Action!

"Action!"

Malia focused the digital camcorder on her sister Sasha's hands, which were busy moving two Barbie dolls around an improvised movie set.  The only other kids living in the White House--twins Fergie and Reggie--gleefully marched their own Barbie dolls behind Sasha's while humming the Olympics theme song.  (It was the all-Barbie summer Olympic team, and it was chockfull of talent.)  

"Cut!"

The Opening Ceremonies were over, and it was time to begin the games.  Malia set up her bleach-blond Barbie on the balance beam (a wooden ruler straddling two walls of Legos).

"Action!"

Malia pranced her Barbie doll back and forth across the balance beam, carefully putting the doll through a series of expert handstands, flips, arabesques, and then a gigantic twisting dismount.  The crowd (Fergie and Reggie) went wild with cheers and clapping.

"Cut!"

Reggie then set up her bleach-blond Barbie on the floor exercise mat (a white hand towel folded in half).

"Action!"

Reggie pranced her Barbie doll around the mat, carefully putting the doll through a series of expert round-offs, somersaults, split leaps, and gravity-defying full lay-outs, while her brother Fergie sang a Jonas Brothers song in the background.

"Cut!"

The twins were now getting bored, and discussed in their secret twin language what needed to be done to spice up the first-ever White House Barbie Home Video.  Malia put down the camcorder and awaited further instructions while Sasha pranced her Barbie over to talk to Bo, who sniffed at it momentarily, then resumed gnawing his chew toy.

A few miles to the west, Chloe Cleavage was unleashing her newest bikini on the sunbathing crowd at Francis Swimming Pool.  She slowly wriggled out of her denim shorts, then bent at the waist to tidy up her things before heading to the water.  Her surgical scars were nearly invisible now, and the bikini top was the most revealing she had ever worn.  She straightened up, did not see anybody ogling her bosom, and sauntered over to the deep end of the water to dive in.  She emerged a minute later, dripping wet, and sauntered back in the direction of her chair, hips a-swinging.  "Hola!  Tu eres rica como una pupusa!"  The lascivious comment came from the other side of the fence, from a Salvadoran immigrant walking the Rock Creek Park pathway bordering the pool.  Chloe wasn't sure what he said, but was fairly certain that a pupusa was like an enchilada, and she didn't like the sound of it, so she told him to go screw himself--which was about the only Spanish expression she knew how to say (picked up in Cancun during a college spring break trip).  The man laughed to himself, knowing that half the guys at the pool were gay, and more interested in the bikini-clad male (and very buff) swimmer snapping his bathing cap on prior to practicing his butterfly stroke in the north swimming lane:  the girl had just told off the only guy noticing her.

A few miles to the east, former Senator Evermore Breadman was coyly bantering with Charles Wu in his Prince and Prowling office.  "So what do you think is gonna be in the book?" he asked Wu. ("What do you think is going to be in the book?")  Breadman chuckled, and Wu smiled back.  Both men had valid suspicions about certain items that were going to appear in Dick Cheney's upcoming memoir.  "Well, the statute of limitations has expired on some of his secrets, you know!" Breadman offered playfully.  ("But not on all of them!" replied Wu.)  Breadman took another gulp of the lotus blossom tea that Wu had brought him from Lynnette Wong's shop, and his grateful gut neutralized another teaspoon of acid.  "But seriously, Charles:  the man's obsessed with getting nuked by America's enemies.  He really can't stand other people being in charge, and he really can't stand being blamed for things that happened on Bush's watch."  Wu nodded in understanding.  "And he's getting old."  (Getting?)  "He's going to have a very selective memory, aided and abetted by natural senility, and he's going to say whatever the hell he feels like saying, because old people do.  That may not be in the best interest of some of my clients."  ("Is George W. Bush one of your clients?")  "Now, you know I can't tell you who all of my clients are, Charles!  What I like to counsel people is that you can make money at any time, in any kind of circumstance.  A certain amount of militarism is good for business, but abject fear-mongering will just drive people into underground bunkers, and then they stop buying, and the recession gets worse.  And I sure don't want my clients showing up in this memoir--there could be a backlash."

"I'll see what I can find out," Wu stated as he stood up to go, "but what about you?  He's not going to talk about you, is he?"  Breadman shook his head no and mumbled something about Cheney's not wanting to break attorney-client privilege, but the fear showed in his eyes anyway:  Cheney is off the ranch.

A couple miles away, Sebastian L'Arche poured water into a bowl and placed it on the sidewalk in front of his noon dogwalking canines, then sat down at an outdoor Soho table to eat lunch.  A commotion at the bus stop on the other side of P Street caught his attention:  it was a drunk (high?) fellow who had stumbled out of The Fireplace and was exhibiting his private parts for an eager photographer.  L'Arche shook his head and turned back towards his food, but was again distracted, this time by a familiar canine bark.  He looked around for Bo, then realized the barking was coming from a You Tube video playing on the laptop computer on the table to his left.  He discreetly focused his gaze on the screen and, sure enough, saw Bo in the corner of the video barking cheerily as Sasha stared at two pre-schoolers prancing Barbies around a bathtub.  Then the boy's voice announced it was time for the high-dive competition, and the girl solemnly marched a bleach-blond Barbie up a dangling play truck ladder tied to the showerhead with a shoelace.  The Barbie (with arms not raised to dive) was then tipped over into a swan dive, crashing headlong into a small bowl of water placed underneath her in the tub.  L'Arche laughed out loud, as did the woman who owned the laptop, until the boy in the video squirted catsup into the water bowl and announced that America's top diver had just cracked her skull open.  Sasha pursed her lips and stared at the boy, but the other little girl in the video started laughing her head off.  A voice that sounded like Malia's yelled "cut", and the YouTube video was over.  L'Arche looked down at the dogs lying on the sidewalk and panting in the sun, and knew he had a lot of work left to do at the White House.