Tara giggled like an eight-year-old at a slumber party. “Marcus, you are so funny.”
You’re no Bogart, dude, Sameera thought. Casablanca was number two on the list of her favorite movies, with Humphrey Bogart at number seven on her top-ten-sexiest-movie-stars list. When he said “Play it, Sam,” Sameera always got the chills.
She clicked the button that made the page load again. Wilder turned up the volume, and Sameera listened carefully. The tune sounded familiar. She hummed along under her breath until she got it. It was a hip-hop-ized version of a patriotic country song—one that Miranda had sung in the shower at the top of her lungs a couple of summers ago: “I was born, I was raised, in the U.S. of A...”
He’s using as many tricks as he can to create a ... a red, white, and blue virtual version of me. Subliminal. Clever. But not true. The truth is that “Sammy” was born in an unknown village somewhere in Pakistan.
She clicked on the VOTE FOR RIGHTON button, and the manga girl disappeared. The cursor turned into a glitter pen that could be moved across what looked like a crisp white scrapbook page edged with one blue stripe and cut-out red stars. More manga art served as links to pages called “da blog,” “vote for Dad,” “hot guyz,” “gurl style,” “hip toonZ,” “fun-n-gamz.”
Tara was studying the expression on Sameera’s face. “Marcus knows pop culture inside and out; if anyone can morph you into an all-American girl, he can. You do want to help your father win this election, don’t you?”
“Of course I want to help Dad win,” Sameera said, sitting back in her chair. “But this won’t work.”
“Why not?”
“First of all, letting somebody else write stuff that’s supposed to be mine? That’s just not right.”
“It’s wonderful to be so ethical, my dear,”Wilder said condescendingly, as if she were a precocious child. “But this kind of thing is done all the time. It’s called ‘custom blogging.’ ”
“Celebrities hire experts to create content on their Web sites, and so do politicians,” Tara added. “Heavens, I wouldn’t have suggested it if it wasn’t legit, right, Marcus? Your father’s got a custom blog, too. Want to see it?”
She directed the browser to display the campaign’s official site, and there was Dad’s home page, featuring a photo of him saluting the American flag. “Read Righton’s Weekly Blog on the Top Issues of Our Day” announced a banner across the bottom of the page. Sameera clicked on the banner and a long, five-paragraph essay about welfare reform opened up. She skimmed it, frowning. There was nothing personal about this writing; her dad’s writing style, at least in the e-mails he sent when he was on the road, was funny and lighthearted. This post, or essay, or whatever it was, sounded downright stodgy.
“Let’s get back to SammySez.com, shall we?” Wilder interrupted. “Any other objections?”
“It seems much more ‘tween’ than ‘teen.’ I’m not twelve, you know. I’m sixteen.”
Wilder gave a dry laugh that sounded more like a cough. “Based on the nice checks they send me, ZTV and Podtunes seem to think I know the difference between ‘teen’ and ‘tween.’ ”
Sameera stood up. “None of it sounds anything like me. I think Americans can handle a more truthful version of me.”
He hesitated, and Sameera could tell he was fighting to keep his eyeballs from rolling in their sockets. “Which part especially doesn’t sound like you?” he asked.
“The whole thing, really. I have a blog already, you know. On my site at myplace.com. I never use emoticons and—”
“But emoticons make Sammy seem so hip,” Wilder interrupted, completely ignoring the information about her own Web site. “Teens love emoticons.”
You were my age a quarter of a century ago. “I guess I’m not hip, then,” she said, shrugging. Why’d she bring up her blog, anyway? She’d have to list him as one of her “friends” on her myplace.com site for him to see her writing, and she had no intention of doing that.
“Anyway, now that I’ve gotten to know you better,” Marcus said, “my mind’s overflowing with ideas to make the site more authentic. So, are we good to go, then?”
Yeah, we know each other so well now, Sameera thought sarcastically. “Tell you what—I’ll take a closer look at the whole site later and let you know my decision.”
“Take a couple of days,” Tara said, as though she were offering Sameera a three-week luxury cruise.
