“Good morning,” she said, keeping her expression neutral, but affable. Genial, even.
She got a few responses, and a number of nods, back.
“Well. We few, we happy few,” she said, purely for Preston’s benefit.
Standing off to the side, near the entrance to the dining room, he grinned. And most of the reporters looked amused, too.
Would he enjoy it if she recited the entire speech? Probably not. Even if she did it with verve. Or maybe especially if she did it with verve. “I hope everyone’s enjoying the weather up here,” she said.
There were a lot of smiles.
Okay. Time to get down to business. “Obviously, I’m going to miss all of you terribly when you’re gone,” she said, “but I want to thank you in advance for doing whatever you can to help me be as ordinary a college freshman as possible. And I know that my fellow students will appreciate your efforts even more than I do, so I’ll thank you on their behalf, also.” She paused. “I’m starting to hear the siren call of—oh, I don’t know—waffles and coffee, but I’ll take a few questions, first.”
“Can you update us on the status of your knee?” someone she didn’t recognize asked, pointing towards her new brace.
“Well—” at the risk of possibly being too blithe— “I zigged, when I should have zagged,” Meg said.
Most of them laughed.
“Is this going to be a major physical setback for you?” another reporter asked.
Meg shook her head. “No, I think I would characterize it as a blip. Or, at worst, a temporary glitch. I should be right back on track in a couple of weeks.”
They all took notes about this.
“Can you describe your transition from life in the White House to this more secluded college atmosphere?” someone else asked. “Do you feel that you’ve made a smooth adjustment?”
“Absolutely,” Meg said. “As you’ve been able to see during the last couple of days, I fly under the radar to a startling degree. My presence goes almost entirely unremarked.”
Most of them looked amused, and uneasy. Preston, included.
“Which is not to say that I’m looking forward to the prospect of midterms with excitement and joy,” she said.
One of the print people got a gleam in his eyes. “Have you found that your course load is too demanding?”
Few things bored her more than dealing with the humor-challenged. “On the contrary,” Meg said, before Preston could step in. “I’m enjoying being in such an academically-rigorous environment. I feel privileged to be here.” She glanced at Preston, who gave her a quick “wrap it up” twirl of his finger. “And on that note, I think I’d better address my craving for waffles, so that I can go do some studying. But, thank you again, for your consideration, now, and during the rest of my time here.”
They seemed to be hoping for more, but after a little pause, they all started packing up and moving away—to Meg’s extreme relief. Christ, a couple of minutes of banalities, and she was worn out. If she’d been profound, or even interesting, she’d probably have had to go to bed for two or three days in a row.
“That was nice, Meg,” Preston said, once everyone was out of earshot, and motioned towards the fireplace. “Very Masterpiece-Theatre.”
Next time, maybe she’d ask for pledge donations.
“You look exhausted,” he said. “Why don’t I postpone our friend Ms. Goldman?”
Which would be a tremendous relief, but then, it would just hang over her head. Meg sighed. “No, let’s do it now. I’ll just drink a bunch of coffee.”
“How about some actual calories, too,” he said mildly, “okay?”
Right. She’d been making all of those promises about waffles, hadn’t she.
Once the three of them were at their table, several other reporters tried to sit down, too, but Preston rebuffed them, in a very cordial way.
“That’s the stick part?” Meg asked, already halfway through her first cup of coffee.
Preston just grinned.
Hannah seemed to be on her best behavior, drinking coffee and eating an English muffin, but Meg caught a little extra sparkle in her eyes every single time Preston discouraged one of the other journalists from joining them.
“Enjoying this?” Meg asked.
“We’re all professionals,” Hannah said, and then paused. “Well, I guess you aren’t—but that seems like a moot point, most of the time.”
Increasingly, it was beginning to feel like the barest of technicalities.
There wasn’t much conversation as she ate two-thirds of a waffle and a piece of bacon. Judging from his expression, that seemed to be enough calories to appease Preston, for the time being, and she pushed her plate to the side, nodding her thanks at the waitress who rushed over to take it away and refill all of their coffee cups.
“So. What are we going to talk about here?” Hannah asked.
Good question. “I guess I’m going to talk a little about the way my public and private lives have intersected,” Meg said.
Hannah looked at her for a moment, and nodded. “Okay, then,” she said, and opened her notebook.
27
THE INTERVIEW WENT fairly well. At first, they wasted some time going over ground rules and jockeying for position, mainly because Hannah’s editor was so charged up about her coup that he wanted to bump it into the Sunday magazine section as a cover story. Naturally, that also meant that he wanted to set up a photo session with her, which Preston was flatly refusing to consider. The tenor of the conversation indicated that this was a rehash of several previous arguments on the subject.
“It won’t take long,” Hannah said, although her voice lacked conviction. “We’ll just have our guy snap a few shots while she’s in the middle of her everyday activities.”
Preston nodded. “Yes, that’s exactly what the White House wants—published photographs of Meg in habitual, easily identifiable locations.”
