The President's Daughter

by Ellen Emerson White

  Meg frowned. “You’re not going to make me go get a pass?”

  “No,” Mr. Collinsworth said. “That won’t be necessary.”

  She started to go over to her lab bench, where Beth and Sarah had already started setting up their equipment, but changed her mind. “Sir, everyone who’s late has to go get a pass. It’s a rule.”

  He straightened his glasses. “I told you. It’s not necessary.”

  “Yeah, well, I think it is,” she said.

  Now, everyone was really staring.

  “Meghan,” Mr. Collinsworth said, “I might remind you that unexcused tardiness to class is an automatic detention.”

  “So what?” she asked. “I broke a rule.”

  He sighed. “Meghan—”

  She looked at him, stubbornly folding her arms across her chest.

  “Very well,” he said. “Go get a pass.”

  “Thank you, sir.” She left the room and went down to the office, where no one was very eager to give her a late pass. Finally, a reluctant aide wrote one out.

  “Thank you,” Meg said. “Where’s detention tonight?”

  “Well, perhaps your teacher would be willing to overlook—” the woman started.

  Meg shook her head. “No, that’s okay. I’d rather jump straight to an administrative detention.”

  “Then, um, please report to your housemaster during J-Block,” the woman said uneasily.

  Meg nodded. “Thank you.”

  “Hey, all right,” the guy next to her, a senior who had apparently been caught skipping, said. “Way to go.”

  She gave him a tough-kid grin, which he returned. “See you there.”

  Back in biology, she handed her teacher the pass. Then, because everyone was watching her, she couldn’t resist swaggering a little on her way to her lab bench.

  “What a Girl Scout,” Beth said, as she sat down.

  Meg nodded. “Yup, you know it. Law and order, damn it.”

  “Your parents are going to kill you,” Sarah said, her voice horrified.

  “No way. Too much publicity.” Meg turned up the flame on their Bunsen burner, the contents of the test tube bubbling furiously in response. “Bet we could get suspended if we blew the lab up.”

  Sarah turned the flame down. “That’s not funny.”

  Meg and Beth laughed.

  “Meghan, please put on your gloves and your safety glasses,” Mr. Collinsworth said from the front of the room.

  She grinned and snapped on a pair of heavy-duty sterile gloves, then picked up a pair of plastic goggles. “Yes, sir.”

  “Know what we ought to do tonight?” Beth dropped some extra powder into the test tube, which almost certainly contaminated their original sample. “Let’s knock over a liquor store.”

  “No.” Meg added even more, just to be sure that they would have to start from scratch. “Let’s rob a bank.”

  HER MOTHER WASN’T home much, but that wasn’t anything new. Her transition team was based in Boston, but between meeting with possible appointees, receiving high-level briefings, and winding down her Senate office, she was in Washington most of the time. Her father flew down for a few days, and her parents went through the White House, deciding what furniture they were going to need and that sort of thing.

  The White House. Meg had never even been on one of those White House tours. And now, she was going to be living there? How utterly bizarre was that?

  Her father had taken an indefinite leave of absence from his firm, and was also spending time arranging for the various blind trusts where her parents’ money would be kept, during her mother’s time in office. He wasn’t talking about it, but the press was giving him a pretty hard time, enjoying the idea of a First Gentleman. They kept asking him about his plans for redecorating the White House, his ideas on fashion and entertaining, and what he was going to wear to the Inaugural Balls. Usually, he would pass it all off as a joke, saying things like he was going to do the East Wing in blacks and browns, but whenever he got home after a session with reporters, he would be tense, and they would all have to watch their step. Steven, with his usual tact, had asked him when he was going to start wearing lacy dresses, and he had blown up, yelling at everyone in the house. One of those days when Meg thought about joining the Foreign Legion.

  Hearing her parents come home one night in mid-December, back from a dinner in Boston, Meg went downstairs to find out if they’d had a good time.

  “Russ,” her mother’s voice was low, but warning, “you really have to watch what you say in front of those people. I know when you’re kidding, but—”

  Meg paused in the doorway, seeing that they were having another fight. They’d had a lot of fights lately. Kind of scary.

