Long May She Reign

by Ellen Emerson White

  He nodded, still not looking at her. “Yeah. Uh—yeah.” Then, he left, the door shutting behind him with a soft finality.

  Okay, then. So much for that.

  He may have discovered that she was much less of an admirable and attractive person than he might have hoped, but—for better or worse—tonight, they’d also both learned something about what kind of man he was probably going to be.

  And she couldn’t help wondering whether he was as disappointed as she was.

  She couldn’t risk falling asleep again, and doing any more screaming tonight, so she set two Cokes on her desk, then sat down to work on her political science paper. When that started to make her tired, she read some Aristotle, and then got through two acts of Coriolanus.

  At about six-thirty, she decided to take an early shower, since that way, she stood an excellent chance of not running into anyone else. There was no way to avoid the security desk, so she decided just to keep her head down, and not even—except that it was Martin, sitting there with a thick novel. He saw her, and nodded.

  Christ, why did her life have to make things so difficult for everyone else? “Oh, God,” Meg said. “Did they wake you up in the middle of the night? I’m sorry.”

  He shrugged, closing the book. “I’m a night owl, anyway, so this works well for me.”

  Yeah. Sure. Damn it. He could claim to be the world’s biggest insomniac, but he looked really tired. “I didn’t ask anyone to call you,” she said. “I would never do that.”

  “It would have been fine if you had, Meg,” he said. “If anything we do makes you feel uncomfortable, you need to tell us right away, so we can change it.”

  How different everything would be if she’d let someone in authority know how uneasy Dennis had always made her, even if she had no idea why. All it would have taken was a couple of words to her parents, or Preston, or—but, Martin shouldn’t have to take the hit for any of that.

  “They feel terrible about what happened, if that helps,” Martin said.

  It didn’t.

  He indicated the chair by the side of the desk. “Want some coffee?”

  She looked back at her room, not sure if she had the strength to go back and get a mug.

  He opened one of the desk drawers and took out a fresh Styrofoam cup. “Here.”

  She nodded, and sat down. “Thank you.”

  They drank their coffee—and, wow, he did like it sweet, but she could certainly use the extra hit of energy.

  “You can always talk to any of us,” he said. “And I don’t just mean about security.”

  Yeah, his compatriots had been so quick to be understanding and sensitive tonight. Like the swellest big brothers ever.

  “Nightmares are normal,” he said. “I have them myself.”

  She looked up. “Just in general?”

  He shrugged. “Lots of things, I guess.”

  She wondered, then, if her parents had nightmares. Surely, they must. As far back as she could remember, they had always kept their bedroom door shut, and she and her brothers had been taught from a very early age to knock, first, always—a courtesy they invariably extended to each other, too.

  But, when they had dozed in chairs in her hospital room, when she first got back, they were restless and anxious and grimaced a lot, and her father would seem particularly disoriented and upset if he woke up unexpectedly. She often suspected that her mother never slept deeply enough to have dreams—she had done far too good a job of training herself to move from sleep to complete cogency in a split second, and maybe that meant that she also never got any real rest.

  But she must have had bad dreams after getting shot, right? She had definitely cried at least twice—Meg had been able to tell, afterwards—but never in front of them.

  “My unit was in three firefights,” Martin said.

  Meg interrupted her train of thought to concentrate on listening.

  He sipped some more coffee. “And we ran into IEDs constantly. It probably wasn’t a lot of action, by war standards, but it sure stays with me.”

  These days, a Marine who managed to spend his or her entire hitch stateside, in secure areas, without being deployed to some global hot spot or other, had to be a pretty rare bird. “Did you ever get hurt?” she asked.

  He shook his head, although she saw him reach briefly for his thigh, without seeming aware that he had done so. “No, nothing serious.”

  Maybe. “Purple Heart?” she asked.

  He nodded.

  This was a risky question, but— “Bronze Star, or anything?” she asked.

  He looked self-conscious, but nodded again.

  Somehow, that didn’t surprise her at all. He seemed like a guy who would be brave and resilient under fire.

