Some of them laughed; some of them—including Hannah—heard her non-denial.
“Is it true?” Meg asked, and glanced towards the perfect green of the South Lawn. “About the locusts?”
A few more people laughed.
“How about your new boyfriend?” someone else asked.
Christ, she hadn’t even really told her parents about Jack yet, beyond mentioning that a guy in her psychology class seemed to be kind of nice. “Which one?” she asked. “I have to keep checking the tabloids to get their names straight.” Then she smiled, gave them a nod, and limped towards the entrance.
Her father had handed Neal her computer to carry, and she closed her eyes, knowing quite well that he was going to be uncoordinated enough to bang it into the side of the door as they went inside the Diplomatic Reception Room—which he promptly did.
“Why don’t we head upstairs, and you can take it easy for a while,” her father suggested, once they were in the Ground Floor Corridor.
God, that sounded good, especially knowing that Vanessa was up there. “I should probably, you know, go say hi, first,” Meg said, and gestured towards the West Wing.
She was afraid he might argue, but he just nodded.
“We’ll see you in a few minutes, then,” he said.
She watched, as Neal banged her laptop into the side of the elevator as they got on. He would probably smash it two or three more times before getting to her room.
“The case looks pretty well-padded,” Maureen said.
Meg nodded, although she had visions of her hard drive being utterly jumbled the next time she turned it on.
One of the military nurses, whose name she couldn’t remember, had come out of the Medical Office area, and since she really didn’t feel like having another god-damn checkup, Meg smiled pleasantly, but shook her head, and the nurse went back into the office.
“We haven’t really talked about it yet,” Maureen said, “but I think you prefer to be left alone to deal with the press, and not have anyone step in, unless you can’t avoid it?”
Very much so. Meg nodded, and Maureen nodded back, and withdrew as discreetly as the nurse had.
As she made her slow way down towards the West Wing and out onto the colonnade, people seemed pleased—even ecstatic—to see her, and while she didn’t have the energy to be effusive in return, she made a point of being cheerful and responsive, complimenting the two gardeners she passed about how beautiful the flowers looked, and that sort of thing.
Christ, when was the last time she’d been in the Oval Office? Jesus, months. Almost a year. The same way Neal always went straight to her father’s East Wing office, and then over to see their mother when he got home from school every day, she had also usually made a habit of stopping by both places, if her parents were around, when she was on her way out to play tennis.
In fact, she now distinctly remembered walking—damn, walking—in there the day before she got kidnapped, lugging her tennis bag, before going out and—lucky for her—winning what had turned out to be the last match she was ever going to play.
She let Garth open one of the doors just off the Rose Garden, so she could give her full attention to negotiating the small steps leading up to it, and the various secretaries and aides in the outer office—as well as the Director of the OMB, who was either on his way into, or out of, a meeting with the President, and a policy undersecretary she recognized from C-Span—all looked over and smiled at her. She only knew some of them, but it was comforting to see Mrs. Berger, who had been her mother’s personal secretary since she was first elected to the Senate—and so, had known her since she was about five.
“Welcome home, Meg,” Mrs. Berger said, and stood up to give her a hug. “It’s wonderful to see you.”
Meg nodded, giving her a stiff, incompetent, one-armed hug in return. “Thank you. You, too.” For some reason, she suddenly felt very nervous, and she clenched her hand around her cane. “I, um, I guess I haven’t been over here—for a pretty long time.”
“Well, we’ve missed you,” Mrs. Berger said.
“Thank you.” Meg glanced around the room, trying to put the image of herself, cocky and cheerful in tennis clothes, out of her mind. Back when she could still swagger. When her hands didn’t shake. When she wasn’t uneasy about the prospect of saying hello to her own mother on a sunny March afternoon. “Um, how busy is she?”
Mrs. Berger glanced automatically at the appointment schedule on the desk. “I’m sure they’re winding down. You can go right in, Meg.”
Meg hesitated. That meant that she was still in a meeting, and the idea of interrupting was—
Mrs. Berger winked at her. “She’s been waiting for hours. If you value my job security, you’ll go in there.”
Okay, that must mean that her mother wanted to see her right away, no matter what else she was doing. She swallowed, nodded, and then moved forward as a military aide held one of the doors leading into the Oval Office for her.
Her mother looked up from her desk, where she was sitting with her arms folded and frowning slightly at Senator Malone, the Majority Leader, and a huge smile spread across her face. She was across the room in about two seconds, hugging her before Meg even had a chance to say hello.
“I am not that thin,” Meg said against her shoulder.
“Actually, you are,” her mother whispered back, “but we don’t have to argue about it right now.”
Shades of the old days, maybe, when bickering had kind of been a way of life for them. And, all things considered, her mother was pretty damn thin, too—and really didn’t have much right to criticize.
Senator Malone came over to shake her hand—her right hand—and Meg leaned her cane against the back of the couch, then patted his forearm and moved to shake his left hand, instead.
“Oh. Of course,” he said, and shook her left hand smoothly.
They exchanged pleasantries, and it was all very civil, even though she knew—and he knew that she knew—that he and her mother were not exactly the best of friends, and, in fact, could legitimately be described as bitter adversaries.
