A genuine offer, or was she fishing for something? Trying to curry favor? Meg frowned. “No, I—” Christ, she was just trying to be nice. Hospitable. Neighborly, even. “Thanks, but I’m all set.”
“Okay.” Susan straightened up, her hands going into her pockets again. “It’s none of my business, but do they bother you? The press, I mean. Or are you used to it?”
Meg shrugged. “Both, I guess.”
“You have to wonder,” Susan said, sounding almost as though she were talking to herself, “about the kind of person who would want to do that for a living. There’s something very—savage—about it.”
“I guess Woodward and Bernstein went to everyone’s heads, back in the day,” Meg said, grimly. “And, hey, the whole world wants to be famous, right?” God only knew why.
Susan nodded, looking preoccupied. “Seems that way, yeah.”
Hmmm. There was something else going on here, but Meg couldn’t figure out what it was.
“Anyway,” Susan said. “Anything you want to ask? Or, I don’t know? Talk about?”
It must suck to have to serve as an officially designated friend. “Are people going to hate me?” Meg asked, taking a guess about what might be bothering her—and was probably infuriating Mary Elizabeth. “Because of all the reporters and the disruption and everything?”
Susan shook her head. “Some of them have preconceptions, that’s all. About what you’re going to be like.”
Status quo, then. “Do you?” Meg asked.
Susan blushed. “Yeah. But I’m trying to rise above them.”
Okay. That was honest. She might as well be equally direct. “Am I living up to the preconceptions?” Meg asked.
“Well—my father would say you’re a cool customer,” Susan said.
Ouch. Meg narrowed her eyes. “What would he mean by that, exactly?”
Susan considered that. “I’m not really sure, when you get right down to it.”
Still, it probably wasn’t praise. “He seems really nice.” Meg glanced at the hallway to make sure no one was out there within listening distance. “But what about Dirk? Does he always make you do all of the work?”
Susan smiled, and Meg suddenly wondered if she seemed familiar because she had something of a political smile, which didn’t always make it up to her eyes. “Truth?” she asked.
Well, that wasn’t exactly a political strategy. Meg nodded, uneasily.
“He was sort of intimidated, because you look even more like her in person,” Susan said. “And he’s shy sometimes, anyway.”
An odd trait in a JA, but okay. And she wasn’t so damn sure she looked that much like her mother, either. Certainly, she hadn’t inherited the sense of style, or the élan.
The techno-rock stopped playing, and Juliana replaced it with a monotonous dance mix.
“She’s happy to turn it down, if you ask,” Susan said. “I mean, if it drives you crazy.”
Meg shrugged. “My brother listens to rap and heavy metal most of the time—this seems pretty benign.” Often, for multiple stereo effect, Steven would play the same song that was also being shown on MTV, both at top volume. When he couldn’t get them synchronized right, which was almost always the case, it was very irritating. Especially to her father.
“Well, if it bothers you, don’t be shy about telling her,” Susan said. “Juliana is impossible to offend.”
Suggesting that someone—or maybe, many someones—had tried. Meg nodded.
It was quiet.
“Are you a breakfast person?” Susan asked.
Meg shook her head. Never had been, never would be.
“Well—I’m not, either,” Susan said. “But if you’re up, and looking for someone to go with, come down and knock on my door.”
An extremely unlikely scenario. Except, she hated that god-damn word. The guy had used it—“Worst scenario, I start liking you,” the night they got drunk together—and ever since then, hearing it, or even thinking it, was—“Great,” Meg said. “If I’m up, I’ll do that. Thanks.”
Susan must have picked up on the tension in her voice, because she retreated towards the door. “Okay, good. I’ll, uh, maybe I’ll see you later, then.”
Meg nodded, aware that her face had started perspiring, and trying to repress the massive wave of fear she had just inflicted upon herself.
