Long May She Reign (10 page)

The next time a commercial came on, Meg let out her breath.

“I'm in the way here,” she said.

Her father looked up, startled. “What?”

“I'm in the way,” she said again. “In the White House.”

“Of course you're not,” he said. “You could never be.”

Meg shook her head. “I'm supposed to be away at school. And as long as I'm here, limping around, and hiding, and sleeping a lot, things can't get back to normal.”

If, of course, they'd ever been normal—but, that was a different issue.

“Meg, you could never be in the way,” her father said, sounding very upset. “I don't know why you would think a thing like that.”

Was he being dense, or just trying not to hurt her feelings? Or was he so clouded by guilt that he wasn't really listening? “Dad.” She stopped, afraid that she might be going to lose her temper, and took a minute to pick up the remote and flick off the television. “Just—pretend I'm an adult for a minute, okay?”

“I know you're an adult, Meg,” he said. “I didn't mean to suggest otherwise.”

What was too bad, was that he had done it automatically. “Every second I'm here is a reminder that I'm not supposed to be. That everything's wrong.” She went on before he could interrupt, or contradict her. “I don't just mean all of you. I mean me, too. I mean,
everyone.
It's like—advertising—that something bad happened. That our lives changed.” That the son-of-a-bitch had beaten her down.

That she was a god-damn
victim
.

“I don't—” Her father frowned. “Meg, recuperation is bound to be—”

“Dad, listen to me,” she said, trying not to lose patience. “I'm not doing a pity thing, I'm making sense. Everyone's spending their time being so god-damn careful and nervous, and I just end up feeling—I don't know—omnipresent.”

Her father sighed, and rubbed his hand across the back of his neck. “It's only been a few months. You shouldn't expect—”

Meg shook her head so that he would stop. “She can't even look me in the eye,” she said quietly. “Neither of you can.”

Her father—right on cue—didn't quite look at her. “Naturally, we both feel responsible.”

Yeah. They never looked at her, and for the most part, they never looked at
each other
anymore, either. “As long as my life's a disaster, no one can get beyond it. I feel like—I don't know,” she said. “Like everything's revolving around me, and I hate it.”

He nodded.

“I mean, Christ, I feel—” It all seemed so damned hopeless. She had managed to hold off on her pain medication earlier, but now, she took one, with the dregs of a glass of Coke on her bedside table. “I don't know what to do.”

“You're already doing it,” her father said. “You get up, you go to your classes, you study—you're taking it as it comes. We're very proud of you.”

He just plain wasn't hearing her. “I can't even talk to Beth anymore,” she said. “I feel—” Stupid. “Embarrassed.” And left out. Left behind.
Lost
.

He nodded.

“I just—I don't know. I didn't expect my life to turn out this way.” She glanced over to see him watching her intently. “I hate it
here
, and I don't belong anywhere out there. I'm like a—pariah.”

Her father sat back in his chair, rubbing his temples this time.

“What,” she said, amused in spite of herself. “Stumped for an answer?”

He smiled faintly. “This is a tough one, Meg. The only thing I can tell you is that it's going to get better. And that you're doing all of the right things.”

Be nice to be back to the days when her parents had had no trouble answering her questions. She, personally, could think of only one possible solution here. “I—I want to leave next semester,” she said. “Go to school for real.”

Her father blinked. “Next
month
?”

She nodded.

“All right,” he said, after a pause. “Then, we'll arrange it. The Secret Service has already been spending time up there, just in case.”

Now, it was Meg's turn to be surprised. “So, that's it? I mean, just like that?”

“If that's what you want,” her father said.

Jesus,
was
it? Maybe she'd better give this a little more—no. If she thought about it, she would back out. “Well—okay, then,” she said. “That's what I'd like to do, if it's okay with you.”

Her father nodded. “We'll get to work on it first thing tomorrow.”

Somehow, she'd expected him to put up more of an argument. Tell her all the reasons why she wasn't ready, and should wait until next fall, or her junior year, or—

“This doesn't have to be final,” he said. “I mean, you can always—”

Meg shook her head. “No. I'd really like to try it. I think I—yeah, this is definite.” Christ, she hoped she wasn't going to regret this.

Actually, she already did.

*   *   *

ON FRIDAY, SHE
handed in her English paper, and also finished up the last assignment for her Astronomy online laboratory section. She studied all weekend for her finals, both of which were scheduled back-to-back on Monday afternoon. That morning, she was so nervous that she couldn't manage to eat breakfast, and by the time she got to the campus, she felt weak and dizzy enough to regret not making more of an effort to force something down.

The auditorium was more crowded than it had been all semester. Amazing to see how many people never bothered coming to class. Either they were all smarter than she was, or they were all taking it Pass-Fail. Or maybe both.

There were no aisle seats available in the back, so she had to cross awkwardly in front of a few people, trying not to bang any of them with her cane. A girl who was reading
People
looked up at her, blushed, and put the magazine away.

Oh, Christ, it was Monday. The magic week of the 25 Most Intriguing People of the Year issue. Terrific. Plus, so many seats were already taken—since they had to leave one between each person—that she didn't have much choice other than to sit here. Next to her Big Fan.

She moved her jaw, sat down, took out a pen, and then shoved her knapsack under her seat, never looking to her right where the girl was.

“I wasn't reading about
you
,” the girl said defensively.

Meg uncapped the pen, staring straight ahead. The pen actually had the Presidential Seal on it, which probably made her look arrogant, but—too late now.

“I just like to read
People
, okay?” the girl said.

Meg glared at her. “I didn't tell you not to.”

The girl glared back. “Maybe you're too exalted for me to sit next to?”

Anyone who treated her normally—was rude, say—won points in her book. “Sorry,” she said. “It's none of my damn business what you read.”

