All-American Girl (18 page)

“I didn't ask you whose boyfriend he was,” David said, and I
realized with a sinking heart he wasn't going to let me off as easy as all that. “I asked if you like him.”

I didn't want to, but it was like I couldn't help it. Something made me lift my gaze to meet his.

And for a minute, it was like I was looking at a guy I had never met before. I mean, not like he was the president's son, but like he was a really cute, funny guy who happened to be in my art class and was into the same kind of music I was and happened to like my boots. It was kind of like I was seeing David—the real David—for the very first time.

I had opened my mouth to say something—I have no idea what; something lame, I'm sure; I was pretty freaked by the whole thing, most especially by how sweaty my palms had gotten all of a sudden, and how hard my heart was beating—but I never got a chance to. That's because somebody behind the cheerleaders called out, “
There
you are!” and Kris Parks came bearing down on us with, like, sixty people in tow, all of whom, she claimed, were just dying to meet the son of the president of the United States.

And David, exactly the way a politician's son should, went to shake their hands, without another single glance at me.

“It's not
your fault,” Catherine, across the room in my daybed, said. “I mean, you can't help that you're in love with Jack.”

I was curled up in my own bed, Manet snoring softly at my side.

“You met Jack first,” Catherine said through the darkness all around us. “What does David think, anyway? You were just supposed to wait around and not fall in love with anybody else until he rode up on his big white horse? I mean, it's not like you're Cinderella, or something.”

“I think,” I said to the ceiling, “that David kind of thought if I was asking him to some party that there was a possibility I might like him, and not some other guy.”

“Well, that was very old-fashioned of him,” Catherine said firmly. Now that Catherine had been on her first date, and it had turned out to be a successful one—Paul had kissed her good-night on my very front porch; on the lips, she'd informed me proudly afterward—she seemed to think she was some kind of expert on love. In between worrying that her parents were going to find out. Not so much about Paul, I think, as about the black jeans and the party.

“I mean, you are an attractive and vital girl,” Catherine went on. “You can't be expected to just stick with one man. You have to play the field. It's absurd that at the age of fifteen you should settle down with just one guy.”

“Yeah,” I said with a short laugh. “Especially one who is in love with my sister.”

“Jack only thinks he is in love with Lucy,” Catherine said firmly.
“We both know that. What happened tonight was just evidence that he is finally becoming aware of his deep and abiding affection for you. I mean, why else would he have been so mean to David if it wasn't for the fact that the sight of you with another man drove him into a jealous rage?”

I said, “I think he just had one too many beers.”

“Not true,” Catherine said. “I mean, that might have been part of it, but he was definitely threatened. Threatened by what he perceived as your happiness with another.”

I rolled over—disturbing Manet, who went on snoring, not at all—and stared at Catherine's dim form in the darkness of my bedroom.

“Have you been reading Lucy's
Cosmo
again?” I asked.

Catherine sounded guilty. “Well. Yes. She left one in the bathroom.”

I rolled back over to stare at the ceiling. It was kind of hard to tell what I should be thinking about everything that had happened that night when the only person with whom I could safely discuss it was spouting advice she'd garnered from the Bedside Astrologer.

“So did he kiss you good-night?” Catherine asked shyly. “David, I mean?”

I snorted. Yeah, David had really felt like kissing me after that whole thing with Jack and the Adams Prep cheerleading squad. In fact, he had barely spoken to me for the rest of the night. Instead, he'd gone around making the acquaintance of half the student population of my school. Evidently not by nature a shy sort of person, David hadn't seemed to mind a bit being the center of attention. In fact, he'd looked like he was having a pretty good time as Kris Parks and her cronies hung on his every word, laughing like hyenas every time he made a joke.

It wasn't until around eleven thirty—Theresa, who was baby-sitting
while my parents were at a dinner party they hadn't left for until after David picked me up, had given us a twelve o'clock curfew—that he finally looked around for me. I was sitting by myself in a corner, flipping through Kris's mom's copies of
Good Housekeeping
(who said I don't know how to have a good time?) and trying to ignore the people who kept coming up to me and asking if they could have my autograph (or, conversely, if they could sign my cast).

