All-American Girl (23 page)

Lucy looked annoyed, but only because all my shrieking was drowning out the dulcet tones of Mr. Boreanaz. “Dude,” she said, “duh. But nerds are totally in right now. I mean, you should know. You're the one who started the trend.”

“Trend? What
trend
?” I demanded.

“You know.” A commercial had come on, so Lucy put the TV on mute again, rolled over on her back, and looked at me. “The whole dating-a-nerd thing. You set it off by bringing David to that party. Now everyone is doing it. Kris Parks is going out with Tim Haywood.”

“The national science fair winner?”
I gasped.

“Yeah. And Debbie Kinley dumped Rodd Muckinfuss for some geek from Horizon.”

“Really.” My mother, who was still in the room, listening to our conversation with growing annoyance, finally couldn't take it anymore. “Listen to you girls! Geeks! Nerds! Don't you realize that you are talking about
people
? People with
feelings
?”

Like my mom, I was getting more and more upset as well. But not for the same reason.

“Wait a minute,” I said. “Wait just a minute here. Lucy, you can't break up with Jack. You love him.”

“Well, sure,” Lucy said simply. “But you're my sister. I can't go out with a guy who's mean to my sister. I mean, what do you think I am?”

I just stared at her. I really couldn't believe it. Lucy—my sister Lucy, the prettiest, most vacuous girl at Adams Prep High School—had dumped her boyfriend, and not because he'd been two-timing her, or because she'd grown tired of him. She'd dumped him for me, her reject little sister. Me, Samantha Madison. Not the Samantha Madison who'd saved the life of the president of the United States. Not Samantha Madison, teen ambassador to the UN.

No. Samantha Madison, Lucy Madison's kid sister.

That's when the guilt came rushing in. I mean, here Lucy had made this enormous sacrifice—okay, maybe not so enormous for her, but whatever, still a sacrifice—and what kind of sister to her had I been? Huh? I mean, for the longest time, all I had done was wish—no,
pray
—for Lucy and Jack to break up so that I could have
him. Then it finally happens, and why?

Because, according to Lucy, she loves me more than she could ever love any boy.

I was the worst sister in the world. The lowest of the low. I was scum.

“Lucy,” I said. “Really. Jack was just upset the other day. I totally understood. I really don't think you should break up with him just because…just because of me.”

Lucy looked bored with the conversation. Her show had come back on. “Whatever,” she said. “I'll think about it.”

“You should, Luce,” I said. “You really should. I mean, Jack's a great guy. A really great guy. I mean, for you.”

“All right,” Lucy said, looking irritated. “I said I'll think about it. Now shut up, my show is on.”

My mom, realizing a little belatedly what was going on, went, “Um, Lucy, if you want to date this other boy—your chemistry partner—that's really quite all right with your father and me. Isn't it, Richard?”

My dad hastened to assure Lucy that it was.

“In fact,” he said, “why don't you bring him home after school tomorrow? Theresa won't mind, will you, Theresa?”

But the damage was already done. I knew Lucy and Jack would be back together before lunch tomorrow.

And I was glad. Really glad.

Because I didn't love Jack. I had probably never loved Jack. Not really.

The only problem, of course, was that I was pretty sure the person I did love didn't feel the same way about me.

Though I had a good feeling I was going to find out for sure, one way or another, at Susan Boone's tomorrow.

“Do you
see this skull?” Susan Boone held up a cow skull, bleached white by sun and sand. “All the colors of the rainbow are in this skull. And I want to see those colors on the page in front of you.”

She put the skull down on the little table in front of us. Then she went to go chastise Joe the crow, who had already successfully stolen a wad of my hair before I'd gotten a chance to don my daisy helmet.

I sat straddling my drawing bench, keeping my gaze carefully averted from the person sitting next to me. I had no idea whether David was happy or sad to see me, or if he simply didn't care either way. I had not spoken to or seen him—except on TV—since the night of the Beaux Arts Trio and our argument about Jack. I had no idea if he'd seen my interview or knew that I had, in fact, exercised my freedom of speech, the way he'd suggested. Or that I'd basically admitted, right there in front of twenty million viewers, that I loved him.

I quizzed Rebecca about it at length, seeing as how she went to his school. But being eleven, Rebecca had no classes with David. She even had a different lunch period. She didn't know if he'd seen it or not.

“Don't worry,” Lucy kept saying. “He saw it.”

