Long May She Reign (84 page)

A little vignette she had never shared with her mother, who, afterwards, had mainly been glad that her new linen suit remained stain-free, and that it had been an excellent, if sloppy, sandwich, indeed.

There was a small, short whistle, and Meg looked up.

“Back now?” Susan asked.

Oh, right. There was someone else in the room.

“Come on,” Susan said. “Let's grab some people, and go down to Spring Street, and get some ice cream.”

She was really tired, but it was still light outside—so that any photographs would come out clearly, and—yeah.

What the hell.

*   *   *

SHE SPENT MOST
of the weekend working on a more fleshed-out version of her political science paper, although she took off some time on Saturday night to go to a party some people Juliana knew were having over in Lehman, where she drank three beers, and rebuffed at least twice as many insincere passes.

The next morning was Easter. She had saved the two packages—one from her parents, and one from Trudy—she had gotten on Friday, and felt very homesick as she opened them, especially when she saw a short snippet on CNN of her family heading into St. John's for the early service. Somehow, they had talked Steven into coming along, because there he was, in a jacket and tie, with—something she had never seen him do off the ski slopes or baseball field—sunglasses on. Neither her father, nor Neal, had gone with dark glasses, but her father had a fresh flower in his lapel—a dapper enough touch to make her laugh.

The President herself was decked out in a bright yellow dress, with subtle white accents, topped by a wide-brimmed spring hat, complete with a striped ribbon and some impressively retro netting, which—along with her white gloves—gave the whole outfit some extra pizzaz. Despite not having the gift of making fashion statements herself, Meg enjoyed seeing the results when other people made the effort, and the CNN anchors seemed to share her sentiments, in this case.

In addition to the box, her parents had also sent her a very large bouquet of tulips, which she had put on her desk as soon as it arrived. The package itself—dispatched uneconomically by special White House courier—was stuffed with all kinds of candy, granola bars, microwave popcorn, and other food, a couple of new novels, and a blue silk t-shirt. Neal had written a card, although he signed it with Vanessa's name, and Steven's contribution was a computer printout of Jack, with his arm slung around her, near the dorm. He had written several exclamation points next to the Web page's excited revelation that the President's daughter was currently being romanced by a wealthy California Republican financier's playboy son, and underlined the word “Republican” twice. Her parents had also each enclosed cards, in which they had written long, encouraging, loving notes.

Trudy's package mostly contained well-wrapped homemade baked goods, along with a “Happy Easter, dear!” note, two bags of gumdrops, and one of orange marshmallow circus peanuts, which had always been a favorite of hers.

She was eating circus peanuts and watching one of the Sunday political shows when Preston called from his mother's house, where he had gone to visit his family overnight, to wish her a happy Easter. He was watching, too—although his snack of choice was a ham sandwich—and they swapped a few “Damn it, she just went
way
off message” remarks about the Attorney General, who was handling her rather standard grilling less adroitly than either of them would have liked. The Vice President was also making the rounds, but acquitting himself with far more skill and charm.

“The President has on an actual Easter bonnet today,” Meg said, during the next commercial.

Preston laughed. “Are you wearing a frothy little holiday confection this morning, too?”

Meg looked down at herself, but sadly, there was nothing impressively chic to report. “I'd say it's closer to a ‘Tennis, anyone?' look.”

Which made her want to cry the second she heard it come out of her mouth.

“
Fuck
,” she said.

“I know,” Preston said. “I'm sorry.”

While she was home on break, he'd come upstairs to drink coffee with her early one evening, on the small patio outside the Solarium, and he was still the only person she'd told about her request to Dr. Brooks for the amputations.

He had nodded, sighed, and covered her splint with his own hand briefly, before they returned to their coffee, and started talking about the NFL draft, instead, and how his Eagles, and her Patriots, were likely to fare.

“Anyway,” Meg said, when the silence on the telephone had gone on a little too long, although they had also been distracted by the near frothing at the mouth of a supposedly objective, but wildly conservative, journalist about the prospect of a more equitable restructuring of corporate taxation. “Were
you
resplendent when you went to church this morning?” Since Beatrice Fielding would have insisted that her son attend the holiday mass with her.

“I'm here, outside the Beltway, among my people, Meg,” he said. “You do the math.”

The math added up to a spiffy combination of flash and style. “Some of your best plumage?” she asked.

“Well, don't tell the boys at 1600, but I fearlessly donned a pink dress shirt with my suit,” he said.

Which meant that a magenta tie or pocket handkerchief was not out of the question. Something the girls at 1600 would not only take in stride, but
applaud
. “And ankle boots?” she asked. She just
loved
his pairs of ankle boots.

“Absolutely,” he said. “The grey suede ones.”

It was Preston's good fortune that his sleek feline qualities were balanced by a powerful enough aura of masculinity to keep from completely terrifying the members of the grey, very grey, and even greyer male fashion milieu in which he now found himself—but, he probably made more than a few of them extremely nervous. “A hat, too, I hope?” she asked.

“A very fine fedora,” he said. “And you?”

“It's a rich navy blue wool blend, accented by a bright red embroidered B,” Meg said.

Preston laughed. “Why, yes. I believe I can picture that perfectly.”

They watched the rest of
Face the Nation
together—it was so much more entertaining to share a play-by-play with a kindred wonk, who found all of the same types of gaffes, portentous prognostications, and zealous punditry funny, and she felt happy and relaxed—and lonely—when they finally hung up.

But then, Neal called, and she talked to the whole family, although Steven pretty much just said hi, yup, and nope, and then, “We still
suck
,” when she asked how baseball was going. Neal, however, chattered on at length about school, and the soccer league he had joined, and the fact that since the White House was getting ready to issue an official “Adopt a Pet Month” proclamation, they were maybe going to go to a DC animal shelter in the next week or so and get a puppy to keep Kirby company.

