Confessions of a First Daughter (16 page)

We were still wiping our eyes as the credits rolled when Mom’s phone rang yet again.

“Don’t answer it,” Hannah sniffled.

“But I have to,” I said, catching the name on the LCD screen. I blew my nose. The last three hours had just flown by. “It’s Sally Kempton, the communications director. Don’t worry, I can handle it.”

I cleared my throat and hit the com button. “Sara Abbott here.”

“Sara, you’re a genius!” Sally’s voice sang out over the com. “Moving the ABLC banquet to a homeless shelter is a terrific idea. It will show the American people your strong commitment to your domestic platform, which will offset the hit you’ve taken over the Africa debacle. You’ll go up six points in the polls, at least!”

“Hey, Sally, hold on—”

“I’ve blasted a media release about tonight, and it’s already landed on the afternoon-drive talk radio segments. People are going nuts for this plan!”

What!

My mind jumbled. “But—but how is this possible?”

“Well, Padma did have to work pretty quickly to pull this all off but after she saw your email and sent your message to Nigel Bellingham—”

“My email?”

“Yes. You’re still happy with this protocol, aren’t you? Padma always copies your drafts to relevant staff members as per your instructions. The kitchen called for clarification until they realized that you were probably knocked out from cold medicine.”

All those unanswered phone calls. What had I done?

Sally plowed on, oblivious to my shocked silence. “Nigel wasn’t all that crazy about the change, but he spoke to the social secretary about rejiggering the arrangements for tonight at your request. Of course, Clovis didn’t
loooove
the idea of moving the banquet to a homeless shelter, either, but she’s a pro. They’re making it happen.”

“Hang on, hang on.” I put my hand over the phone’s mouthpiece and turned to Hannah, practically frozen in panic. In about one millisecond, I was going to have a total and complete meltdown. Padma sent the draft? I was just fooling around with that email about changing the venue of the ABLC banquet. I didn’t mean for Padma to see it, let alone send it out!

Oh god. What was Mom gonna say?

“What’s going on?” Hannah mouthed. She’d taken one look at my face and scrambled off the bed to hover next to me.

“I’ve accidently moved the banquet,” I whispered back.

I swallowed despite my dry mouth. “Is there any way we can stop this?” I whispered into the mouthpiece to Sally.

“What’s that, Sara? I didn’t catch that last bit. Hold on, there’s a call coming in for you. It’s Trisha Jackson on the line. Do you want to take the call?”

“Well, I—”

In a second, Trisha Jackson’s voice entered the line. “This is truly an honor, Madam President. We can’t thank you enough for all you’re doing to help our residents.”

“Uh…”

“You know, last week I thought I’d have to close the shelter down for good. Funding just isn’t available these days. We’ve been struggling for so long to keep the doors open. But I believe in miracles.”

Think fast, think fast!
“You do?”

“What you’re doing will increase the profile of the shelter and help us raise more money. It’ll keep more families off the streets. Thank you, Madam President. Thank you.”

Trisha’s voice choked up.

What could I say?
Forget it, Trisha, it’s just another horrible mistake courtesy of Morgan Abbott, the biggest screwup in Washington, D.C.?

Sally got back on the line. “I’ve got to get this Jackson woman on a media tour ASAP. She’ll get you two more percentage points, at least. I’m telling you, Sara, this idea is genius!”

Oh, it was something, all right. But
genius
wasn’t the word I’d use.

Somehow I got rid of Sally and hit my mom’s private cell phone number with shaky fingers.

The call went straight to voice mail. Humberto’s, too. They were probably deep in a delicate negotiation with the African juntas.

I sent Humberto a text message:

CALL ME FASTER THAN WARP SPEED OR I CAN’T BE HELD RESPONSIBLE FOR WHAT IS ABOUT TO HAPPEN TO THE ABLC’S ANNUAL BANQUET
.

I couldn’t bring myself to leave the same message for Mom. She had enough problems as it was. And she had trusted me not to mess everything up this time. This was a disaster.

“Morgan?” Hannah broke into my thoughts. “You’ve got a visitor.”

Max stood at the door with his hands behind his back, Secret Service–style. Ever the professional. But his words were anything but.

“Morgan. Just what the hell do you think you’re doing?”

