The President's Daughter (4 page)

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Authors: Ellen Emerson White

BOOK: The President's Daughter
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“And she holds me.” He hugged himself, demonstrating. “And says that she loves me.”
“Well, she does,” Meg said. “You know she does.”
He beamed up at her, and she smiled back. Child psychology. She had found her career.
“Daddy smells nice, too,” he said.
She nodded—since, in fact, he did.
“But different.” Neal squared his shoulders in imitation.
“You're right,” she said. Observant little kid. Her mother smelled expensive. Unruffled. As if nothing she did required physical effort, and she could just flit about at will. Her father, on the other hand, smelled like flannel shirts. He smelled safe. Even in a dinner jacket, he smelled like flannel shirts. Comfortable.
“I like the way you smell, too,” he said.
Hmmm. “How do I smell?” she asked.
He turned his head to sniff her hand on his shoulder. “Ivory Liquid.”
Fair enough. She shrugged. “I was helping Trudy with the dishes.”
“Sometimes like shampoo,” he said.
That was probably true, too.
“And,” he took a long time deciding, “like outside.”
“Yeah,” she agreed. “I fall down a lot.”
“No!” He pushed her with giggling impatience. “Like raking leaves. Like
doing
things.” He tilted his head to peer up at her. “Steven smells like new sweatshirts.”
“Like baseball gloves,” she said.
He nodded, and then looked at her expectantly. “What about me?”
“Well, I don't know.” She traced his haircut with one hand. She loved Neal's hair. Her mother generally cut it, wrapping him up in a big towel and using a pair of black-handled scissors. His upper lip always seemed to be smiling, and she couldn't help hoping that he would never grow a mustache and cover it up. Except for milk mustaches. His milk mustaches cracked her up. “Like very old sneakers.”
“I do not!” he said.
“Hmmm.” She hugged him, pressing her face into his hair. “Marshmallows.”
He laughed, shaking his head.
“Ski jackets,” she said.
“That's no good!” He tried to get away from her, and she tightened her arm around his shoulders, tickling him. “Meggie!”
She held on, not releasing him until a few seconds before he would start getting mad.
“You're mean,” he said, laughing weakly.
Kind of, yeah. “I am not,” she said.
He tickled
her
, and she managed, through the utmost self-control, not to react.
“You're not ticklish?” he asked doubtfully, pausing.
“Sorry, kiddo.” She grinned at him. “Want to go watch TV with Steven?”
“Will you make popcorn?” he asked.
They had eaten two huge bowls of popcorn that very afternoon, while watching one of her parents' favorite old movies,
What's Up, Doc?
“Again?” she said.
He nodded enthusiastically. “And use a real pan? And put in way too much, so we can watch the cover come off?”
She looked at him for a second, wondering vaguely why stupid little things always made people happy.
“Yeah,” she said. “Sure.”
A COUPLE OF weeks after Christmas, Meg went into Boston with her friend Beth. After the divorce, Beth's father had given her a bunch of charge cards, and she loved to go into the uptight, exclusive stores on Newbury Street, look disreputable enough to irritate salespeople, then whip them out and buy a bunch of stuff she didn't need—or even really
want
. Meg would often comment that this was extremely nouveau behavior, and Beth would sigh deeply, and say, in a very glum voice, not
everyone
can be old money. Apparently not, Meg would say, and they would laugh loudly enough for the salespeople to suggest that they think about going elsewhere. Immediately.
Actually, the concept of money kind of embarrassed Meg, and she would never make a crack like that in front of anyone other than Beth. Oh, come on, Beth would say,
flaunt
it; whereupon Meg would always answer, no, thanks.
“Where's your mother get her clothes?” Beth asked, as they looked through a display of rather tacky sweaters in one of the department stores near Downtown Crossing. Her mother often lamented the loss of the original Filene's Basement, but since Meg couldn't remember it, she had always figured that the current group of stores was just fine.
“I don't know.” Meg held up a very ugly maroon crewneck. “Lots of places. New York, mostly.” And Paris and Milan, all too often, despite the fact that the notion of not
unfailingly
buying American products had the potential to annoy an alarmingly high percentage of eligible voters. “Can you see anyone ever buying this thing?”
“And here I was, planning to get it for you.” Beth held it up and shook her head. “I don't know. I like you better in salmon.”
Meg nodded. “Most people do.”
“Just the other night,” Beth said, “before he climbed out my window, Rick Hamilton said, ‘God, Beth, why doesn't Meg wear salmon? She wouldn't look nearly as ugly if she wore salmon.'”
“Which night?” Meg asked.