Regardless, it was obvious that his meeting with the President was over now, and after another minute or two, he politely excused himself.
“That was nice,” her mother said, when he was gone. “You were reassuring and confident, without being provocative.” She pantomimed the hand motions for herself, and nodded. “Very nice, indeed.”
Meg shrugged. It wasn’t as though she’d had the option of avoiding figuring out some sort of strategy for herself. “A lot of people seem to want to shake my hand these days.”
“Well, it’s good,” her mother said. “Keep it in the repertoire.”
Meg wasn’t sure whether to laugh—or to be frustrated by the degree to which her mother was so unerringly pragmatic when she was in Presidential Mode.
Her mother’s personal aide, Frank, glanced into the room, and her mother shook her head firmly. He nodded, stayed in the outer office, and closed the door.
“I’m sorry I wrecked your meeting,” Meg said.
“You saved us,” her mother said. “He didn’t particularly want to be here, any more than I wanted him to be here.”
Old news. She and Senator Malone had been knocking heads for about fifteen years now. Which had probably been less stressful back when he was the Minority Leader.
Her mother hugged her again, much harder. “I’m so glad you’re home. Are you okay?”
Meg nodded.
“How about the knee?” her mother asked.
Her knee sucked. “It hurts a little,” Meg said.
Her mother looked worried and indicated the nearest couch.
She did feel like sitting down, but it would be too hard to relax, knowing how many people were outside the various doors—maybe even staring through the peepholes at this very moment—waiting to see the President. “Do you have a lot going on this afternoon?” Meg asked.
“Ask me if I care,” her mother said.
Okay, but personally, Meg didn’t want to be the reason that the ship of state ran asunder. “Yeah, but I kind of want to go see Vanessa, too.”
Her mother’s eyebrows went up. “You came here first?”
Meg nodded.
Her mother looked very pleased in a shy sort of way, and then she grinned. “But, you had a little internal debate about it, right?”
Yep.
Her mother hugged her again, even more tightly. “I really am glad you’re here.”
She was kind of glad herself.
34
SHE ENDED UP leaving through the side door, and cutting through the private study and dining room, nodding hello to the Navy steward and cook on duty in the tiny kitchen as she passed them.
Her mother’s chief of staff was striding down the hall from his office, but he stopped when he saw her.
“She must be in a better mood now,” he said.
Glen was such a driven, workaholic guy that he was inclined to forget normal social graces. “Hi, Meg,” she said. “Welcome home! You look great.”
He frowned. “You actually look really tired, and like you lost about ten pounds, and she’s going to be worried as hell, and she won’t be able to focus for the rest of the day.”
As far as she knew, Glen never even bothered putting the cap on the bottle of liquid antacid he always kept on his desk. “School’s just super,” Meg said. “Thank you for asking. I’m really, really popular, and things couldn’t be going better.”
She had known Glen for a long time, but she was pretty sure that she had never made him laugh before—and she didn’t manage it this time, either.
“Do you know what it’s like around here when the President’s head isn’t in the game?” he asked. “How hard it is to get anything done?”
Which still shouldn’t preclude his being able to say hello like a regular human being. “Is all that stuff I read in The Post this morning true?” she asked. “About the power-hungry cabal here in the West Wing and over in the OEOB trying to oust you?”
That had him going for a couple of seconds, but then he just shook his head. “I’ll go see if I can get her back on track.”
Typical. The surprise was not that Glen was currently in the process of getting divorced—but that he’d ever taken the time to get married in the first place.
He started down the hall, then paused. “Does it hurt?”
Everything hurt. “Does what hurt?” she asked.
He pointed at her immobilizing brace.
“Oh,” she said, “you mean, the knee I blew out on national television while I was busy swearing at everyone, and driving her approval rating into the ground?”
He nodded.
“Yeah,” she said. “It does.”
“I’m sorry about that,” he said, gruffly, and then continued on his way.
She wanted to go find her cat, but while she was over here, it would be stupid not to stop by and visit the director of communications.
He was on the telephone in his brand-new corner office on the second floor, surrounded by unpacked boxes, taking notes on a legal pad while he squinted at the three televisions across the room, two of them tuned to cable news stations, the third showing the White House closed-circuit feed. He saw her, and held up one finger to indicate that he needed to finish the call.
She sat down in his desk chair to wait, propping her leg up on one of the boxes. There was a large framed photo on his desk, next to a hammer and a picture hangar. She had never seen it before, but Preston looked about sixteen—tall, unbelievably lanky in a tight black turtleneck, his hair much longer than it had ever been during the time that she had known him, wearing a leather cap tilted to one side, shadowing part of his face. He was clearly in his family’s kitchen, because his mother and all four of his sisters were either sitting at the table with him, or standing nearby, with brothers-in-law and nieces and nephews and cousins crowded around, too. It was probably either Thanksgiving or Christmas, because there were pans and casserole dishes and half-full platters on every spare space, and they all looked happy—and somewhat sleepy.
“Like that little slice of Americana?” he asked.
