Part 2

March 7, 2000

Trixie stood to the right of, and slightly behind, Ron Butterfield as he briefed the President in the Oval Office.

“Sir, we have enough data to believe this is a credible threat.  It’s my recommendation that you share this information with your daughter.  She needs to be informed.”

President Bartlet’s expression was grim as he studied the documents in front of him.  “Do you concur, Agent Mangan?”

Trixie did agree with her supervisor but it was startling to hear the President asking her opinion and seeming to have no qualms about the possibility that she might have a different plan of action.

“I do, sir,” she said firmly.  “It’s not merely the letters.”  She hesitated, afraid she was stepping over the line, and looked to Agent Butterfield for guidance.  His slight nod was the green light for her to proceed.

“If it were just the letters, we’d consider it no more of a threat than anything else that usually comes into our office.  But there’s a convention in Virginia this weekend, one of the larger groups of white supremacists.  It’s too close for comfort.”

“Do you think we should lock Zoey in the dungeon until they’re gone?”  His smile was forced, as was his airy tone.

Trixie could tell it was something he wished he’d never have to discuss as far as his youngest daughter was concerned and she tried to give him a reassuring smile.  “No, sir.”

“Mr. President,” Butterfield put in.  “I don’t think it’s necessary to restrain Zoey or make her change her plans for the weekend.  However, there’s a club opening she’s planning to attend and I don’t think it’s a good idea if Mr. Young accompanies her.”

President Bartlet nodded thoughtfully.  “She’s on her way here now.”  He looked Trixie right in the eye and said, “I’ll tell her about the letters.  I’ll tell her Charlie can’t escort her to the party.  She won’t like it.  You’ll stay, Agent Mangan?”

“Yes, sir,” Trixie agreed.  She understood.  She never liked being told what she could and couldn’t do, either.  She’d be an understanding ear if Zoey needed to blow off some steam.

President Bartlet’s secretary, Mrs. Landingham, knocked and poked her head inside the Oval Office.  “Mr. President, Zoey’s here.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Landingham.”

She left the door cracked open as she returned to her desk in the outer office.  President Bartlet nodded his thanks to Agent Butterfield and he left by the hall door moments before Zoey stepped in from the outer office.

Trixie tried her best to disappear into the background.  It wasn’t easy in a room that had no dark corners.  Has no corners at all, she thought with a wry grin.

“Hello, sweetheart.”

“Dad.”  Zoey gave a cursory glance at her agent and Trixie could tell that she was aware that something was up.

Motioning to her backpack, her father asked, “What’ve you got today?”

“I’ve got Intro to Cinema and 19th Century Studies.”  She pulled the books out of her pack and handed them over for her father’s inspection.

“How about math?  Why aren’t you taking math?”

“Because I graduated high school.”

He scowled fondly at her as he flipped through her textbooks.  “Wiseass all you want, but you're coming of age in the 21st century.  A century in which I promise you mathematics is going to play a starring role.  On the other hand I would definitely put my shoulder into Intro to Cinema.  Intro to Cinema's what got me where I am today.”  He handed the books back to her as they sat on the couch.

“Did you call me over to make fun of me?”

“That was going to be a big part of my day, yes.”

She gave him a look she had learned from her mother.  A look that ended the smart alecky banter between them and asked him to give it to her straight.

“I just had a meeting with Butterfield and Mangan.”

She shot another wary glance toward Trixie.  “What did I do?”

“You didn’t do anything.  They think you should be taking more math.”

Zoey laughed.  “I know Trixie didn’t endorse that!”

Her father chuckled at the idea, winking at Trixie before quickly sobering to the matter at hand.  “It’s time for me to tell you about some letters we’ve been getting.”

“Threats?”

“Yeah.  They don’t like that the daughter of the President is dating a young black man.”

“Charlie?”

Her father looked mortified.  “Zoey, please don’t tell me you’re dating more than one guy.”

His daughter smiled sheepishly.  “No.”

“Okay, because one guy for you is actually one more than I’m comfortable with.”

“So you’ve said,” she teased.

“I could see it’s had a real impact on you,” he replied dryly.

Trixie grinned inwardly.  She remembered that when she had first started dating Jim, her father—like President Bartlet—hadn’t been overprotective so much as disgruntled that he was no longer the most wonderful man in her life.  Though President Bartlet had already been through this with his two older daughters, Trixie could tell the cutting of heartstrings wasn’t any easier than the cutting of apron strings.  As so often happened, she was touched by how humble, personable, and ... human the President was.  He reminded her a lot of her father.

