“Young Cougar…and Tara?” Miranda asked. “He really thinks she’s hot?”
“Yep. Told me so himself. His name’s JB, actually. Now we just have to figure out a way to get him to sit down and join us at dinner to night.”
“Well, good luck with that one. Sparrow, what if Gaithers asks me to audition something for him? Maybe I should start reviewing my lines from Our Town so I can show him what I can do.”
When Maryfield’s community theater staged a production of Thornton Wilder’s play Our Town, Miranda was cast in the lead role. The county paper gave her a rave review; Maryfield was still buzzing about her outstanding performance.
“You go ahead and rehearse. I have to make a reservation for to night. For four, because if we have an empty seat, JB will be more likely to sit down.”
chapter 15
When the restaurant manager informed her over the phone that they were completely booked, Sameera decided to pull rank. If any woman needed help in the romance department, it was Tara Colby.
“Oh, of course, Miss Righton,” the woman at the bistro gushed as soon as Sameera revealed her identity. “We’ll have a table for four reserved for you at eight o’clock. Thank you for choosing our restaurant.”
Miranda always took twice as long as her cousin to get ready, so while she waited Sameera scrolled through the long archive of comments on her blog. She tried her best to track layered side threads that spun off from her original posts, but some of them stretched on and on. Sparrowbloggers were apparently just as interested in what others had to say as they were in the First Daughter’s thoughts. The conversation took odd turns, headed into uncharted territory, and lured casual surfers into heated discussions. Good, Sameera thought. She wanted Sparrowblog to be elastic, flexible, a work in progress created by many different hands. And it’s still a close race between fun people and serious people. Guess I’ll have to keep providing both types of posts…oh, here’s that comment from Jerry Gaithers. Or his secretary.
She read the note, which seemed legit, and opened a new browser window to search for his name. Sure enough, he was a top-notch, hotshot agent in Hollywood, forty something, bald with a comb-over, just divorced from a third wife, who was in the process of suing him for everything. Hmm, sounds like a charmer, Sameera thought.
Miranda was finally ready, and the girls headed down to meet Tara. Inside the bustling bistro, Sameera followed Tara, Miranda, and the maître d’, answering greetings from strangers who called out things like “Hey, Sparrow!” and “How’s life in the House?” At least they’re all friendly, she thought. No hecklers in this crowd.
Tara was still wearing the navy blue suit with white trim, her hair hadn’t budged a centimeter since the afternoon, and her lipstick looked like it had been tattooed in place. “Why four place settings?” she asked as they sat down. “Are we expecting someone?”
Sameera elbowed her cousin; she hadn’t thought through an answer to this obvious question.
“Oh, you know everybody in this town, Tara,” Miranda said brightly. “We’ll leave a chair so that your acquaintances can sit and chat for a while.”
Tara looked suspicious but didn’t say anything. The girls opened their menus and decided what to order. “I’ll have a cappuccino,” Tara said, sighing as she put her menu aside.
“That’s it?” the waiter asked.
“Tara, you have to eat something,” Sameera said. “Here—I’ll order for you.”
“Okay, but nothing too heavy,” Tara said. “I don’t have time to work out these days so it goes right to the hips.”
Despite the empty chair at their table, the girls’ matchmaking didn’t progress during dinner. JB remained on task, standing vigilantly at the door with the other agents. He didn’t look Tara’s way once, and Tara certainly paid no attention to him. She was too busy gobbling down the Caesar salad with grilled salmon that Sameera ordered for her. Occasionally, she looked up from her plate and gazed into the distance, murmuring with plea sure as she chewed a bite of fish or a piece of romaine lettuce drenched in dressing.
When the waiter came to clear their table, Tara grabbed the unfinished basket of bread and butter from his hand. “I’m not done with that,” she said.
Leaving their dinner companion blissfully buttering another roll, Sameera and Miranda excused themselves and headed past the agents on their way to the ladies’ room. In a whispered aside, with Miranda blocking her from Tara’s view, Sameera asked JB to join them at the table for dessert. He shook his head no without saying anything, while the other agent smirked knowingly.