  “My dear Madam President.” Her father spun around to face her mother, sounding calm, but furious. “Let’s get something straight. I will say whatever the bloody hell I feel like saying.”

  Her mother nodded. “I know, but—”

  “As long as you know.” He strode to the door, and then saw Meg. “Hello,” he said shortly, moving past her.

  “Uh, hi,” Meg said, wishing she hadn’t come down at all. She glanced at her father going up the stairs, then at her mother, who looked thin and tired in her bright red, very Christmasy dress, and decided to pretend that she hadn’t heard anything. “Did you have fun?”

  “Lots.” Her mother filled a glass with water, drank half of it, then dumped the rest in the sink. “They’re not letting your father be a person.” She refilled the glass, drinking another half. “He’s right to be angry,” she added quietly, and then put the empty glass in the dishwasher. “Everything go okay tonight?”

  Since the evening had been fine, but not even vaguely interesting, Meg shrugged.

  Her mother nodded, heading for the stairs. “Turn off the lights and everything before you come up, okay?”

  Right. Meg went over to lock the back door, even though there were plenty of agents posted outside, again feeling as if she really shouldn’t have come downstairs at all.

  HER MOTHER MADE a huge effort during the next week to try and make the press be nicer to her father, and he got his own full-time press secretary, which helped things considerably. Although Meg was pretty sure her mother wasn’t thrilled about losing him, her father chose Preston—which appeared to be a nearly perfect fit. He sat Meg down in the kitchen right after he got the job, looking at her with a stern-but-I’m-just-putting-you-on frown.

  “I’m going to say one word to you, Meggo,” he said. “Only one word.”

  “Plastics,” Meg said, grinning.

  He laughed. “Close. Style, okay? Style.”

  She had the general idea, but—“In what sense?”

  “No grandchildren for the next four years,” he said. “No drug busts. Don’t join the Nazi party.”

  Well, okay, that was nice and specific. “Are you going to flip if I say stuff on the Internet?” she asked. Her mother had assured her that she wasn’t being monitored, but just in case, she had been changing her screen name every few days—which was a big pain.

  Preston shrugged. “Not as long as you’re hilarious. And make sure you spell everything correctly.”

  The former might be difficult; the latter was manageable.

  “Style, kid,” he said. “That’s all you have to remember.”

  Steven and Neal got the same advice, although Meg assumed he was less worried about the prospect of either of them producing grandchildren anytime soon.

  With every passing day, there seemed to be more and more publicity, a lot of it focused on the family, and articles with titles like “The Storybook Family” were appearing constantly. Meg was kind of hoping for one called “The Stylish Family,” but so far, it hadn’t happened.

  “Quiet and bookish?” She had been appalled by that description of her in a national magazine, when she happened to pick it up during breakfast with her father and brothers one morning. “How come Steven gets ‘a quick grin,’ and I have to be ‘
quiet and bookish’?”

  “You were,” her father said. “You spent the whole time turning red and muttering things about having to do homework. What was he supposed to think?”

  “Daddy, do I have a shy smile?” Neal asked, worried.

  “You have a beautiful smile,” their father said, lifting him up onto his lap. “You were embarrassed that day, too.”

  Meg shook her head. “‘Quiet and bookish.’ Can I skip school today?”

  “What are you complaining about?” her father asked. “It also says”—he picked up the magazine—“you ‘inherited your mother’s beauty with an adolescent charm all your own.’”

  Meg had to grin. “Well, okay, I liked that part.”

  HER MOTHER TOOK off ten full days at Christmas, and they spent part of it at home, part of it in New York shopping for what her father called “proper Presidential family clothes,” and part of it skiing. Obviously, it went without saying that Meg liked the skiing part the best.

  Coming home one day right after school had started again, Meg heard music and laughing in the living room. She went in to see what was going on, not even pausing to take off her coat.

