Chapter 193: Shelby Merriman

{4b}Wednesday, June 30, 1971

“Wake up, Michael. We’ve got problems!” Izzy called out as she banged on my door. Adriana pulled the covers over her head beside me, while on the other side of me, Vickie buried her head under the pillow.

“I’m coming,” I thought to Izzy as I struggled out from between the two girls in my bed.

“I’m sorry, Michael. I didn’t mean to catch you at a bad time,” she giggled.

“I’ll bad time you, you vixen. You know that’s not what I meant!” I said as I opened the door for her on my way to the bathroom.

After taking care of my bladder, I stepped into the shower to see if that would wash the sleep from my eyes.

“I hate to disturb you this early,” she said from the open doorway of the bathroom. “But we really do have a problem. The press is already camped out on the street out front, and the staff has received so many calls, they finally woke Grace up to start dealing with them. They said they couldn’t find your other assistants,” Izzy informed me as she looked back over her shoulder at the two girls still in my bed.

“So anyway ... Grace asked me to help her field some of the calls. I guess I should let her know I’ve found them.”

“Let ‘em sleep,” I told her. “I’ll handle whatever it is.”

“I don’t know...” she started as I opened the shower curtain and stepped out to dry off. “I might just let you handle me instead!”

“Don’t you start,” I warned her.

“Oh, pooh. You’re no fun,” Izzy replied.

“Besides the press outside, what else?” I asked. “And by-the-way, what time is it?”

“It’s almost seven thirty, and the ‘what else’ is the large number of phone calls from all sorts of dignitaries wanting to meet with you this morning. This sure is an early rising town. Grace said the calls began coming in around six o’clock and haven’t let up yet. She’s telling them all that we’ll get back to them later this morning. What are we going to do?”

The first thing I was going to do was talk to Grace.

“Good morning, sweetheart,” I thought to Grace. “Izzy tells me that you’ve been slammed this morning.”

“I’ll say! The switchboard operator woke me up at six-twenty and said he was so inundated with calls that he needed somewhere to route them all,” she told me before I heard her answer the phone again.

“Take your phone off the hook and then go down and see if they can give us a meeting room. I’ll get everybody else up and going.”

“Thanks! Gotta go!” she replied.

Then I connected with everyone and told them that we were having an emergency family meeting, downstairs in thirty minutes. I warned them all not to answer their phones or go outside. Of course, they wanted to know what was going on, so I told them about the press outside and the phone calls. Then I said I’d see them in thirty minutes.

My next task was to rouse my two sleeping assistants. They had not stirred much when I made my announcement.

“I guess I’d better give you the rest,” Izzy said when I had them up and in the bathroom.

“Deedee and I need to go back to New Orleans to follow up on what we started last week. Abby says she’s staying with you, but I was hoping we could take Karla with us again. I don’t know how long it will take, but we may be there another week,” she informed me. “Do you know when we’re supposed to fly out to Tapato?”

“We’ll discuss it this morning with Kalani. And I like the idea of Karla going with you,” I told her. “Only promise me that you’ll be careful.”

“We will. I just wish I could take Serkia with us.”

“I know, but Penny says they’re training as fast as they can. Just make sure that Karla checks in with her brother often, we’ve got a radio on the train now.”

“Okay. And Michael ... I saw your speech on the news this morning. I want you to know that I am proud to work for you,” she said as we stepped into the hall. Then rising up on her toes, she lightly kissed my cheek.

“C’mon,” I said as I took her hand. “Let’s go find some coffee.”

The Blair House had set us up with a conference room where the staff was busy setting up a buffet for our breakfast. Fortunately, the coffee pot was already there and waiting on me. And so was Grace with her notepad full of messages and calls to return.

As I was pouring my first cup, Mr. Ruwe and Miss Lammerding walked in.

“Good morning,” I greeted them. “We’re glad to see you. Did you see what’s going on out front?”

“It looks like you have attracted some attention with your remarks yesterday. You’re all over the news and you made the front page,” Miss Lammerding observed as she laid a copy of The Washington Post on the table.

“And the phone won’t stop ringing either. They started before I got up and we’re just not set up for handling all the requests,” Grace told them.

“There isn’t, by any chance, a standard operating procedure for dealing with this, is there?” I asked the diplomats.

“I’m afraid there’s nothing in the manual about a sixteen-year-old Prince with his pair of beautiful wives turning this town on its collective ear,” he replied with a smile. “However, all is not lost. I’ll be right back.”

Two things happened while he was gone, most of my family had begun to filter in, and the Blair House staff had finished setting up the buffet. I said quick hellos to most of them as I made my way to the serving line. Being the leader is all about priorities, and I had mine. I was starved!

I had just about finished my first plate and was debating whether to get back in line when Mr. Ruwe returned.

“I’ve had all your calls routed to my office,” he explained. “That should give us some breathing room. However, you are going to have to address some of those calls pretty soon. The list of callers is pretty impressive.”

