Long May She Reign (92 page)

He laughed, and then reached out to touch her cheek, his fingers moving up and across the scar on her forehead lightly. “How long did it take?”

To split her eyebrow with a smack of a machine gun? Oh, say,
two seconds
?

“They had you with them, what, three, four days?” he said.

She stiffened. He had never asked her
anything
specific about the kidnapping. Why start now, when they were having such a nice time? “Something like that, yeah,” she said, her throat feeling tight.

“So, how long before you wised off to them?” he asked.

“I didn't,” Meg said stiffly. “I was afraid.” When she woke up in the dark room, and the man came slamming in for the first time—a big muscular guy, looming over her in a stocking mask—she had trembled so hard that the damn metal bed actually shook. And, he'd laughed, with a soft contempt she could still hear somewhere inside her head.

Jack nodded. “Yeah, I'm sure you were, but I still bet it didn't even take you an hour to pop off for the first time.”

More like five minutes. But—the guy had been so cocky that it made her mad, and well, what was she supposed to do, just sit there and let him think he'd already beaten her? Even though he
had
?

And still
might
, long-term.

“Shit,” Jack said. “It wasn't even close to an hour, was it.”

No. None of which changed anything, but—no. “Um, can we talk about something else?” she asked.

He nodded, and eased her down so that they were lying next to each other again, and she was resting on his chest. She couldn't relax at all, but he massaged his hand up and down her back, and after a few silent minutes, she finally felt herself release something resembling a normal breath.

He pulled her closer, his arms feeling heavy now, as though he was starting to fall asleep. “When Greg emails me lately, he always asks, ‘and how's Little Emma?'”

The Taylor boys were goofy. “My brother calls
you
Malibu Bobby,” Meg said.

“Yikes,” he said. “I'm not sure I like that one.”

Then he was going to be even more upset if he ever found out that Steven's agents must have mentioned it to her agents, because she had heard the nickname bandied about more than once of late.

She would have sworn that she never fell asleep, but suddenly it was light out, and she was being kissed awake by someone who tasted like pepperoni.

“Hi,” he said. “Sleep okay?”

It seemed entirely improbable, but— “Yeah,” she said, and kissed him back. “I think I did.”

*   *   *

FOR THE NEXT
week or so, she tried to ease back into—well, whatever it was that her life was. On Monday afternoon, she dropped her new political science paper in Professor Richardson's box, and without a word, but smiling—he handed it back to her the next day, with an A+, and a succinct and interesting half-page of handwritten comments. Which pleased her enough so that she actually spoke up during one of her classmates' diatribes, and spouted out a little riff about the dangers of the tyranny of the majority, and the probable intent of the framers of the Constitution, and while her professor didn't entirely agree with her analysis, she could tell that he was glad to see her make the effort.

Other people in her classes had either decided she didn't make them nervous anymore—or picked up on her somewhat increased comfort level, and she ended up having lunch or coffee with a couple of them. Maybe she actually
could
start making friends.

Her mother took a three-day trip to London, Edinburgh, Cardiff, and Dublin, which meant that her security was jacked up during that time period, and presumably her brothers' and father's details were expanded, too, but none of them—including her mother—mentioned this state of affairs during telephone conversations or in emails. There were, as always, a number of angry anti-American protests held wherever her mother went while she was abroad, and when Meg saw film of the President walking over to engage some of the people in conversation—an infuriating, but not shocking move on her part, made that much more irritating when many of the protestors looked pleased, and even laughed in response to whatever it was she said to them—she found herself wishing that there was a brick nearby, so she could throw it through the god-damn screen. The only mitigating factor was that her mother was wearing a chic raincoat during the spontaneous stroll, so there was a
chance
that it had a bulletproof liner—but Meg still felt like slugging her for taking stupid chances. Yet again.

