by Meg Cabot
Every drop of blood in my veins seemed to turn suddenly into ice.
“And your mom said it was fine,” David went on. “I hope you don’t mind. I mean, about my mom jumping the gun and asking before you had a chance to. But she really wanted to know. About the turkey, and all.”
“And nine, eight, seven”—Random came and slid onto the stool beside me, with the president already perched on the one to his other side—“six, five, four—remember to look at each other, not into the camera—”
“Hope that’s okay,” David said, giving me a quick kiss on the cheek. Then he ran for his seat, just as the director yelled, “And we’re on!”
And every camera in the room turned to focus on my horror-stricken, blood-drained face.
“Hey, this is Random Alvarez, and I’m here hosting MTV’s latest town hall meeting,” Random said, in a much deeper voice than he’d used before the cameras came on. He was also seemingly oblivious to the fact that half the student population at Adams Prep, including Kris Parks, on a folding chair in front of us, was staring at him as if it were just the two of them standing in front of a minister in a Vegas chapel, about to be joined in wedded bliss.
“This is the show where you, the viewer, get a chance to hear about just some of the issues that are facing young voters in the upcoming election year. Tonight I’m proud to be joined by a man who needs no introduction, the president of the United States, who’s here to talk about his new initiative, Return to Family. We’re also joined by Samantha Madison, the young woman from John Adams Preparatory Academy—where we’re privileged to be filming this show live right here in Washington, D.C.”—screams from the students of Adams Prep, including Kris, who took that moment to shriek, I love you, Random, which the VJ ignored—“who risked her own life to save the president’s, and was appointed teen ambassador to the United Nations for her efforts. Mr. President, Samantha…hello, and welcome.”
“Hello, Random,” the president said with a smile. “Thanks so much for having me here tonight. And may I just say, Random, that you are, like, totally my favorite VJ.”
This got a nice laugh from the crowd. I saw the first lady, who was sitting beside my mother, turn to her and say something with a big smile on her face. My mom said something back, laughing.
I wondered how hard my mom would be laughing if she knew what I was really going to be doing at Camp David over Thanksgiving break.
“Thanks, Mr. President,” Random said, in the same disturbingly deep voice. Also, I totally saw him scoping on Kris’s underwear beneath her Talbot’s kilt when she turned around in her folding chair to say something excitedly to the girl behind her.
“So, Mr. President,” Random said, reading off the TelePrompTer just under the camera we all weren’t supposed to look into. “Tell us a little about your Return to Family program, if you will.”
“Certainly, Random,” the president said. “You know, I feel strongly that with divorce rates as high as they are today, and the number of single parents on the rise, it’s important we not forget that families are—and always have been—the backbone of America. If the family unit is weakened, then America is weakened. And I’m here before you tonight because I fear American families have been weakened…not just by the financial demands on them, but because of a basic failure to communicate. I understand the pressures on today’s parents, who are working hard to provide their children with privileges they themselves may not have had growing up. But I also feel that parents need to make more quality time to spend with their children—not just cheering them on at soccer games, or helping them with their homework, but actual time, talking…opening the lines of communication between parents and children.”
David’s dad paused. He never has to read from notecards or the TelePrompTer. He always memorizes all of his speeches. It’s something David can do, as well—speak in public completely extemporaneously (SAT word meaning “composed, performed, or uttered at the spur of the moment”).
I, on the other hand, need notecards. I had mine, tucked in the pocket of my jeans. All I had to wait for was my cue, which Random was going to give me shortly. The president was going to go on about what parents could do to open the lines of communication between them and their children, and I was going to talk about what kids themselves could do.
Then, the day after tomorrow, I am going to go to Maryland and have sex with my boyfriend for the first time. Apparently.
“That’s why I’m asking for a Return to Family,” the president went on. “One night a month, where we all turn off the television, stay home from soccer practice, and just spend time with one another, talking. I know it doesn’t sound like much…one night a month…can that really be enough to strengthen a family? Studies show that yes, it can. Children whose parents spend even as little as a few hours a month talking with them develop cognitive skills such as language and reading more quickly, test higher, and experience fewer instances of alcohol and drug abuse and premarital sex.”
Wow. Maybe that was my problem. Maybe that’s why I was going to be experiencing an instance of premarital sex. Because my mom and dad don’t spend enough time with me.
Yeah. It’s their fault.
“And you’ll have the support of the American government behind you,” David’s dad was going on. “In an effort to help parents open the lines of communication with their teenaged children, I’m asking state legislators, as part of the Return to Family plan, to pass a bill that requires teens seeking prescription contraception at family planning clinics to have parental consent or to have clinics notify parents five business days in advance of providing such services to teens—”
There was a lot of applause when the president said this. Kris and her friends in the folding chairs in front of us actually cheered.
I didn’t cheer.
I went, “Wait. What?”
But the microphone clipped to the collar of my shirt didn’t pick it up.