And Lucy, of course, would know. Lucy knew everything there was to know about boys. Hadn't she gotten Jack back, as casually as she'd dumped him? One day they were broken up, and the next day
they were sitting in the cafeteria together at school like they'd never been apart.

“Oh, hey, Sam,” Jack said when I walked by their table, headed for my own. “Listen, sorry about that art show thing. I hope you aren't, you know, mad at me, or anything. I was just kind of disappointed.”

“Um,” I said, totally confused. Where was Greg Gardner? But I think I covered pretty well by going, “No problem.”

And it wasn't a problem. What did I care about Jack? I had way more important things to think about. Like David. How was I going to get David to believe that it was him I loved, not Jack? I mean, what if he hadn't seen the interview? I couldn't imagine how he could have missed it, since it had been the number-one rated show for its time slot, and besides which, had been extremely heavily advertised, ever since Sunday, when I'd set the whole thing up.

Still, there was a chance he didn't know. A chance I was going to have to tell him to his face.

Which was somehow way worse than saying it in front of twenty million strangers.

And here I was, sitting right next to him, and I couldn't think of a single thing to say to him. I mean, we'd smiled at one another when we'd come in, and David had been like, “Hey,” and I'd been like, “Hey,” back.

But that was it.

And as if fate hadn't played enough cruel tricks on me lately, David was wearing a No Doubt T-shirt. My favorite band in the whole world, featuring Gwen Stefani, only the best singer in the entire universe, and the guy I had this huge colossal crush on was wearing one of their concert T-shirts.

Life can be so, so unfair.

And now my palms were sweating so badly, I could barely hold
on to my colored pencils, and my heart was doing this weird Adrian Young drum solo inside my chest, and my mouth was all dry.
Say something,
I kept telling myself.

Only I couldn't think of what to say.

And then it was time to draw, and the studio fell silent, except for the classical music on the radio, and everyone started working, and it was too late to say anything.

Or so I thought.

I was busy looking for the colors in the white cow skull in front of me, totally absorbed, as usual, in my drawing—because even being as hopelessly in love with David as I happened to be, I could still get caught up in my drawing…

…so caught up that when he happened to throw a little slip of paper into my lap, I jumped about a mile.

I looked down at the piece of paper. Then I looked over at him.

But he was bent over his own drawing. In fact, if it hadn't been for the barely noticeable smile just tilting up the corners of his mouth, I wouldn't have known the paper had come from him.

At least until I opened it up.

There, written in the tiny, precise handwriting of a would-be architect, was one word:

I couldn't believe it. David wanted to be friends. With
me
.
Me.

My heart pounding, I bent over and started to write:

But something stopped me. I don't know what it was. I don't know if it was just that, because of everything that had happened, I
had finally learned a thing or two, or if the invisible hand of my guardian angel, Miss Gwen Stefani, reached out and stopped me.

Whatever it was, I tore a new piece of paper off the edge of my drawing pad. And on it, I wrote, my heart in my throat, but knowing—just knowing—it was now or never, and that I had to tell the truth:

Although I tried to pretend like I was thoroughly engrossed in my drawing, this time I really was watching David out of the corner of my eye. I watched him open the piece of paper I'd tossed to him, and I watched him read what I'd written. Then I watched his eyebrows go up.

Way up.

And when, a few seconds later, a new wad of paper showed up in my lap, I knew he'd tossed it there, because I'd seen him do that, too.

Feeling like I couldn't breathe, I opened the new note. On it, he'd written:

That was an easy one. In fact, it was practically a relief to write:

Because that was really how I felt.

Still, the last thing I expected was a note back from David saying how
he
really felt.

But that is exactly what I got.

And if I had ever been happy before—if there had ever been anything, anything at all that had ever made it feel as if joy was just bubbling up inside of me—that was nothing compared to how I felt when I opened the next folded slip of paper he threw into my lap, and saw that on it, he had drawn a heart.

That was all. Just a tiny little heart.

For which there was only one explanation. I mean, really. And that was that David loved me. He loved me.

He loved me.

He loved me.

A week
later, they had the award ceremony. The one where I got my presidential medal. You know, for valor, and all of that.

I didn't wear black. I didn't even want to wear black. I didn't care what I wore. When you are in love, that's how it is. You don't care about things like clothes, because all you can think about is the object of your affections.

Well, unless you're Lucy.

But even though I didn't care how I looked, my mom and Theresa and Lucy made sure I looked good. They put me in another suit—this one light blue—that later, after the award ceremony, while we were all having cake in the Vermeil Room, David said matched my eyes.