After Susan had—rather hastily—left, she stuck it out for another couple of hours, aimlessly unpacking and icing her knee and hand, until it seemed late enough for her to get away with turning her light off for the night. She felt shy about venturing out to the bathroom, especially since everyone else seemed to have visitors wandering in and out of their rooms, and to be having fun being back at school.
She was so tired that her toothbrush felt heavy. She’d stuck her tiny stash of remaining prescription painkillers in her knapsack, and she popped one while she was in the bathroom, hoping to hell that it was going to work. Quickly. She might have been lonely at home, but Christ, at least she’d had something resembling privacy.
Making her way over to the door was improbably exhausting, and she kept her eyes down, not wanting to have to talk to anyone, or—worse—meet anyone new.
Tammy was on her way in, but she stopped to look at her. “Are you all right?”
Did she fucking look all right? She wanted to be alone. She wanted to be home. “I’m fine, thank you,” Meg said, and limped past her, having to use the wall as a guide, since she hadn’t had enough energy to bring her cane along.
“D-do you need help?” Tammy asked.
“No. Thanks,” Meg said, went into her room, and closed the door. Almost slammed it.
This stupid place was unbelievably noisy. She was surrounded by strangers. Everything hurt like hell. And if she were home, she would—absolutely, positively, without any doubt—be sobbing right now.
* * *
SHE LAY IN the dark, trying to sleep, for a very long time. Missing her family. Missing her cat. Even in its new position, she hated this bed. It felt—horribly familiar. The frame, the not very good mattress, the slightly dusty smell, all of it. When they had been on the phone, her mother had suggested that they arrange to have a new replacement bed delivered, and she wanted to say yes, but was afraid it would make her seem too much like the damn Princess and the Pea to the rest of the dorm. No point in measuring up to their worst expectations, if she could avoid it.
Trudy’s quilt, at least, was familiar in a good way, and she pulled it closer. The room seemed musty, and she didn’t like its shape, or the bare walls, or the way light came in underneath the door and at the edges of the extra-heavy—probably bullet-resistant—window shades. She was cold. Scared. She wanted Vanessa.
Finally, she was starting to doze off, when she heard low male laughter, very close to her door. She stiffened, feeling around for anything nearby that she could use as a weapon, trying to remember exactly where the new panic button was. Oh, God. Oh, God, he was here. Somehow, he had found out exactly where she was—probably just by turning on the damn television, and—a female voice was saying something now, and she realized that it was only Juliana and Mark saying good-night.
Okay. Okay. There were agents—and reporters—all over the place, and odds were, no one was coming up here to kill her. Not tonight, anyway.
She tensed and released her muscles, trying to relax. To go back to sleep. Not to cry nervous reaction tears.
And, at all three of these things, she was only modestly successful.
She had even more nightmares than she would have predicted in a moment of profound pessimism, and at one point, woke up crying very hard, sitting straight up in bed, putting much too much weight on her splint, and as she slowly figured out where she was—and wasn’t—she hoped to hell that she hadn’t screamed. Or, if she had, that no one had heard her.
Around daybreak, she gave up on sleep completely, and lay there, staring at the ceiling, the smoke detector, the ugly round light, and the empty walls, swallowing another pain pill dry—which made
her miss the dependable pitchers of ice water she normally found on her bedside table. Here, she didn’t even have a bedside table.
There was juice and milk and soda crammed into her little refrigerator, but she felt too sluggish and tired to give any serious consideration to dragging herself over to get a drink. So, she pressed her good arm across her face, to make the room seem darker, and to try and prevent herself from doing any more crying. As it was, she was going to be attending her first classes, and meeting her advisor—and dealing with the god-damn media—with red, swollen eyes, making the reality of her long, sleepless night, and pathetic loneliness, all the more obvious.
She stayed in bed until almost seven o’clock, then decided she might as well get up. The doctors had molded her a new waterproof plastic brace, complete with drainage holes, so she could take showers more easily now, but it was still a slow and painful ordeal, every single time. Not that the shower bench in the handicapped stall had much appeal, either.
