White House Autumn (26 page)

Her mother nodded. “I think so, too.”

“Uh, Mom?” Steven said, at the door.

She smiled at him. “What?”.

“Dad wants to know if you’re ready for dinner now, or want to wait, or what,” he said.

She looked at Meg. “What do you think?”.

“I’m kind of hungry,” Meg said. Starving, in fact.

“Well, then, my goodness.” Her mother stood, surreptitiously cautious with her side. “Let’s go.”

“Are we having anything gross and soft tonight?” Steven asked.

“Well, I don’t know,” their mother said. “We’ve certainly been eating our share of dull food lately, haven’t we?” She put her good arm around him. “I
did
request that we be given some nice hard rocks and minerals tonight, but we’ll have to see what happens.”

“Nuts and bolts,” Meg said.

Steven grinned, and moved closer to their mother, allowing himself to be somewhat less cool than usual. “How come everyone’s in, like, such a good mood?”.

“Oh, I don’t know.” Their mother fixed his collar, tucking it into his sweatshirt. “Because we’re happy to see you.”

“No way,” he said, but looked very pleased.

Meg smiled at no one and nothing in particular—well, Vanessa, maybe, feeling an unexpected goodness in the air as she followed them down to the West Sitting Hall, where her father was sitting on the couch, reading the Book Reviews, while Neal was bent over a notebook, drawing something with intense concentration. He usually spent a fair amount of time making surprisingly good, and very detailed, diagrams of things like helicopters and military vehicles—although her parents had a pretty strict policy that he
not
draw pictures of weapons and, most of the time, Neal followed that rule.

Meg’s father looked worried, seeing how slowly her mother was walking, but she winked at him and his expression relaxed. A little.

The good feeling continued through dinner, everyone careful not to destroy it, although Steven made cracks about the baked macaroni and cheese which was, indeed, pretty soft. Her mother requested that all non-essential calls be held—which meant that they only got interrupted three times. After dinner, they went to her parents’ room to watch one of her mother’s favorite movies,
The Philadelphia Story.
Katharine Hepburn, Cary Grant, Jimmy Stewart, really funny. Felix brought in popcorn, and warm cookies, and milk and juice—and even her mother seemed to eat a normal, and healthy, amount.

After the movie, her brothers went to bed, and Meg hung out to watch a cable news show with her parents. It was sort of silly to watch the news with the President of the United States—especially during stories when a small grin would cross her mother’s face, and Meg would know that the media had gotten more than a few of the details wrong, or possibly even missed something major entirely.

She cheerfully ate popcorn and drank Coke, while her mother skimmed papers and made calls, and her father read. Then, a report came on about Sampson, the would-be assassin, because the mental hospital was about to release a psychiatric evaluation, probably the next day. Meg gulped her mouthful of soda, almost choking, and her parents both stiffened. The story was mostly speculative, although it included a clip from some pundit psychiatrist who opined that the suspect was psychotic and narcissistic, with possible schizophrenia, manifesting itself in violent criminal—Meg closed her eyes, trying not to listen. Why hadn’t they just put on another movie? Should she change the channel? Or just wait for it to end, or—the anchorperson moved on to a different subject, and Meg held her breath, afraid to see her parents’ expressions. Finally, she
glanced over and saw her father looking at her mother, who was looking at her sling.

“Well,” her mother said, very quietly. “I hope he gets help.”

SCHOOL WENT WELL
on Monday. In fact, she knew things were better, because she was having a terrible time paying attention, but now, it was for normal reasons. Like, because it was more fun to draw pictures of Vanessa, or pass notes to people, or stare at Josh. She loved to stare at him when he didn’t know she wasn’t doing it. Particularly in their French class. French was his favorite subject, so he usually concentrated and volunteered answers and everything. She could watch him all period long, and he would wouldn’t even notice. Sometimes Mr. Thénardier did, but Josh would remain oblivious.

He was cute to watch. He would frown when he was listening, and adjust his glasses about every five seconds. He also drummed his pen in soft, staccato rhythms—which kind of made her wonder what unconscious, idiotic habits
she
had, other than the fact that lots of times, she pretended that she had ski boots on, which completely changed the way she walked and stood. No one ever commented on it. Obviously, one didn’t question the President’s daughter’s motor coordination.