“Wednesday? Thursday?” Beth shrugged. “Who keeps track?”
“Well,” Meg said, “the thing of it is, he's been at
my
house every night this week.”
“It's all right,” Beth said gently. “You can have your fantasies.”
Meg grinned. “Likewise.”
“That's for sure.” Beth dropped the sweater. “This is kind of boring. Want to go hang out in the bookstore?”
Did she? Not really. “If you want,” Meg said.
“What about some food?” Beth asked.
Meg shrugged.
“Do you feel all right?” Beth asked.
“Yeah.” Meg glanced around restlessly. “Let's get out of here, okay?”
“Whatever.” Beth followed her out of the store, Meg walking very quickly. “Hey, slow down already.”
“Sorry.” Meg stopped, putting her hands in her pockets to avoid the winter wind.
Beth frowned at her. “What's your problem, anyway? You're not a whole hell of a lot of fun to be around these days.”
“Yeah, I know,” Meg said. “I don't know.”
“Well, what is it?” Beth asked.
“I'm sorry. I just—I don't know.” Meg hunched her shoulders. “Cold out here.”
Beth zipped her jacket up, also hunching. “Very.”
“Yeah.” Meg looked up and down Washington Street, seeing grey, slushy snow and hurrying commuters. “You mind going for a walk?”
“A walk,” Beth said.
Yeah, heading over to the bookstore was probably a better bet. “It's not far,” Meg said.
Beth sighed, very deeply. “Not everyone has such a kind and generous friend.”
Meg grinned at her. “Guess I'm just lucky.”
“Not,” Beth said, “that I won't collect on the favor.”
“What happened to generosity?” Meg asked.
Beth pulled out a pair of gloves. “When it's this cold out?”
“We'll walk fast.” Meg started down Washington Street towards Government Center, veering down one fairly deserted side street, and then another.
“It's getting dark for this sort of thing,” Beth said.
Meg looked up at the sky. “Yeah, kind of.” She turned one more corner, stopping when she saw the building with the huge “Katharine Vaughn Powers for President” banner across the front window, along with lots of red, white, and blue bunting, and several large posters of her mother.
“Hunh,” Beth said, also staring. “I didn't know there was one down here.”
“This is the main one.” Meg let out her breath. “I've, uh, never been here before.”
Beth looked surprised. “There wasn't some kind of ceremony when it opened?”
“I don't know, maybe.” More likely than not, actually. “We just went to the one in Coolidge Corner.” Meg swallowed. “It's big.”
Beth nodded.
“Really big.” Since the ordinary-looking storefront hid the fact that the campaign had also signed a lease for the entire second floor, and was likely to expand to another floor soon. Meg stared at the posters, trying to relate the smiling candidate posing with the elderly, minorities, soldiers, students, and other voting blocs, to the woman who did things like burn toast and swear under her breath. The woman in the pictures—the
candidate
in the pictures—looked
as if she were perfect. Friendly, kind, intelligent—but, it was scary. Sort of like the semiannual reports her mother's office sent out about what the Senator had accomplished lately—which, somehow, always gave Meg the creeps.
“Kind of weird,” Beth said.
Major understatement. “Yeah.” Meg looked at the photo of her standing in Iowa or someplace with some farmers, in the middle of a cornfield. “I haven't seen her since the day after Christmas.”
“Well,” Beth said awkwardly, “I guess she's pretty busy.”
“Yeah.” Meg started walking. “Anyway, let's get out of here.”
“You aren't even going in?” Beth asked.
Meg stopped. “Why should I go in?”
Beth frowned at her. “You dragged me all the way down here, and now you're not even going to check it out?”
“Well—no,” Meg said, uneasily.
“Come on.” Beth headed across the street. “Don't be a jerk.”
“No,” Meg said, “I really don't want—”
“What about that favor you owe me?” Beth asked.
Oh, for Christ's sakes. “All right,” Meg said—although she was very tempted to be surly, instead. Petulant, even. “Just pretend we're regular people, okay?”
“I
am
a regular person,” Beth said.
“You know what I mean,” Meg said.
“Yeah, I know what you mean.” Beth flipped up her jacket collar. “We'll make them think we're spies from the enemy camp.”
“Swell,” Meg said, following her.