“How bad are the letters?” Zoey asked.

“No worse than any of the stuff they intercept.”

“Except these are from white supremacists?”

“Yeah.  Apparently, there’s a national convention of some sort in Virginia.  It was in the papers yesterday that you and Charlie are going to some club opening this weekend.”

“You want me to cancel?” She managed to look disappointed and relieved at once.

“You don’t have to cancel but you can’t bring Charlie.”

She frowned as she considered that.  “Okay.”

“You want me to tell him?”

“We’re meeting for lunch.  I’ll tell him.”

He reached out and grabbed her hand.  “You’ve got to tell him the truth, Zoey.  Don’t make something up.”

Her laugh sounded forced and strained.  “He’s not gonna like it.”

“You sure you don’t want me to come?”

“Yeah.”  She forced a teasing grin.  “You and the Secret Service already spoiled one lunch for me.  I don’t need them having a collective heart attack because my father has impulsively decided he has a craving for a burger at a greasy campus diner.”

Her father smiled and reached out to lovingly stroke her cheek.  Her grin lost some of its luster as she looked ahead to her lunch date table talk with Charlie.

At 19, Trixie’s relationship with her future husband was still new and fresh.  She was having fun in her college courses, still thought summer was time for taking a break from real life and going to the beach, and was worried about little more than her grades and what to get Dan for his birthday.

Zoey was worried about how to tell her boyfriend he couldn’t come with her to a party because he might get shot.

The diner was in the heart of the Georgetown area and was very popular with the university students.  It was after the usual lunch hour, making it easier on Trixie and the other agents as Zoey and Charlie came in for lunch.  They sat in a booth near the front window and Trixie took a seat at the counter nearby where she could keep a close watch without butting into their private conversation.  There was an agent on the sidewalk outside and another manning the rear entrance of the diner.

Trixie nodded a thank you to the waitress who brought her a Coke and a plate of fries.  She spoke quietly into the microphone on her jacket cuff.  “I’ll let you know when we’re back on campus.”  She glanced over to the booth where Zoey was telling Charlie about her 19th Century Studies course.

“It's really great! It begins in the summer of 1900 when my grandmother was a child.”

“And I see you took notes.”  Charlie teasingly snatched the notebook from her hand and took a look.

“You know why?”

“Because you're totally anal?”

“No.”  She smiled ruefully.  “Yes.”

Trixie grinned as she took a sip of her drink.  Zoey really was her father’s daughter, despite her protests to the contrary.

Charlie read from Zoey’s notes.  “One hundred years ago the average life expectancy in the United States was 47?”

“Only 14% of the homes in this country had a bathtub.”

“8% of the homes had a telephone.”

“More than 95% of all births took place at home.”

“90% of physicians had no college education.”  He grinned at her but Trixie noticed that his glance had gone briefly to Zoey’s plate.  “This is a fun lunch, Zoey. We've got a little time travel thing going on.”

“You really want some of my egg salad, don't you?”

“I really do.”  His chocolate eyes twinkled merrily.

Zoey laughed and pushed her plate over, offering him half of her sandwich, which he took eagerly.  She glanced out the window and in the reflection Trixie saw her worrying her bottom lip with her teeth.  She turned back to look at her boyfriend.

“Do you have to get back to the office?”

“I've got a few minutes.”

“I need to talk to you about Friday night.”

Charlie looked like a typically disgruntled male in the face of feminine fashion sense.  “I took back the suit.”

“Charlie, I—”

“I liked it, you didn't.  That's ok.  I'm here for you.  I dress for you.”

“Listen...”

“I picked up a powdered blue tuxedo with ruffles and everything.”

“Listen to me.”  Her voice was becoming more insistent but she didn’t have her father’s commanding authority.

Charlie paused and considered her serious expression.  “I'm kidding about the tuxedo.”

“Listen to me.  We can't go Friday night.”

“That's okay.”  He sounded casual but Trixie could see by his expression that he was working through the statement.  It wasn’t simply that Zoey had changed her mind.  His brow crinkled in a mixture of confusion and worry.  “Why not?”

“Charlie, you've been getting death threats.”

“From...?”  He put a slight question on the end but he knew who the letters were from.

“Yeah.”

“Because of you.”

“Because of me and you, yeah.”

Trixie’s heart went out to the young couple.  She had grown up in a fairly white bread community but she had also grown up without prejudice.  Her parents had taught her that people were people and that skin color, religion, and lifestyle had nothing to do with a person’s heart and soul.