So, what with staring, and passing notes, and drawing Vanessa, the day passed pretty pleasantly. They had a great time in their Political and Philosophical Thought class, because Alison was selling M&M for the choir, and they spent most of the period throwing them at various targets around the room whenever Mr. Murphy turned his back.

Meg’s hand slipped with an orange M&M and she bounced it off Mr. Murphy’s file cabinet, instead of the “If You See Something, Say Something” poster. Mr. Murphy was not amused. Meg and her friends were. He threatened that if he caught anyone in the act, they would have to stay after school and spend an hour crawling around on their hands and knees, picking up scraps of paper and other improperly discarded trash. Sounded like a fun time.

“The pencil sharpener,” Nathan whispered, when Mr. Murphy was standing up at the board, and they threw yellow M&M’s, all of which missed, clattering on the floor. Mr. Murphy decided to stop writing on the board and gave his “This is a class of seniors and I don’t expect this sort of infantile behavior” speech. They were infantile enough to laugh.

After school, she drifted to a Student Senate meeting, the first one she’d attended since the shooting. The advisor just smiled and said, “Good to have you back,” and she ended up being put in charge of decorations for the Christmas dance. Snowflake city. When the meeting was over, since Josh had already left for his piano lesson, she hung out on some benches outside with Alison and Zack and a few other seniors—as well as, of course, a bunch of damn agents posted nearby. Nathan, who had been playing pick-up basketball in one of the gyms, came out and joined them, and they spent another twenty minutes lounging around—and giving very superior looks to any underclassmen who dared to approach the benches. Unless, of course, they were fond of the underclassman in question, in which case, the person—usually a junior—was permitted to join them.

And, for the most part, they
didn’t
talk about college applications. At least, not the entire time.

Matt, who was on the football team with Nathan and Zack, came jogging past them.

“Big party!” he yelled. “My house! Friday night!”.

She had once been to a party at Matt’s house—which had been somewhat out of control and drunken, but she had stuck to bottled water, and no pictures had leaked to the tabloids, so she had every intention of going to
this
one, too.

Even if she had to be really boring, and just drink soda and stuff like that.

Finally, everyone started saying good-bye, and drifting off towards their cars or the Metro, and she followed her agents to the exit
location they were using today. Her departures and arrivals were always varied, and even though she—mostly—thought it was overkill, she just did what she was told without arguing, even though she often resented every single second of it.

Today, they were going to deploy from the end of the parking garage, and as she walked in that direction, Zachary and Nathan—and Nathan’s on-and-off girlfriend, Phyllis—drove by, Zachary beeping his horn. She waved at them, and then put her hands in her pockets, as she walked over to her cars.

November usually wasn’t that cold in Washington, but this year seemed to be an exception. She was going to have to break down and start wearing a jacket to school soon. On the positive side, winter meant skiing, and maybe, if her mother was well enough, they would be able to—there was a loud bang from somewhere, kind of like a gun or a firecracker, and before Meg had a chance to react, she found herself flat on her face on the cement.

One of her agents was on top of her, shielding her with his body, while another crouched above them in a combat shooting position, his body a wide target, facing the direction from which the sound had come, his gun out and leveled. She heard two other agents run over, and tires squealing towards them, as the rest of her detail responded.

“Is it a car?” Wayne shouted, on top of her. “I think it was a car!”.

After some tense seconds—a minute, maybe—Gary and the others established that it had, indeed, been a car backfiring, and Wayne lifted Meg up, briskly brushing her off and hustling her to the car, with Joe flanking them.

“You okay?” Wayne asked, out of breath, sliding in next to her on the back seat, as Benjamin, who was behind the wheel, put the car into gear.

“Y-yeah,” Meg said, trembling. “I mean—” Her hands were shaking so hard that she clenched her fists. “I’m fine.”

“Chuck, get her knapsack!” Wayne said through the window to.

one of her back-up agents, and then, the cars were speeding away, all kinds of people staring after them.

Meg closed her eyes and leaned back, not wanting anyone to know how scared she had been.

