“You’ll be missing out,” Steven said. “We’re going to take this act on the road.”
Their father stood up. “The sooner, the better.”
“Yeah, see if you get tickets,” Steven grumbled.
When their parents were gone, he stopped slouching, sitting up with his elbows on the table. “What’s with them?” he asked. “They’re pretty cranky tonight.”
“We were pretty bratty,” Meg said.
Steven shook his head. “No way. I thought we were being funny. Funnier than usual, even.”
Neal looked worried. “Are Mom and Dad mad?”
“No.” Meg finished her squash. “Mom just had a bad day”—and, judging from the stream of phone calls and conferences, quite possibly a tough night ahead—“and Dad thinks we gave her a headache. You know how he is.”
“But, is he mad?” Neal asked anxiously.
“I said no, already.” Meg held out her plate. “You want my beets, Steven?”
Steven made a gagging sound.
Meg held the plate under the table. “Want my beets, Kirby?”
Kirby sniffed the cold purple vegetable, then went back to sleep.
“Would any of you like dessert?” Felix asked, coming in to clear the table.
“I’m all set, thanks,” Meg said, carrying her plate to the kitchen, Steven and Neal following suit.
“Do we have any cookies or anything?” Steven asked.
Felix smiled a nice grandfatherly smile. “I’m sure we can find something.”
After hanging out in the kitchen for a while to eat cookies, Meg left to see what her parents were doing. She found her father by the fireplace in the Yellow Oval Room, drinking coffee.
She sat down in a yellow and white antique chair. Louis XIV. Or maybe it was Louis XVI. She wasn’t into furniture. “Where’s Mom?”
“In the Treaty Room,” he said. Which was her upstairs office. “She’s trying to get some work done, so don’t bother her.”
Steven was right; they were unusually cranky tonight. “I wasn’t going to,” Meg said, feeling very defensive. “Why are you in such a bad mood?”
Her father looked annoyed. “I’m not.”
Yeah, right. “Well.” She stood up. “Sorry I came in here.”
“I didn’t say for you to leave,” he said.
Maybe not directly. Meg shrugged, stiffly. “You don’t look too thrilled about me staying, either.”
Her father sighed, then smiled, patting the soft cushion next to him. Meg gave brief consideration to storming out of the room anyway—but then, sat down.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “Your mother and I are just tired.”
Which made her feel very guilty. “I’m sorry we were being jerks at dinner.”
“You weren’t being any jerkier than usual.” He let out his breath. “Your mother has a very high-pressure job.”
“So do you,” Meg said.
“I wouldn’t say there’s a comparison.” He leaned back into the cushions, staring up at the ceiling.
Out of all of them, he complained the least—but had probably been affected the most by her mother winning the election. “Do you hate it here?” she asked.
He turned his head just enough to look at her. “‘Hate’ is a rather strong word.”
Okay. “Do you intensely dislike it here?” she asked.
He laughed, reaching over to ruffle her hair. “I’m fine. How about you? Preston said they gave you a pretty rough time.”
She nodded.
“He also thought that you handled it like a pro,” he said.
Albeit, an Amish pro. Meg shrugged, looking at the small fire in the fireplace.
It was silent for a long minute, her father seemingly deep in his own thoughts.
“I worry about you,” he said. “You’re—very hard to shelter.”
As far as she was concerned, that was one of the best things about being a senior, and with college looming in the very near future, she was starting to have moments here and there when she felt a genuine—if fleeting—sense of autonomy. Which she liked. A lot. She looked up at him. “Dad, I’m seventeen. I don’t need sheltering.”
“I just don’t want to see you change,” he said quietly.
She tilted her head, confused. “What, you mean, grow up?”
“I don’t want to see you turn into a politician,” he said.
All she did was read about politics—and, admittedly, watch C-Span and CNN and all. Still, that didn’t make it a vocation. “You married one,” she said uneasily.
He nodded, looking in the direction of the Treaty Room.
Oh, no. “Are you guys having a fight?” Meg asked. She hated it when her parents argued. They almost never did it in front of anyone, but there would be taut antagonism in the air, buried anger which made her feel as if she were in an invisible maze where she couldn’t bump into any of the walls or open any of the doors.
“No, I just—I don’t know.” He picked up his coffee cup, drinking some. “They don’t have any bright ideas about putting you on the cover, do they?”
Jesus, she hoped not. “I don’t know,” she said.
He nodded. “Good. Your mother and I wouldn’t permit that.”
Meg grinned. “Because I’m too ugly?”
“Well, that, too,” he said, putting an affectionate arm around her shoulders.
That meant that he thought it would be dangerous to have her on the cover. She folded her arms across her stomach, concentrating on not remembering the week she had been confined to the White House.
The Treaty Room was just next door to the Yellow Oval Room, and she knew her mother would be in there sitting behind the walnut table, right hand clenched around a silver pen, telephone balanced on her shoulder, papers everywhere. Maybe switching from her contact lenses to her glasses, while she waited for the ibuprofen to work on her headache. The headache Meg and Steven and Neal had given her.
“Thinking great thoughts?” her father asked.