“Ready?” David asked. I said I was. I went and told Catherine that we were leaving, then found Kris—I noticed I didn't have to look very far; she was practically tracking David's every move—and said thanks and good-bye. Then David and John and I headed back out to the car.

Cleveland Park isn't really all that far from Chevy Chase, where Kris lives, but I swear, that ride home was one of the longest in my life. Nobody said anything. Anything! Thank God for Gwen, singing her heart out over the stereo.

Still, I noticed that for the first time ever, the sound of Gwen Stefani's voice didn't exactly make me feel better. The worst part was, I didn't even know what I had to feel so badly about. I mean, okay, so David knew I liked Jack. Big deal. I mean, is there some kind of federal law that prohibits girls from liking their sisters' boyfriends? I don't think so.

By the time we pulled up to my house, however, the silence in the car (aside from Gwen) was oppressive. I turned to David—God knew I didn't expect him to walk me to the door or anything—and went, “Well, thanks for coming with me.”

To my very great surprise, he opened his car door and went, “I'll walk you up.”

Which I can't say exactly thrilled me, or anything. Because I had a feeling he was going to let me have it.

And, halfway up the stairs to the porch, he did.

“You know,” he said, “you really had me fooled, Sam.”

I glanced at him, wondering what was coming next, and knowing I probably wasn't going to like it. “I did? How?”

“I thought you were different,” he said. “You know, with the boots and the black and all of that. I thought you were really…I don't know. The genuine article. I didn't know you were doing it all to get a guy.”

I stopped in the middle of the steps and stared up at him, which was kind of hard, since the porch light was on, and it was burning in my eyes. “What do you mean?”

“Well, isn't that it?” David asked. “I mean, wasn't that why you asked me to the party, too? It had nothing to do with wanting to help your friend feel like she fit in. You were using me to try to make that Jack guy jealous.”

“I was not!” I cried, hoping he, too, was being blinded by the porch light. That way he wouldn't be able to see that my cheeks were on fire, I was blushing so hard. “David, that's…I mean, that's just ridiculous.”

“Is it? I don't think so.”

We'd reached my front door. David stood looking down at me, his expression unreadable…and not because I was being blinded by the porch light anymore, but because he really had no expression—no expression at all on his face.

“It's too bad,” he said. “I really thought you weren't like any of the other girls I know.”

And with a polite good-night—that's it, just “Good night”—he turned around and went back down to the car. He didn't even look back. Not once.

Not that I could blame him, I guess. Despite Catherine's assertion that boys ought to know girls our age are “playing the field” (which sounds pretty funny coming from her, Miss I-Just-Went-
Out-with-a-Boy-for-the-First-Time-Ever-Tonight), I imagine it might kind of suck to find out the person who'd asked you out really liked someone else—would rather have been out with that person, instead.

I don't know. I guess I could see why David was kind of peeved with me.

But come on. I'd asked him to a party, not to marry me, or anything. It was just a
party
. What was the big deal?

And what was all that junk about being wrong about my being different from all the other girls he knew? How many other girls did he know who'd saved his dad's life lately? Uh, not that many, I was willing to bet.

Still, the evening wasn't a total washout. Some of my celebrity must have rubbed off on Catherine, because other people at the party finally started talking to her. She stood there beaming, Paul at her side, and had all of her popular girl fantasies realized. Someone even invited her to another party, the following weekend.

“You know,” Catherine, the new It Girl of Adams Prep, said from the daybed, “I really think Jack was jealous.”

I blinked up at the ceiling at this piece of information. “Really?”

“Oh, yes. I heard him tell Lucy that he thinks David is pompous and that you could do better.”

Pompous?
David was the least pompous person I had ever met. What was Jack
talking
about?