Anyway, the award ceremony, as promised, was in front of the official White House Christmas tree in the Blue Room. It was way beautiful, with all the decorations and lights and everything.

It was also way serious. Everyone who was anyone was there, including all these colonels in fancy uniforms, and senators in suits, and my family, and Theresa, and Catherine and her family, and Candace Wu, and Jack and Pete and Susan Boone, whom I'd invited especially.

The president made a speech about me, and it made me feel way patriotic. It went, “Samantha Madison, I award you this medal for extreme bravery in the face of personal peril…” blah blah blah. Actually, it was kind of hard to pay attention, on account of David standing right there next to his dad, looking totally cute.

I can't believe there was a time I used to think David looked geeky in a tie. Now the sight of him in one makes me go frisson all over. Well, the sight of him in anything does, really.

Anyway, after I got my medal—which was pure solid gold, hanging from a red velvet ribbon—everybody applauded, and we had to pose for about a million photos, while everyone else started filing around for cake. David, instead of going for cake, waited for me, and when I got done with the photos he came up and kissed me on the cheek. A photographer took a picture of that, too, but we weren't embarrassed or anything. That's because in that past week we'd been doing a lot of kissing, and not just on the cheek, either.

And let me tell you something: kissing—which, needless to say, isn't something I had really had a whole lot of experience with up until now—is
nice
.

Anyway, after we joined everyone for cake, I went around, trying to make the different clusters of people I'd invited feel comfortable with each other. Like I introduced Susan Boone and her boyfriend to Catherine's parents, and David introduced Jack and Lucy to the attorney general and his wife, and so on.

And then, while everyone was shaking hands with each other and saying what a nice time they were having and all, David came over to me with one of those secretive little smiles of his and whispered to me,
“Come here.”

I whispered back,
“Okay.”

I followed him out of the room and down the hall to where we had first had burgers together, looking out over the White House's back lawn.

And there on the windowsill where David had carved my name, I saw that he had added something.

A plus sign.

So now it said:

 

David

+

Sam

 

Which, all things considered, is not a bad way to leave your mark on history.

Top ten
reasons I'm glad I'm not actually Gwen Stefani:

• 10. I don't have to go on tour. I can stay home with my dog. Plus see my boyfriend whenever I want to…well, until my eleven o'clock curfew on weekends, ten o'clock on weeknights, and only so long as I keep my German grades up.
  
• 9. Between school, art lessons, being teen ambassador to the UN, and my social life, I really don't have time to put that much thought into my wardrobe. Dressing whimsically is actually a lot of responsibility.
  
• 8. I don't think singing and songwriting could ever be as satisfying creatively as drawing a really excellent egg.
  
• 7. Gwen has to give a lot of interviews, which I can completely relate to in my capacity as teen ambassador to the UN. But Gwen gets interviewed by, like,
  Teen People
  , who totally report on what you are wearing to the interview. I get interviewed by
  The New York Times Magazine
  , who totally don't.
  
• 6. Gwen wears a lot of navel-baring outfits. My navel isn't exactly my best feature. Fortunately, my dad told me if he ever caught me in a navel-baring outfit, he would force me to work as a summer intern in his office, instead of letting me draw eggs and cow skulls all summer at Susan Boone's.
  
• 5. According to Theresa, whose sister is a licensed beautician, if I dyed my hair as often as Gwen has, it would all fall out.
  
• 4. Gwen has to hang out all day, every day with the rowdy boys in her band. The only boys I ever have to hang out with are my boyfriend, my sister's boyfriend, and my best friend's boyfriend, and none of them, so far, has expressed any interest in playing the drums wearing nothing at all, which, if you ask me, would be totally embarrassing.
  But then again, one must make sacrifices for art, I suppose.
  
• 3. Gwen may not be aware of this little known fact: that geeks make the best boyfriends. It sounds surprising, but it is true. You know those smiles of David's, the little secret ones he always seemed to have on his face? Those smiles, he says, are on account of me. Because, he told me, he never thought he'd meet a girl as cool as me.
  Besides, there is something to be said for having your parents actually like the person you are going out with.
  
• 2. Gwen's sister, though she's probably nice and all, can't possibly be as cool as Lucy, who, even though she can be a real pain sometimes, is actually pretty righteous the rest of the time. I mean, she was willing to dump her boyfriend for me. Does that
  tell
  you something?
  

And the number-one reason I'm glad I'm not Gwen Stefani:

• 1. Because then I wouldn't be me.