“We’ll have to bring up the subject with Tara,” Sameera told her cousin as they washed their hands at the sink. “You get things started, and I’ll follow through by asking if she’d go out with him.”
“Right,” Miranda said. “I’m all over it.”
Tara was leaning back in her chair when they returned to the table, a look of contentment on her face. The bread basket was empty; no trace of lipstick remained on her now buttery lips. She certainly looks more relaxed, Sameera thought. Maybe the key to helping Tara enjoy life is to stuff her with calories. That’s it—she’s underfed AND underloved.
“The photos of you in church on Sunday and walking Jingle on the South Lawn are great,” Tara said, smiling. “It was a good idea to pose with the lab, Sparrow. Maybe you should join our brainstorming sessions—you’ve got quite a feel for what the public likes, don’t you?”
“I didn’t really plan to pose with Jingle,” Sparrow admitted. “He chased a squirrel over to the gate, and I chased him.”
The waiter brought over the Death by Chocolate dessert that Tara must have ordered while the girls were in the bathroom.
“I’ve been thinking,” Miranda said, trying to sound natural. “Some of those Secret Ser vice dudes are cute. I’ve got some stills on my camera that I could use to turn into a calendar—HOT MEN OF THE SECRET SER VICE.”
“You’re so right, Ran,” Sameera added quickly. “That one over there, JB, is definitely a hunk. Not to mention the nicest guy in town. He was so sweet on our walk the other day, and I hear he’s single, too.”
“Girls, come on. You can’t make a calendar like that, and you can’t go after an agent,” Tara said. “You’re under-age, and you’ll get him in trouble.”
“Oh, definitely, he’s way too old for us, Ms. Colby,” Miranda said. “But for the right single woman of say, thirty-something…he’s definitely a catch.”
“You’re not dating anyone, are you, Tara?” Sameera asked, after what she hoped was a long enough pause.
Tara speared the last bite of the Death by Chocolate with her fork like a fisherman who hadn’t caught anything all day. “No. I always seem to go for the wrong type,” she murmured, her eyes closed as she chewed and swallowed. “I’ve given up. I’m going to dedicate myself to making your mother the most successful, popular First Lady in history.”
“You can’t work all the time,” Miranda said. “It’s not good for the soul.”
“Not good at all,” Sameera piggybacked, deciding to take the plunge. “How about going out with JB on your day off, Tara?”
Tara’s eyes flew open. “What? Me? Oh no, I couldn’t. That guy? And me? It wouldn’t work. He’s…And I’m…”
“He thinks you’re beautiful,” Sameera said.
Tara’s eyes darted over to the door where JB was standing. Just then, the agent folded his arms across his chest and sizeable biceps bulged under the sleeves of his dark gray suit. Good timing, JB, Sameera thought.
“He said that?” Tara asked. “That…I’m beautiful?”
Pink cheeks, Sameera thought. Good sign. “Yep. That’s what he told me earlier this afternoon.”
“But…but…” Tara lowered her voice and her eyes darted around the room before she finished her sentence. “He’s black…and I’m…not. I’ve never dated anybody who wasn’t, well, white.”
Sameera was shocked. She hadn’t stopped to think about the fact that J
B was African American and Tara was white. She was even more surprised to see her cousin nodding in understanding. But, of course, Miranda hadn’t grown up in diplomatic communities where people from different cultures and races mingled without much fuss. Even Sameera’s Turkish teammate and his Armenian girlfriend had eventually won their families’ blessings.
“I know. That’s what I thought when Sparrow first brought up the possibility, Tara. But—” Miranda was saying.
“What’s the big deal?” Sameera interrupted, taken aback by her own intensity. “Why are people still stressing out about stuff like that?”
“Calm down, Sparrow,” her cousin said. “I was just about to say that race definitely doesn’t matter as much as it used to. JB’s smart and strong and brave. If he were fifteen years younger, I’d date him in a heartbeat.”
