Long May She Reign (94 page)

Susan sat next to her on the steps, twirling the racket idly.

“Um, Nancy seems nice.” Meg said.

Susan nodded.

“You know her pretty well?” Meg asked.

“Sure,” Susan said. “We've been in a few of the same classes together.”

“Does she want to be a pro?” Meg asked.

Susan shook her head. “No, I think she wants to be a history professor.”

When she could possibly play tennis, instead? Jesus. Or it might just be mature. Sensible. All of those good things—which she, alas, had never been. “To be a pro, you pretty much have to start when you're about six, put all your energy into it, and have absolutely nothing else in your life,” Meg said.

Susan nodded. “Probably wouldn't leave a lot of time for lying around watching
Meet the Press
.”

Or, someday,
being
on
Meet the Press
, now and again.

Which, frankly, held more appeal than showing up on ESPN. Not that lounging on her bed
watching
ESPN wasn't nice, sometimes.

“If I'd been really serious about it,” Meg said, “I probably would have been begging my parents to let me go to one of those full-time tennis academies in Florida or something, instead of applying to hard-core colleges.”

Susan nodded.

What the hell
had
tennis been for her? A misguided compulsion? A distraction? A hobby? A fantasy? Meg looked at her sports drink, feeling, for some reason, no driving need to finish it right away. “I was probably just going to be a
really
good NCAA-level player. I mean, when you get right down to it, I bet that was the extent of my talent.”

“Nothing wrong with that,” Susan said.

Wasn't there? But then, she remembered something, and frowned. “I wasn't actually worried about tennis.”

Susan looked very alert, without anything in her posture or expression seeming to change.

“When he—um, you know, the kidnapper, the main one—kicked my leg out, I was mad because I wasn't going to be able to
ski
anymore,” Meg said. Had growled something like that to him, right before he slammed his third, and most painful, kick into the already dislocated joint. “And in the ambulance, and at the hospital, I always asked about skiing, first.”

And during her first confused moments after surgery, and at physical therapy, and—Christ, she considered herself a tennis player, but maybe what had really broken her heart was the idea of not being able to ski again. Was there a quantifiable difference between loving tennis—and
adoring
skiing?

The steps were a popular spot on campus, known as Chapin Beach, and people kept walking by, almost all of whom said, “Hi, Susan.” After which, some of them would nod at Meg, while others tried to pretend that they hadn't noticed or recognized her. And hell, maybe some of them
hadn't
.

“Would you have tried out for the ski team here?” Susan asked.

Meg shook her head, not even having to think about that one. “Hell, no. Skiing is just—” Fun. And tennis was—work. Work she had loved, but still
work
. “This is strange,” she said slowly, “but I never even raced Steven or my mother. Like, one of us might say, ‘Bet I can beat you to the bottom!,' and we'd ski down like maniacs, but that wasn't racing, that was—” Fun.

Skiing was fun. One of the only times her family ever
had
fun. Normal, relaxed, noncompetitive fun.

“You looked like you were having a great time out there on the court,” Susan said.

No question about that, so Meg nodded. “Yeah, we were just hitting, and I wasn't trying to beat her, so it was—fun.” Hmmm.

“Figuring out a way to have fun might be a more manageable goal than trying to be the best player there ever was,” Susan said.

No doubt. Although that didn't mean that she didn't want her damn leg back. Meg glanced over at her. “How about you? The having fun part, I mean.”

Susan shrugged, and looked away.

Nothing new under the sun. “You can't
always
not answer questions, Susan,” Meg said. “It's not fair.”

Susan twirled the racket to the left, and then to the right.

“It's a pretty good goal,” Meg said. “Having fun.”

Susan nodded.

It was quiet, and Meg took a sip of her drink, which tasted fine, considering that it was an off-putting shade of blue.

“Karate is rewarding,” Susan said, thoughtfully, “but running is
fun
. A lot of fun. Especially when it's raining.”

Susan McAllister, expressing a clear opinion. Sounding
enthusiastic
, even. Of all things.

“Hey,” Susan said, “it's a start, right?”

Meg grinned at her. That, it was.

*   *   *

JULIANA AND MARK
came wandering back, along with Simon and Harry, and Meg went to the dining hall with all of them, even though her knee was beginning to throb so much that she felt kind of ill. Afterwards, she was in enough pain so that she didn't even consider the idea of venturing down to the Common Room for Sunday Snacks—and neither Susan nor Dirk pushed her to do so, this time.

Her knee had swollen so much that it barely fit inside the brace, so she loosened it, wondering whether she was going to need to ask her agents to take her to the hospital. But, that might mean someone having to carry her, or maybe even being strapped onto a gurney, neither of which held any appeal whatsoever. So, she propped her leg up on a pillow she had folded in half, took two painkillers, and tried to read Plato.

It was just past nine when Jack appeared at her door, very hungover, cranky because the team had placed fourth and barely managed to qualify for the Regionals, limping from his still-balky ankle, and sporting a fat lip, in addition to a bruised nose. The other guy, he assured her, looked much, much worse, and was, he was almost sure, a sheep shagger, to boot.

An insult she had never heard before, but did not really want him to define.

“Hey, are you all right?” he asked, suddenly looking at her.

This might be a good time to try letting him be her boyfriend. “No,” she said. “I kind of hurt my knee today, and I might have to cry soon.”

He sat on the bed, resting his hand on her stomach. “What happened, did you fall?”

The guy had put his hand on her exactly the same way, more than once, possessively, and suggestively. Some combination of arousal and intimidation. Jack was being possessive, too, but there was also affection there, and concern, and—it wasn't fair to mix up anything happening here with—

“Meg?” Jack said, anxiously.

