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alone with my beautiful wife.’
    And then she squeezed his hand, and smiled one more time before gliding gracefully out the door.

4
    I t was a rare moment. She was alone.
    US Chief of Staff Maxine Bryant would not be staying the night, but she had secured a private suite for herself, a mere three doors away from her daughter and son-in-law, so that she might have this brief moment to prepare for what was to come.
    She sat down on the king-sized bed and contemplated the irony of it all.
    Everything was going completely as expected and nothing as planned. The Primary results had been spectacular and the President was riding a fresh wave of unprecedented popularity. Her diverse talents in corporate intelligence and street savvy had lifted the ageing patriarch’s poll figures beyond anyone’s expectations and she was exactly where she did not want to be. Playing bridesmaid once removed in a hierarchy of Presidential contenders.
    â€˜
Look at him
,’ she said to herself as she picked up the media kit she had taken from her son-in-law’s press secretary. There he was, all wide smile and honest eyes – the face that represented this government’s future, and paradoxically a major obstacle to her own.
    The problem was, Tom was the one who had catapulted her amazing efforts to stratospherical proportions. There was no point in denying it.She had put in the work but he was the genetically blessed political miracle who would hand them the November elections on a platter.
    She flicked to the bio on page five and browsed through the familiar information and accompanying press photographs, her brain linking the written facts with her own ‘in-between-the-lines’ knowledge of the Presidential prototype that was Tom Bradshaw.
    â€˜Thomas Wills Bradshaw,’ she read aloud. ‘Born in Virginia
(the most common birthplace of Presidents!)
, some thirty-nine years ago to a now retired university professor father and his local GP wife.
    â€˜He is the second child of three (
every President has had a sibling!
), was Captain of his Elementary School, Dux of his Middle School and voted all round “Most Likely to Succeed” at Ashburn Virginia’s Stone Bridge High.
    â€˜He was awarded a scholarship to Harvard where he made Law Review and was promptly employed by the Virginia Attorney General’s office where he progressed rapidly through the . . . blah, blah, blah.’
    She was improvising now – her former career as a journalist kicking her into reportage mode, abandoning the neatly printed ‘script’ in favour of her own rendition of her high profile son-in-law.
    Bradshaw has light brown hair (like Washington and Kennedy), blue eyes (like Lincoln and Eisenhower) and a straight but not perfect nose which could often be seen supporting conservative but fashionable reading glasses (
all US presidents have worn glasses, most just for reading!
).
    His jaw is square, but not prominent, his mouth wide but not distracting, his teeth straight and white, his neck long but not effeminate. He is above average in height, his body toned but not buff, with skin that tans easily in the summer, and shoulders broad enough to carry the burdens of a nation!
    His hands are strong and masculine, his smile warm and genuine, he is humble but assertive, respectful but forthright, modest but confident, calm but determined . . . she could go on and on and on . . .
    â€˜It was as if he was bred for this purpose,’ she said at last. ‘The perfect Presidential candidate, who just happens to have arrived on my watch.’
    Her eyes drifted across to the shot of Tom and his family – her daughter Melissa and their two perfect children who completed the archetypal package – she the attorney with the breeding and contacts, and they with the faces of pure American innocence.
    â€˜And all this despite the mammoth mistakes of your youth,’ she said looking at