Wait, that didn’t sound too good. Meg had been trying to tune out, but now she looked up. “Hey, is even doing an interview risky?”
“No,” Hannah said, sounding a little panicky.
“Not with a reporter who’s willing to accommodate your security situation,” Preston said, “and work with us to ensure your anonymity to whatever degree possible.”
Maybe this wasn’t such a great idea, though. God knows her father hadn’t thought so, but she hadn’t been very receptive about being told what to do.
Just for a change.
“We’re aware of the need for extra care here,” Hannah said, “but surely you can both see that we really need to have something new for the cover.”
Preston nodded. “No doubt, but we’re not signing off on pictures around the campus, or in the dorm, or near the hospital, or anywhere else up here. Just do a montage of file photos, or a representative sketch or something.”
“Looking for a job as our Art Director?” Hannah asked drily.
Meg was going to make a joke about the new Communications Director, but then it crossed her mind that the news might not have leaked yet, and she was damned if she was going to be the one to blow it.
And Preston didn’t actually kick her under the table, but she had the very distinct sense that he had given it some lightning-fast consideration.
They had to go off-the-record more than once, and a few times, Meg just shook her head at a particular question or conversational direction, and they moved on. Preston was almost certainly tempted to step in here and there, but he didn’t—much to her relief.
At one point, she caught herself studying his fruit cup, which looked delicious, but without any other movement, Preston’s eyes made the barest twitch, and she was reminded that eating from his plate—even though it was something she did routinely, or possibly because it was something she did routinely—might suggest a level of intimacy which probably shouldn’t be displayed in front of a hyperalert reporter.
Not to mention her visibly sulking compatriots, who were still watch
ing them.
So, she glanced around until she caught their waitress’s attention—which took approximately three seconds.
“That looks very good,” she said, indicating his dish. “May I have one, too, please?”
Whereupon, despite his utter immobility during all of this, she saw Preston relax.
When they were finally finished with the interview, and shook hands all around before Hannah left, she and Preston stayed at the table with her fourth, and what might well be his fifth or sixth, cup of coffee.
“Thank you for having the sense to order your own fruit salad,” he said.
Meg grinned. “It was very good.”
“Delectable,” he agreed.
“Scrumptious,” she said.
They sat there without talking, Meg wondering if he was as drained as she was.
“Is that how you really feel about the way your mother handled things, or were you doing some Presidential image rehabilitation?” he asked.
Meg shrugged. “Both.”
He nodded slowly.
“Are you as angry at her as my father is?” she asked.
“I actually thought you were the only person in the world as angry about it as your father is,” he said.
He hadn’t answered her question, but she shook her head.
“Okay,” he said. “I didn’t know that. I mean, in some ways, it may make you eligible for canonization—but, good for you.”
Except on very bad days, she could usually allow herself to see that her mother had had absolutely no maneuvering room. “What the hell else was she going to do?” Meg asked. “And at least I don’t have to feel awful knowing that some of the country’s future was mortgaged just so I’d have a chance to walk around still breathing.”
He nodded, looking at her with unnerving concentration.
“Besides,” Meg said, “I didn’t say I wasn’t a little steamed at her.”
Preston grinned. “You could go as high as ‘pretty god-damned steamed,’ and I still wouldn’t fault you.”
Most of the time, that just about fit the bill, too. Meg added some more milk to her coffee. “I’m worried about them. My parents, I mean.”
“They’re worried about you,” he said.
Meg shook her head. “You know that’s not what I mean.”
“Their marriage is unusually impenetrable, Meg,” he said, “but I think we can both agree that your father loves all four of you fiercely.”
So fiercely that it sometimes got in his way. Got in everyone’s way, for that matter. Whether her parents could survive each other was an open question, but indeed, she had little doubt that they loved each other.
Preston leaned forward, folding his arms on the table. “My sense is that you have a visceral understanding of why she did what she did.”
In other words, that she would have been capable of making the same untenable decision herself. “Yeah,” Meg said. “Although I wish like hell I didn’t.” It made her—dangerous. The world could be ugly and complicated, and probably needed to have some people like that around, but she didn’t want to be one of them.
Then again, she was quite possibly sitting with one of the others.
She met his gaze. “And I kind of think you understand it, too.”
He nodded, and neither of them spoke for a couple of minutes.
“Is that why I remind you of him?” he asked.
Yes. “It’s part of it, yeah,” she said.
He looked so devastated that she immediately wished she hadn’t told the truth.
“There were—” Christ, how was she ever going to explain it? Especially when she hadn’t completely figured it out herself yet. “I don’t know. Similar dynamics at work.”
He nodded, unhappily.
The guy had been brilliant, and funny, and charming, and—even though it was inappropriate, and they didn’t act upon it, she was almost positive that they had been wildly attracted to each other.
Which was probably more honesty than either she or Preston could handle this morning.
“It might have kept me alive,” she said.
He looked up.