Chapter Twenty-one

Max entered Mom’s suite and shut the door
behind him. “Do you have any idea what havoc your antics are causing down below?”

“It’s not my fault, Max! It just…happened!”

“Just happened?
Just happened?
”

Holy guacamole. Max was livid.

“Calm down, Max—”

“How can I calm down when you basically hijacked a White House function and moved it to my mother’s homeless shelter?”

“
She
seems okay with it,” I muttered defiantly.

Max’s face turned red. “Of course she would! That shelter is her life. I spent half of Wednesday night trying to get her to the emergency room so she could get stitches in her arm, and the other half trying to keep my job—which is to protect YOU!”

He rubbed the back of his neck in agitation. “I almost got fired because of the breach of protocol. I’m barely hanging on to this detail as it is. I don’t need any more problems, Morgan.”

Oh.

“C’mon, Max.” I had to lighten the atmosphere between us. “Moving the banquet to your mom’s shelter can’t be that bad. Think of all the good we’re doing.”

I actually thought the blood vessel pulsing in his neck might pop. “Let me break it down for you, Morgan,” he said with exaggerated patience. “The Secret Service has gone into level-four action to sweep the Northside Homeless Advocacy Shelter for tonight’s unscheduled event. Normally it takes at least forty-eight hours to secure a location for the president! The kitchen is in an uproar and half the chefs want to quit. The White House butler is having a nervous breakdown because he was just informed that the banquet he and his staff have worked for over A WEEK to set up in the East Room—complete with Kennedy AND Eisenhower china—is being moved to a run-down homeless shelter.”

I started to hyperventilate.

“Chill out, Max,” Hannah interjected. “She didn’t mean for this to happen.”

“Of course she didn’t,” Max said sardonically. “She never means for anything crazy to happen to her. It just does. No wonder she’s gone through three different agent details in the past year.”

Ouch. That hurt. But what could I say? It was true.

“Maybe it’ll all work out,” I managed to squeak out. “I think your mom is amazing. So is the work she does.”

Max made a visible effort to calm himself. “She is amazing. But
my
mom isn’t brokering a secret peace deal between two warring African military juntas while trying to prevent nuclear proliferation. That plan is in jeopardy now because you’re leaving The Bubble to go to my mother’s shelter, where you could be exposed for impersonating the president.”

“Mom should be back by then,” I started, but my explanation was cut short by the buzz of the presidential com. “It’s Humberto,” I said, glancing at the LCD screen. “Thank god. I’ll get him to put the kibosh on the whole thing.”

Easier said than done. Humberto told me to hold tight until he got back from Camp David. By the time he arrived at Mom’s suite, it seemed like he’d aged about twenty years since that morning.

“Okay, let’s go into damage-control mode.” Humberto checked his BlackBerry and ticked down the list of events for the night with the stylus. “Plan A is to cancel the event—”

YESSSSS.

“—which we can’t do because all the major cable networks and C-SPAN will be covering it live. If we cancel, it’ll look like you—I mean, your mother—doesn’t really care about the homeless. The talking point on the Sunday political chat shows will be that the whole thing was a diversion to distract from the president’s failure to broker a deal between General Mfuso and Bishop Welak.”

NOOOO.

Humberto pecked at the screen of his BlackBerry again with an air of someone used to putting out fires. “Plan B is to roll with it. We have no choice. We’ve rescheduled the press conference for after the dinner to give Sara plenty of time to get up to speed.”

Humberto snapped his PDA shut and headed to the door. “But your mom is running late so you’ll have to impersonate her for the first hour or so until she gets there. And you better be pretty convincing tonight because if word of this swap leaks, at the very least it’ll be the end of your mother’s administration and her political career.”

Yikes
.

“I’ll be ready,” I said to his back with more confidence than I felt.

“Let’s hope so.” Humberto swept out of the room.

Hannah draped an arm around my shoulder. “Don’t stress, Morgan. You can do it. I know you can. Plus I’m gonna make the president look kick-ass tonight.”

I hugged her back. “Thanks, Hannah. But not too kick-ass. Remember, it’s my mom we’re talking about.”

“Trust me. I can make a boring power suit look fly.” She headed into the walk-in closet muttering something about blue blouses with brown suits, leaving me alone with Max.