  Lucky for her.

  She glanced around to make sure that the hall was still deserted. “I hate it when people say I was heroic. Because all I did was save myself, and that doesn’t count.”

  “If you ask me, you saved the President of the United States,” he said.

  Yeah, right.

  “I don’t see how she could have lived with it,” he said. “There’s too much love there.”

  Which seemed like an almost—impertinent—remark. Way too personal, anyway.

  “We notice things,” he said. “We can’t help it.”

  No, probably not. They all spent too much time together, in close proximity, for agents to be able to avoid overhearing—and seeing—countless private interactions.

  The only thing she knew for sure, insofar as outside opinions about her family were concerned, was that damn near everyone liked Neal.

  It might have been interesting to find out what else he thought—if he turned out to be willing to volunteer the information—but she heard Mary Elizabeth’s door opening, and knew that everyone was going to start coming out soon to take their showers and get ready for classes, or head over to breakfast.

  “Nightmares are normal, Meg,” he said, very quietly.

  Maybe.

  When she went downstairs, Garth came out of the main security post to meet her at the elevator door, looking very concerned.

  “I’m sorry about last night,” he said. “You should have called me right away.”

  Meg shrugged, afraid that Bruce, from the first floor, who was walking by, might have been listening. “It was no big deal. Just a misunderstanding.”

  Garth glanced at Bruce, too, who nodded uneasily and went outside.

  “Please leave Susan and Jack out of it, though, okay?” Meg asked. “They were just caught in the middle.”

  Garth nodded, although she couldn’t tell whether he was in full agreement.

  “I’m not kidding,” she said.

  He nodded again, more firmly. “You have my word.”

  Good.

  “I’m also going to rotate a few people back to Washington,” he said.

  Oh, great. She shook her head.

  “It’s not even a close call, Meg,” he said.

  And then, all of her other agents would hate her for it, and assume that she’d thrown a spoiled-brat First Daughter fit, and demanded that they be removed, for interfering with her assignation.

  “What did you want them to do, Garth?” she asked. “Just sit there while I scream that someone’s hurting me? Their only mistake was not leaving when Susan tried to talk some sense into them. Just—I don’t know—have them apologize to her—” And Jack, if he ever turned up again— “and leave it at that, okay?” Then, she thought of something else. “And please don’t let it get back to my parents.”

  Garth frowned.

  “I’ve already have my privacy invaded enough, without having them weigh in, too,” Meg said.

  “Well, why don’t you think about it, and we’ll talk later,” he said. “At the very least, I’m going to make some changes to the overnight desk assignment.”

  Fine with her. In the meantime, she was running late—her plan had been to time her trip over to her psychology class so that she c
ould duck into the back at the last minute, without actually being late.

  She made it with about three seconds to spare, trying so hard not to be noticed that—it went without saying—she dropped her textbook on the floor while she was taking it out of her knapsack. Jack, who was sitting down near the front, had looked up when she came in, but glanced away as soon as they made eye contact, and hunched over his notebook.

  So, he was either angry at her, or repulsed—or both.

  Whatever. She no longer gave a damn.

  As soon as the class ended, she moved as quickly as she could to the exit, not giving him a chance to come over and talk to her—although he probably wouldn’t have, anyway.

  She didn’t want to risk running into him again, so she avoided the dining hall and Paresky, and went up to her room to rest before going over to the hospital. There were no voice-mails or text messages or emails from him, and—well, she hadn’t expected any, so it didn’t matter. He was part of her past now, and—good riddance.

  The minimal amount of physical therapy she could manage hurt a lot more than usual, and she felt increasingly short-tempered with each passing minute, but maintained a polite, if unresponsive, silence the entire time—including when a red-haired woman named Felicia came in and stuck a bunch of thin, disposable acupuncture needles into various illogical spots on her body.

  She had to lie there for about forty-five minutes, with the little needles waving around whenever she moved, and it seemed like an utter waste of time. But, when Felicia returned to remove the needles, and asked her if the treatment had helped, Meg smiled and nodded, mentally counting the seconds until she could escape.