She had never quite thought of it this way, but— “Maybe I projected you onto him,” she said, “as a way to make myself feel brave enough to be able to have conversations, and treat him like a normal person. And because of that, maybe he ended up seeing me as a human being, too, and killing me became a less appealing option.”
“Or, you might just have been brave,” Preston said very quietly.
Meg shook her head. “I was terrified.” To the point of tears, a time or two, which had been mortifying. “Hell, I’m still terrified.”
“But, here you are,” he said.
More or less. “He enjoyed watching me be in pain. Like I was some kind of really fun science project.” To torment, and maim, and study. “And inflicting it was even more fun for him.” She glanced over. “Yesterday, in the hospital, you were so upset, you had trouble sitting still, or even talking to me.”
Now, he looked worried. “I left you alone too much. I should have—”
“Preston, you couldn’t watch, because you’re thoughtful and empathetic, and you knew that there wasn’t anything you could do to help me,” she said. “You’re nothing like him. You never will be.”
He sighed. “God, I hope not, Meg. It would make me absolutely sick if I were.”
It would make her pretty sick, too. “You know, I don’t think you’ve called me ‘kid’ once the entire time you’ve been up here,” she said. Not for months, now that she thought about it.
“No, I don’t suppose I have.” He sighed again. “It doesn’t seem to suit you anymore.”
Probably not. She looked down at her splint, and the metal pins protruding through her skin. “I’m pretty sure the kid died in the woods. And now you’re all stuck with the fucked-up adult who came back in her place.”
He smiled, and touched her splint for a second. “I don’t think you’re ever going to hear anyone complaining about having you home again. And—the adult turns out to be very compelling, so you’re safe there, too.”
Christ, he really was a lovely man. “How bad was it?” she asked. “When I was gone, I mean.”
He ran his hand across his hair, which he always kept shaved very close to his head, before answering. “It was a complete nightmare. Your father was practically insane the entire time, and your mother was so calm and silent that, for a while there, I was genuinely starting to think that she was insane.”
It was both hard, and easy, to picture those two reactions.
“As far as I know, she never cried. Not even once. She exploded a couple of times, but she never—I mean, it was—” He stopped. “Do you really need to know any of this?”
Yes. “It seemed like she cried for about a day and a half straight when I got to the hospital,” Meg said. That is, when they were alone together; not in front of the general public.
He nodded. “I think people were relieved that she did. Before that, it was as though she was some kind of—” He broke off. “But then, you’d see her walk, or reach for something, and she moved so slowly and carefully that you knew she was in such bad shape that she wasn’t sure if her hands and feet were going to work properly.”
Often, there was still something of a deliberate quality to her mother’s movements these days. Slightly stilted, and maybe half a beat late. “But, she ran the country,” Meg said.
Preston nodded. “Aggressively. Kruger—” who was the Vice President— “was great, though. Never tried to push her aside, or overstep his bounds, but he was right there with her the whole time, and she was cognizant enough not to sign off on anything without getting a feel for whether it was a rational decision, first. The whole staff was terrific, but no one in the country’s ever going to know how absolutely staunch Hank Kruger was.”
Probably not, since Meg hadn’t even known. She didn’t run into the Vice President very often—other than in the Center Hall, somet
imes, after her mother’s kitchen cabinet meetings—but whenever she did, Mr. Kruger had always struck her as being a very considerate Southern gentleman, who never failed to stop, and smile, and ask how she was. “What about my brothers?”
“Almost as quiet as your mother, although Neal was—well, fragile would be the right word, I guess,” Preston said. “Mainly, we just tried to keep them busy—played a lot of cards, turned on the Red Sox whenever there was a game, made sure they ate and slept on schedule, that kind of thing.”
Meg nodded. “You and Dad, you mean.”
He avoided her eyes. “Well, I guess I meant me, mostly. Felix, and a few of the others. And, of course, Trudy, before she had to fly back for Jimmy’s operation.”
Trudy’s son had had a long-scheduled and, fortunately, successful kidney transplant right around then. Some of her parents’ friends must have been around during the whole thing, but even if they were—especially if her father was pretty much out of commission—her brothers would have been inclined to depend on Preston. “Thirteen days is a long time,” she said.
Preston laughed the same nervous laugh they all laughed whenever that basic reality was mentioned. “Very long.”
It had been June when she got back, and now it was March. Summer, fall, winter, and the beginning of spring. “I guess I’d pretty much be a skeleton by now,” Meg said.
Preston actually closed his eyes.
A thought that it might have been better to keep to herself. Meg looked down at her good hand. Thin, yeah, but unmistakably healthy and alive. Bones she could see when she moved her fingers, or clenched her fist, but all safely covered by skin and muscle and tendons and veins. “Except that I don’t think they ever would have found me,” she said. Nailed into that mine-shaft in the middle of nowhere, the whole area having been abandoned and condemned years before. The son-of-a-bitch had chosen his location well. “I just would have been—gone.”
Preston nodded, also looking at her hand. Both of her hands.
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