All-American Girl (20 page)

“Come on,” he said.

I guess if I hadn't already been so shocked about what had happened—between me and the president, I mean—I might have been more shocked that David was actually speaking to me. Speaking to me, and apparently trying, at least, to make me feel better about what had just happened. At least that's what I had to conclude when he led me out of the Vermeil Room and back into the room where we'd sat that very first night I'd come to dinner, where he'd carved my name into the windowsill.

“Sam,” he said. “It's not that big a deal. I mean, I know it is to you. But it's not, you know, life and death.”

Right. It wasn't Sierra Leone or Utah. Nobody was getting their hands chopped off or being forced to marry, at the age of fourteen, a guy who already had three wives.

“I realize that,” I said. “But it's still wrong.”

“Probably,” David said. “But you have to understand. There's a lot of stuff we don't necessarily know about that they have to consider.”

“Like what?” I wanted to know. “My choosing that painting is going to compromise national security? I don't think so.”

David was taking off his tie like it had been bothering him.

“Maybe they just want a happy painting,” he said. “You know, one that shows the United States in a positive light.”

“That's not what the contest is about,” I said. “It's supposed to show what a representative of each country sees from his or her window. The rules don't say anything about what the person sees having to reflect positively on his or her country. I mean, I could see someone in China or something not being allowed to show a negative aspect of that nation, but this is America, for crying out loud. I thought we were guaranteed freedom of speech.”

David sat down on the arm of my chair. He said, “We are.”

“Right,” I said very sarcastically. “All except the teen ambassador to the UN.”

“You have freedom of speech,” David said. He said it with a funny sort of emphasis, but at the time, I was too upset to realize what he meant.

“Do you think you could talk to him, David?” I asked, looking up at him. Once again, he hadn't turned on any lights in the room. The only light there was to see by spilled in from the windows, the bluish light coming in from the Rotunda. In its glow, David's green eyes were hard to read. Still, I plunged on. “Your dad, I mean. He might listen to you.”

But David said, “Sam, I hate to disappoint you, but the one thing I make it a point never to discuss with my dad is politics.”

Even though David said he hated to disappoint me, that's exactly what he ended up doing. Disappointing me, I mean.

“But it's not fair!” I cried. “I mean, that painting is the best one! It deserves to be in the show! Just try, David, okay? Promise me you'll
try
to talk to him. You're his kid. He'll listen to you.”

“He won't,” David said. “Believe me.”

“Of course he won't, if you don't even
try
.”

But David wouldn't say he'd try. It was like he didn't even want to get involved. Which only made me more peeved. Because he was acting like it didn't matter. He obviously didn't understand how important it was. I thought he would, being an artist, and all. But he didn't. He really didn't.

I was so frustrated that I couldn't help saying, “
Jack
would try.”

And even though I'd been saying it mostly to myself, David overheard.

“Oh, sure,” he said in a mean way. “Jack's perfect.”

“At least Jack is willing to take a stand,” I said hotly. “You know, Jack shot out the windows of his own father's medical practice with
a BB gun in protest of Dr. Ryder's using medications that had been tested on animals.”

David looked unimpressed. “Yeah?” he said. “Well, that was a pretty stupid thing to do.”

I couldn't understand how David could say such a thing. How he could even
think
such a thing.

“Oh, right,” I said with a bitter laugh. “Pretty stupid of him to take a stand against cruelty to animals.”

“No,” David said coolly. “Pretty stupid of him to protest against something that saves lives. If scientists don't test medications on animals, Sam, before they use them on humans, they might make people sicker, or even kill them. Is that what Jack wants?”

I blinked at him. I hadn't actually thought of it that way before.

“But hey,” David went on with a shrug, “Jack's a—what was it you called him? Oh, yeah. A radical. Maybe that's what the radicals of today are rebelling against. Making sick people better. I wouldn't know. I'm obviously too lacking in moral rectitude.”

And then David, like he couldn't stand to be around me a second longer—like I was one of those gross hors d'oeuvres—turned around and left me sitting there. In the dark. Like the blind person Rebecca had accused me of being.

