loss of my snooze bar and hair gel, I’m slowly acknowledging that, at twenty-nine years old, adulthood is upon me. The messy bed is simply a final act of denial. And one I won’t be giving up soon.
It takes me three stops on the Metro to get from Cleveland Park to Farragut North, the closest station to the White House. On the ride, I knock off half of the Herald . I can usually get through all of it, but Simon’s escapades make for an easy distraction. If he saw us, it’s over. I’ll be buried by lunch. Looking down, I see an inky handprint where my fingers grasp the paper.
The train pulls in and it’s almost eight o’clock. When I’m done climbing the escalator with the rest of the city’s suit-and-tie crowd, I’m hit in the face with a wave of D.C. heat. The remnant summer air is like licking grease, and the intensity of the bright sun is disorienting. But it’s not enough to make me forget where I work.
• • •
At the Pennsylvania Avenue entrance of the Old Executive Office Building, I force myself up the sharp granite stairs and pull my ID from my suit pocket. The whole area looks different than last night. Not as dark.
The long line of co-workers who’re trailing through the lobby and waiting to pass through security makes me keenly aware of one thing: Anyone who says they work in the White House is a liar. And that’s the truth. In reality, there are only a hundred and two people who work in the West Wing, where the Oval Office is. All of them are bigshots. The President and his top assistants. Grade-A prime meat.
The rest of us, indeed, just about everyone who says they work in the White House, actually works in the Old Executive Office Building, the ornate seven-story behemoth located right next door. Sure, the OEOB houses the majority of the people who work in the Office of the President, and sure, it’s enclosed by the same black steel bars that surround the White House. But make no mistake—it’s not the White House. Of course, that doesn’t stop every single person in there from telling their friends and family that they work in the White House. Myself included.
As the line shortens, I wedge my way in the front door. Inside, under the two-story-high ceiling, two uniformed Secret Service officers sit at an elevated welcoming desk and clear visitors into the complex. I try not to let my eye contact linger, but I can’t help staring them down. Did they hear about last night? Without a word, one of them turns to me and nods. I freeze, then quickly relax. Checking the rest of the line, he does the same to the guy behind me. Just a friendly hello, I decide.
Those of us with IDs are waiting for the turnstiles. Once there, I put my briefcase on the X-ray conveyor and press my ID against an electronic eye. Below the eye is a keypad that looks like the keypad on a telephone, but without any numbers. Within seconds, my ID registers, the beep sounds, and ten red numbers light up inside the buttons. Every time someone checks in, the numbers appear in a different order, so if someone’s watching me, they can’t decipher my PIN code. It’s the first line of security to enter the OEOB, and easily the most effective.
After entering my code, I walk through the X-ray machine, which, as always, goes off. “Belt,” I say to the uniformed Secret Service officer.
He runs his handheld metal detector over my belt and confirms my explanation. Every day we do this, and every day hechecks. He usually doesn’t give me a second look; today, his gaze hovers for a few seconds too long. “Everything okay?” I ask.
“Yeah . . . sure.”
I don’t like the sound of that. Does he know? Did Nora’s crew put the word out?
No, not these guys. Dressed in their white button-down security guard uniforms, the Secret Service agents at the front door of the OEOB are different from the plainclothes agents who protect Nora and the First Family. In the hierarchy of the agents, the two worlds rarely mix. I keep
It takes me three stops on the Metro to get from Cleveland Park to Farragut North, the closest station to the White House. On the ride, I knock off half of the Herald . I can usually get through all of it, but Simon’s escapades make for an easy distraction. If he saw us, it’s over. I’ll be buried by lunch. Looking down, I see an inky handprint where my fingers grasp the paper.
The train pulls in and it’s almost eight o’clock. When I’m done climbing the escalator with the rest of the city’s suit-and-tie crowd, I’m hit in the face with a wave of D.C. heat. The remnant summer air is like licking grease, and the intensity of the bright sun is disorienting. But it’s not enough to make me forget where I work.
• • •
At the Pennsylvania Avenue entrance of the Old Executive Office Building, I force myself up the sharp granite stairs and pull my ID from my suit pocket. The whole area looks different than last night. Not as dark.
The long line of co-workers who’re trailing through the lobby and waiting to pass through security makes me keenly aware of one thing: Anyone who says they work in the White House is a liar. And that’s the truth. In reality, there are only a hundred and two people who work in the West Wing, where the Oval Office is. All of them are bigshots. The President and his top assistants. Grade-A prime meat.
The rest of us, indeed, just about everyone who says they work in the White House, actually works in the Old Executive Office Building, the ornate seven-story behemoth located right next door. Sure, the OEOB houses the majority of the people who work in the Office of the President, and sure, it’s enclosed by the same black steel bars that surround the White House. But make no mistake—it’s not the White House. Of course, that doesn’t stop every single person in there from telling their friends and family that they work in the White House. Myself included.
As the line shortens, I wedge my way in the front door. Inside, under the two-story-high ceiling, two uniformed Secret Service officers sit at an elevated welcoming desk and clear visitors into the complex. I try not to let my eye contact linger, but I can’t help staring them down. Did they hear about last night? Without a word, one of them turns to me and nods. I freeze, then quickly relax. Checking the rest of the line, he does the same to the guy behind me. Just a friendly hello, I decide.
Those of us with IDs are waiting for the turnstiles. Once there, I put my briefcase on the X-ray conveyor and press my ID against an electronic eye. Below the eye is a keypad that looks like the keypad on a telephone, but without any numbers. Within seconds, my ID registers, the beep sounds, and ten red numbers light up inside the buttons. Every time someone checks in, the numbers appear in a different order, so if someone’s watching me, they can’t decipher my PIN code. It’s the first line of security to enter the OEOB, and easily the most effective.
After entering my code, I walk through the X-ray machine, which, as always, goes off. “Belt,” I say to the uniformed Secret Service officer.
He runs his handheld metal detector over my belt and confirms my explanation. Every day we do this, and every day hechecks. He usually doesn’t give me a second look; today, his gaze hovers for a few seconds too long. “Everything okay?” I ask.
“Yeah . . . sure.”
I don’t like the sound of that. Does he know? Did Nora’s crew put the word out?
No, not these guys. Dressed in their white button-down security guard uniforms, the Secret Service agents at the front door of the OEOB are different from the plainclothes agents who protect Nora and the First Family. In the hierarchy of the agents, the two worlds rarely mix. I keep
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