Wilder obviously wanted his stamp of approval right now. “But—”
“It’s okay, Marcus,” Tara said. “You and I can talk about this tonight. Right now Sammy’s got to run upstairs and get ready. Do you have any communication hints that might help her at tonight’s event?”
He held up one hand, palm outward, bent his knuckles, opened them again, and repeated the gesture a couple of times. “This is how American girls wave. Don’t do that British-I’ m-Royalty-Wrist-Twist thing you did at the airport.”
“What about conversation skills?” Tara asked.
“You need to use ‘uh-huh’ a lot more,”Wilder said immediately. “And when you want to answer no, say ‘I’ll have to talk that one over with my father’ instead. Also, use a phrase like ‘this rocks’ or ‘totally.’ And giggle as much as you can.”
Sameera was appalled. “Are you SERIOUS?” she blurted out.
“Extremely serious. Practice the wave and a decent-sounding girly laugh a ton of times,”Wilder said.
“Thanks, Marcus,” Tara said. “I’ll be right back.”
She walked Sameera to the elevator. “Keep your hair loose tonight,” she commanded, appraising Sameera from head to toe, as though she were an outdated product on the verge of being junked. “And cake on some bright, light undercover if you have it. Your skin color’s beautiful, don’t get me wrong, but it’s going to make you disappear in front of the cameras.”
“I usually don’t wear much makeup,” Sameera said. “Just a touch of lipstick.”
“That’s going to change,” Tara said grimly. “You’ve got to accept some things without debate. When you get in front of cameras, you wear makeup. What have you got to wear for tonight?”
“Er—let’s see. I packed a salwar kameez and a dress.”
“Whatever that first thing is, bag it,” Tara said immediately. “Wear the dress. We start your makeover first thing in the morning. Don’t forget to practice everything Marcus told you to do tonight.”
Sameera fought the urge to salute and click her heels as the elevator doors closed in Tara’s face.
chapter 7
Thankfully, there was furniture in her bedroom. Sameera gazed longingly at the queen-size bed, but the day wasn’t over yet. After she showered and got dressed, she checked the living room for any sign of Mom and Dad; the room was empty and the door to their bedroom still closed.
That’s some reunion they’re having, Sameera thought, going out to the balcony that overlooked the beach. A breeze was spinning lightly across the bay, and it sifted through her un-braided hair like a caress. It felt strange to wear her hair loose; it was long but so fine that it felt thin and lank hanging down her back. The graceful curves of the coastline and mountains reminded her of the French Riviera, where she and her parents had vacationed the year before. Couples strolled along the beach, savoring the sunset. Sameera sighed. Was she always doomed to watch guys disappearing into the horizon with other girls?
Heading back to her room, she stretched out on the bed and dialed her cousin’s cell.
“Sparrow! Are you okay?”
“Oh, I’m fine. Ran, do you think I’m ... normal?”
“What? Of course you are. You’re wonderful.”
“Remember Drew Barrvmore in Never Been Kissed? I feel her pain, Ran.”
“So what? I’ve never had a boyfriend either. And I’m almost seventeen.”
Sameera’s once-scrawny cousin had matured into a tall, curvy blonde with a farm-fresh wholesome sweetness. She worried about Miranda, whose goal in life was to leave the dairy
farm forever and make it big in Hollywood. Ran was actually quite a decent actress, starring in Maryfield’s local theater productions and moving everybody to tears or laughter with her performances. Now that there was a chance her cousin might be discovered by the camera hounds, Sameera had started keeping a mental list of other once-sweet blonde starlets from small towns who’d gotten trashed by fame. Everybody in Maryfield knew that Miranda Campbell was smart, gorgeous, and talented, but ... she hadn’t been out and about in the real world the way Sameera had.
“Yeah, but that’s because you’re waiting for Mr. Perfect,” Sameera said. “You’ve had guys drooling at your feet since you were twelve.”
Miranda sighed. “It’s not easy being a guy magnet. I know I could always find someone to kiss if that’s all I wanted.”
Not every girl gets to know that, Ran, Sameera thought, but she didn’t say it aloud. “Okay, so you’re like a rich person who’s fasting for religious reasons. I, on the other hand, am a starving beggar.”