And the really sad part was, I was beginning to think she might be right. Because despite what Susan Boone had said, I had a feeling I wasn't seeing anything. Anything at all.

When I
got home from the White House that night, I was shocked to find Lucy in the living room, thumbing through a copy of
Elle
.

“What are
you
doing here?” I blurted out before I was able to restrain myself. I couldn't help it. I hadn't seen Lucy home on a Saturday night since her twelfth birthday. “Where's Jack?”

Had they, I thought, broken up at last? Had seeing me with another guy at Kris Parks's party finally made Jack realize his true feelings for me?

But the bigger question was, if it had, why didn't I feel happier about it? I mean, why would it actually make me feel sick to my stomach? Unless that was the result of that one hors d'oeuvre I accidentally scarfed before I realized how gross they were….

“Oh, Jack's in the TV room,” Lucy said in a bored voice. She was, I saw, doing her numerology chart. “He has to read some book for English class…
Wuthering Heights
. The report's due Monday, but of course he never read it. And they told him if he flunks English, they won't let him graduate in May.”

I took off my coat and the lace sling and flopped onto the couch beside her. “So he's reading it now? At our house?”

“God, no,” Lucy said. “It's on A and E. He's upstairs watching it. I tried, and even though it's got Ralph Fiennes, I just couldn't take it. What do you think of this skirt?” She flipped to a page in the center of the magazine.

“It's nice, I guess.” My mind seemed to be working at a very
sluggish pace, even though all I'd had to drink at the International Festival of the Child was 7-Up. “Where're Mom and Dad?”

“They're at that thing,” Lucy said, turning back to her magazine. “You know. Some benefit for North African orphans, or whatever. I don't know. All I know is, Theresa cancelled because Tito broke his foot moving a refrigerator, so I'm stuck here making sure Miss ET-Phone-Home doesn't blow up the house. Oh, my God.” Lucy lowered the magazine. “You should see it. Rebecca has a little friend over, spending the night. Remember when you used to have Kris Parks spend the night, and you two would play Barbies until the crack of dawn, or whatever? Well, guess what Rebecca and her friend are doing? Oh, just creating a DNA strand out of Tinkertoys. Hey, what about this suit?” Lucy showed me the suit. “I was thinking we could get you one like it for your medal ceremony,” Lucy said. “You know, we've only got about two weeks left to get you a really hot outfit. I told Mom we should have hit the outlets on the way home from Grandma's—”

“Luce,” I said.

I don't know what made me do it. Talk to my sister Lucy, of all people, about my problems.

But there it was, all coming out. It was like lava, or something, pouring out of a volcano. And there was absolutely no way I could stuff it all back in once it came oozing out.

The weirdest part of it was, Lucy put the magazine down and actually listened. She looked me right in the eye and listened, and didn't say a word for, like, five minutes.

Normally, of course, I don't share details about my personal life with my big sister. But since Lucy is an expert on all things social, I thought she might be able to shed some light on David's weird behavior—and possibly my own. I didn't mention anything about Jack, you know, being my soul mate, and all. Just the stuff about the
party, and how mean David had been to me at the International Festival of the Child, and the weird frisson, and stuff like that.

When I was through, Lucy just rolled her eyes.

“God,” she said. “Come to me with a hard one next time, okay?”

I stared at her. “What?” I mean, I had just revealed my soul to her—well, most of my soul, anyway—and she seemed disappointed that my problems weren't juicier. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, it's totally obvious what's going on with you and David.” She swung her slippered feet up onto the coffee table.

“It is?” Strangely, my heart had started speeding up again. “What, then? What's going on between us?”

“Duh,” Lucy said. “I mean, even Rebecca figured it out. And her own school admits she has, like, zero people skills.”

“Lucy.” I was trying very hard not to scream in frustration. “Tell me. Tell me what is going on between David and me, or I swear to God, I'll—”

“God, chill,” Lucy said. “I'll tell you. But you have to promise not to get mad.”

“I won't,” I said. “I swear.”