  Peeking into the room, she saw most of the furniture pushed back out of the way and the rug rolled up, as the dancing song from The King and I played in the background. Her parents—who seemed to be cracking up; literally and figuratively—were dancing around the room in a classic waltz. Her mother was laughing particularly hard, and kept missing steps, which would confuse her father.

  “Come on, cut it out,” he was saying, eyes on the floor and where he put his feet. “This is serious.”

  “Oh, right.” She changed her footing so that she could lead him, and they struggled for control, still laughing.

  Clearly, they had gone mad. The pressure had finally gotten to them, and they had lost their minds. Or maybe they had caught that disease that made people dance non-stop until they dropped dead.

  All things considered, there were probably worse ways to go.

  “Come on, can’t you feel it?” her mother asked, letting him lead again. “One, two, three; one, two, three.”

  “No, I think it’s one, two, three, four; one, two, three, four,” he said, dancing intently to that rhythm.

  “But, it isn’t.” She tried to slow him down. “It’s one, two, three. Listen.”

  He shook his head. “I don’t hear it.”

  Her family was nothing, if not entirely lacking in musical talent. “You guys do this a lot when we’re not home?” Meg asked.

  Her parents stopped, startled.

  “All the time,” her father said, and bent her mother over in a precarious dip.

  “Every afternoon,” her mother said, letting him sweep her back up.

  Meg considered that, shrugged, and turned to go to the kitchen.

  “Actually”—her mother crossed the room, to start the song from the beginning—“your father has pointed out, with some rather reasonable concern, I think, that we will be dancing on national television in a couple of weeks, and we thought we might try some practicing while free from the prying eyes of small, pesky children.”

  Hmmm. Meg shifted her knapsack to her other shoulder. “I’m not sure how to take that.”

  They both grinned at her.

  “Oh. Well.” She shifted the knapsack again. “Guess I’m in the way.”

  “We’ll be done in a little while.” Her father put his hand on her mother’s waist. “Come on, Madam President.”

  “Now, remember,” her mother said, as Meg went towards the kitchen. “It’s one, two, three; one, two, three … .”

  14

  IT WAS A couple of nights before they were going to Washington for the pre-Inaugural festivities, and Meg couldn’t sleep. In the morning, it was going to be her last day of school, there were suitcases and boxes everywhere—and she couldn’t sleep.

  Moving Vanessa off her stomach, she got up. It was cold, so she put on an inside-out sweatshirt, and went downstairs. After rummaging around the kitchen, she came up with a ginger ale and some chocolate chip cookies Trudy had helped Steven and Neal make—which were large, misshapen, and delicious. Taking three, she wandered to the den to see what late-night movies might be on, and fumbled for the light switch.

  “Before I scare you, I’m here,” someone said, and Meg jumped, spilling part of her soda.

  “How come the light’s off?” she asked, trying to sound as if she hadn’t been startled at all.

  “I don’t know.” Her mother’s voice was sad. “I was thinking.”

  “Oh.” Meg squinted, barely able to see her in the dark, other than the tall outline of a figure sitting on the couch. Was she crying, maybe? She had never seen her mother cry, except for once when she was little. Cry from laughing, maybe, but that was all. “Should I leave?”

  “No, sit down,” her mother said.

  “Should I turn on the light?” Meg asked.

  “I guess so,” her mother said.

  Meg flipped the switch, her mother blinking in the brightness. There was a half-empty glass of dark amber liquid on the coffee table, with a crumpled napkin beside it.

  Maybe her mother had been crying. Why else would the napkin be crumpled? Unless she had a cold. If she had a cold, it made sense. Was she sniffling, maybe? Except, crying might have made her sniffle, too. Meg frowned.

  “You don’t have to look like that.” Her mother sounded very defensive. “My God, I just felt like having a drink.”

  “I wasn’t—” Meg stopped. What was she going to say, that she had been studying the napkin to see if she had been crying? Maybe it would be better to have her mother think that she was pushing temperance. “Um, are you upset?”

  “I guess, a little,” her mother said, her eyes far away.

  “Well, is it like, something we did?” Meg asked.

