All-American Girl (22 page)

“Yes,” Susan Boone said. “I think it's easy to understand why he wouldn't necessarily want to get involved in his father's business. He certainly wouldn't want his father involved in his.”

“Wow,” I said, because I was still reeling from her earlier revelation. “I mean…wow.”

“Yes,” Susan Boone said, leaning back in her chair. “Wow. So you see, Sam. It's been there all along.”

I frowned. “What has?”

“What you wanted,” she said. “You just had to open your eyes a little to see it. And there it was.”

And there it was.

And there I still was ten minutes later—not quite believing that I was there at all—chatting with Susan Boone, a woman who'd once accused me of knowing but not seeing, when the back door to the kitchen banged open. A large man with his long hair pulled back into a ponytail and his arms filled with grocery bags came in. He looked at us with surprise on his handlebar-mustached face.

“Well,” he said, looking at me with friendly, but curious, light blue eyes. “Hey.”

“Hey,” I said, wondering if this was Susan Boone's son. He seemed to be about twenty years younger than she was. She had never mentioned kids or a husband before. I had always thought it was just her and Joe.

But then maybe I had only been hearing, and not really listening.

“Pete,” Susan Boone said, “this is Samantha Madison, one of my students. Samantha, this is Pete.”

Pete put down the grocery bags. He was wearing jeans, over which were fastened a pair of leather chaps, like cowboys and Hell's Angels wear. When he reached out to shake my hand, I saw that his arm had the Harley-Davidson logo tattooed on it.

“Nice to meet you,” he said, pumping my left hand, on account of the cast still being on my right. Then his gaze fell on the French bread. “Hey,” he said, “that looks good.”

Pete pulled up a chair and joined us. And it turned out he wasn't Susan's son at all. He was her boyfriend.

Which just goes to show that Susan was right about one thing, anyway: Sometimes what you want is right in front of you. All you have to do is open your eyes and see it.

I chose
Candace Wu.

Lucy thought I should have gone with someone more famous, like Barbara Walters or Katie Couric. But I liked Candace, because she'd been so nice that time I'd fallen off the podium into her lap during my press conference at the hospital.

And Candace turned out to be pretty tough. She didn't take any guff from anyone. When Andy, the White House press secretary, said under no circumstances could she bring her film crew into his office to shoot footage of Maria Sanchez's painting, she said that the White House wasn't private property. It belonged to the people of the United States of America, and that as American citizens, she and the film crew had just as much right to be there as he did.

Unless, of course, he had something to hide.

Finally, Mr. White gave up, and I showed Candace all the paintings, including Angie Tucker's. I said Angie's painting was very nice and all, but that my choice had been Maria Sanchez's.

“And is it true, Samantha,” Candace asked me on camera, just as we'd rehearsed earlier that day, when she'd met with me after I'd called her station, “that the president told you that you were going to have to choose another painting, one with a less political angle?”

I said the line I had been practicing all morning. “The truth is, Miss Wu, that I think the president may not be aware that American teens aren't only interested in what the number-one video in the country is right now. We have concerns. We want our voices to be heard. The From My Window international art show being
sponsored by the United Nations is a perfect forum in which teens around the world can express their concerns. It would be wrong, I think, to stifle those voices.”

To which Candace replied, just as she'd said she would, in exchange for my giving her network exclusive world rights to my one and only televised interview, “You mean, the man whose life you so heroically saved will not even allow you to make your own decisions in your capacity as the U.S. teen ambassador?”

I replied, tactfully, “Well, maybe there are national concerns we aren't privy to, or something.”

After which Candace made a slashing motion beneath her chin and then went, “Well, boys, that's a wrap. Let's pack up and get over to the hospital,” which was where we were all going next, on account of my cast coming off that day.

“Wait a minute,” the White House press secretary said, hurrying up to us. “Wait just a minute here. I am sure there is no need for you to show that segment. I am sure we can work something out with the president….”

But Candace hadn't gotten to where she had in the cutthroat news anchorwoman business by waiting around for things to be worked out. She had Marty and the other camera guys pack up, and then she was hustling all of us out of there before you could say “We'll be right back after this message.”

It wasn't until we'd come back to my house after getting my cast off, and Candace was filming what she called some “filler” shots of me and Manet romping on my bed, that the phone rang and Theresa came in looking excited and whispered, “Samantha. It is the president.”

