Dutch and Gina: The Power of Love (6 page)

Less than an hour after his conference call with the Speaker and Vice President, Robert walked across the patio of his massive beach house and handed a glass of wine to Dutch Harber.
 
It was nighttime across the island and Dutch was seated in one of the numerous chairs around the patio.
 
He was watching the chef and his assistants grill steaks and burgers and attend to the every need of the White House contingent.
 
Many in that contingent, namely the young aides from Dutch and Gina’s staffs, were playing Frisbee on the beach.
 
Dutch’s daughter Jade and her husband Christian Bale were seated on the far opposite side of the patio.
 
By their mouth movements and hand gestures, Dutch could tell that they were arguing again.
 
It was becoming standard fare with those two and it was beginning to concern Dutch.
 
He, in fact, was a little saddened that neither one of them had yet to come to him or Gina for advice.
 
But what could he do about it?
 
He wasn’t about to interfere in another man’s marriage.

He leaned back and sipped from his glass of wine.
 
He was dressed casually, in a light green polo shirt, a pair of shorts, and sandals.
 
He had one of his nicely tanned legs crossed over his thigh as he listened to the Calypso beat on the loudspeakers and continued to watch his unhappy daughter.

“She’s lovely, Dutch,” Robert said as he sat next to the president.
 
He still wore his seersucker suit from earlier in the day, as he knew firsthand just how cool those night breezes in the Caribbean could become.
 

“That she is,” Dutch replied, looking at Jade’s short, slender body, her smooth brown skin, her dark-green eyes that reminded him so much of her mother.
 
She was the product of a one-night stand he’d had over twenty-three years ago with Samantha Redding, an African-American
 
woman he knew at Harvard and who was now a bookstore owner in North Carolina.
 
It had been less than six months ago since he found out that he even had a daughter.
 
But she was now as much a part of his life, of his heart, as Gina and Little Walt.
 

“Who’s that guy bugging her?” Robert wanted to know.
 
With his bunched-up blond hair and those bewildered-looking big blue eyes, Christian looked to him to be out of place among this high octane crowd.

“That guy,” Dutch replied, “is her husband.”

“Her husband?
 
That kid?”

Dutch smiled.
 
“He’s older than her.”

“In years, perhaps, but let’s put it this way: he ain’t older than her.
 
Okay?
 
If you get my meaning.”

Dutch nodded.
 
Because he got it.
 
It had been a concern of his when Christian first asked his permission to wed.
 

“I take it you approve of that young husband of hers?” Robert continued.

“Christian?
 
Yes.
 
Absolutely.
 
He’s a good kid.”

“Kid being the operative word.
 
Can you imagine him handling that beauty?”
 
Robert shook his head.
 
“I don’t see it.”

Dutch didn’t respond, he just sipped more wine.

“But really, how does it feel?” Robert asked him.

“How does what feel?”

“To be surrounded by blacks?”

Dutch hesitated.
 
Had he missed something?
 
“I’m sure I don’t get what you mean.”

“Your family,” Robert said grinningly.
 
“In case you haven’t noticed, they’re all black.
 
Your wife is black, your son is black.
 
Well, half-black, but he looks black.
 
Your daughter looks black.
 
You’re the only pure white in the whole bunch.
 
The only pale face in the entire crew.
 
The only milk in the entire stew.
 
They can dance, you can’t.
 
They can run and jump, and high-five, you can’t.
 
They can scratch their heads way better than you’ll ever be able to.”
 
Robert said all of this with an enormous grin, as if he was a stand-up comedian catching his stride.

Dutch, however, didn’t see the humor at all.
 
Not in such ludicrous stereotyping that undoubtedly was rooted and grounded in old-fashioned bigotry.
 
He had to sit there, literally sit still, to compose himself.
 

But Robert, thinking he had an attentive audience, wouldn’t let it go.
 
“I mean, honestly,” he continued.
 
“You’ve got yourself a blossoming basketball team up in here.
 
Or some future gangsta rappers.”

Dutch stared at his friend. “I like you Robert,” he said.
 
“And I know you enjoy the odd joke.
 
But right now you sound like a fool.”

“A fool?”

“A
got
damn fool,” Dutch said, not taking a word of it back.
 
“What the fuck does a person’s skin color have to do with anything at all?”

Robert was stupefied.
 
He didn’t expect to be called out.
 
In his world nobody dared be offended when he made his little ethic jokes.
 
He meant no harm and they knew it.
 
But Dutch wasn’t letting him get away with any of it.
 

 
“Dutch, I was just joking around.
 
I didn’t mean,” he continued, but Dutch cut him off.

