White House Rules

by Mitali Perkins

  “It’s Hind-oo, not Hind-ee,” she said. “The first is a religion; the second’s a language.”

  Her cousin looked miffed. “I’m just a farm girl from Ohio. What do I know about world cultures?”

  Sameera immediately felt bad. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to sound like I was talking down to you. It’s just that…well, if you could have heard how sincere he sounded, and how sweet. He likes me, Ran. Isn’t that incredible?”

  Miranda got over hurt feelings in record time—that was one of the many things Sameera loved about her. “It is, Sparrow. And I’m thrilled for you. At least one of us has a shot at romance this year.”

  “Yeah. The shortest romance on the planet. We got together and were thwarted in a span of five minutes. Now I’ve got to wait a whole week until we talk again. That is, if he’s able to convince them that we can see each other.”

  “It’s going to work out, Sparrow. Besides, this gives you a chance to pick your three nonnegotiables. You were supposed to settle that last summer.”

  “Oh, yeah. What are yours again?” Sameera asked, even though she already knew the answer.

  Her cousin didn’t hesitate. “The Three Fs. And don’t pretend you don’t know what they are. My list hasn’t changed since I was thirteen.”

  The ability to have fun, a strong faith, and unwavering loyalty to family. That’s what Miranda was looking for in a guy, and she hadn’t found it yet—at least not in Maryfield, Ohio.

  “Oh yeah, farming, farming, and farming,” Sameera said. “Or is it fame, fortune, and Ferraris?”

  Miranda ignored her cousin’s weak attempt at humor. “You’ve got to pick three things you can’t live without. Then you find a guy who has them and ignore most of the stuff he does that drives you nuts.”

  “Relationships by Ran. What makes you such an expert?”

  “I hate to admit it, but I learned from watching my parents,” Miranda answered. “Dad’s got that annoying habit of sulking when he’s mad, and when Mom has a tantrum, there’s no stopping her. She gets passionate about politics and hates that he’s so calm and rational. But they have the same sense of humor, work well together, and never lie to each other, so they just bear with the irritating stuff and keep going.”

  Sameera thought about her own parents. They, too, seemed blind to some of the most annoying things about each other. “So that’s how you decide if a guy’s right for you? Decide which set of bad qualities you want to put up with and ignore the rest?”

  “No. You decide what you really treasure and focus on that. It’s like that poem Westfield assigned the other day, you know, the one by what’s her name. Wait, I’ll go get it.” Miranda ran to her room and returned with an anthology of women poets.

  “It’s called ‘Appraisal’ by Sara Teasdale. Listen, Sparrow.” Miranda, using her best theater voice, recited the poem:

  Never think she loves him wholly,

  Never believe her love is blind,

  All his faults are locked securely

  In a closet of her mind;

  All his indecisions folded

  Like old flags that time has faded,

  Limp and streaked with rain,

  And his cautiousness like garments

  Frayed and thin, with many a stain—

  Let them be, oh let them be,

  There is treasure to outweigh them,

  His proud will that sharply stirred,

  Climbs as surely as the tide,

  Senses strained too taut to sleep,

  Gentleness to beast and bird,

  Humor flickering hushed and wide

  As the moon on moving water,

  And a tenderness too deep

  To be gathered in a word.

  Sameera listened, absentmindedly pulling off strands of Jingle’s hair that were brocading her bedcover. She’d always enjoyed her cousin’s rich, low reading voice. “So you lock his faults securely in your mind after you find the treasures,” she said when Miranda was done. “But how do you decide what the treasures are?”

  “I know what two of yours are already, Sparrow. Just by listening to you talk about Bobby.”

  “You do?”

  “Uh-huh. You’re looking for honesty. And courage.”

  Sameera hesitated, thought it over, and then nodded. “That’s true. But what’s number three?”

  “I don’t know. You’ve got to fill in that blank yourself.”