“You are not.You’ve just got outrageously high standards.”
“Yeah, well, it runs in the family. How’s Gran doing?”
Their grandmother was under strict orders to slow down after a heart attack had landed her in a Toledo hospital last fall. “She seems better to me, but Poppa won’t let her do any milking. And I’m so sick of cows I might butcher them all in a frenzy. Only three more days till you get here. We’re counting the hours; Mom has your room ready with fresh linens on the bed.”
“I can’t wait either. But get this—the Bench actually suggested that I hang out in D.C. all summer where I don’t know a soul. How’s that for nuts? She’s also created a whole new PAR-SO-NAH for me.”
She wasn’t sure why she’d switched to a Pakistani accent to lilt her voice up and down but she’d wielded it perfectly as usual. She’d always been good at making the retroflex t and the dh sound when she pronounced the few Urdu words she knew—soundsthat her parents had a terrible time with no matter how hard they tried. I heard it in the womb, after all, and for three years after that. I probably spoke my first words in it.
“What in the world is a ‘persona’?” Miranda asked.
“Remember how the Bench wanted to change my name? Well, she’s hired some marketing dude who wants to launch a virtual online image for ‘Sammy.”’
“Wow! That’s great.”
“WHAT? It’s terrible.”
“You’re giving us the inside scoop on the celeb life, aren’t you? They always get funky new names and hire PR people to spin their images.”
“Yes, but what they’ve done for ‘Sammy’ is so ... horrible.”
“So what? You’re supposed to be delegating, remember? Having fun? ‘Sammy’ actually sounds like someone who’s into fun. It’s definitely a more kissable name than ‘Sparrow.’ ”
“I thought you were into kissing abstinence.”
“I am. But being smoochable and smooching are two different things.”
“Whatever. For someone who doesn’t want to be kissed till you’re at the altar, you’ve sure thought about it a lot. Speaking of fun, though—Hey! Didja catch my campaign debut at the airport? Now THAT was fun! Wahoo!”
Her cousin’s tragic Shakespearean groan traveled from Ohio to California without losing any intensity. “Oh, Sparrow, Sparrow. Why did you put on that poncho? Or should I say that sack? It looked like you had absolutely no shape at all until you took that thing off.”
“And then I had a shape? Yeah, right. Mrs. Mathews knitted it for me; I had to wear it. The Bench ordered me to dump it as soon as she set eyes on it.”
“See—the woman has sense. Even though I can’t believe she wants you to skip your visit here.”
“Yeah, she’s not half as savvy as Mom described; she hasn’t been able to schedule The Makeover until tomorrow, and I’ve got to show up at some fancy fund-raiser tonight.”
Miranda was quiet for a few seconds. “Please, please tell me you’re not going to wear that Harry Potter invisibility cloak you bought last summer.”
Sameera looked down at herself. She was already wearing the dress, along with black hose and black pumps.
Her silence was a dead giveaway. “I told you to buy the blue one. And one of those miracle bras. But no! You wouldn’t listen. Oh. My. Gosh.”
“Nothing I can do about it now. Did you see Mom take on that reporter at the airport?”
Another groan. “They keep playing it over and over again. Gran’s getting all worked up about it.”
“Send her to the sunroom,” Sameera ordered, sitting up. “Tell her to meditate. And turn off the television.”
“She won’t let us. She flinches every time your mother throws that punch.”
“It wasn’t a punch,” Sparrow said. “She just sort of slapped his mike away.”
“Sparrow!” Dad was calling her from the main room of the suite. “Come out here and talk to me.”
“I have to go, Ran,” Sameera said.
“Wait—Gran’s here. She wants to talk to Aunt Liz.”
“She does? Oh, no.”
“Hello? Liz? This is your MOTHER. I can’t BELIEVE—”
“It’s me, Gran.”
The voice changed completely. “Oh hello, sweetheart. Are you all right? I can’t believe you had to face that terrible crowd at the airport.”
“Don’t worry, Gran, I’m fine.”