“There's going to be some kind of meeting or convention this weekend and...”

Zoey glanced over at her.  Trixie had the idea that Zoey felt like she was blaming her agents for the decision, when they both knew that wasn’t the case at all.

“…Secret Service just doesn't think...”

She was floundering and Trixie abandoned her fries to come over to the table and lend a hand.  She sat down next to Zoey and tried to explain.

“We've tried to secure the place, Charlie.  We don't like it.  Too many dark corners, back alleys, doorways, windows.  There are locks, a cellar.  We can't secure the west end of the street.”

Charlie looked angry and rightfully so.  His dark face grew even darker as he growled, “I don't give a damn.”

“Charlie.”  Zoey’s plaintive tone begged for understanding.

Charlie Young wasn’t a man who showed a lot of outward emotion.  He didn’t raise his voice and he didn’t pound his fist on the table, but it was clear he was upset by this turn of events.  “I don't give a damn!  I bought a new suit.  In fact, I've bought two now.”

“Charlie, we can't go.”

“Okay,” he said shortly, as if ending the discussion.  He looked down at Zoey’s notebook that was still clutched in his hands.  “Hey, look.  It says here that a hundred years ago a black guy couldn't show up to a club opening with a white girl for fear he'd be killed.”

Zoey turned and stared out the window.  Trixie could see her clearly in the reflection again and saw how upset she was.

“I have to go to the ladies room.”

Trixie stood and let Zoey slide out of the booth.  She relayed the movement to the agents outside and sat back down across from Charlie.

He still wore a scowl on his dark face as he muttered, “You know, if nothing else, I think if either one of us is gonna be pissed, it ought to be me.”

Trixie didn’t speak for a minute.  Charlie was an intelligent man and Trixie knew he preferred it when people were straight with him, even if it made him upset for a while.  The personable side of her wanted to comfort him, go comfort Zoey, and then bring them together and let them work it out.  But there was a practical side of her, too.  A side that wasn’t at all bothered that President Bartlet and the Secret Service had decided Charlie couldn’t go to the club opening.  She tried to express this viewpoint to Charlie now.

“You're looking at the girl whose job it is to jump in front of a bullet.”  She shrugged.  “I like it when she stays in the dorm and watches videos.”

Charlie’s soulful eyes held hers for a moment.  She thought she saw a glimmer of understanding but he was still too upset to be rational at the moment.  He stood up and dug into his pocket.

“I have to go.”  He threw down some cash, enough to cover his lunch and Zoey’s and grabbed his coat.

“Hey, come on!  Tell her yourself,” Trixie implored, but Charlie was gone.

Trixie was still staring at the door when Zoey came back from the restroom.  She saw that Trixie was alone at the table and a quick glance showed her that her boyfriend had gone.  Her lips tightened into a thin line.

“Zoey, he’s upset.  He’ll get over it,” Trixie said plainly.

Zoey shook her head, shrugged into her coat, and gathered her books from the table.  “Whatever.  Let’s get back to campus.”

As Trixie radioed the movement to the agents outside and to headquarters, she couldn’t help but notice Zoey’s shoulders draw back tightly.  No matter how inconspicuous the agents tried to be, no matter how well she got along with Trixie, there were still times when the protective detail coldly reminded her that she wasn’t an average college student having a fight with her boyfriend.  

Zoey moved like a zombie through the rest of her classes that day.  Trixie was tempted at one point to take notes herself, certain that her charge wasn’t paying attention.  She had dinner in the dorm cafeteria with a couple of friends but politely turned down their invitation to study and returned to her room alone.

Trixie took her place in the room across the hall.  The students were well aware that the youthful looking woman across the hall from Zoey was, in fact, her Secret Service agent.  It didn’t take a genius to realize that two or three women rotated shifts in and out of that room, yet somebody had decided that decorating it with posters of current rock bands, a shelf full of books only a student forced to read them for class would own, and some secondhand odds and ends to supplement the generic furniture provided by the university, would somehow make Trixie blend in and make the other dorm residents forget who she was.

Nobody forgot.  And nobody was curious enough, or brave enough, to poke their head in and ask questions, either.

Trixie picked up her PDA from her bedside table.  It had been a Christmas gift from Brian and Honey and although she was still learning how to use it, her husband had already input the most important data for her—his work schedule.  She scrolled down and discovered he was indeed working this evening so, with a sigh, she gave up the idea of calling him and instead fired up her laptop to send him an email.