  When Felicia went over to the corner of the room to deposit the used needles into a red sharps container, Meg got off the table—and had such a violent dizzy spell that she was afraid she might be about to—except, she must have fallen, because suddenly she was on the floor, and her entire right forearm hurt like hell.

  Felicia spun around, gasping when she saw her, and there was a rush of activity as people came hurrying into the treatment room, everyone talking all at once and gathering around, which made her feel even more dizzy and confused. So, she ignored them and tried to concentrate on sitting up.

  “No, don’t move!” someone ordered, and someone else was asking Felicia, accusingly, why she hadn’t been keeping an eye on her, and Felicia was insisting that she had only looked away for a few seconds.

  Oh, Christ. This was about to get totally out of control. Meg grabbed the edge of the table with her good hand, and pulled herself up, still feeling dizzy, but having no god-damn intention of letting it show. “I’m fine,” she said. “Really. I just slipped when I forgot and tried to stand up on my bad leg, that’s all.”

  People were trying to help her onto the table, and she shook the various hands off impatiently.

  “I’m fine,” she said, and felt around for her cane. “I tripped. It’s no big deal.”

  “All right,” one of the physical therapy supervisors—whose name she couldn’t remember, at the moment—said. “But, we’re going to take you down to the ER, and do a few—”

  The hell they were. Meg shook her head. “No, that really isn’t necessary. I just slipped.” She smiled and indicated her knee. “I fall down a lot. It’s nothing to worry about.”

  It took another ten infuriating minutes before she could talk them out of running extensive tests, and calling the White House, but she did have to agree to let one of the doctors do a quick neurological exam—which she apparently passed—and listen to her heart with his stethoscope, while she sat on the treatment table, tapping the fingers on her good hand. Just to shut everyone up, she also allowed him to take her blood pressure, and palpate the elbow she’d landed on, and so forth.

  “Are we about done here, sir?” she asked. “Because I have a lot of work to do, and I really need to get back to school.”

  The doctor—his last name was Flaherty—frowned. “Well, I’d still like to—”

  “If I had to go through a billion tests every single time I lost my balance, I would do nothing but have tests,” she said, trying to keep her voice very friendly. “I promise I’ll be more careful next time, okay?”

  She finally managed to get rid of all of them—except for Vicky, who hadn’t been saying much, but had been watching her very closely.

  “Did you land on your hand?” she asked.

  Sort of, but Meg shook her head, to save time.

  Vicky looked suspicious. “Okay. What have you had to eat today?”

  Oh, she was just not in any god-damn mood for this. “I don’t know, nothing special,” Meg said, getting off the table more slowly this time, to make sure that the dizziness had passed—which, mostly, it had. “A turkey wrap, some potato chips. Orange juice. A couple of cups of coffee.” All of which was a complete lie, of course—except for the half cup of coffee she’d had with Martin. She shrugged. “I wasn’t really keeping track.”

  Vicky sighed. “We can’t help you, Meg, if you don’t let us.”

  All things being equal, she didn’t want to be helped. Not today, anyway. “Look, I appreciate everyone’s concern, but I’m fine,” Meg said, and limped—carefully—towards the door. “I’ll see you Wednesday, okay?”

  Even though none of them had seen what had happened, her agents also seemed upset, but she gave them the same sort of bland assurances, instead of getting testy and telling them to back off and let her breathe, already. Naturally, of course, during all of this, an older man on his way into the hospital recognized her and wanted to shake her hand and tell her that he was happy to see her doing so well, and someone else snapped a cell phone picture, so while she was very polite, it was a tremendous relief when she was finally sitting in the car, on the way back to Williamstown.