Beth opened the door, and warm air rushed out at them. They stepped inside, and Meg was surprised to see the maze of activity going on. Normally, at this stage of a campaign, she would expect things to be pretty quiet. But, the main room was crowded with people talking and laughing, phones were ringing, and two large televisions were tuned—loudly—to different stations. There was a strong smell of coffee, both old and new, and doughnuts. The walls were
covered with posters, and tables were stacked with buttons, bumper stickers, and leaflets. The volunteers were different ages, but there were a lot of senior citizens, and college students. Some were stuffing envelopes, some were sorting stacks of papers, some were working on computers, and most of the rest were on the phones, either taking or making calls, Meg couldn't tell.
They stood there for a few seconds, Meg feeling more and more uncomfortable; then, a girl from one of the long tables near the front came over, smiling, her hair tied back in a loose ponytail.
“Hi,” she said. “I'm Lily.”
“I'm Beth,” Beth said, shaking her hand.
“I'm—” Meg hesitated. “I mean, hi.” She shook the hand the girl offered, not sure if she should have taken her glove off first. Her mother would have.
“Is this your first time here?” the girl asked.
Meg blushed, and Beth nodded.
“Well,” the girl said, still smiling, “we have a lot of high school workers.”
Were they about to be signed up for duty, or something? Meg shook her head. “No. We're just kind of here because—well, we were just curious.”
“Then, let me show you around.” Lily was very cheerful. “Do you know much about the candidate?”
“Uh, kind of,” Meg said, not looking at Beth.
“Well, then.” The girl began giving them some personal background on the candidate, as well as issue positions, while Meg tuned her out, wishing that she'd never had the stupid idea of coming down here.
She focused on a photograph of her mother talking with energy officials—they all had on hard hats and everything. Her mother looked concerned, interested, informed. Ridiculous in the hat. So this was what was coming out of all of those late-night conferences around the kitchen table. Probably no one would ever know that slogans like “The Way to Honest, Open Government” made her
mother laugh. “Message, Kate, message,” Glen would say. “Trite, Glen, trite,” her mother would say.
As the girl explained the candidate's deep interest in education and women's issues, she couldn't help wondering if workers had a speech ready for every kind of person who might wander in. If they were older men with thick, calloused hands, would they get a speech about unions and Social Security?
“Have you met her?” Meg asked, interrupting.
“Well, not personally,” the girl admitted. “But I've heard her speak. She's wonderful. You can just tell how honest she is.”
She liked to think that her mother was honest, but, in her opinion, the Senator was also awfully god-damned
smooth
sometimes. “How?” Meg asked.
The girl blinked. “Well—it's her attitude, mostly, although everything I've read substantiates it. Have you ever heard her speak?”
“Yeah,” Meg said.
“Me, too,” Beth said. “Once, when I was little.”
Meg elbowed her.
“Well, then, you know what I mean,” the girl said, apparently regaining her confidence. “She doesn't hesitate when she answers questions, she doesn't have stacks of notes up there with her, she's not afraid to say what she thinks. I don't know—I guess it's sort of hard to pin down. But I know I could never support anyone I didn't trust.”
“Is it true that she completely supports the doctrine of preemptive war?” Beth asked.
Meg shot her a look, which Beth returned innocently.
“My God, no,” the girl said. “The Senator's positions are strongly—”
Meg looked around some more. Everyone in the room seemed enthusiastic and confident. Excited. It was pretty impressive to have so many people already working long hours—before the primaries had even started.
And now, Beth was asking whether the Senator planned to
appoint strict constructionist judges, and Meg wasn't sure whether to laugh her head off—or smack her.
The girl actually handled that follow-up curveball pretty well, but she was starting to look very tired.
“What about—” Beth started.
“Would you like a couple of buttons?” the girl asked.
Beth nodded, taking one, and Meg blushed and shook her head.
“We have a bunch at home,” she muttered, shifting her weight.
“Is your family working on the campaign?” the girl asked.
“Sort of.” Meg heard Beth choke back a laugh. “Is this place always so crowded?”
The girl nodded. “Every time I've been in here. Like, tonight's Tufts Night, and a lot of these kids are from there. Most of the colleges around here have Nights every couple of weeks. It's crazy in here on Harvard/Radcliffe Nights, because that's where she went. Plus, a lot of the unions have Nights, too. And church groups. She's pulling in a lot of the church groups.”
Hard to believe. “I thought people were afraid she might be, um, too secular,” Meg said. “And that her position on abortion was a problem.” God knows her mother got enough hate mail about it.
The girl hesitated. “Well, I guess that it might be an issue, but we still get an awful lot of people in here. Oh, Bruce.” She moved to intercept a man in chinos and a blue Oxford shirt who was coming out of the office in the back. “Come over here and talk to some people.” The girl dragged him over, and Meg flushed, recognizing Bruce Gibson, who she'd met quite a few times.

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