Jack went away the next weekend to play in the sectionals tournament, which was being held at Middlebury—and called her several times, including from a noisy party on Saturday night, at which he was clearly very drunk, somewhat maudlin, and more than a little preoccupied by the idea of sex and what she might be wearing, or, ideally,
not
wearing. He also said that his teammates were kind of pissed off at him, because they thought his game focus sucked, especially in the red zone, and that they'd lost to UMass that afternoon, and he'd had to leave the game with a yellow card, because he'd gotten into a fight with some guy who asked how she was in the sack, but that she shouldn't worry, because while it bled a lot all over his shirt, his nose wasn't broken.

“So, anyway,” he said, after some more drunken rambling. “
What
are you wearing?”

Just to get him going, she told him that he should picture Mrs. Peel's outfit in the “A Touch of Brimstone” episode, except with a much bigger snake.

Which might have erred on the side of being too provocative, because she was treated to some lengthy stream-of-consciousness questions and suggestions, most of which were funny, but also quite X-rated. But then, suddenly, he said, “Oh, wait, there's that UMass son of a bitch now, I gotta go,” and hung up.

The next morning, she watched the Sunday political shows, which were pretty uneventful, except that the Attorney General—who was appearing on one of them, in an attempt to rectify her poor performances a few weeks earlier—managed to boot it again. Meg had met her a number of times, and knew that she was a very intelligent, articulate, and reasonably pleasant person, but live television was apparently not her bailiwick.

When she called home right after the show went off the air, the President was extremely annoyed about the situation, and said something snide to the effect that that was what a Yale education did for a person, and it seemed quite possible that the Department of Justice would be under new leadership sooner, rather than later.

The weather was absolutely beautiful—a perfect spring day, and even though the Red Sox were on, and playing well, she felt restless. She had plenty of work to do, including a psychology lab report and a philosophy paper, but she wasn't about to pick doing
that
over baseball.

But, even the Beloved Team wasn't holding her attention today.

The dorm was so quiet that it seemed as though the building might be empty. Was everyone off frolicking in the sunshine? Or, more likely, out playing some damn
sport
or other? Off in the library, studying industriously? Or just in their rooms, taking naps?

She considered doing the latter herself, but the thought was pretty depressing. Sometimes, it felt as though she was napping her whole life away.

She had on her “If Lost or Stolen” shirt, sweatpants, and air pump sneakers, which would all work quite nicely as afternoon sleepwear, but were designed, of course, for athletics. Activity.
Fun
. Not for lying around with splints and braces and canes and ice packs.

Christ, and it was such a nice day out.

Oh, the hell with it.

She made sure that her sneakers were tightly fastened with their elastic laces, and reached for her cane.

Time to go play sports already.

*   *   *

WHEN SHE WENT
down to the second floor, Susan was just getting back from running, looking healthy and energetic and only slightly overheated.

“Hi,” Susan said, not at all out of breath, although she had probably sprinted up the stairs, since that's what she always did when she was by herself.

Meg nodded. “Hi. Good run?”

“Not bad.” Susan opened her door. “What's up?”

Nothing whatsoever. Who was she kidding? She could barely stand on her damn cane. The only thing she should do this afternoon was go back upstairs and lie down, and watch the rest of the Red Sox game. “Not much,” Meg said. “Um, how far did you go?”

Susan picked up a towel to wipe off her face. “I don't know. Five and a half, something like that.”

How weird was it to go running, and not even keep track of the distance? “How fast did you go?” Meg asked.

Susan shrugged. “Six and a half minutes, maybe. I don't know, I was a little tired today.”

It made no sense to be good at something—and not care, one way or the other. Meg looked at her curiously. “How fast could you go, if you went all out?”

“I don't know.” Susan tossed the towel at the laundry bag in the corner, and then drank some water from the CUPPS cup—the reusable coffee travel cups students were issued, although most of them, Meg included, usually forgot to carry them around—on her desk. “Pretty fast, probably.”