“We can’t wait till you come home, Sparrow. Your room’s ready and waiting. Let me talk to your mother, darling.”
Sameera took the phone into her parents’ bathroom, holding it up as she passed her waiting father. “It’s Gran.”
The room was so steamy she could barely see Mom’s shower-capped head peering around the curtain. “It is? Do I have to talk to her?”
Sameera nodded. “Might as well get it over with,” she whispered, handing her mother the phone.
Dad was pacing in the living room, looking stunning in his tuxedo. “It’s so good to see you, darling,” he said, coming to meet her with both hands outstretched. “I’ve missed you so much.”
She put her hands in his. “Me, too. I can’t believe I’m finally in California. Whad’ja think of our arrival?”
“I try not to watch the coverage of the campaign unless the staffers ask me to,” he said. “But your mom told me what happened. I’m so sorry that you had that kind of entry shock, Sparrow. That’s one of the reasons we wanted you to stay in Brussels for as long as you could.”
“What? And miss out on all the action? I was fine at the airport. Mom was the one who lost it.”
“I know. But if I’d been there, I might have punched the dude myself.”
As they sat down in the uncomfortable chairs to wait for Mom, Dad glanced at his watch. “Where is your mother? She used to get ready in five minutes flat before they turned her into Mrs. America.”
“Still showering. Don’t you like what they’ve done with her?”
“Want the truth? I fell in love with her natural, sweet look, and I sort of miss it. Don’t tell her that, though.”
“Do you have to give a speech tonight?”
He sighed. “Yes, and I’m not sure if I completely agree with what they want me to say. I’ve been out of politics for so long I don’t know if I can toe the party line anymore, Sparrow. I was a black-and-white kind of thinker when I served in Congress, but after living overseas for fifteen years—and being married to your mother for thirteen—I can at least see more gray now. And not just in my own hair.”
“But that’s good, isn’t it?”
“The problem is that there are so many issues I need to be on top of that I’m rubber-stamping anything Cameron’s people write ... something I vowed never to do.”
“Like welfare reform, right?” She couldn’t help saying it.
“Right. How’d you know that?”
“I skimmed your blog post.”
Dad groaned. “I don’t even have time to read my own blog. Can you believe it, Sparrow? Even
the jokes I’m going to make tonight aren’t mine. I used to come up with my own bad jokes, at least.”
“That’s hard, Dad,” Sameera said. “I know how you feel; they’ve come up with a ‘custom blog’ for me that’s awful.”
“Well, if you don’t like it, tell them. They won’t go live with it unless you agree. You don’t have to sell your soul just because I am, Sparrow.”
“You haven’t sold your soul, Dad.You have to delegate stuff to people you trust or you won’t survive.”
“You’re right. And I do trust Cameron. He’d take a bullet for me if he had to.”
She didn’t want to think about bullets coming his way; when she and Dad watched reruns of 24 together, she always fast-forwarded through the assassination attempts. “What’s your speech about tonight?” she asked.
“My so-called stand on bioethics; I’m not allowed to mention anything controversial like cloning”
Sameera grinned. “Mom and Gran got into a huge fight about cloning last summer. Mom thinks it’s a good way to end famine. Gran thinks human cloning’s against the will of God. I’m not sure what to think myself.”
“Me, either. Most of these issues don’t have easy answers. I’m a diplomat and an ex-congressman, Sparrow, not a life sciences ethicist.”
Sameera was wishing desperately that she could help, but she wasn’t sure how. “You can’t expect to know the answers to everything, Dad.”
“You’re right. But the American people seem to want an omniscient president—that’s the problem. And I’m far from divine.”
Sameera didn’t answer. It was strange how she and her father could talk freely about everything except religion. Mom, on the other hand, prayed and read her Bible almost every morning, and loved to talk about faith. She and Sameera had attended international church services wherever they’d lived, but Dad only joined them every now and then. Sameera herself wasn’t sure what she believed, but she’d stayed up many a night with Mom, asking questions and debating theological issues into the wee hours of the morning. “If God loves us, why is there so much suffering in the world?” could keep them going for weeks.
First Daughter Page 4