Meg grinned. “Look at you, Mr. Hip.” A veritable beatnik, decades after it was in fashion.
Preston looked sheepish. “I think I read Kerouac and Malcolm X that year.”
And had retained a great deal, it would seem. But now, here he was, in his crisp grey suit, in his West Wing office, juggling national policy and reporting directly to the President of the United States. “Beatrice Fielding’s little boy has come a long way,” she said.
Preston laughed. “That was her precise reaction.”
Seemed like a reasonable response.
“How is it?” he asked, indicating the brace.
She just shook her head, although if she were by herself, she might burst into tears.
“I’m sorry,” he said, and rested a light hand on her shoulder for a second. Then, he picked up the hammer, and carefully pounded the picture hangar into place on a blank space of wall. “You know, a funny thing happened. A few days ago, the President took a last-minute jaunt, which involved a stopover in Philadelphia, and unexpectedly had a visitor fly back with her, and even set up a little formal ceremony downstairs.”
Preston was from Philadelphia, originally. “That was nice of her,” Meg said.
Preston nodded. “Of course, later on, Mom ended up marching right out to the Metro and taking it to Union Station. I couldn’t even get her into a cab, forget the plane ticket and car to the airport they’d set up for her.”
A formidable woman, indeed.
Preston looked at her. “It mattered, though. In case it comes up in conversation.”
“You know it won’t,” Meg said. And even if it did, her mother would instantly change the subject, or maybe even leave the room.
Preston nodded again. “I know. I guess I just wanted to be sure that you knew.”
Duly noted.
He hung the photograph, and then stepped back to check its position. He frowned, straightened one side, checked again, and pushed it back to where it had been originally. “What do you think?”
Was he being so boyishly proud in front of everyone, or had she caught him at a weak moment? “Looks great,” she said.
* * *
WHEN SHE FINALLY made it up to the family quarters, her father and Neal were nowhere in sight, but there seemed to be more noise than usual coming from the second-floor kitchen—which was unusual in the ever-silent White House. Some pot-banging and the like, which reminded her of the way the kitchen would sound when she came home from school back in Chestnut Hill.
She sometimes felt shy about interrupting the Cast of Thousands—since they were all far too eager to wait on her—but she peeked in, and saw Trudy, slamming cheerfully away at the stove, while Neal sat at the table with a plate of cookies and a large glass of milk.
“Hey, wow, you didn’t tell me you were coming,” Meg said.
Trudy turned, and beamed. “Well, look at you,” she said, and came over to hug her.
“Was this a surprise for me?” Meg asked.
“Yes,” Trudy said. “Are you surprised?”
Very pleasantly. Meg nodded.
Trudy looked her over with a critical frown. “Katharine’s right—you’re not eating at all up there, are you?”
It was impossible to lie to Trudy. “Mostly, I’m too tired,” Meg said. “And other times, it feels like too many people are watching me.”
“Well, then, we’ll have to make up for that while you’re home,” Trudy said, and guided her over to the table.
Vanessa must have heard her voice, because she ambled in, sat several feet away, and stared at her with unblinking yellow eyes.
Two could play at that game. Instead of snapping her fingers and trying to coax her to come over, Meg just ate a cookie and ignored her completely.
Vanessa reacted with nearly audible outrage, and then, with
some combination of resignation and great dudgeon, jumped up onto her lap and stuck a paw in her glass of milk.
“It’s going to be gross if you drink that anyway,” Neal said.
Then, he should prepare to be grossed out.
She was about to go down to her room and rest before dinner when Steven showed up, home from baseball practice, still wearing dirt- and grass-stained sweatpants, turf shoes, and a very old and beat-up red compression jersey.
“Hey,” he said, briefly, when he saw her.
She waited for more, then realized that that was all she was going to get from him. “Hi,” she said, just as briefly.
Trudy was frowning at him, and he paused on his way to the refrigerator.
“Uh, when you get back?” he asked.
Jesus, was that really the best he could do? “While ago,” she said.
He nodded, and started filling his shoulder wrap bag with ice-packs. None of them had ever been completely sure whether he did that after pitching as a precaution, because he thought it was figuratively—and literally—cool, or because his arm hurt like hell. She and her parents suspected the latter, but he always vociferously denied it.
“Is your arm bothering you, Steven?” Trudy asked, her voice casual.
So, she must be suspicious, too.
He shook his head. “Nope. Just, you know, being careful.” He used the Velcro straps to fasten the wrap in place, grabbed a couple of cookies, and headed for the door. “Later.”
Okay. She wasn’t going to take it personally.
Much.
“I think he’s just tired, Meg,” Trudy said. “And that his arm does hurt.”
Yeah. Whatever. Meg sat for another minute, and then reached for her cane. “What time is dinner?”
“I’m planning for seven-thirty,” Trudy said.
“Okay.” She hoisted herself up, much to Vanessa’s disgust. “I’m going to go take it easy for a while, then.”
Trudy was maybe going to say something else, but she nodded, instead, and Meg limped out to the hall. Steven’s door was firmly closed, and she made a point of shutting hers, too. Firmly.
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