Christ. Jill Kiley, from her Shakespeare class, had told her at Brunch Night one time that the cross-country coach had seen Susan out running during their freshman year, and had tried, for
weeks
, to recruit her for the team, never getting more than a “No, thank you, but it was very nice of you to ask me” from her. What a waste of talent. Jill, who was on both the field hockey and softball teams, didn't get it, either.

“So,” Susan said. “What's going on?”

Should she pretend she had been doing nothing more than coincidentally walking by, and had just stopped to say a friendly hello?

“Meg?” Susan asked.

Jesus, was she that damn transparent? It wasn't like she had some sort of
agenda
. As such. Not exactly like that, anyway. Meg took a deep breath. “Could I borrow your tennis racket?”

“Sure,” Susan said, and pulled it out from underneath the bed. “You know, if you wanted, you could keep it upstairs. I almost never use it.”

Meg shook her head. “No, I'll bring it back in about an hour. I was just, you know, going to—go hit for a while.” All right, she'd said it aloud. Now she was committed to doing it.

Susan's eyebrows went up, but she just handed her the racket. “Okay. Who you playing with?”

Well, she hadn't thought it out quite that far, so Meg shrugged.

“Do you have any tennis balls?” Susan asked.

Hadn't thought that part out, either. Meg shook her head.

“Okay.” Susan dug around until she found a can of balls, too. “I can't play with you, though.”

It was foolish to be disappointed—maybe even a little crushed—by that, but she was. “Well, no,” Meg said. “I mean, you just got back from running, so—”

“I gave you my
racket
,” Susan said.

Oh. Right. Yes, trying to hit without one would present some challenges. Meg frowned.

“Let's go find Tammy,” Susan said. “She was on her team in high school.”

Really? “Is she good?” Meg asked.

Susan shrugged. “She'll be a damn sight better than I am.”

Tammy was in her room, studying for a biology quiz, eating Cap'n Crunch out of the box, and looking bored, so she seemed happy enough about the idea of going to play tennis for a while, although she looked at Meg's brace and cane dubiously. Then, on their way downstairs, they ran into Juliana and Mark and Andy, all of whom wanted to come along to watch, Meg deciding not to point out that she might end up taking one swing, yelping in pain, and then having to be helped back to the dorm—or maybe straight to the nearest emergency room.

However, her agents all looked nervous enough to indicate that that probability had occurred to them.

“Maybe I should carry the racket,” Juliana said. “If anyone's out there, and they see
you
with it, they'll want to take a bunch of pictures.”

Sadly, that was likely to be true.

“But if they think she's going to go watch other people play, they might want to take pictures of her looking
wistful
,” Tammy said.

Andy frowned. “Maybe we should stagger our exits. Juliana and Tammy could be going off to play, and the rest of us can leave after that, like we're going to the Snack Bar or something.”

They were all becoming amazingly, and appallingly, media-savvy.

This was also already turning into much too big a deal, so Meg stayed out of the debate, but in rapid course, the rest of them decided that they would all walk together, but
Susan
would carry the racket, because Juliana's flip-flops did not look sufficiently jock-like.

And there was a photographer hanging around on Park Street—possibly two, although the second person might just have been a tourist—so, maybe it was just as well that she didn't appear to be doing anything unusual. The guy looked bored, snapping a few cursory shots, but mainly, looked bored.

Just walking—limping—across the campus to the tennis courts was enough to wear her out, but she was damned if she was going to admit it.

“You sure you still want to play?” Susan asked.

Sometimes, it would be nice if she were less god-damned attentive. “Yup,” Meg said.

Most of the courts were full, but there was an open one in the middle. Which meant that everyone else playing would have an excellent view of this disaster-in-the-making, but, okay. Too late now. They were already here.

“Um, do you just want to rally?” Tammy asked.

No, she wanted to leap into an intense, competitive, no-holds-barred match. Meg nodded. “That would be good, thank you.”