Everyone froze—Candace, who'd been sharing beauty tips with Lucy, who seemed way fascinated by the whole news anchorwoman thing, a job where you had to look good and got to express your
opinions about things; Rebecca, who'd been taking notes on how to act more like a normal person from one of the lighting guys; the cameramen, who were taking, if you ask me, way too close an interest in my Gwen Stefani poster. Everyone seemed to hold his or her breath as I climbed down off the bed and took the phone from Theresa.

“Hello?” I said.

“Samantha,” the president cried, his hearty voice so loud I had to hold the receiver away from my face. “What's this I hear about you thinking I don't back your choice for that UN art show?”

“Well, sir,” I said. “The fact is, I think the best painting we've received is the one from Maria Sanchez, of San Diego, but from what I understand, you—”

“That's the one I like,” the president said. “The one with the sheets.”

“Really, sir?” I said. “Because you said—”

“Never mind that now,” the president said. “You like that sheet painting, you have it packed up and sent right along to New York. And next time you've got a problem with anything like this, you come to me first, before you go to the press, all right?”

I didn't mention that I'd already tried to. Instead, I said, “Yes, sir. I will, sir.”

“Great. Buh-bye now,” the president said. Then he hung up.

And so when my exclusive interview with Candace Wu aired the next night—Wednesday—the whole part about Maria Sanchez's painting not winning wasn't in it. Instead, the San Diego news affiliate filmed a piece where they went to Maria Sanchez's house and told her she was the winner. Maria turned out to be a dark-haired girl about my age who lived in a tiny house with six brothers and sisters. Like me, she was stuck right in the middle of all of them.

I should have known there was some reason I liked her painting best.

Anyway, when they told Maria she'd won, she started crying. Then, because they asked, she showed them the view out her window. It was just like in the painting, with the wash hanging from the line and the barbed-wire fence off in the distance. Maria really had painted what she saw, just as I'd thought she had, not just what she knew.

And now she and her family were going to get to go to New York and see her painting on the wall at the UN with all of the other entries from around the world. And it looked like I was going to get to meet her, since Andy said the White House would be flying my whole family to New York for the show's opening. I'd already asked my mom and dad if we could go to the Met while we were there, and see the Impressionists, and they said yes.

I am betting Maria will want to go, too.

The night Candace's interview with me aired, we all sat in the living room and watched it…me, Lucy, Rebecca, Theresa, Manet, and my mom and dad. My mom and dad hadn't really known all that much about it, since I'd conducted most of the interview after school, while my mom was in court and my dad was at his office. I'd had to skip Susan Boone's on Tuesday in order to do it. But I'd been going to do that anyway, on account of that's when Theresa had been going to take me to my appointment to get my cast removed.

So Mom and Dad were kind of surprised when they showed the parts filmed in our house—particularly the segment shot in my room, which had been somewhat messy at the time. My mom went, in a horrified voice, as she watched the TV screen like someone transfixed, “Oh, my God, Samantha.”

But I explained to her that Candace had asked me to leave my
room the way it was, as it added authenticity. Candace was way into authenticity. Her goal in producing the segment had been to show an “authentic American hero.” According to Candace, the reasons I was an “authentic American hero” were:

• a) I had selflessly risked my life in order to save that of another.
  
• b) That other had happened to be the leader of the free world.
  
• c) I am an American.
  

Candace's view on the matter was, happily, shared by others. For instance, the doctor who sawed off my cast. He was very careful not to saw through any of the pictures I'd drawn on there. He warned me right before he took the cast off that, without it, my arm was going to feel very light and strange for a while, and it turned out he'd been right. As soon as he peeled off the cast, my arm floated upward about three inches, all on its own. Theresa and Candace and the doctor and the cameraman and I all laughed.

Other people who thought I was an authentic American hero turned out to be the staff at the Smithsonian, where we went after getting my cast off. I'd decided that, instead of selling my cast on eBay, I would donate it to a museum, and the Smithsonian was the biggest museum I could think of. Fortunately, they wanted it. I was worried they would think it was gross, my giving them my old cast with Liberty Bells and Dolley Madison drawn all over it.

But since it was, you know, a relic of sorts, denoting an important piece of American history, they claimed to be happy to have it.

The segment about me closed with a piece Candace and I had discussed very carefully beforehand. One of the conditions of my letting her do the interview was that she had to ask this one particular question. And that was about my love life.

“So, Samantha,” Candace said, leaning forward in her chair with
a little smile on her face. “There've been some rumors…”

The camera showed me looking all innocent, sitting on the very couch I was sitting on as I watched the interview being broadcast.

