No Way to Treat a First Lady by Christopher Buckley Page B

also heard some good news. Many of them, at least the males in our group"—Boyce looked at the screen of his laptop computer—"think that the President and the entire government hate you. I'm very pleased with that."
    "You are?"
    "Yes. We can accomplish wonderful things with that."
    "Was there any other wonderful news?"
    "Two-thirds thought Babette Van Anka's last movie stank. The one where she played the Israeli female tank commander. That's excellent news. And you did very, very well among certain demographic groups. Males twenty-five to forty-nine want to have oral sex with you."
    "Why would you ask such a thing? It's mortifying."
    "It would be mortifying if they didn't."
    "Why"—Beth blushed—"that particular category?"
    "Our research indicates that ninety-seven percent of heterosexual men want to have sex with attractive women. So this tells us nothing useful. But men only want to have oral sex—to perform oral sex—on women to whom they are especially attracted. This is great news for our side."
    "I don't even know how to process that information."
    Boyce scrolled. "We didn't score well with pet owners. They didn't like the fact that you didn't have a dog in the White House."
    "You want me to go out and buy a sheepdog?"
    "We could get you a puppy, but it's kind of late. Gays liked you, especially the hard-core lesbians."
    "I score well among hard-core lesbians?"
    "They love you. Probably because you crushed your husband's skull with a spittoon."
    "I didn't."
    "Whatever. We'll be getting some deeper analysis on those numbers. Among the former military, we did not do well. Not at all. No surprise there, since you—since they think that you killed one of the nation's great military heroes. By the way, everyone—even the hardcore lesbians—thought you were a little dry-eyed at Arlington Cemetery during the burial."
    "What was I supposed to do, start wailing and tearing my hair? Leap in with the coffin?"
    "If you had called me when you should have, instead of playing Mrs. Why Do I Need a Lawyer?—"
    "We've been through this."
    "—I would have rubbed onion juice on your sunglasses before the funeral."
    "That's awful."
    "I had a client once, she blew her husband's head off with his twelve-gauge Purdey shotgun—a forty-thousand-dollar gun—in the living room, in front of guests, on the white carpet—"
    "I don't want to hear this."
    "Ooh, this was one tough cookie. Hard like a rock. Sigourney Weaver played her in the movie. She blew two holes in him the size of grapefruits, then reloaded and kept blasting. At the funeral, mascara—down to her cleavage."
    "I'm not listening."
    "White onion is best. Not red. We went for temporary insanity. The jury was out in under two hours. She was out of the mental hospital in less than three years. She's a tennis pro in Boca Raton. By the way, I want you in black for the trial."
    "Isn't that a bit obvious?"
    Boyce shrugged. "I'm not saying wear a burqa. Look, most women in New York wear black, and they only dream about killing their husbands."
    He scrolled down.
    "Now, these numbers about the late President's policies. There's stuff in here we can work with. African Americans were not happy with his last Supreme Court appointment, plus he criticized the Reverend Bones for having that love child with the head of his choir and deducting her on his income taxes."
    "Bones called again yesterday," Beth said. "He wants to come pray with me."
    "I'll bet he does. And they call me Shameless."
    Boyce scrolled.
    "They thought your late husband was squishy on affirmative action. You gave a speech about that, didn't you? You disagreed with him. Was that a good-cop, bad-cop routine you two worked out to keep the black vote mollified, or did you actually mean it?"
    "Screw you, Boyce."
    "Pardon my cynicism. I thought you and he might have other arrangements, in addition to the one about his not banging actresses when you were in residence."
    "You didn't used to be like this."
    "No, I didn't. I