“Fine.” Lucy looked down at her fingernails. I could see that she'd just gotten a new manicure. Each nail was a perfect oval with a clean white tip. My own nails, of course, had never looked that clean, being almost constantly embedded with pencil dust from drawing.

Lucy took a deep breath. Then she let it out and said, “You love him.”

I blinked at her. “
What?
I
what
?”

“You promised not to get mad,” Lucy said warningly.

“I'm not mad,” I said. Though of course I was. I had poured my heart out to her, and this is what she came up with? That I was in love with David? Could there be anything further from the truth?
“But I don't love David.”

“God, Sam,” she said, rolling her head against the back of the couch with a groan. “Of course you do. You say when he smiles at you your heart feels like it's flipping over. And that when you're around him your face always feels hot. And that since he's been so mad at you for parading him around Kris's party like a prize trout you'd caught in some dating fishing stream you've felt miserable. What do you think all of that is, Sam, if not love?”

“Frisson?” I suggested hopefully.

Lucy picked up one of the satin sofa pillows and hurled it at me. “That's what love is, you idiot!” she yelled. “All that stuff you feel when you look at David? That's what I feel when I look at Jack. Don't you get it? You love David. And if I am not mistaking the signs, I think it's a pretty safe bet to say he feels the same way about you. Or at least he used to, before you, you know, screwed it all up.”

I couldn't tell her that she was wrong, of course. I couldn't tell her that it was impossible for me to be in love with David, since I'd been in love with her boyfriend from almost the first time she'd brought him home.

But I had to admit, it did sound a little…possible. I mean, given the whole frisson thing. Much as I loved Jack, I had to admit, my heart didn't start beating faster when I saw him. Not like it did with David. And I never had trouble meeting Jack's gaze—even though his pale blue eyes were every bit as beautiful as David's green ones. And while I blushed around Jack, well, the truth is, I'm a redhead; I blush around everybody.

But the person I blush around most is David.

And what about that thing David had pointed out? I mean about Jack's urban rebellion being kind of…well, bogus? Because it
was
bogus, now that I thought of it, for him to shoot out the windows
of his dad's medical practice in protest of something that, yeah, might hurt animals but helped sick people.

And the time he'd skinny-dipped at the Chevy Chase Country Club? What had he been protesting then? The country club's restrictive bathing suit rule? You know, I bet there are a lot of people at the Chevy Chase Country Club you wouldn't want to see swimming nude. So wasn't a bathing suit policy a good thing, then?

So what did it all mean? Was it possible Lucy was right? Was such a thing even remotely likely? That I had somehow fallen out of love with Jack, and into love with David, without even being aware of it myself…until now?

And how could I, Samantha Madison, who for so long had thought she'd known everything, have turned out to know so very, very little?

I was still trying to figure it out when, five minutes later, I left Lucy (feeling satisfied that she had solved all of my problems) in the living room and went into the kitchen for a snack, since the food at the party had hardly been satisfying.

You can imagine my discomfort when, as I was biting into a turkey sandwich I'd just made (with mayo, nothing else, on white bread), Jack came in.

“Oh, hey, Sam,” he said, wandering over to the refrigerator. “I didn't know you'd gotten home. How was the party?”

I swallowed the hunk of sandwich I'd been jamming into my mouth just as he'd walked in. “Um,” I said. “Fine.
Wuthering Heights
over?”

“Huh?” He was busy peering into the fridge. “No, not yet. Commercial. Hey, so what's the deal, Sam?” He took a carrot out of the vegetable crisper and bit into it noisily. “Is my painting going to New York or what?”

I had known I was going to be having this conversation sooner or later. I'd just hoped it would be later.

But I might as well, I figured, get it over with.

“Jack,” I said, putting down my sandwich. “Listen.”

Before I could get the words out of my mouth, however, Jack was going, with a look of total disbelief, “Wait a minute. Wait. Don't say it. I can tell by the look on your face. I didn't win, did I?”

I took a deep, steadying breath, preparing myself for the pain I knew was going to come flooding in when I said the word that would hurt him so much.

“No,” I said.