Tara was ogling JB again. He smiled at something the other Cougar said; they could see the dimples from all the way across the room. Sameera capitalized on the perfect moment: “How about it, Tara? I could give him your number if you wanted.”
“Well…” Tara said, tearing her eyes away from the agent. “I suppose I could try one date. It wouldn’t hurt. My ancestors would probably have a fit, but they can’t do anything about it now, can they?”
“No, they can’t,” Sameera said firmly. “Ancestors have no power at all.”
chapter 16
Sameera handed Tara’s private cell phone number to JB the next day. “She wants you to call,” she announced triumphantly.
The agent seemed taken aback, just as Tara had been. “She wants to go out with me?” he asked.
Oh no, Sameera thought. It’s the race thing again. But she was wrong.
“Does she know about the kids?” he asked.
Sameera gulped. “Uh—no. How many kids do you have, JB?”
“Twins. They’re in kindergarten. And I’ve got full custody.”
“You do? What about their mother?”
He sighed. “Now that’s a long, sad story. Too long for right now.”
“Well, you don’t have to bring the twins along on a date, do you? Get a babysitter, take Tara out for dinner, and talk. I’m sure she won’t care that you have kids.”
But JB looked skeptical, and Sameera didn’t blame him. She couldn’t imagine Tara Colby interacting with anybody under the age of twelve, let alone greeting a couple of kids after school with a batch of homemade chocolate chip cookies. But then again, she’d whip the PTA into shape in no time, Sameera thought. Those other parents wouldn’t know what hit them.
“Tara’s biological clock is ticking,” she said encouragingly. “She might love the idea of kids. Besides, you’ll never know unless you talk about it. Ask her out this weekend.”
Sameera herself was waiting eagerly for the weekend. How could seven days crawl by so slowly? Bobby was flying out of Dulles airport on Friday afternoon. How soon was he going to be able to call her?
All that week, when the girls weren’t studying or brainstorming ideas and ordering furniture for the rooms they were redecorating, Miranda was on Sameera’s laptop, editing movie footage and adding music and other sound effects. Sameera tried peering over her cousin’s shoulder a couple of times, but Miranda obviously didn’t want an audience—at least, not yet.
“You can have your laptop back in an hour,” she said, sounding annoyed. “I want to show you this when I’m done—not while it’s in process. You’re too much of a movie buff to see an unfinished product.”
“Okay, okay! Wow, I’d heard that creative types get irritable when they’re working, but this is ridiculous.”
Miranda was also getting ready for her big appointment with Jerry Gaithers, Hollywood agent. “I just want to get a bit part in a movie or even a commercial,” she said. “At least to start with. I wonder if Mom and Dad will let me move to California by myself.”
“I’ll go with you,” Sameera offered. “We can get an apartment together. Me, you, and a couple of Cougars. Oh, and Jingle, of course.” She reached down to ruffle his fur as he looked up at her adoringly.
“Sparrow! That would be wonderful. I’m so glad things are getting started right now while I’m still seventeen. Making it in Hollywood is all about timing. And connections, of course. And finally I’ve got both.”
“Mom and Tara are still trying to figure out a way for you to earn some money inside the White House, too.”
“That’s fine, but I won’t need a part-time job if Gaithers gets me a gig right away. I’ll pay for Mrs. Mathews’s salary next year; your parents have done more than enough already.”
It was “Gaithers” this and “Gaithers” that. Sameera was getting a little nervous about Miranda’s expectations. She hated to watch celebrity wannabes crying buckets when they were cut from shows like American Rock Star, but this was Miranda’s dream, so she didn’t say anything to dampen her cousin’s anticipation.
Both girls were looking forward to hosting the SARSA meeting on Friday night. Mariam had accepted the invitation with plea sure, somehow managing to talk her father into letting her come. Sameera couldn’t wait to introduce Mariam to Miranda, and Sangi, George, and Nadia to Mariam and to her cousin, but she was hoping that none of them would ask questions about Bobby. She wasn’t expecting to hear anything from him until late Friday night or Saturday, and she didn’t want to explain why.
chapter 17
When Mom, Miranda, Tara, and Sameera headed out to visit St. Matthew’s school on Thursday, JB was one of the agents assigned to accompany them. Sameera and Miranda sandwiched him while they were waiting for Mom and Tara in the East Colonnade.