Which was probably just as well. Because I couldn’t have heard what I thought I’d just heard. No one else was reacting as if they’d heard anything unusual. I looked out and saw my dad getting up and moving out of the gym because he’d gotten another call on his cell phone. My mom was having a hard time clapping while also balancing her PDA. Rebecca was still reading her book on chaos theory. Lucy was putting on lip gloss.
Everyone else was clapping.
So it must be okay. I must have heard wrong. So, wait. What was I worried about again? Oh, yeah. Sex. With my boyfriend. At Camp David. Day after tomorrow.
“I feel this is an important step,” the president went on, after holding up both hands to still the flood of applause, “in opening the lines of communication between parents and teens. The United States currently leads the developed nations in teen birth and sexually transmitted disease rates. If parents were informed of their teenaged children’s behaviors by the agencies that are currently allowed to keep this vital information from them—the clinics and even pharmacists that play a part in promoting teen sexual activity—they could effectively put a stop to it—”
More applause. More applause.
I couldn’t believe it. I hadn’t heard him wrong. What was happening? Why were people clapping? Didn’t they understand what David’s dad was saying?
And why had none of this stuff been in the literature the White House press secretary had given me? There’d been nothing there about requiring clinics and pharmacists to notify parents if teenagers came to them for birth control. If there had, I’d have noticed. I mean, that kind of thing has sort of been on my mind lately.
The applause for the president’s speech was thunderously loud. So loud that it was a few seconds before anyone heard me shouting, “Wait! Wait just a minute!”
Random, noticing that I’d jumped down from my stool, looked over at me and, not seeing from the TelePrompTer that it was my turn to speak yet, said, “Samantha? Did you, uh, have something you wanted to say?”
“Yeah, I have something I want to sa
y.” The notecards were still in my pocket. I wasn’t pulling them out. I wasn’t pulling them out because I’d forgotten all about them. I was too confused—and angry.
“What are you people clapping for?” I looked right at Kris Parks and her friends. “Don’t you realize what he’s saying? Don’t you realize what’s happening here?”
“Um, Samantha,” the president, behind me, said, “I think if you’ll let me finish, you’ll find that what’s happening here is that I am trying to strengthen the American family by giving parental control back to the people who know what’s best for their children—”
“But that’s…that’s wrong!” I couldn’t believe I was the only one in the room who seemed to think so. I looked down at Kris and the other kids from Adams Prep. “Don’t you get it? Do you hear what he’s saying? This Return to Family thing…it’s all a crock! It’s a trick! It’s a…a…”
Suddenly, Dauntra popped into my head. Dauntra, who couldn’t return to her family, because she’d been thrown out by them. Dauntra, who questioned authority—so much so, she was willing to get arrested for it.
“It’s a conspiracy!” I shouted. “A conspiracy to take away your rights!”
“Now, Sam,” the president said, in an easy voice, laughing a little, “let’s not be dramatic—”
“How am I being dramatic?” I whirled on him to ask. “You’re standing up there, telling the American public that you essentially want pharmacists and doctors to rat teens out if we come to them for help—”
“Samantha,” the president said, looking a lot madder than I’d ever seen him, including the time I took the last chocolate-chocolate-chip cookie from a complimentary basket Capital Cookies had sent him. “That is an oversimplification of the issue at hand. Americans have always valued the family above everything else. American families are this country’s backbone, from the Pilgrims who came over on the Mayflower to the settlers who tamed the plains, to the immigrants who’ve made this nation the great melting pot that it is today. I, for one, will not stand here and allow the dissolution of the American family through the undermining of parental rights—”
“What about my rights?” I demanded. “What about the rights of the kids? We have rights, too, you know.”
I looked back at the audience. It was hard to see their faces, with the bright lights from the show shining into my eyes. But I managed to find David.
And saw that he was smiling at me. Not like he was happy about what was going on, or anything. But like he understood that I was only doing what I had to do.
Because really, who else was there to do it?
And seeing that smile, I understood something else all of a sudden. Something that hadn’t been at all clear to me until then.
“Don’t you see?” I asked the audience—and the president, at the same time. “Don’t you get it? The way to strengthen families isn’t to undermine the rights of one member, while giving more rights to the other. It’s not about the PARTS. It’s about the WHOLE. It’s got to be EQUAL. A family is like…it’s like a house. There has to be a foundation first, before you can start decorating.”
I wondered if Susan Boone was watching this. I sort of couldn’t picture her watching MTV. But hey, you never knew. Maybe Susan was watching. If so, she’d know. She’d know that I finally got it. What she’d been talking about for the past two weeks, about how you couldn’t neglect the whole for the sake of the parts. I got it now. I was ready for her life drawing class. I finally understood.
Too bad it was too late.