The thing to do, was go out and make sure the bathroom was free. Her knee was very stiff, and her left hip was aching for some reason, too. All of those damned stairs, probably. When he saw her, Jose, the agent on duty in the security room, straightened up behind his desk, and they exchanged good mornings. Then, she established that the bathroom was empty, and hurried back to her room to get soap and shampoo and all.
She wasn’t sure what people wore to the shower in college. In movies, they always seemed to have on flip-flops and artfully-draped towels. Her terry-cloth bathrobe would have to do. Her family had never been inclined to wander about casually in pajamas, forget towels. As a rule, they all liked to be dressed. Even in Chestnut Hill, with no witnesses around, they had generally been somewhat formal. And she hated slippers, so she always used an old pair of Top-Siders, instead.
As she limped back out to the hall, she ran into Mary Elizabeth, who was carrying a large towel and wearing a red corduroy bathrobe. They stopped, and looked at each other.
Meg took a step back, and had to catch herself against the wall, when her left foot refused to cooperate. “Uh, sorry. I mean, I don’t know how it works.”
“We take turns,” Mary Elizabeth said, “how do you think it works?”
Yeah, she maybe should have figured out that one on her own. But this girl was certainly going out of her way to piss her off, wasn’t she. “Sorry. Just trying to be polite.” Meg turned to go into her room. On the other hand. She turned back. “Am I wrong, or do you seem to have a problem with me?”
Mary Elizabeth scowled. “I don’t have a problem.”
Right. “Good,” Meg said. “Hope we keep it that way.” Maybe her parents hated her mother or something.
Mary Elizabeth’s scowl eased into—a mere frown. “Look. There are two showers in there, it’s not like—”
Meg shook her head. “No, it’s okay, I’ll wait until later. I need to make a phone call, anyway.” Yeah, right. At seven-fifteen.
It wasn’t a very relaxing way to start the morning, and if her father had known that she was skipping breakfast, too, he would have said that that was no way to improve her day. A gaggle of reporters met her on her way to her political science class, but Ginette had come over from the Inn to deal with them, and her agents were working with the local and campus police to force them off campus property to whatever degree possible. Meg kept to herself, saying nothing more than a friendly “Good morning, nice to see you,” while moving past them.
The class had about thirty people, all of whom seemed edgy—including the professor—about having her spend the next semester in a room where the Presidency was going to be discussed, and quite probably criticized, on a regular basis. She took a seat in the back of the room, and spent most of the class period wondering if she should drop the course, and take something else—except that she wanted to study political science, and hell, she was paying tuition, too. Or, at any rate, her parents were paying it.
So she just sat quietly and read the syllabus and took detailed notes—in a brand-new purple Williams College notebook someone on the advance team had purchased. They had to write their names, local phone numbers, and email addresses on the class roster sheet, and she left her phone number blank, because she couldn’t actually remember which one she was supposed to use for things like that. When she passed the roster along, the people next to her noticed that she hadn’t filled that section out, and exchanged glances, which might have been a sign of disapproval, or might just have been curiosity.
Once the class ended, she went to meet with her academic advisor, who was a literature professor, with a special interest in women’s studies. Dr. Nyler was rather entertainingly gender-obsessed, and very disappointed that she hadn’t signed up for any feminist courses, because she was sure Meg would have many fascinating insights to contribute.
Oh, no doubt.
It was barely eleven o’clock, and she wasn’t sure she could make it any longer without lying down for a while, but she had to go to her Philosophy class, which was small enough to sit at a seminar table. To her horror, the professor went around the room, asking them each to say their names, where they were from, and tell a little about themselves.
When it was her turn, she just said that her name was Meg, she was from the Boston area, originally, and that she was a freshman. The professor, who seemed sweet, if a tad addled, nodded encouragingly, as though she might be inclined to share more, but Meg sat back and motioned for the guy next to her to go ahead and introduce himself.