“Did you ask her out yet?” Miranda asked.
“Not yet.”
“JB! Ask her today! Or else we’ll say something ourselves.”
“Okay, okay, I’ll try. I’ve been out of circulation for so long, I’m sort of nervous.”
“I’ll bet she does the hair thing,” said Miranda.
“What hair thing?” asked the Secret Ser vice agent.
“You know, when a girl likes a guy, she’ll fiddle with her hair while he’s talking to her,” Miranda explained. “It’s a dead giveaway.”
“Classic nonverbal,” Sameera added.
JB laughed. “Sixteen-year-old girls are so sophisticated these days. Poor teenage guys don’t have a hope.”
“I’m seventeen, JB,” Miranda reminded him.
“Oh, that explains everything.”
Tara and Mom came out of the First Lady’s office, and the cousins kept a sharp eye on Tara’s reaction when she saw JB standing with them.
“Is the school ready for our visit?” Mom asked the agent.
“Yes, ma’am,” JB answered. “Our team’s already been there, and a couple of agents are waiting on-site. As it’s an all-girl facility, I’ll wait in the car, but two female agents will be present the whole time.”
Tara looked up at him. “Oh. You’re not coming inside with us?”
Sameera and Miranda both held their breath as one manicured fingertip reached for a strand of hair and started twisting it around a knuckle. “Yesss!” Miranda hissed into her cousin’s ear. “He’s good to go.”
JB, too, seemed mesmerized by Tara’s twirling finger, because he wasn’t answering her question. Sameera nudged him gently with her elbow, and he cleared his throat. “Uhhh…What? Oh no, Ms. Colby, I don’t want to invade female territory, now do I?”
“I’m sure the girls wouldn’t mind,” Tara said, almost purring. “And call me Tara, please.”
Mom watched the whole interchange with growing interest. She had a knowing look as they settled into the back of the armored limo. “Nice work, girls,” she whispered to Sameera and Miranda. “Definitely a step up from her last boyfriend.”
“I hope you like my alma mater, Sparrow,” Tara said, sliding in beside Sameera and closing the door. “It’s the perfect school for a First Daughter.”
“It’s no place for the First Niece, that’s for sure,” said Miranda.
“No guys? How did you stand that?”
Tara smiled. “Oh, we found our way around it, of course. There’s a boys’ academy around the corner, and I’ll bet the same meeting places are fully operational—Jake’s Grill and the Totem Tea house.”
The school was obviously in a state of excitement over the First Family’s visit. Bouquets of flowers were everywhere, wood floors and desks gleamed with fresh polish, chandeliers sparkled as though they had no idea that cobwebs existed elsewhere on the planet. Sameera felt like she’d entered a movie about a girls’ school in the 1950s—students in identical crisp white blouses and knee-length plaid skirts, teachers garbed in long, black robes, classrooms filled with rows of wooden desks facing clean black chalk-boards, a pristine chapel that glowed with antique stained-glass windows. Everyone they met said exactly the right things, sounding eerily like they were reciting lines from a script.
“The Stepford School,” Miranda whispered in her cousin’s ear, referring to a remake of the old horror film about robotic human substitutes. “The headmistress even looks like Nicole Kidman.” She’d brought her video camera, of course, and had secured permission to film the tour.
An impeccably courteous senator’s daughter served as their guide. “Our school has a two-hundred-year history,” she said as a bell rang and students moved to their next destination in orderly, single-file lines. “We receive a first-rate classical education, just as rigorous as in British schools.”
First-rate? Rigorous? Sameera thought, fighting an irrational desire to bhangra wildly down the hall. What girl our age actually talks like that?
They passed a window that overlooked the school’s tidy, walled-in front garden, and she glimpsed Tara and JB standing beside a stone fountain. She nudged her cousin and pointed. “Looks like he might be making his move,” she whispered.
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