***
I made use of that day and all the days over the next few weeks. I wasn’t bored at all as I tried to plan a small wedding back in Chicago. It was much harder than I had imagined it would be to plan a wedding when you weren’t even located in the town you wanted to have the event in. I had to use my mother for most of the planning and I tried to be the go-between to make sure everything was organized just as I wanted it.
My mother had a tendency to want a grand wedding where she could invite all of her friends, and even a few of her enemies. It was a big deal that I was getting married; it was an even bigger deal that I was going to be marrying the Vice President of the United States.
The thing about Matthew’s new title was that it didn’t seem real to me yet. I still clearly remembered the handsome business man that I had gone home with after almost being assaulted on the street of Chicago. I didn’t know who he was. I didn’t care what he did for his job. My feelings toward him were solely based on how he had protected me and the electricity I felt between us.
Even as the past few months had gone by, I didn’t look at Matthew as some sort of mythical Senator who had powers beyond that of the normal human. No, I looked at him like a man. A normal, flawed man, that I liked to be around.
So it was difficult for me to wrap my brain around it when my friends from back home would call me screaming and freaking out when they heard the news. Many of them didn’t follow politics and hadn’t even heard I was dating the Senator. The shock of hearing that the new Vice President had a fiancé, and she happened to be someone they knew; well that shock was very hard for them to control.
When my best friend from college, Rebecca, called me and started screaming into the phone; I instantly knew what she was screaming about.
“You fucking cock sucking whore. I’m seriously going to have an a heart attack! Youuuu arrreee marrying the Senator. I mean the Vice President! Oh my God!” Rebecca screamed.
“Wow, that was a lot of profanity for one pretty girl.”
“I could just kill you. You don’t call for months. I have no idea what you’re up to, then fucking bam! I see you on television with the God damn fucking Vice President and a rock the size of Hawaii on your finger.”
The thing about Rebecca was she liked her profanity. It was her signature conversational piece. I had tried for years to break her of the habit, but it just wasn’t going to happen. Instead, I had done what everyone else did around Rebecca; I learned to tune out the four letters words.
“Hey, I’m glad you called. I’m planning my wedding back home the weekend after next. Do you think you could be my maid of honor? It’s nothing big, just a small family gathering. I wasn’t even going to have a maid of honor, but Matthew is having a best man so I figure I should have one.”
“Oh my God. Oh, my fucking God.”
Rebecca was silent for what seemed like forever as I waited for her to officially say yes. She was one of the funniest girls I knew and I couldn’t wait to spend the weekend with her and all my family and close friends. It was going to be a fabulous little weekend.
“Is that a yes?” I asked.
“Fucking right it’s a yes! I’m going to get to meet the Vice President of the United States!” She screamed.
“And the President and First Lady.”
“What? No fucking way. You’re a fucking liar. No. You can’t be serious.”
“You’re going to have to tone down the swearing when you meet them. I don’t think Mrs. Baker is use to being around women with mouths like sailors.”
“Can I bring my mom?”
“Of course. I’d love to see her. So Saturday in two weeks. I’ll text you all the details about the rehearsal dinner and stuff. Thanks so much for doing this for me.”
“You are so very welcome Madame Vice President’s wife,” Rebecca teased as she tried her hand at proper language without swearing.
“Alright, I need to get going. I’ve got to go surprise my fiancé at the White House for lunch.”
“I’m so fucking jealous right now. Like you know how Cindy Paulmer was so pretty in school and we wanted to cut her hair off and slash her face. That’s what I want to do to you right now.”
“Oh…my…God…Rebecca. You seriously make me laugh so much. But please, please tone it down for the wedding.”
“Yes Ma’am,” Rebecca replied sternly before we hung up the phones.
Rebecca made me really nervous as my maid of honor, but she was the only one I could imagine taking the spot. I had other friends in high school and college, I even had other girlfriends in Washington D.C., but none of them knew me like Rebecca did.
As I made my way to the kitchen, I gathered up all the supplies I needed for the picnic I had planned with Matthew that day. We were only a few days away from our wedding and I had so many things to finalize with him. With his long hours and busy schedule, it had been almost impossible to have a conversation with him while we were both wide awake.
I had talked with the First Lady, Mrs. Baker, and she had helped me to arrange two hours in Matthew’s schedule so I could surprise him with a picnic lunch. It had paid very well to be friends with the First Lady. She was an inspiration to me and someone I looked up to a great deal.