  “What?” Her mother glanced away from whatever she was seeing. “No. No, it isn’t.”

  “Oh.” Meg shifted on the armchair. “Well, are you worried about your speech and everything?”

  “No. I mean, I suppose so, but no.” Her mother also moved restlessly, one hand sliding up to massage the back of her neck. Then, she brought the hand down, folding it around the napkin.

  That meant that she had been crying. Meg frowned again, wondering what she looked like when she cried. The other time, she had been kind of small and hunched over.

  “Actually,” her mother looked at the napkin now, “today was my father’s birthday, and I guess I’ve been depressed.”

  It was? Meg hadn’t known that. Her father should have said something. She thought for a second. Only, maybe he had. At breakfast, he had been talking about them being extra-nice to her mother, and Meg had nodded, tuning him out, worrying about having to start saying good-bye to people at school. But, maybe that’s why Steven and Neal had behaved so well, because she couldn’t remember hearing any fights at all—which almost never happened.

  “He would have been—sixty-nine?” she asked awkwardly.

  “Seventy,” her mother said, somewhat sharply.

  Neither of them spoke for a minute.

  “Oh, I’m okay.” Her mother was brisk now. “I mean, it’s been almost six years. I’m fine.” Part of her mouth smiled, her eyes staying dark. “I’m lying, of course.”

  “He, uh, he would have been really proud,” Meg said.

  “I know.” Her mother picked up her glass, holding it in both hands. She looked over. “It makes me feel alone.”

  “Well,” Meg twisted in her chair, “you have us.”

  “Thank God.” Her mother sipped her drink, and Meg remembered that her grandfather had always had scotch at night—expensive scotch. “It made me think of my mother, too,” she said quietly.

  Meg immediately pictured the framed photo on her mother’s dresser of a thin, beautiful woman in her mid-twenties, holding hands with a little girl with dark braids and a very sweet smile. “What was she like?”

  “It’s ha
rd to say how much I remember, and how much my father and everyone else told me. After all,” her mother tilted her glass, rolling the scotch around, “I was even younger than Neal.”

  Meg nodded, wondering with a sudden cold shudder what it would be like to have her mother die, to be missing that huge part of her life. She looked up, relieved to see her mother’s chest moving with light regularity, her face healthy and alive, not frozen in a photograph.

  “What was it like?” she asked tentatively.

  Her mother glanced over. “What?”

  “Not—” Meg hesitated. “Not having a mother.”

  Her mother’s laugh was bitter. “I wouldn’t think you’d have to ask.”

  Damn it, she should have seen that one coming. “But,” Meg said, “you—”

  “It’s been the same thing, hasn’t it?” Her mother took a very large sip of the scotch. “I haven’t been here when you’ve needed me, I haven’t been here when you’ve wanted me, I haven’t been here for any of you.” She put the glass down with a slightly clumsy movement, and it occurred to Meg that maybe it wasn’t the first one she’d had. “Now, we’re going to Washington, and it’s going to be—you’re all going to end up wishing—” She shook her head, and picked the glass back up.

  Meg shook her head. “No, we’re not—”

  “Don’t say things because you feel as though you have to, okay? You’ve got every right to feel lousy about me, I’ve certainly never—” She took a sip that was more like a gulp. “Don’t ever be alone. Alone is lousy.”

  “But, you’re not alone,” Meg said.

  “I could be.” Her mother finished the drink. “You all might—” She stopped, stared at the empty glass, then put it down with a dull clink. “Well, I guess we’ve got self-pity talking here. Or, as Humphrey Bogart would say, maybe it’s the bourbon. They’re a lot alike.”

  “I thought you were coming right up.” Meg’s father was unexpectedly in the doorway. Then, he noticed Meg. “Terrific, a whole family of insomniacs. How about we all go get some sleep?”

  Meg jumped out of her chair, very relieved to see him. She saw her mother hesitate, not getting up. Maybe she was afraid she would look drunk, and didn’t want her to see. Meg decided to make it easy and leave.