“Don’t you guys get it?” I appealed to the other people my age in the audience. “The real reason the United States leads the developed nations in teen birth and STD rates isn’t because clinics aren’t notifying parents about their teenagers’ behavior, but because here, all they teach us is Just Say No. Not, ‘Here’s what you do in case saying no doesn’t work out for you.’ Just…no. In countries where adults are open with kids about sex and birth control, and teens are taught that there’s nothing shameful or whatever about it, the rates of unwanted pregnancies and STDs are lowest—”
“I understand your concern, Samantha,” the president cut me off, smiling a little tensely. “But I’m not talking about families such as those you and your fellow pupils here at this fine school belong to. I’m talking about families who haven’t had the advantages yours has—”
I couldn’t believe it. What was he saying? That families who lived in Cleveland Park were somehow immune from bad parenting and teenage sexual experimentation?
“—families who haven’t taught their children the kind of morals your parents have instilled in you,” the president went on. “You and all of your friends here at John Adams Preparatory Academy are great examples to this nation of the kind of children we should be striving to raise, children who have the moral character to stand up for what they believe in, to say no to drugs and sex—”
“So because I’ve said yes to sex,” I declared hotly, “that makes me a bad example to this nation? Is that what you’re saying?”
There was a beat as everyone—including me—realized what I’d just said.
As the knowledge that I had just announced to the entire country that I’d had sex with my boyfriend (even though I hadn’t) washed over me, I couldn’t help wishing that the gym floor beneath me would open up and swallow me whole.
Sadly for me, however, it didn’t.
“Oh my God,” I heard my mother’s voice, breaking the sudden stillness that had fallen over the gym.
Then:
“Oh my God,” I heard David’s mother’s voice say.
Then Random Alvarez seemed to come awake from the doze he’d sunk into while the president and I had been speaking, and said, into the camera, “And we’ll be back, after these important messages!”
Top ten reasons the next time you’re in a position to save the president’s life, you might want to reconsider:
10. Everywhere you go afterward, you will be harassed by Johnson Family Vacationers.
9. You could get asked to go on Oprah and after saying no a million times, decide to do it to promote awareness of the issue of child slavery, which actually does exist, even in America, and then spend the whole time crying because Oprah asked about Mewsie, the kitten you had when you were ten who died of feline leukemia.
8. While working at your part-time job to make enough pocket money to support your lead pencil habit, people returning copies of Men in Black II ask you if you know the real truth about Area 51, seeing as how you have an in at the White House, and all.
7. You will have to spend all of your free time in the White House press office, signing photographs of your own head for fans.
6. Don’t even think about ever setting foot in a McDonald’s again. You will be mobbed.
5. Everyone you know will ask you if you can get them the president’s autograph.
4. You will find old past due notices from your local library that you thought you threw away for sale on eBay because everyone wants to own a piece of you.
3. You might fall in love with his son, and start dating him.
2. Which could make it extremely awkward when the president asks you to support his Return to Family program, and you find out that it violates your personal right to privacy.
And the number-one reason you might want to reconsider saving the life of the president of the United States:
1. You might get mad at him and accidentally announce to the world on national television that you’ve had sex with his son. Even though you haven’t.
Yet.
12
“It’s those damned art lessons,” the president said.
“It wasn’t the art lessons, Dad,” David said, sounding tired. I guess because he was tired. We’d been going back and forth about this for the past hour in our living room, ever since the president stomped out of the disastrous town hall meeting during the commercial break, causing MTV to have to put on a rerun of Pimp My Ride.
“All
I know is my son wasn’t interested in sex until he started drawing naked people,” the president said.
“Dad,” David said, “I’ve always been interested in sex. I’m a guy, all right? I’m just not actually having sex. Nor am I planning to do so in the near future.”
Wow. I never knew David was such a good liar. Seriously.
“Then why,” his father began, “did Sam say—”
“Wait a minute,” my dad said. “Who’s drawing naked people?”
“Sam is.” My mom leaned forward to pour the first lady some more coffee. “Susan Boone asked her and David to take her adult life drawing class on Tuesday and Thursday nights.”
My dad looked blank. “How’s that supposed to have made them want to have sex?”
“We’re not having sex,” I said, for what had to have been the thirty thousandth time.
“Then why, in the name of God,” the president said, “did you tell everyone in America that you’ve said yes to sex?”
“I don’t know,” I said. I had hunched myself up into the smallest ball imaginable on the sofa, hugging my legs to my chest, and resting my chin on my knees. “You were just making me so mad—”
“ME?” The president looked more annoyed than ever. “How do you think I feel? I’m standing there like an idiot going on about what a great example my son is, and it turns out the whole time he’s been making me into the biggest hypocrite on the planet—”
“No, he hasn’t,” I said, feeling worse than ever. “Because we’re not having—”
“Yeah, well, I don’t exactly recall your asking me if I supported your whole reproductive health clinic parental consent bill, Dad,” David said, at the same time. “In fact, I don’t remember Sam seeing it anywhere in any of the Return to Family literature you gave her, either. Because if she had, I’m sure she’d have mentioned it to me.”