Every time we talked I felt like I was taking internal notes for how I should behave once Matthew and I got married. From the way she made eye contact to the way she shook my hand; Elizabeth Baker was the ideal First Lady of the United States. She was graceful and humorous. She was kind and generous. Elizabeth was certainly what the country needed in a First Lady.
As I arrived at the White House, Elizabeth met me at the front door. Security getting in and out of the White House was pretty non-existent to me now that I had secret service security driving me around places. It was just like pulling up to an old friend’s house and getting out, with a lot more men with guns around us.
“Michaela, sweetheart, how are you doing?” Elizabeth said as she greeted me.
It amazed me how put together she looked every time I saw her. I had even searched on the internet to see if I could find any photos of her without her makeup, of course there were none. She was constantly flawless.
“I’m getting really nervous,” I said honestly.
“Well, there is nothing to be nervous about. You love Matthew, don’t you?”
“Yes, of course,” I said as I tried to sound convincing.
“Then everything will work itself out,” Elizabeth said as we walked down the hallway. “Seth here is going to carry that picnic basket for you and bring you to the gardens out back. I’ll make sure Matthew meets you out there as soon as their Arms Committee meeting is finished.”
“Matthew is on the Arms Committee now?” I asked out of curiosity.
“Yes, the Vice President leads the committee.”
I followed Seth, the gardener, out to the area where Elizabeth had decided I should have my picnic. I couldn’t stop smiling though. Matthew had worked so hard to get a spot on that Senate Arms Committee and none of the other Senators would let him on. Now look at him. Matthew was the Vice President and he was in charge of the whole thing. That was pretty impressive.
“I was sent out here and told you are my lunch meeting,” Matthew said as he walked down the side of the flowerbeds to where I had our picnic set up.
He looked radiant. His suit was one of my favorite ones. Its deep blue tone set off his eyes and his skin tone looked amazing in that shade. Matthew was happy, more so than I had ever seen him. It was so nice to see him doing so well and letting himself enjoy the fruits of his labor.
“Well, I wanted some time alone with my handsome fiancé,” I said as I jumped up and gave him a kiss.
Matthew looked around the garden real quick before he scooped me up in his arms and kissed me. His passion was on fire lately and we had been making love every single night when he got home. Apparently the power he had as Vice President was a very strong aphrodisiac.
“Do we have everything ready for next week?”
“Yes, I think we do. I just wanted to confirm your list of people you have invited.”
I handed him the total list of people and he read through it right away. Our little wedding of just family and close friends had ballooned up to almost 200 people, but that was still pretty small compared to how large it would have been if I had let my mother take over.
“I think we are good. Do we have RSVP’s for people yet?”
“I sent out the initial email invites to the people I knew for sure we wanted to invite. They have all said yes.”
“All of them?”
“Yes, apparently when the Vice President invites you to his wedding people drop their other plans.”
We spent the rest of our two-hour lunch going over the last bit of details that I needed to finalize before we flew home. We only had a week before we were flying back to Chicago and that wasn’t very much time in the wedding planning world.
When our lunch finished, Matthew helped me pack everything up and then held my hand as we walked back up to the White House. It felt natural being with him there. Matthew felt at home in the White House. For a brief moment I let my mind wonder to what might happen if Matthew decided to run for President. It was an amazing idea, and one that I would have never considered before I met Matthew.
“I’ll see you naked in bed around nine o’clock tonight,” Matthew said as he grabbed my ass and kissed me.
“Well now, that’s a couple in love if I ever saw one,” the President said as he walked toward us.
I instantly let go of Matthew’s hand and stood up straight as the President came near me. He leaned in and greeted me by giving me a kiss on each cheek. I followed his lead, but I was screaming inside with excitement. It never got old meeting the President. His presence was powerful and unique, it was an honor every time I got to be in the same room as him.
“Are you going to be able to make it to our wedding?” I asked in a weird and uncomfortable way.
“Yes, Elizabeth and I are looking forward to it.”
“Great, I can’t wait for you to meet my foul-mouthed maid of honor,” I said and then instantly regretted saying it.
I covered my mouth in embarrassment at how I had spoken to him.
“It’s okay Michaela. I’m a normal person. You don’t have to be nervous around me,” the President said as he put his arm around my shoulder. “Matthew, you’ve got one hell of a woman here. I’m excited for you.”
“Thank you Bill, I’m pretty damn excited to make her my wife.”