“My wife and my children are individuals with very different likes and dislikes and the color of their skin has nothing to do with any of it.
 
The idea that you would seek to categorize people that way, a man of your sophistication, quite frankly amazes me.”

Robert knew he had to damage control and control it fast.
 
“Come on, Dutch,” he said with a smile.
 
“You know me.
 
I’m known to occasionally put my foot in it.
 
This is one of those occasions.
 
I truly meant no harm.”

“I know what you meant, Bob,” Dutch responded, staring his friend dead in the eye.

Robert’s throat constricted.
 
For the sake of the plan, he had to dig and dig fast.
 
So he did what he usually did when in a tight jam: he grinned.
 

“I apologize,” he said in full charm offensive, his grin on full display.
 
“You know how I can be.
 
If there’s a way to screw up, I’ll find it.
 
Please accept my humble apology.”

Dutch didn’t see what there was to grin about, but he accepted Robert’s apology anyway.
 
Life was too short, he felt, to hold grudges.

Within minutes of this truce, however, Jade was storming off of the patio and into the house.
 
Christian, red-faced and angry, stood up, ran his hand through his hair, and then walked over and stood beside the president’s chair.
 
He was facing out, toward the beach, and his blond hair was brushing around wildly in the wind.
 

Robert smiled, he knew how impulsive and utterly irrational young love could be, and he sipped from his own glass of wine.
 
Dutch just sat there and waited for Christian to address him.

Finally, when it was clear to Christian that his father-in-law wasn’t the interfering type, he exhaled and took a seat beside the president.
 
“Your daughter, sir,” he began, his slim body leaned forward, “is a stubborn, bone-headed wench!”
 
He said this angrily and all at once, prompting Robert to laugh.

Robert’s laughter caused Christian to immediately redden even more, as he realized whom he had said it to.
 
“With respect, sir,” he added, his blue eyes filled with that sincerity Dutch loved about him.
 
“But she is.”

“And what made you conclude,” Dutch asked, “that she was a stubborn, bone-headed wench?”

“She won’t listen to me!
 
I told her she can’t go back to work, not with the baby on the way,
   
not when she’s the daughter of a sitting president, but she keeps insisting that it doesn’t matter.
 
But it does matter, sir.
 
I don’t want my wife working, and I don’t want her working with my child in her belly.”

Dutch considered Christian.
 
He was concerned before the marriage if Christian was tough enough for the job.
 
Jade could be a handful, and Dutch had told him so.
 
But the young man insisted he was up to the challenge.
 
“Before you married her,” he asked, “did she tell you she wouldn’t return to work?”

“No, sir, but . . . but it was just assumed she wouldn’t.
 
I mean, she’s the president’s daughter!
 
What would she look like working?
 
All of the Secret Service would have to be there with her all the time, and it wouldn’t be fair to her students.
 
I know she gets bored and everything, and I know she was a school teacher before she knew you were her father, but . . .”

Dutch could just feel Christian’s distress.
 
“Calm down, son,” he said to him.

“Yes, sir, it’s just that she won’t listen to me.
 
And I don’t know what to do.”

Christian looked at Dutch, as if only he could give him the right answer.
 
Dutch, however, said nothing.

“It’s just kind of tough, that’s all,” Christian added.

“Did you expect marriage to be easy?”

“Well, no, sir.
 
Not really.
 
But with Jade it’s just that . . .”

“You married a strong woman with strong opinions.”

“I understand that, sir.
 
But---”

“There is no but, Christian.
 
She’s a strong woman who has to have a strong man in her corner.
 
Period.”
 
Then Dutch looked at him.
 
“A boy will not do.”
 

Christian looked even more bewildered.
 
Letting the president down would be the worst thing ever in his mind.
 
He knew he had to be strong.
 
“Yes, sir,” he said.
 
Then he smiled.
 
“I’ll bet you’ve never had this kind of trouble with your wife.”

Dutch snorted.
 
“Like hell I haven’t.”

Christian looked at him.
 
And so did Robert Rand.
 
“You’ve had this problem before, sir?” Christian asked.

“Exact same issue.”

“You mean Mrs. Harber wanted to go back to work after she married you?”

“Of course she did.
 
She worked all of her adult life.
 
Why wouldn’t she?
 
It was all she knew.”

“So how did you keep her from going back?”

“I told her I didn’t want her doing that right now.”

Christian’s eyes lit up.
 
“And she obeyed you?”

“We had a few battles over it, but yes, she agreed with me.”

“Why?”

Dutch thought about this.
 
“Because she concluded that I was looking out for her, not simply trying to lord it over her,” he said.