Or else, her mother had decided it would maybe be nice to have
two
friends in Washington.

When she came on the phone, Meg made a remark to that effect, and her mother agreed that it was an appealing notion, but then, when she was talking to her father, something he said made her realize that her parents might actually be thinking about getting another dog to try and cheer Steven up more than anything else.

A very worthy goal, in her opinion.

She also commented on the President's fancy choice of headgear, and her mother allowed as how the entire outfit had made her feel positively
dainty
, but that she would, perhaps, prefer not to be quoted about that, if possible.

All of which made her feel more homesick than ever.

She spent most of the rest of the day trying to catch up on the reading for all of her classes, and working on the damn political science paper, too. Since Jack still hadn't gotten back, she went to Sunday snacks, for once, and brought a couple of dozen of Trudy's brownies as a contribution. Juliana looked at them with eager anticipation, but Meg shook her head, since they had not been prepared by someone with the power to declare war—or peace—purely of her own volition.

Jack showed up on her floor at about ten that night, with an Ace bandage on his ankle, a bruise below his eye, and a big grin on his face, because they had placed second in the tournament, and come damn close to beating the heavily-favored, top-seeded team from Brown. He was also carrying a package of yellow marshmallow peeps, which he tossed her, and she flipped him a green wooden White House egg in return.

“Hey,” he said, stopping when he saw her flowers. “Are you holding out on me about some other guy?”

Meg indicated the handwritten card tucked in among the stems.

“Oh,” he said, when he read it, and did a decent job of not looking cowed.

“Are you sure you're okay?” she asked, watching him limp around.

His nod was closer to a shrug, which made her suspicious, but she decided not to press the issue.

“My friend Joel told me he saw you reject about ten guys at some party last night,” he said.

He had spies, did he? “I think it was more like seven,” she said. “How about you?”

He shrugged. “Made out with everyone female in sight.”

If he turned out not to be kidding, she wasn't going to take it well.

But, regardless, it became almost immediately necessary to make very sure that her door was closed. The ground rule she suggested was that they both keep their underpants on, with everything else being fair game, but as rules went, it turned out to be quite—
elastic
.

“I want to stay here tonight,” he whispered, after a while. “Okay?”

Yes, and no. “The bed's pretty small,” she said. Narrow, anyway.

“I know. We'll have to snuggle
right up against each other
,” he said, and kissed her. “But, I can stand it, if you can.”

Point taken.

After she went out to brush her teeth and everything, he left for a few minutes, too, while she sat uncertainly on the edge of the bed, wearing a DIA t-shirt and a pair of maroon gym shorts from her high school.

He came back in, shut the door, stepped out of his jeans, and stood there in an “
I
am a Diabolical Mastermind
” t-shirt, grinning at her. Then he limped over to join her on the bed, which made her start worrying about him again.

“Maybe you should come to PT with me tomorrow,” she said. “See what Vicky thinks.”

He pulled his t-shirt over his head. “No, I'm okay.”

Except she could see how damn swollen his ankle was, even through the Ace bandage. “Will you go to the health center, at least, and get it checked out?”

He shook his head, taking her shirt off for her, pausing to kiss her here and there along the way.

“I mean it,” she said.

He put his hand inside the waistband of her shorts to slide them off, too. “If I let a doctor or anyone see it, they might tell me I have to shut it down for the rest of the season, and—no way.”

Dumb jock logic to which she could relate.

But, it was undeniably dumb.

The hem of her shorts got caught on her brace as he tried to tug it past the hinges, and she heard—but decided to overlook—a small tearing sound.

Jack froze. “Was that the brace?”

“No, it was an actual ligament,” she said, but then relented when she saw how upset he looked. “It was my
shorts
, Jack. It's fine.”

“Oh.” He pulled them the rest of the way off. “I'm sorry. Are they wrecked?”

“It's okay,” Meg said. “My mother will sew them for me.”

His eyebrows went up. “Wow. Really?”

She shook her head.

“Oh,” he said, sounding disappointed.

They sat there.

“What happens now?” she asked, very uneasy.

He put his arm around her. “A long, unforgettable night of fornication and debauchery.”

She couldn't help tensing, although she tried very hard to seem nonchalant.

“I'm hoping you'll put on a little Catholic schoolgirl's outfit, too,” he said.

She smiled. Tensely.

“Or, we could just turn out the light, do everything we think might be fun, and then, since it's pretty late, and we're both tired, we could, you know,
sleep
,” he said. “Sound okay?”

It actually sounded great.

47

EXCEPT, SHE COULDN'T
relax.

She did well with the everything-we-both-think-might-be-fun part, but falling asleep seemed to be beyond her. Jack dropped off almost immediately after they finished doing something he unquestionably found
very
fun, but she lay stiffly on her side, unable to find a comfortable position, wishing she had thought to take a couple of pain pills when he wasn't looking, and so hyperaware of him being there, just a couple of inches away, that she couldn't quite breathe normally. It just felt too
loud
, and so, she took tiny, shallow breaths, instead.

Which was not conducive to a sense of tranquility or well-being.

One of his hands was still resting inside her underwear, and she couldn't stop herself from moving forward against it. He woke up instantly—and they were off to the races again. Lying together, quietly, in the dark, made it easier to do some experimenting without second-guessing herself as much, and somewhere along the way—it had been about her, it had been about him, it had been about
both
of them—even he said, “
Jesus
,” sounding a little stunned.

It was well past three, and finally, she was starting to have some trouble keeping her eyes open. He had already fallen asleep again, and after a while, she managed to doze off, too.

The next thing she was aware of, was fear. Terror, really.
Overwhelming
terror.