The silence grew pretty loud between us. Finally I couldn’t take it anymore. “Say something.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know. Yell at me some more about how much I screw everything up. About how this plan is never going to work. That I’ve put my mother’s political career in jeopardy. Anything.”

Max sighed heavily before running his hand through his hair in a way that made my stomach tingle. “I should yell at you some more…but I can’t.”

“You can’t?”

“No. Because in truth, I think you’re a pretty amazing person.”

“I’m…what?”

Max had been gazing at me with a slight smile. “Despite the fact that you drive me completely nuts and are the biggest security challenge in the entire Secret Service detail, I have to tell you that I really admire what you’re doing.”

Warmth crept through me. “You do?”

“Absolutely. You’re helping your mom bring peace to Africa. And despite your antics, you’re helping my mom feed the homeless.”

He came right up to me. “I’m proud to be the one protecting you, Morgan. Even if you’re a walking disaster sometimes.”

I gave a shaky laugh. Max’s long eyelashes swept down over his blue eyes. I leaned in.
He’s going to kiss me
, I thought.

His com chirped and the soft expression on his face disappeared as he stepped back. “Jackson here,” he said into his wireless mouthpiece.

My heart was booming against my chest.

He turned back to me and I thought for a moment he was going to talk about what almost happened. He didn’t. “Come on, Morgan, it’s showtime. You need to get ready.”

Chapter Twenty-two

Due to the miracle of the White House
staff’s professionalism, when the guests arrived at the South Portico for the banquet they were whisked off in a fleet of buses to the Northside Homeless Advocacy Center as if the whole thing had been planned for months.

The guests—members of Congress, titans of American industry—had dressed in their best for a White House banquet. I tried not to think how funny they would look milling around Trisha’s shabby building in their expensive business suits and couture dresses, rubbing shoulders with the homeless. The president must keep a straight face in every situation. Even the hilarious ones.

After I texted Konner that I’d be late to the dance and I’d catch up with him later (he wasn’t as bummed as I thought he’d be), I’d arrived at the homeless shelter in the Big Beast, aka the seven-car presidential motorcade, early to avoid having to make a grand entrance. Secret Service agents had set up a security station at the entrance and were sweeping guests with metal detectors.

I steered clear of a huge floral arrangement of my mom’s signature white lilies displayed at the end of the buffet table. I’d forgotten that the social secretary made sure lilies were present at President Abbott’s off-site events—that is, the ones that I wouldn’t be attending. The last thing I needed was the disaster of a runny nose and itchy eyes to complicate my impersonation of Mom.

After “meeting” Trisha Jackson (she was over the moon) as the president, I insisted I help serve the buffet, mostly because I didn’t want to talk to anyone of importance, like the speaker of the house and my dad’s business partners. Humberto agreed. Not only was it a prudent move, but it had the advantage of being a terrific photo op. Behind the safety of chafing trays, I dished up Nigel’s jerked pulled pork to an array of street people and gussied-up guests.

The shelter regulars didn’t look all that pleased with their new dinner guests. I suppose they didn’t appreciate the metal detectors or the security searches, either. They seemed to keep to themselves and many opted to take their trays to a private dining room Trish had set up for those guests who preferred to eat in peace.

Humberto hovered discreetly behind me, just in case any awkward situations cropped up. One did, in the shape of the opposition leader, Chet Whittaker, who came to my station for a splat of Caribbean coleslaw to go on his biodegradable plate.

“Clever idea,” he drawled in his southern accent. “No one would suspect this is a political stunt.” An easy smile showed his capped teeth.

Humberto leaned toward me to whisper an appropriate reply, but without waiting, I said: “Well, if you’d quit blocking my micro-loan initiative for the poor, I wouldn’t have to resort to ‘stunts.’” I smiled sweetly, too. “Chet.”

Humberto’s jaw clicked shut. Congressman Whittaker got the hint and moved on. I wouldn’t let Brittany’s dad intimidate me any more than his daughter did.

The volume inside the echoey building rose, and I couldn’t help grinning when I saw Tobias and the CEO of Wall Street’s biggest hedge fund arguing good-naturedly. Trisha was running around making contacts. Max watched his mom fondly for a moment before he caught my eye.