“I’m sorry,” Wayne was saying. “We’re—overcautious—lately. Are you okay?”.

She nodded, the inside of her head jangling.

“I’m sorry.” He leaned over and dabbed her cheek with his handkerchief. “You’ve got a little cut there.”

Meg opened her eyes, still dazed, aware that her cheek was stinging.

“Let me see your hands,” he said, trying to open her right fist.

“With an effort, she unclenched her hands and saw that her palms were gravel-scraped, and bleeding slightly, like when she was six, and used to fall off her bike all the time.

“Wayne frowned. “Sorry about that. We’ll take you right to the WHMU, and have them fix you up.”

White House Medical Unit. “I’m fine,” Meg said, which was a lie. She took a few deep breaths, still shaking, her nerves so jarred that it was hard not to cry. She rested her face in her hands, listening to Joe, who was in the passenger’s seat, call the incident in. “Um, I mean, thank you.”

They all nodded, and she could tell that they were almost as spooked as she was. She covered her face with her hands again, trying to calm down. If it had been a gun, and the person had good aim, she might be—she closed her eyes more tightly

When they finally drove on to the South Grounds, she stayed in the car for a minute, wanting to be under complete control before getting out in front of the reporters who had gathered.

With an effort, she straightened up, looking at her agents. “Y-you guys didn’t have to do that.”

Wayne’s expression tightened. “I’m very sorry. We overreacted.”

Meg shook her head. “I meant, protect me. I’ve been so—I mean, lately—I mean, you didn’t have to—”.

“Come on.” Wayne put his hand on her back. “Let’s take you inside.”

“Yeah,” she said, “but—”.

“Just come on,” he said.

Dr. Brooks was waiting inside, and she was rushed right into his office to have the scrapes cleaned and bandaged. As he waited for the antiseptic to dry, he lifted her wrist to check her pulse.

“Pretty scary stuff,” he said, unwrapping a roll of gauze.

Meg was going to be cool and cavalier, but since she was still trembling, didn’t bother. “Yeah.”

He patted her knee, then indicated the various rips. “Any of those new?”.

She looked down at her jeans, then pointed to a wide tear below her right knee. “Um, that one.”

He separated the cloth to check. “Unh-hunh, you’ve got another one there.”

She protested against all of the gauze, but no one ever took chances with the First Family.

“You’re sure you’re okay?” he said. “Do you feel dizzy, or—”.

She shook her head. “I’m fine, thank you.” She looked at her hands, clumsy with the thick layers of gauze. When she was little, no one ever gave her gauze. She would run into the house crying, and Trudy would wash her off, make her laugh—and send her back out again.

Her father hurried in—he had been off making a First Gentleman appearance somewhere or other, when the word came in, apparently—looking very worried, and when Meg saw him, she had to grip the sides of her chair to keep herself from bursting into tears. He bent to hug her, and then she
knew
she was going to cry.

“Okay,” he said gently. “Don’t worry, it’s okay.”

“Just a few scrapes, Russ,” Dr. Brooks said. “She’s more shaken up than anything else.”

Her father nodded, and she was able to keep the tears back until
they were getting off the elevator, and he led her across the hall to the Presidential Bedroom, sitting her down on the couch.

“It’s okay.” He hugged her even more tightly than he had down in the Medical Unit. “Go ahead.”

“They were really fast,” she said weakly. “Knocking me down.”

He nodded.

“I thought it was—I mean, it could have been—” She gulped down another deep breath, unexpectedly close to falling apart.

“Go ahead,” he said. “You’ll feel better.”

Meg shook her head, struggling not to cry. “I can’t. I shouldn’t be upset because something
could
have happened, when Mom—I mean, it wasn’t anything, I shouldn’t—”.

“I think you should,” her father said. “To my knowledge, you haven’t yet.”

“But—” She tried to stop the tears, and they came harder. “I mean, Steven and Neal don’t—”.

“At least one of them has come to our room every night,” he said.

She stared at him. “Really?”.

He nodded.

“What about you?” she asked. “Have you—?”.

“Yes,” he said. “More than once.”

She looked at him, tears running down her cheeks.

“It’s good for you,” he said. “You invariably feel better afterwards.”