One of her agents was in a chair in the far corner—in high school, they had always stayed outside in the corridor, or down in the command center—and the professor pretty much proved that he was a flake, when he turned towards him with an expectant look on his face, after everyone else had spoken. Her agent looked panic-stricken for a second—which she found funny, and also, alarming—and then said that his name was Brian, and he was from Washington, DC. “Splendid, splendid,” the professor said, and began to hand out syllabuses. Brian must have wanted to avoid trouble, or long explanations, because he accepted one without a word, folding the paper neatly and sticking it in his pocket.
After that, she had to spend some time in the Dean’s Office, being welcomed by a steady stream of college administrators and faculty members, and then sitting in an empty room to fumble her way through the requisite Quantitative Studies exam.
She hadn’t had anything close to a full meal since that last dinner back at the White House, so she knew she had to force herself to go to the dining hall and get some lunch, even though she had no appetite at all. The student center, which was right near her dorm, was supposed to serve food, but she was too shy to go in there by herself, so she made the slow, snowy trek down to Mission, instead.
The place was mobbed, and without the buffer of a kindly JA and three reluctant hallmates, she almost left. Today, at least, she did have her sunglasses, and she kept them on as she waited in line. Made it a little hard to see but that seemed like a minor price to pay.
A few people said hello to her, and she nodded in response. It seemed—opportunistic. Or, possibly, friendly.
Her stomach hurt so much that she didn’t feel safe taking anything more than a cup of mushroom barley soup and some crackers and a Coke—part of which she spilled as she made her way to an empty table. Brian sat there, too, with a cup of coffee, for which she felt pitifully grateful. Not that they were apt to have much of a conversation, but it was still a nice gesture. Hard to tell, at this point, if she was setting the tone, or if it was mutual.
“Pretty cold out there,” she said, after a couple of silent minutes.
Brian nodded. “Sure is.”
“I hear you’re from Washington,” she said, and he smiled, but didn’t respond any further.
So much for that. Meg started eating her soup, the spoon wavering in her hand. She could feel that her shoulders were hunched—and likely to remain so—and wondered if everyone in the crowded room was staring at her. Surely not. But, it defi
nitely felt that way.
So far, it seemed pretty clear that deciding she was ready to go away to college by herself had been one hell of a mistake.
15
TWO SPOONFULS OF the soup were enough to make her feel so sick that she decided to give up and retreat to the dorm for the rest of the day. People would notice that she had rushed out, alone, after only about five minutes—but, it was preferable to the dreaded notion of vomiting in public.
“Hi!” a very happy voice said. “Can I sit here?”
Juliana. Who put her tray down before Meg had a chance to say anything.
“Can my friends sit here, too?” she asked, and turned to summon them without waiting for an answer.
Mark and two other guys carried their trays over, boisterously selecting seats. The friends were scruffy in the same way Mark was—ripped jeans, flapping unlaced hiking boots, flannel shirts, shapeless old sweatshirts, wispy attempts at mustaches, and—in one guy’s case—an actual full beard.
“This is Simon,” Juliana indicated the guy with the beard, “and this is Harry,” she pointed at the one who had only managed a thin mustache and a small patch of hair below his lower lip.
“Skipper,” Simon corrected her. “Everyone calls me Skipper.”
Mark laughed. “You wish everyone called you Skipper.”
Simon looked at Meg. He was a brawny guy, with lots of bushy brown hair. “They do call me that,” he said. “It suits me.”
“Get yourself a little sailor’s hat,” Harry—long narrow face, pale blond hair, and inescapably preppy in spite of his best efforts—said. “And then we’ll see.”
“I crew boats all the time,” Simon insisted. “Every summer.”
Harry nodded, downing one of his three glasses of milk. “Yup. Sailboats galore in Indiana.”
“You know it,” Simon said, and turned to Meg. “Remember, it’s Skipper.”
She nodded, tightening her hand around one of her little packets of saltines. Crushing them, as a matter of fact.
He motioned towards the soup. “That’s all you’re eating?”
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