  Sameera stayed awake for a long time after her cousin left, thinking about their conversation and the poem. But her last thought before she fell asleep wasn’t about Sara Teasdale. It was the recollection of a hand reaching for hers across a coffee table, and the memory of a soft kiss on her skin.

  chapter 9

  The First Cousin spent most of Saturday morning upstairs in the solarium trying to eke out a tan before the Viennese Ball that night. The pale sunlight that streamed in through the windows wasn’t working very well to darken her skin.

  Sameera was gazing out at the wintry view as she sprawled on a chaise longue, still thinking about Bobby. She had a sudden urge to watch a favorite classic where the hero and heroine were separated by ancient enmities. West Side Story, she thought. Romeo and Juliet. Unfortunately, none of them had happy endings. Sameera was hoping that she and Bobby would be the exception that proved the rule. Or better yet, shattered it.

  “Do you think I’ve gotten any color at all, Sparrow?” Miranda asked, putting down the interior design magazine she was reading.

  Sameera held her forearm against her cousin’s. “I don’t get it,” she said. “People in India and Pakistan spend bundles on lotions and creams to lighten their skin. Meanwhile, white people in America spend a fortune to get dark.”

  “In case you haven’t noticed, I happen to be a white person in America,” Miranda said. “And I just can’t be this white if I’m going to look good in that dress to night. I’ll have to use a bronzing lotion.”

  The door flew open. The girls looked up to see Elizabeth Campbell Righton dressed in bike pants and a sports bra. For once, the First Lady’s face wasn’t hidden under layers of makeup, and Sameera thought she looked much younger than she did on television.

  “Ready for our workout, Sparrow?”

  Sameera jumped up. She’d forgotten that she and her mother had planned to start their Manuel: He Moves You White House routine this morning. Good thing she was already wearing yoga pants and tennis shoes.

  “How was the spa?” Mom asked.

  “Fine,” answered Miranda quickly.

  “Er…okay.” Sameera hated to keep secrets from her parents, mainly because they’d always trusted her so much. But putting on a burka had been the only way to talk to Bobby without Cougars and Rhinos in tow. She’d tell Mom and Dad about her adventure soon, once a bit more time had passed. Besides, she wasn’t planning on using her disguise again. At least she didn’t think so.

  “So…how’s it going as First Lady, Aunt Liz?” Miranda asked.

  “I’m loving it. I’ve got the biggest platform on Earth to fight for my refugees, and everybody’s got to listen. I’m supposed to find an American issue, too, but that shouldn’t be too hard. How were your first sessions with Westfield, Miranda?”

  “She’s great,” Miranda answered. “I love the fact that it’s only a two-hour school day. Leaves me with lots of time to do other stuff.”

  “Like what?” Mom asked.

  “Oh, memorize lines from movie scripts. You know, just in case I get my big chance while I’m here. I plan on heading back with a get-out-of-dairy-farming-forever card in my pocket, you know.”

  Hmmmm, Sameera thought. I never see her memorizing lines. All I see her doing is using that camera. A lot.

  “What about college?” Mom asked. “You’ve only got one more year at Maryfield High. Doesn’t graduating count as a way to leave the farm?”

  “Nope. Four years of college just delays your re-entry. The only one who’s ever escaped the cows forever is you, Aunt Liz. I can’t believe
my mother actually chose the life by marrying Dad.”

  Elizabeth Campbell Righton frowned, and Sameera knew she was tempted to deliver the family’s four-point “dairy farming is a noble profession” lecture. Miranda knows it by heart, Mom, Sameera thought. Don’t go there. She’s got to figure things out herself.

  This time, Mom made the right choice. “Your mother’s been trying to call your cell for the last two days,” she said. “Why aren’t you picking up?”

  “I turned it off,” Miranda said. “My phone bill’s gotten way out of control.”

  Sameera and Mom avoided eye contact. Before Miranda joined them in the White House, they’d brainstormed how to handle the sticky financial issue, but nothing resembling a decent plan had emerged.

  “Miranda, you’ve given up a lot to come out here and be Sameera’s companion,” Mom ventured cautiously now. “Why not accept an allowance from your Uncle James and me? We’d be so happy if you did.”

  Miranda leaped up. “You want to pay me to spend time with my cousin?” she demanded. “You’re going to give me an allowance to live in this amazing place? That’s terrible, Aunt Liz. I’ve got the same Campbell pride you do, don’t forget.”

