwardly, if you wouldn’t mind.”

“Well, Senator, all I know is my phone rang one Saturday morning. It was the President of the United States. He asked me to do this. I didn’t volunteer for the job. You ask me, I think the whole thing’s nuts.”

Hayden tapped his pencil on the table. “Is that really the tone you’re pla

Pepper said, “I’m just a plain old girl from Plano. What you see is what you’re going to get. You want to brighten me up, you might try silver polish.”

“Why don’t we move on,” Hayden said heavily.

“You could just skip ahead to abortion. That’s all anyone cares about anyway these days. Unless you’re busting to hear my views on Marbury v. Madison.”

“Judge-”

“Just trying to speed things along. I know how busy you folks are.”

Hayden Cork pursed his lips and flipped to another section of his briefing book.

“Is there anything in your past that might prove embarrassing to this Committee?”

Pepper did a sweep of the faces staring at her. “Depends how easy you all embarrass.”

“Judge Cartwright,” Hayden said in a despairing voice, “this is a dress rehearsal.”

“Look here, Senator. You got five thousand FBI agents out there going through my garbage and waterboarding everyone I ever talked to, starting with the ob-gyn who slapped my butt on my way out of the womb. Do you really think I’d put myself through all this if I had a whole catacomb of skeletons doing the cha-cha in my closet?”

Hayden Cork’s lips had by now turned blue. He cast an exasperated glance at Graydon, who was looking on with leonine bemusement.

“But now that you mention it,” Pepper said, “there was that Saturday night in college when I got up and danced on the table without panties. That the sort of thing you’re looking for, Corky?”

Hayden blushed. A few other senators chortled.

Hayden turned to a different section of his phone book-sized dossier.

“Your husband, Buswald Bixby?”

Pepper said, in a different tone of voice, “Why don’t you just call him Buddy. Everyone does.”

“The television producer. Of your show. And others.”

“That’s right,” Pepper said, edgily.

“His show Jumpers. Can you describe it for us?”

“You could just look it up in TV Guide. Maybe one of the seventy-two people you have on staff could do it for you.”

“Seventy-six.”

“I stand corrected. Thank you.”

“My understanding is that it’s about people who throw themselves off bridges. He produces another called… G.O. About grotesquely obese people?”

“That’s right. He’s got another one in development,” Pepper said, “called Assholes. It’s about White House staffers.”

Graydon rose and said to Pepper, “Let’s go have a cup of something.” They left the faux senators and went and sat alone in a quiet lounge that reeked of long-ago cigar smoke and wood polish.

“You’re quite good,” Graydon said.

“Thank you,” Pepper said tightly.

“That’s why I was surprised to see you fall for that so easily.”

“Whatever.”

“Come now, Judge Cartwright. Let’s not start feeling sorry for ourselves. You’re playing in the big leagues now. This isn’t Courtroom Seven.”

“Six. Look, Mr. Cle

“Graydon.”

“Mr. Cle

“A plain old girl from Plano. Yes, yes. But you have a point. You might as well be yourself. That’s presumably why the President asked you in the first place. Authenticity. The real America. Ah, the real America. That elusive thing…”

Pepper laughed.

“I amuse you?” Graydon asked.

“Not really. But I do get a kick out of the way you say presooomably. You’re a real aristo, aren’t you, Mr. Cle

“Yes,” Graydon smiled. “Very much so. So is Mr. Cork, though of a younger generation.”

“Corky?” Pepper said. “No, he’s not in your DNA league. He’s just another Ivy League needle-dick.” Pepper said, “Sorry. You went to…”

“Harvard.”

“I don’t think of you as a… that.”

“Generous of you.”

“Look, Mr. Cork made it clear as Evian water from the get-go what he thinks of me. I don’t owe him a damn thing.”

“Hayden Cork-Corky, as you call him in front of people who have been in public service longer than you’ve been alive-is the White House Chief of Staff. He has one goal in all of this. Serving the President. I wouldn’t make an enemy of him, just for the sake of satisfying your own ego. This can be a mean town, Judge. Very mean. You have no idea. You might just find yourself needing a friend or two. On the other hand,” the old man said airily, “you might just make it to the finish line. In which case, you won’t need any friends for the rest of your life. You’ll be home free.”