“I’ll say!” Grace exclaimed. “I’ve already taken calls from a senator’s office, a congressman’s office, two TV stations, and a bunch of others. NBC’s Today Show wants you to come to New York and bring the Princesses, and someone named Barbara Walters wants to interview you for a prime time special!”

Catherine and David wandered over with their coffee and took seats near me. I could sense she was itching to get involved.

“Do you miss it?” I asked. Grace, Adriana, and Vickie all looked at her.

“A little,” she replied. “However, you have a capable staff and with the State Department’s help, you all should do just fine.”

My Executive Support Team beamed at her praise.

“We really just came over to see if you needed us and to find out what the plans are on flying out to Tapato,” she said.

I decided it was time to start the family meeting. Once I got everyone’s attention, I began.

“I hope everyone has had a good time,” I began. There was a general murmur of agreement. “And I want to take this opportunity to thank our friends from the State Department for everything they have done to make this such a memorable experience.” That was followed by a round of applause from my family.

“They have arranged a special sightseeing trip around Washington for everyone,” I told them and that caused a moment’s confusion as we worked out the details of when the tour bus was leaving and where from. But we quickly worked everything out with Miss Lammerding.

“As most of you know, the press is waiting out front, so I will not be going with you. After Mikeya, Ileana, Kalani, and I speak with them, we are going over to the State Department for some last-minute details. After that, I hope to meet all of you that are going back to Tennessee at the train station. My plans are to head out tonight and get to Maryville sometime tomorrow morning. I understand that Kalani and Mikeya, with Tommy escorting them, will be flying back to Tapato. I also understand that Izzy and Deedee, with Karla escorting them, will be flying back down to New Orleans to take care of the rest of Deedee’s and Abby’s parents’ estate. What is everyone else planning?”

“Amy, Shelly, and I are flying back to New York. We have meetings this week with the attorneys for setting up the foundation. Then we’ll fly down to Tennessee to see about getting Amy and Shelly enrolled in college. I guess we can catch up with you then,” Nicky said.

“Uh, unfortunately, I don’t plan on staying in Tennessee that long. Probably less than a day,” I told her.

Of course, this opened the flood gates to more questions and discussions, so I filled them in on my plans to get back to the ranch to take care of the salvaged parts right away.

“OH! That reminds me,” Grace said. “Anna called earlier. She wants you to call her.”

“Michael?” Vickie asked, raising her hand like she was still in school. I just smiled at her.

“Adriana starts her sessions with the speech therapist tomorrow in New York. I told her that I would go with her so she could still communicate. We thought we’d also use the time for her to teach me more about the company. Is that alright with you?”

I thought for a moment, but I knew that her therapy was important and I couldn’t see that I would need them. I just hated not having them near me.

“Grace will still be with you,” Vickie added. “And we’ll only be a thought away.”

“Then I should be fine. You two just be careful and don’t cause too much havoc with my company,” I told them.

Kathy Lynn was also going back to Seven Oaks because Sunny was there, currently under the watchful eye of Vickie’s mother, Helen.

Robert, Cindy, and Melanie decided to go with me and I would be dropping them in Longview on the way to the ranch. Hanna and Jimmy were both staying with me, but Allie hadn’t made up her mind yet.

John and Sarah, Jeff and Debbie, and their daughters, Randi, Jenny, Julie, Mandy, and Candy were all hitching a ride back to Townsend on the train. John said they had a lot to do if they were taking off two weeks to go to Tapato.

We decided to all meet out at the ranch in Colorado on July 10th. That would give everyone time to prepare to fly to Tapato. I told Kalani to expect us on the 12th or 13th. She said that that would be fine since my sixty-day window for Tapatoan citizenship wouldn’t expire until July 30th.

Since David was taking Catherine to Niagara Falls for a week, it was decided that Beth would go with Izzy and Deedee, and Karla would stay with me. I was glad of that because Beth had already told me that she hated to cook.

After everything was decided, most of my family took off for the sightseeing tour. I encouraged my Executive Support Team to go with them and they finally gave in and went to get ready. That left Kalani, Mikeya, Ileana and me with Mr. Ruwe and Miss Lammerding to go over to the State Department.

“What do we do about the press?” Mikeya asked.

“We can take you out the back way, but they may end up following the tour group looking for you,” Mr. Ruwe suggested. “Why don’t I go out and tell them that you are headed over to our office and you will meet them this afternoon to answer questions? Then we’ll take you out the front so they see you leave with us. That should keep them away from the others. And it will give you time to prepare your remarks.”

“Sounds like a plan,” I told them.

The rest of my day was spent sitting in meetings with Kalani, Mikeya, and Ileana at the State Department. I did contact Anna and filled her in on my schedule. She was glad that I was coming to take care of the salvaged items so promptly.

After lunch, Ileana and I met the press while Kalani and Mikeya met with Secretary of State Rogers. The news conference went pretty smooth. No one tried to attack our unusual marriage. Instead they were more interested in the novelty of it all. After all the flashbulbs died down, I started my off-the-cuff remarks.

“I was supposed to have a prepared statement for you guys, but since school’s out for the summer and my English teacher isn’t here to grade it, I skipped writing one,” I told them. They all laughed