Jack, who had left the refrigerator door hanging wide open, took a single step backward. Clearly, I had hurt him. And for that, I would be eternally sorry.

But incredibly, no hurt came. Really. I'd been ready for it. I'd been totally prepared for it to come pouring over me, this intense sorrow for having hurt him.

But it didn't come. Nothing. Nada. Zip. I was sorry to have hurt his feelings, but doing so caused
me
no hurt whatsoever.

Which was weird. Very weird. Because how could I hurt the man I loved—my soul mate, the man I was destined to be with forever—and not feel his pain throbbing along my every nerve ending?

“I can't believe it,” Jack said, finding his voice at last. “I cannot freaking believe this. I didn't win? You're seriously telling me I didn't win?”

“Jack,” I said, still stunned by the fact that I didn't feel even a tremor of his pain. “I'm really sorry. It's just that there were so many great entries, and—”

“This is unbelievable,” Jack said. He didn't say it, exactly. He sort of yelled it. Manet, who had come into the kitchen as soon as he'd heard the fridge open, as was his custom, lifted both ears upon
hearing Jack's raised voice. “Un-freaking-believable!”

“Jack,” I said. “If there's any way I can make it up to you—”

“Why?” Jack demanded, his bright blue eyes very wide and very indignant. “Just tell me why, Sam. Can you do that? Can you tell me why my painting didn't get chosen?”

I said, slowly, “Well, Jack. We got a lot of entries. I mean, a
whole
lot of them.”

Jack, so far as I could tell, wasn't even listening. He went, “My painting was too controversial. That's it. It has to be. Tell the truth, Samantha. The reason it didn't win was because everyone thought it was too controversial, didn't they? They don't want other countries to see how apathetic the youth of America are today, is that it?”

I said, shaking my head, “No, not exactly…”

But of course I should have been just, like, Yes, that was it. Because that would have been more acceptable to Jack than the real reason, which I lamely revealed a second later, when he demanded, “Well, why, then?”

“It's just,” I said, wanting to make him feel better, but at the same time wanting him to understand, “that you didn't paint what you saw.”

Jack didn't say anything at first. He just stared down at me. It was like he couldn't quite process what he'd heard.

“What?” he said finally, in a tone of utter disbelief.

I should have known. I should have gotten the hint. But I didn't, of course.

“Well,” I said. “I mean, Jack, come on. You have to admit. You didn't paint what you see. You go around making these paintings of these disenfranchised kids—and they are really great, don't get me wrong. But they aren't real, Jack. The people you paint aren't real. You don't even know people like that. It's like…well, it's like me sticking that pineapple in. It's nice, and everything, but it
isn't honest. It isn't real. I mean, you can't see a Seven-Eleven parking lot from your bedroom window. I doubt you can even see a garbage can.” I did not, of course, know for a fact what Jack could see from his bedroom window. I was only guessing about the garbage can.

Still, I must have hit pretty close to the truth, since I managed to thoroughly enrage him.

“Didn't paint what I see?”
he bellowed. “
Didn't paint what I see?
What are you
talking
about?”

“W-well,” I stammered, taken aback by his reaction. “You know. What Susan Boone said. About painting what you see, not what you know—”

“Sam!” Jack yelled. “This isn't a damned art lesson! It's my chance for my artwork to make it to New York! And you ruled my painting out because I didn't paint what I
see
? What is
wrong
with you?”

“Hey.” A familiar voice broke the tense silence between Jack and me. I looked over and saw Lucy standing in the doorway, looking annoyed.

“What's going on?” she wanted to know. “I could hear you yelling all the way across the house. What is with you?”

Jack pointed at me. Apparently, he was so upset he couldn't even find the words to explain to his own girlfriend what I'd done.

“Sh-she…” he sputtered. “Sh-she says I d-didn't paint what I see.”

Lucy looked from Jack to me and then back again. Then she rolled her eyes and went, “Oh, God, Jack, would you get over yourself, please?”

Then she stomped up, took him by the arm, and started steering him from the kitchen. He let her, like a man in a daze.