Not by a long shot. In fact, she was starting to get a little headache herself. She looked at the connecting door leading to the Treaty Room—which was tightly closed, and actually rarely used; her mother almost always went in there through the Stair Landing entrance. “Does she like being the President?”
Her father nodded. “Most of the time. In fact, I think she’s a little surprised by how much she likes it.”
On good days, in fact, she practically seemed to glow. “What about you, though?” Meg asked. “Do you wish she wasn’t?”
“That would be like wishing she were a different person,” he said.
“Which she decided to take as a no.
Now, he looked at the closed door, which was painted pale yellow, to blend in with the wall. “Hard to share her with the rest of the country,” he said.
Extremely hard.
“But, I think it’s worth it,” he said. “Don’t you?”
Personally, her jury was still out on that one. “I guess,” Meg said, without much enthusiasm. The country seemed to be getting a pretty good deal, but it would certainly be a lot less stressful for her family, if her mother were a teacher or a lawyer or something, and they lived quietly in Massachusetts, like regular people.
“Think of your friends, Meg,” her father said. “Every family has situations to which they have to adjust.”
Meg considered that. Josh’s parents were divorced, and so were Beth’s. Nathan’s little brother was autistic, Alison’s mother had recently been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis—yeah, every family definitely had challenges. Her family just had—an unusual one.
“Is Josh coming over tonight?” her father asked.
She nodded. “Yeah. We’re going to study.” Maybe.
He looked at her curiously. “He’s certainly over here a lot these days. How are things going with him?”
“Good. I mean—” She searched for a better way to phrase it. “He’s my best friend here.” Which maybe wasn’t very romantic, but
was the truth.
Her father nodded. “That’s the way it should be.”
“Is it with you and Mom?” she asked.
“Absolutely,” he said.
JOSH SHOWED UP a little before nine, and they went to the West Sitting Hall, because her parents were pretty strict about them not being alone in her bedroom together. A rule they had been known to break, but not egregiously so.
The West Sitting Hall had a huge, double-arched window that looked out over the West Wing, the Oval Office, and the Old Executive Office Building. Kind of a nice view. It was also one of the only rooms in the Residence with furniture from their house in Massachusetts—the coffee table from their sitting room, the couch and love seat from the living room, various lamps, and even a couple of the plants. It was Meg’s favorite place in the White House, except for the solarium—and, of course, the tennis court outside.
“The interview was okay?” Josh asked.
“Lots of fun,” she said, starting to move her hair back off her shoulders. Then she thought about Steven making fun of her for throwing it around, and lowered her hand.
“When’s it going to run?” he asked.
Good question. “I don’t know. A few weeks, maybe.” Unconsciously, she lifted her right hand to move her hair, saw what she was doing, and frowned at it.
Josh looked at her curiously. “What’s wrong?”
She put her hand down, blushing. “Nothing.”
“What are you so embarrassed about?” He moved the hair back for her. “I think it’s cute when you play with your hair.”
“I don’t play with my hair,” she said.
He grinned.
How could she have a habit that stupid—and not even know about it? “Well, it gets in my eyes,” she said, self-consciously.
“I think it’s cute.” His hand moved from her shoulder to her face. “It’s also sexy,” he said, moving much closer.
“It is, hunh? Hmmm.” She brought her hair forward, then whipped it back with a sweeping gesture. “How sexy?”
“Very sexy,” he said.
“Oh, really?” She tossed it back again.
“Stop it,” he said. “You’re making me crazy.”
She threw her hair back a third time.
“Okay.” He put his glasses on the side table. “You asked for it.”
She grinned at him. “For what?”
He pushed her onto her back, kissing her, both of them laughing.
“I may ask for it more often,” she said.
“Well, let me tell you,” he kissed her, “I’ll—”
“Christ,” Steven said, coming in from the Center Hall. “Is making out all you guys ever do?”
They sat up quickly, Meg straightening her hair, while Josh put his glasses back on.
“You’re lucky I’m not Dad,” Steven said.
“Yeah, well, what do you want?” Meg asked, trying to recover her dignity.
“I just came downstairs. Can’t a guy come downstairs?” He grinned, and sat on the couch between them. “So. How’s it going, Josh?”
“Fine,” Josh said.
Steven put his arm around Meg. “You’ve got yourself a good little woman here. You know that, don’t you?”
She ducked away from his arm. “Steven, will you get out of here?”
“I just want to know his intentions,” Steven said. “Can’t I ask his intentions?”
Meg shook her head. “You can get out of here, that’s what you can do.”
“Well, okay. I’ll leave you two kids alone.” He grabbed Josh’s hand, shaking it firmly. “Come down to the office sometime, boy. We’ll talk.”
“Thank you, sir,” Josh said. “I’ll do that.”
“Good.” Steven nodded several times, starting for his room. “We’ll talk.”
Josh watched him go, walking like an elderly Supreme Court justice. “The kid’s a maniac.”
“The kid’s a pain,” Meg said.
Josh nodded, and she knew he was refraining from saying that he thought the two of them had the exact same sense of humor. They headed up to the solarium to watch television for a while—she was a big one-hour drama person—and then, switched over to the news at eleven, where the top story was about the President, and her response to the most recent flare-up in the Middle East.