  She wanted to go straight to bed for the rest of the night, but she made herself stop by the JAs’ suite, first. She said hi to Dirk and Mikey, who were throwing a Nerf football back and forth, and then found a mopey-looking Gerard on his way out of Susan’s room. He and Tammy—who had been throwing a fair amount of her caution to the winds, since breaking up with her boyfriend—had ignored an unwritten cardinal rule over the weekend by engaging in a drunken, intra-entry, one-night stand, and while Tammy had shrugged the whole thing off the next day, it had been all too obvious that Gerard was crushed by the rejection. And was still crushed, three days later.

  Something she might find mildly funny, if she weren’t feeling the exact same way herself.

  Susan, who was just picking up the phone, saw her and lowered it.

  And smiled, ready to greet her next patient.

  “I just wanted to make sure Garth and the others didn’t bother you today,” Meg said.

  Susan shook her head. “No. They’re just sorry the whole thing happened.”

  So Garth had kept his promise, at least.

  “You don’t look so hot. How you doing?” Susan asked.

  Meg shrugged. “Tired. Embarrassed. The usual.” And then some.

  “They made it into a much bigger deal than it had to be. You’re not the one who should be embarrassed,” Susan said, and then hesitated. “Did you see him today?”

  “In psychology,” Meg said.

  Susan nodded. “Did that go okay?”

  No. But, Meg just shrugged.

  It was quiet.

  “You want to talk about it?” Susan asked.

  Very definitely not.

  After she had made her excuses and went up to her room, she couldn’t resist checking her messages, and her email—only to find that he still hadn’t bothered trying to get in touch with her.

  Christ, would it have killed him to send an “I’m sorry it didn’t work out, but I still think you’re a nice person” email? To say that it wasn’t her, it was him. To show some sort of common decency, or at least, courtesy?

  But, fine. Whatever. No great loss.

  She wrote Beth an “It’s no big deal, but Jack and I broke up last night
. Do me a favor, and don’t mention him anymore, okay?” email, and a similar one to her father, assuming that he would pass some form of the information along to the rest of her family. Her mother was off on an overnight West Coast swing, touting some economic initiatives and appearing at a North American environmental conference addressing global warming, and such, so she didn’t expect to hear from her, anyway, until she got back to Washington.

  It was obscenely early, but she got ready for bed. When she put on a clean t-shirt, she saw that her right elbow was covered with a dark, puffy bruise and was so swollen that she couldn’t straighten it all the way, but decided that she was probably okay. Her hand and knee hurt like hell, of course, but when didn’t they?

  As a rule, taking two pain pills was usually enough to make her very drowsy, so she took three, just to guarantee that she would have no trouble dropping off.

  The sooner this day was over—in fact, the sooner the entire semester was over, the better.

  48

  SHE FELL ASLEEP right away, but had long, confusing nightmares—mostly about terrible things happening to her brothers and Vanessa—and would wake up, trembling and gasping, before crashing out again. The drop-line rang a couple of times, and so did her medium-secure phone, but she neither answered the calls—nor checked her messages. Hell, she didn’t even bother turning on the light.

  In the morning, she still couldn’t bring herself to go to the dining hall, but when she tried to get out of bed, she had another intense dizzy spell, and had to quickly sit back down and take deep breaths until it passed.

  So, she ate one of the granola bars from her Easter package, and a somewhat stale brownie, since she wasn’t completely sure when she had eaten last, and that might be why she felt so terrible—and had a monster headache, to boot. The pain pills didn’t seem to have worn off completely yet, to the degree that she almost felt hungover, so she took a couple of ibuprofen with the dregs of the open bottle of flat Coke on her desk.

  Before leaving for her classes, she checked her email yet again—nothing, of course, from him, but a few from her family, and Beth, and so forth. She zapped her father an “Everything’s fine, on my way to class, more later” reply, along with a similar one to Beth—whose two emails seemed more concerned about her than her pathetic romantic failure probably warranted. When she retrieved her voice-mail from the medium-secure line, it was, indeed, Beth who had left the two messages, the first one telling her she was sorry to hear about Jack, and to call her as late as she wanted, and the second one asking, more anxiously, if she could please call her back, and let her know that everything was okay.