The girl shrugged. “It didn't occur to me that you'd be sitting right next to me.”

That
would
be kind of a nightmare, to be reading peacefully, and have one of the very people walk by and get all offended. The professor was just beginning to hand out blue books, so there was still time before the exam began.

Curious, Meg tried to see the magazine, now hidden under the girl's notebook. “Am I on the cover?”

The girl, who was wearing a tight black midriff-baring tank top—in December—nodded and pulled it out to show her.

There she was, nestled right among the movie stars, athletes, and, of course, British royalty. Although she herself was partial to the notion of a Queen, Meg had always had her doubts about whether the American public was quite as monarchically-fond as the media seemed to think.

The shot of her was the same damned one they always used—in a wheelchair, the day she came home from the hospital, looking small and damaged, her eyes hidden behind sunglasses.

“I knew they'd pick that stupid picture,” she said aloud.

The girl studied the cover. “It isn't very good of Brad Pitt, either.”

True. Meg laughed. “No, it really isn't, is it?” She knew without checking that this girl was a high-top Converse All-Stars type, and her guess was—purple. She looked down, and saw that her guess was correct. On the left foot, anyway. The girl was wearing a green one on her right foot. “Did they make me out to be this pensive, delicate sort of recluse?”

The girl nodded. “I think they said that we cried for you, we laughed with you, and throughout it all, we admired you.”

“Oh, Jesus.” Then, Meg raised an eyebrow. “That's pretty good recall for someone who didn't read the article.”

The girl's face turned red. “I might have skimmed it.”

Just maybe. “Is that horrible picture of me lunging for the volley in there?” Meg asked. To illustrate, vividly, the tragic physical decline from able-bodied athlete to pathetic cripple.

“I think so, yeah,” the girl said. “I mean, I don't know, but it shows you playing tennis.”

Before the kidnapping, the one she saw constantly was a photo someone had snapped of her slumped forward, with her head in her hands, sitting on a bench in the hospital hallway after her mother was shot. The damn thing had been in just about every Year-in-Review magazine that came out. The President's daughter, caught in a moment of private grief. Grief that got splashed all over every supermarket check-out line in America. Overseas, too, for all she knew.

The boy on her other side passed her a stack of blue books, and she took one, then handed the rest to the girl.

“Did you study for this?” she asked.

The girl shook her head.

Oh. “Do you think it will be hard?” Meg asked.

The girl shook her head.

Oh. Meg frowned. “Did you take this Pass-Fail?”

The girl nodded.

Which she should have done herself, but if she had, she wouldn't be able to transfer the credit. Since she was now committed to leaving.

Maybe.

Probably.

Almost definitely.

She looked over at the girl again. “Do you understand parallax?”

The girl shook her head, quite nonchalant about the whole thing.

“Neither do I,” Meg said, and reached over to take the small pile of exams from the boy next to her and pass them along.

“You may begin,” the professor said, once everyone was reasonably quiet.

Meg turned over her test and read the first question. Parallax.

Naturally.

7

AFTER THE EXAM
was over, she felt so shaky that she wasn't sure she was going to be able to make it through another two hours of test-taking. There wasn't enough time to get anything to eat, but she stopped at a vending machine and drank a Coke in about five big gulps. Maybe the combination of sugar and caffeine would be enough to do the trick.

She must have looked unsteady on her feet—God knows she
felt
that way—because her agents seemed to be worried, and she had the sense that they were exchanging glances, especially when she had a small dizzy spell and had to stop for a minute.

“Do you need to sit down?” Brian—who was a stocky former Army Ranger—asked, suddenly right by her elbow.

Meg shook her head, feeling slightly invaded, and wishing he would just leave her alone.

Now, Paula was coming over, too, and Meg was going to tell both of them to back the hell off already—except that Paula was holding out a PowerBar.

“Eat this,” she said.

Meg shook her head. “No, I'm fine, I just—”

“
Eat
it, Meg,” Paula said. “Okay? You look like you're about to pass out.”

She wanted to argue, but they both looked so concerned, that she nodded, said thank you—and ate the damn thing.

Which tasted pretty good, actually.

In contrast to Astronomy, everyone in her English class seemed anxious, and she couldn't decide whether that made her feel better, or worse. The black molded plastic chair felt even more uncomfortable than usual, and she hadn't been able to find an empty left-handed desk in the back row, so she was going to have to twist her body to one side in order to be able to write. The lights in the room seemed unusually bright, and she wished that she could put on her sunglasses, but she was afraid that it would look too weird.

“Good afternoon,” Dr. Raleigh said. She was decked out in an ankle-length madras dress, the colors only bleeding slightly, and although her hair usually hung loose, today it was arranged in an ornate thick French braid, so she must be feeling celebratory about getting to give a major exam. “Please turn
all
of your cell phones off, and put everything under your desks, please.”

“We can't keep our pens?” someone asked, and most of the class laughed.

“You may keep your pens,” Dr. Raleigh said—big of her—and passed out the tests. “There are five essay questions. I would like you to choose three to answer, and you should spend equal time on each. Please be as specific as possible.” She paused. “You have two hours.”

All around her, Meg could hear paper rustling and blue books being opened. She picked up her test sheet, feeling sick to her stomach.

The questions were terrifying. The first one said:
compare and contrast Fitzgerald and Hemingway, in terms of both style and philosophy.
The second question was:
select four of the novels and discuss why each one has a uniquely American vison.
Oh, great, the vision thing. The third one read:
choose three of the novels, describe the roles that women and minorities play, and explain how each book is a product of its era.

Jesus Christ. Meg put her test down, her hand trembling. At the moment, she couldn't even remember which books they had read.

Everyone else was writing; she could hear them. Was she the only idiot in the room? She heard a small flapping sound, and stiffened. Someone was turning a
page
already?