  “Okay, okay. Settle down. But most seventeen-year-olds who aren’t living in the White House could find a part-time job somewhere. Tell you what—I’ll ask around to see if anybody inside the place needs some paid help.”

  Miranda sat down again. “You will? Aunt Liz, that would be fantastic. Maybe I could help out in the kitchen—I’m a good cook, you know that.”

  “Don’t get your hopes up, Ran,” Sameera warned. “The Pandas seem sort of territorial when it comes to their kitchen.”

  “We’ll see what happens,” Mom said. “Here, take my phone and give your parents a call.”

  Sameera followed her mother to the gym across the hall and climbed on the treadmill, punching in some settings to get the thing going. Beside her, Mom was pressing buttons on the elliptical machine, and they started moving at exactly the same time.

  “Mom, do you know anything about my relatives?” Sameera asked, adjusting the incline so it felt like she was climbing a steep hill. “They were Muslims, right?”

  Elizabeth Campbell Righton glanced quickly at her daughter. “Yes, darling. But you know that already. Is there any reason it’s coming up again? Are people leaving mean comments on your blog?”

  “Actually, it’s working the other way. Sparrowbloggers are getting to know each other and sending notes to other Sparrowbloggers instead of just to me. Any newbie who sounds the least bit mean is straightened out pretty quickly by the regulars. It’s getting to be a safe place, but people still have the freedom to say what they think, which I like.”

  Like Sparrowhawk, she thought. Other commenters had responded to the “privileged white girl in camo” accusation, but Sameera knew she was going to have to say something, too. She just didn’t know what yet.

  “That’s because of you, Sparrow,” Mom said, increasing the pace of her machine. “You’ve got this way of making people feel welcome, like they can ask anything and you’ll always tell the truth.”

  Again, that twinge of guilt. “So, Mom. Are you one hundred percent sure that I’m a Muslim?”

  Beads of moisture were already forming on the First Lady’s forehead. “I’ve always said that your faith journey’s up to you, Sparrow. I can’t force you to believe in—”

  “Maybe that wasn’t the right question. I don’t mean what I believe, Mom. I mean what I am. By blood. Or DNA.” Sameera went back to a zero decline on her treadmill.

  Mom kept talking, even though she was getting out of breath. “Well, as you know, darling,” she panted, “we’ve always assumed…you were from a Muslim…family…because that part of Pakistan…where the orphanage was…is almost all Muslim.”

  So that was that then. Sameera pictured a horde of her ancestors clutching burning torches as they stormed across the border into Bobby’s village.

  Mom pressed the pause button on her elliptical, took a big swig of water, and mopped her face with a towel. “I’m out of shape again, darn it. Must have been all that chocolate I ate in Maryfield. Manuel’s eyes got huge when he saw me; he made me promise to do a half hour of cardio every day this week.” She climbed back on the machine and started it again, setting it this time at a much slower pace. “You think Ran’s doing okay, Sparrow? Was it a good idea to bring her here?”

  “It’s great, except that she’s so prickly about money,”

  Sameera answered.

  “I know. But wouldn’t you be if you were in her shoes?”

  “I guess.”

  “Miranda’s only staying until June, Sparrow, and then you’re going to need some friends. Maybe we could invite a few flesh-and-blood Sparrowbloggers who live around here to come over sometime.”

  “I’ve been thinking about that, Mom. Remember Mariam, the girl I met when I…went shopping on my own last August?”

  “Of course I do. Yes, she’d be perfect. She lives in D.C., right?”

  Sameera managed to take a swig of water without slowing her treadmill. “Yeah, well, I’m thinking of inviting her over. And then there’s my SARSA buddies at G-Dub.”

  “Right. Sangita. Nadia. George. And Bobby, of course. Have you heard much from him? I really liked him, even though we didn’t get much of a chance to talk that day.”

  “You mean the day you asked him to turn from evil and repent?”

  Mom grinned. “I was a bit over the top, wasn’t I? I felt horrible about that. I’m so sorry, Sameera.”