“Do you really want to watch this?” Josh asked.
Would it be embarrassing to admit that the answer was yes? “I don’t know. We could just go down and ask her, I guess.” She took off his glasses, putting them on herself. “What do you want to do?”
He removed the glasses, putting them carefully on the nearest table, and then leaned forward.
“We could listen to music,” she said, just as he was about to kiss her.
He stopped, his arms resting on her shoulders. “Do you want to?”
“If you do,” she said.
He kissed her, and slowly, they moved until they were lying on the couch.
“We got a whole new shipment the other day,” she said. The music companies—along with publishing houses, and Hollywood—almost always sent their latest releases to the President and First Family as a matter of courtesy, and there were literally thousands of recent movies and CDs in the White House collection, most of which was stored up here on the third floor. “I could just walk out there and pick out a few—”
Josh kissed her harder.
“Or,” she said, when she got her mouth free, “I could stay right here.”
He nodded. “You could do that.”
“Unless you want to hear some inspirational gospel songs,” she said. “You want to hear some gospel music? Or folk music. I bet I could dig up some really rousing folk music.”
He moved to kiss her neck, and she decided that it would be much more pleasant to remain where she was.
“I’m going to take off my shirt,” he whispered, after a few minutes. “Okay?”
She nodded, not even wanting to let go of him for that long, and he sat up, yanking the t-shirt over his head, then stretching out back on top of her.
Wow. She slid her hands over his shoulders and down his back, feeling the muscles and the warmth of his skin. Wow. Why did she always get excited so quickly? Maybe there was something wrong with her.
His breathing was faster, and Meg could feel and hear herself breathing almost as quickly. Practically panting, in fact. She blushed, embarrassed by the sound, a blush that made her face feel even hotter. His hand was inside her shirt, and she wondered if it was supposed to feel that good, or if there really was something wrong with her. Well, Meg, she could hear the White House doctor, Dr. Brooks, saying, I’m sorry, but it looks like a case of terminal libido. How long do I have, doctor? she would ask, choking back tears. Three months, he would say. Make them good ones.
Josh’s heart was pounding, and she hugged him closer, affection and passion mixing somewhere inside her.
“I wish—” He sighed, resting his head against hers.
“What?” she asked, although she was pretty sure she could guess the answer.
“I don’t know.” He rolled onto his back, bringing her with him. “I wish we could go somewhere where I didn’t have to be scared that the President of the United States was going to walk in.”
Meg laughed. “I’d be more afraid of the First Gentleman.”
“You know what I mean,” he said.
Now, she sighed. “Yeah, I guess.”
“You know what I mean,” he said.
“Yeah.” She turned her head enough to look at him. “If we went anywhere else, my agents would have to be there.” And it wasn’t as though they could be alone over at his house, because if his mother wasn’t home, he was invariably babysitting for his little sister.
Josh nodded, looking very frustrated.
“It’s not my fault,” she said defensively.
“I know it isn’t.” He rested his hand on her face, running his fingers along her cheekbone. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t
apologize,” she said, starting to feel a little testy.
“I’m sorry, I won’t.” He stopped. “I mean—”
She shook her head, amused. “I know what you mean.” She ran her hand across his chest, very much liking the fact that he had hair on it. Not too much; just enough. “If you want, I could tell you some jokes.”
He relaxed, too. “You don’t know any jokes.”
“I know lots of jokes,” she said.
He grinned. “You always say that, but you never tell me any.”
“I’m afraid of offending you,” she said. “Most of them are anti-male, anti-Jewish, anti-musician, and anti-people-with-glasses.”
He nodded. “That kind of cuts me out.”
“Well, yeah,” she said. “So I don’t tell them, because I don’t want to hurt your feelings.”
He kissed her. “Thanks. I appreciate it.”
“If you want,” she moved to a more comfortable position, so her arm wouldn’t fall asleep, “instead of listening to music, I could sing for you.”
“You’re getting in a weird mood,” he said.
Seemed that way, yeah.
He sighed, and then sat up.
“I have these spells,” she said. “It’s because I was born in Salem.”
He reached for his glasses. “You were born in Boston.”
She nodded. “At the State House. My mother was giving a speech.”
“And you finished it, because she was tired,” he said.
She turned to look at him. “I’ve told you this before?”
“Lucky guess,” he said.
They both laughed, and he leaned over to kiss her.
“I should probably go,” he said. “It’s pretty late.”
Yeah. Unfortunately.
After walking him downstairs, and saying a very chaste good-bye, because of the doorman, and the Secret Service agents nearby, Meg went back up to the second floor. She walked down to the kitchen, deciding to get herself a couple of cookies, and maybe some cheese for Vanessa. When she came out, her mother was standing outside the Presidential Bedroom door, holding a cup of coffee.
“Did Josh leave?” she asked.
Meg nodded. “Yeah, a few minutes ago.”
“I would have come out to say good-night, but,” her mother gestured towards her bathrobe. Then, she glanced at her watch. “Does his mother mind him getting home this late on a school night?”
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