Jesus, she had to stop drifting off like that. She felt muddled, anyway, since she'd broken down and taken an extra painkiller, about twenty minutes earlier, but that wasn't much of an excuse. “I'm sorry.” She shook her head, reminding herself that this was an entirely different person with—as far as she knew—no ulterior motives. “Could you hold my hand, instead?”

“Sure.” He took her hand. “Does your stomach hurt?”

It would be so uncomplicated if she just nodded. “The man touched me like that a few times,” she said. “And—I'm sorry. I never know when I'm going to have a flashback until I'm actually in the middle of it.”

Jack absorbed that, his hand loosening on hers.

“It's not at all your fault,” she said quickly. “You're just—” Male.

Fortunately, and unfortunately.

He let go of her hand and changed his position so that he was still on the bed, but sitting much farther away from her.

Damn. She should have lied.

“Do I
act
like him?” he asked.

She shook her head.

“I must,” he said. “I've seen you go all pale like that before.”

Since she didn't understand it herself, other than the fact that it seemed to happen more often when she was extremely attracted to a person, she couldn't explain it. “Would you think it was funny if you hurt me?” she asked.

He stared at her.

“And then, would you do it
again
, to try and figure out how far you had to go to break me?” she asked. “Sit there enjoying the hell out of it, if you somehow managed to make me cry?”

He got off the bed, looking very sulky. “Jesus, Meg, I put my hand there because your knee is all screwed up, and I wanted to make you feel better.”

It was hard to talk to a guy whose feelings were so easily wounded. “I know,” she said. “That was, you know, my
point
.”

He shrugged and jammed his Santa Monica cap on his head, turning away as though he might be about to leave. “Did he do more than just touch your stomach?” he asked, keeping his back to her.

Maybe the painkillers were confusing her, but that made no damn sense at all. “Well, yeah,” she said, and automatically touched her nose. “Didn't you see the movie?”

Which had aired during February sweeps, and was only the first of three film projects she'd heard about so far. The second one, in fact, was scheduled to be shown in a couple of weeks—May sweeps, this time, and was being told from the point of view of an entirely fictional crack FBI agent, working around the clock to solve the case, trying desperately to find the President's fragile, sheltered daughter before it was too late.

A tale which was bound to be something of a lead balloon, given the fact that the god-damn thing
still
hadn't been solved.

“I did watch it, yeah,” he said, facing away from her.

What an ignominious admission. She had been tempted, but made herself keep her television turned off that entire night, although Beth reported to her later that, among other things, the starlet who had been cast in the role had fluttered her eyes constantly and spent a lot of time begging the swarthy, bearded terrorists not to hurt her, and promising that her mother would do anything—
anything
—to get her back alive. Also, her—overdyed—brown hair had remained remarkably clean and tidy throughout the entire ordeal, which Steven—who, much to her horror, had also tuned in—thought was really funny.

The director and screenwriter had both discussed, proudly, in numerous interviews the incredibly comprehensive and detailed research they had done about the kidnapping, the White House, and poor, brave Meghan—which, perhaps, made it all the more puzzling that the terrorists spoke in broken English, and that words like “imperialist” and “infidel” were flung about at will. Beth also told her that there had been a long and unconvincingly poignant late-night scene during which the busty, tremulous actress who was playing the President wept bitterly, and quite loudly, in the Oval Office,
in front of people
, her bee-stung lips quivering the entire time. Her makeup, however, remained gloriously intact, despite the stream of stormy, yet pretty, tears.

“They made it seem like I got raped,” she said.

He nodded, not looking at her.

Steven obviously wouldn't have mentioned that, but Beth, after much coaxing, and then a sharp demand or two, had finally conceded that there had been an interlude during which two of the terrorists came into the room where the terrified young girl was artistically tied and gagged on top of a bed, gave her lascivious smiles, and shut the door, as the camera faded to black—and then, cut to a commercial.

And if she had to guess, she would predict that Preston had had to talk her father out of raising hell about that, or maybe even filing a large civil suit.

“I know you think I would, but if you tell me that's what happened, I'm not going to run away,” Jack said.

Perhaps he was underestimating her ability to make up a vivid, scary story, then. “It wasn't his style,” she said. He had been far more subtle than that.

He glanced at her. “But he touched you.”

Yes, and no. “It wasn't that simple,” she said. “I mean, okay, I'm sure he would have liked—” Under most circumstances, of course, she didn't mind using the most obvious word to describe what the guy would have done to her, but only as an all-purpose expletive,
never
as a demeaning sexual reference. “—forcing himself on me.” But, that wasn't right, either. “Or, no, forcing
me
to—” Closer, but still not there.

Jack's arms were folded, but he seemed more upset than hostile.

“People who throw around the phrase ‘mind fuck' have no idea what it's like to
undergo
one,” she said finally.

Yeah. That might be as close as she had ever gotten. But, his expression was so strange that she was afraid he might be about to get sick, so she should probably stop now.

And maybe he was kidding himself about not running away, because he sure as hell seemed to be on the verge of doing that, too.

Okay. Enough for one night. “By the way, as far as I know, none of them were Middle Eastern,” she said.

Jack turned around now, looking startled. “Really?”

At least there was
one
secret the law-enforcement community had done a good job of keeping—and that the media hadn't managed to ferret out yet. “They were Americans. Spoke perfect English,” she said. The minions' version of which had been obscenity-laden, but still grammatically correct. “He looked—I don't know—WASPy.” Preppy, even.

Jack sat down in the desk chair, frowning.

No specific information, or physical descriptions, had ever been officially released about the kidnappers, but people had found it remarkably easy to jump to their own conclusions. For her safety, and also to increase the chances of catching the son of a bitch, the White House had never issued any sort of statement to indicate otherwise. Which bothered her, but not quite as much as it probably should.

Her knee hurt. A lot.