  “It’s okay, Mom. You were tired. He understood.”

  “I’ve been dying to ask about him, but the parenting books tell you to ‘let your teenager take the lead’ when it comes to conversations about relationships. Your grandmother, of course, told me to jump right in. ‘They want to tell you,’ she said. ‘They just don’t know how.’”

  “You told Gran about Bobby?”

  “I didn’t have to. When you opened that gorgeous photo, Sparrow, my love, it didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out how you’re feeling about this guy. Well? It seemed like things were starting to simmer between the two of you, but maybe I’m just imagining things.”

  Part of Sameera suddenly wanted to confess everything that had happened the night before. I’m in love, Mom. But we can’t be together. And I ditched the Secret Ser vice without them even realizing it. She wasn’t sure she could keep the last bit a secret much longer, or the first—especially from her mother. But this didn’t feel like the right time, with sweat dripping from both of them, and her mother starting to pant again. Not to mention having to explain everything twice because her father wasn’t around. Repeating the same conversation was a liability of having busy parents.

  She stopped her treadmill. “He’s a good guy,” she said. “Time for my weights.”

  “Not for me,” Mom said, increasing her pace again. “I’ve still got twenty minutes to go. How much chocolate did I eat, anyway? And why didn’t you people stop me?”

  Sameera picked up a pair of ten-pound free weights and started the bicep curls Manuel had put on her training agenda. “You get sort of…tense…when somebody moderates your sugar intake, Mom. Dad and I learned the hard way that it’s better not to say anything.”

  “Enablers. Both of you.”

  Sameera grinned. “Gran sure had a few things to say about you staying in your pajamas all day and eating chocolate.”

  “Yep. Made me run…to store…buy three more bars…can’t talk…any more. About to die.”

  chapter 10

  The five-member color team came down the Grand Staircase, carrying the American and presidential flags. Sameera counted them off as she waited on the landing: Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force, Coast Guard. Mom and Dad followed them into the room as the Marine band began playing the fanfare, “Ruffles and Flourishes,” and then shifted into “Hail to the Chief.” Some traditions are keepers, Sameera thought, humming a joyf
ul accompaniment.

  With Peter and Miranda right behind Wilhelm and Sameera, six couples sauntered arm in arm down the Grand Staircase, through the Cross Hall, and into the East Room. A host of bejeweled, tuxedoed, and designer-gowned guests made appreciative noises as they entered. Matching her steps to Wilhelm’s, Sameera concentrated fiercely on the intricacies of the opening choreography she and Ran had learned in such a short time. There, it was done, and perfectly, too. The cousins exchanged grins that had to substitute for their signature triumphant fist punch.

  The music picked up for the less-complicated Viennese waltz part of the dance, and Wilhelm started spinning Sameera around the room. She felt like she was floating, and with each song, found herself enjoying the whirling, swirling rhythm more and more. If only I were dancing with Bobby, Sameera thought, as her partner’s strong hand steered her safely around the room. Bhangra or ballroom, it doesn’t matter as long as he’s the one holding me.

  They danced over to her cousin, who was excusing herself from Peter and looking extremely pale despite the bronzing lotion she’d slathered across every inch of exposed skin. A middle-aged, balding guest was ogling Miranda’s halter dress, and Sameera placed herself strategically to block his view. “You okay, Ran?” she asked.

  “I never liked that teacups ride much either,” Miranda said ruefully. “I’m going to run upstairs for a minute until I stop feeling dizzy. I’ll be right back.”

  Sameera returned to spinning around the room, this time with Peter leading her. She waltzed by Tara, who was sitting at a table by herself. As usual, the First Lady’s right-hand woman was beautifully dressed, but Sameera noticed she was scribbling notes with a stylus onto a handheld. Tara definitely needs a life, Sameera thought.

  At the head table, President James Righton looked elegant and confident in his tuxedo, his usual diplomatic courtesy intact as he conversed with each person who approached him. Sameera, however, could tell he was bored stiff. She noticed one shiny patent-leather-encased presidential foot tapping under the table in time to the music. Her father loved to dance as much as she did.