Her radio crackled the message that Zoey was about to get a visitor and she abandoned the laptop for the moment to gaze steadily out of the room to the closed door in front of her.  In a moment, she heard the unmistakable sound of hard-soled shoes coming up the hallway. Since most students wore tennis shoes and the residents often walked around in their stocking feet, Trixie had a pretty good idea who might be coming down the hallway.

She saw the enormous bouquet of flowers before she saw the handsome face that accompanied them.  Charlie was still in his office suit.  He had come directly from the White House.  He stopped in front of Zoey’s door and knocked.  He looked over his shoulder at Trixie and she smiled encouragingly at him.

Zoey opened the door, glaring when she saw who her visitor was.

“Hi.”  Charlie’s voice was soft and suitably meek.

Somebody, probably a man who had been chastised by many women before, had given him some good advice, Trixie thought with a grin.

Zoey’s voice was cold.  “Yes?”

“I came to apologize.”

“You left me sitting in a restaurant.”

“I feel bad about that.”

“Are there other things you feel bad about, too?”

Trixie tried hard not to laugh.

“Yes.”

“Name them, please.”

Trixie grinned broadly.  This was excellent.  She was definitely making mental notes, which she planned to relay to Honey, Diana, Sally, and any of her other girlfriends who needed some tips on how to make men grovel.

“Off the top of my head I wouldn't be able to give you a comprehensive list. Just suffice it to say that anything I've done to upset you, even if it exists in your kind of confused little mind, I really apologize for.”

Trixie figured Zoey ought to take Charlie to task for the “confused little mind” comment, but it looked like she was done being angry and unable to resist the puppy dog face in front of her.

“What did you bring me?

“I brought you flowers.”

“Oh, I can see that. What else?”

“A book.”

Zoey read the title in shocked dismay.  “Introduction to Advanced Trigonometry.”

Trixie laughed and picked up her laptop.  She saw Zoey and Charlie both glance her way but she tried to pretend something on the Internet was highly amusing.  She opened up a blank email.

“Your father made me pick it up,” Charlie explained.

“What else?”

“Popcorn.”

“Why the popcorn?”

“'Cause I brought videos.”

“Get in here.”

She flashed him one of her fabulous Zoey smiles and grabbed his arm.  Charlie looked over his shoulder and gave Trixie a wink as Zoey pulled him inside and shut the door.

Trixie gave her final report of the night into her cuff microphone.  “Bookbag is in for the night.”

She typed an address well known to her into the email’s send box and began typing.

I miss you.  I love you.  Today was a very good day.

 

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Author's Notes

Part 2 (3,182 words)

The meeting between Trixie, Agent Butterfield, and President Bartlet is my own, but the conversation between Zoey and her father immediately following it is from Episode 1.17 “The White House Pro-Am”.  There were no Secret Service agents in the Oval Office at the time, but I wanted to preserve my POV. (grin).  (Why do I suspect President Bartlet would not have approved of my freshman college course in Film Interpretation? *g*). 

Zoey and Charlie’s lunch at the diner is from the same episode and is almost entirely from transcript, including the stats Zoey learned from her 19th Century Studies class.  I didn’t verify their authenticity.  Blame it on West Wing writer/creator Aaron Sorkin if they’re incorrect.

The scene in Zoey’s dorm is mostly my own, leading up to Charlie’s arrival, but the dialogue is also from the Episode 1.17.  Trixie’s observation that Charlie had probably gotten advice from “a man who had been chastised by many women before” was a West Wing scene between Charlie and White House reporter Danny Concannon (played by Timothy Busfield).  I couldn’t really work it in to this story but it was amusing, including Danny’s argument to Charlie’s irritation with the Secret Service.

Danny:  I know what you're saying. But I don't think the problem is you're black.  I think the problem is you're stupid.

Charlie:  Well, thanks, Danny. You picked me right up.

Danny:  You bet. Listen, the Hardy Boys in the letters they're talking about, they may be heavily armed but I wouldn't put a lot of money on their marksmanship. One of these days they're gonna miss her and hit me. Two thousand marriage proposals, 2,000 death threats, a dozen bodyguards. Everyone wants to get close. Everyone wants a thing...If it was me, just for now, I'd make sure I was the one guy in her life who was hassle free. That's just me.

Except for my created characters, all characters either belong to Random House (Trixie Belden) or Warner Brothers (West Wing) and are borrowed lovingly and with much respect.