“Rumors, Ms. Wu?” the TV me asked, with her eyes all wide.

“Yes,” Candace said. “About you and a certain person…”

Then they started showing all this footage of David—you know, waving from the steps of Air Force One, ducking in and out of Susan Boone's, in a suit at the International Festival of the Child. Then the camera came back on Candace, and she went, “Is it true that you and the first son are an item?”

The TV me, turning red—turning red right there on television, and even though I had known perfectly well the question was coming—went, “Well, Ms. Wu, let's put it this way. I'd like it to be true. But whether or not he feels the same way, I don't know. I think I might have screwed it up.”

“Screwed it up?” Candace looked confused (even though she knew exactly what I was going to say to this question, as well). “Screwed it up how, Samantha?”

“I just,” the TV me said with a shrug, “didn't see something that was right there in front of my face. And now I think it's probably too late. I hope not…but I have a bad feeling it probably is.”

That was when the real me—the watching-the-TV me—pulled the sofa cushion Manet had been sitting on out from under him and buried my face into it with a scream. I mean, I'd had to say it—I couldn't think of any other way to say it that would make up for the horrible thing I had done—you know, the whole loving-David-the-whole-time-and-not-realizing-it-until-it-was-too-late thing.

But that didn't mean I wasn't embarrassed about it. Or that I had even the remotest hope of it working.

That's why I was screaming.

My dad, who'd been watching the interview with a kind of stunned expression on his face, went, “Wait a minute. What was that all about? Samantha…did you and David have a fight?”

To which Theresa replied, “Oh, she blew it with him but good. But maybe if he sees this, he'll give her another chance. I mean, it isn't every day some girl goes on national television and tells the world that she wants to go out with you.”

Even Rebecca looked at me with renewed respect. “That was pretty brave of you, Sam,” she said. “Braver even than what you did that day outside the cookie store. Not, of course, that it's going to work.”

“Oh, Rebecca,” Lucy said, hitting the mute button, since the interview was over. “Shut up.”

It isn't often that Lucy comes to my defense in familial battles, so I glanced up from the sofa cushion in amazement. It was only then that I realized what was bothering me about Lucy. What had
been
bothering me about Lucy for the past day or two.

“Hey,” I said. “Where's Jack?”

“Oh,” Lucy said with a careless shrug. “We broke up.”

Everyone in the room—not just me—stared at her in openmouthed astonishment.

My dad recovered first. He went, “Alleluia,” which was a strange sentiment coming from an agnostic, but whatever.

“I knew it,” Theresa said, shaking her head. “He went back to that ex-girlfriend of his, didn't he? Men. They are all…” And then she said some bad words in Spanish.

“Oh, God,” Lucy said, rolling her eyes. “Puhlease. He didn't cheat on me, or anything. He was just such a jerk to Sam.”

I would not have thought it possible for my jaw to sag any more than it already had, but somehow, I managed.

“Me?”
I squealed. “What are you
talking
about?”

Lucy looked heavenward. “Oh, you know,” she said, sounding
impatient. “That whole painting thing. He was being such a tool. I told him to—what's it called again, Rebecca?”

“To never again darken your doorway?” Rebecca offered.

“Yeah,” Lucy said. “That's it.” Then Lucy, who had been channel surfing the whole time she'd been speaking, went, “Oooh, look. David Boreanaz,” and turned the volume up.

I couldn't believe it.
I couldn't believe it.
Lucy and Jack, broken up? Because of
me
? I mean, I will admit, I had been fantasizing about this moment for months. But in my fantasies, Lucy and Jack always broke up because Jack finally came to his senses and realized that I was the girl for him. They never broke up because Lucy happened to spy Jack being a jerk to me.

And they certainly never broke up after I'd realized I didn't love Jack anymore…had maybe never really loved him in the first place. Not the way you're
supposed
to love someone.

This was not the way things were supposed to go. This was not the way things were supposed to go
at all
.

“Lucy,” I said, leaning forward. “How can you…I mean, after all the time you two have spent together, how can you just
dump
Jack like that? I mean, what about the prom? Your senior prom is coming up. Who are you going to go with, if not Jack?”

“Well,” Lucy said, her gaze riveted on David Boreanaz's abs, “I have narrowed it down to about five different guys. But I am thinking of asking my chem partner.”

“Greg Gardner?”
I all but shrieked. “You are going to go to the prom with
Greg Gardner
? Lucy, he is, like, the biggest nerd in school!”