When I mentioned this out loud, though, all Catherine said was, “But, Sam, I thought that was what you wanted. To make Jack realize that you are a vital, attractive woman, desired by many.”

I admitted that this was true. At the same time, however, I didn't like the idea of anybody—even my soul mate—calling David names. Because David was a very nice person.

Only I didn't want to think about that. You know, about David
being so nice, and my treating him the way I had. I mean, that kind of behavior is all very well for readers of
Cosmo
, but I'm really more of an
Art in America
kind of girl.

Knowing that sleep was a long way off, but aware that Catherine, by the sound of her steady breathing, was no longer available, I got out my flashlight and opened the book the White House press secretary had given me, on the lives of the first ladies.

Top ten
little-known facts about Dolley Payne Todd Madison, wife of the fourth president of the United States of America:

• 10. She spelled her name Dolley, not Dolly.
  
• 9. Born in 1768, she was raised as a Quaker, eschewing colorful bonnets and clothes, as Quaker tradition dictated.
  
• 8. She was married once before to a Quaker lawyer who died in a yellow fever epidemic.
  
• 7. After marrying James Madison in 1794, Dolley acted as “unofficial first lady” during the presidency of Thomas Jefferson, who was a widower.
  
• 6. It was apparently around this time that Dolley decided God didn't care if she wore bright colors, because she is described as having worn a gold turban with an ostrich feather tucked into it at her husband's inaugural ball.
  
• 5. The fact that Dolley abandoned her Quaker ways is further illustrated by the fact that during her husband's presidency, she became the belle of Washington society. She was best known for her Wednesday evening receptions, where politicians, diplomats, and the general public gathered. These gatherings
  helped to soothe some of the tensions between Federalists, who were like today's Republicans, and Republicans, who were like today's Democrats, in a time of intense party rivalries.
  
• 4. During the War of 1812, Dolley saved not only George Washington's portrait but also tons of important government documents by pressing them against the sides of trunks. The day before the British attacked, she filled a wagon with silver and other valuables and sent them off to the Bank of Maryland for safekeeping, which just goes to show she was not only brave but also proactive.
  
• 3. But the majority of U.S. citizens in 1814, when this all happened, were not very appreciative of Dolley's actions, since they all hated her husband for starting the war in the first place. In fact, as the White House was burning down, Dolley went to the neighbors and knocked on the door, looking for sanctuary, and they told her to get lost. She didn't find a place to stay until she lied about who she was.
  
• 2. As if this was not enough, one of her sons turned out to be a profligate, which means loser, whose out-of-control spending nearly bankrupted the family.
  

And the number-one little-known fact about Dolley Madison:

• 1. She wasn't really very attractive.
  

The next
week was Thanksgiving. Susan Boone had class on Tuesday, but it was cancelled on Thursday, on account of the holiday.

I figured that, when I saw David in the studio on Tuesday, I would say I was sorry for what had happened at Kris's. I mean, even though Catherine insisted I hadn't done anything wrong, and part of me felt like she was right, another part of me—a bigger part of me—disagreed. I figured at the very least I owed David an apology. I was going to ask him if he wanted to go bowling with me and Catherine and Paul the following Friday. I knew Lucy had a game that night, so there wouldn't be a chance of our running into Jack. That way David would know I'd asked him out for him, and not to make Jack jealous.

I didn't know why it was so important to me that I make David understand he was wrong…that I wasn't like the other girls he knew, that I wasn't trying to impress anyone, especially a guy. Especially my sister's boyfriend. That I liked to wear black. That the daisies on my boots had been my idea.

I just really wanted to make everything between us okay again.

Except that David didn't come to class on Tuesday.

David didn't come to class, and it wasn't like there was anybody there that I could ask why. You know, like if he was sick. I mean, Gertie and Lynn weren't friends with David. I was. And I didn't know why he wasn't there. Was he sick? Had he left early for Camp David, where he and the rest of his family were going to spend
Thanksgiving, according to the news and the folks in the press office? I didn't know.

All I knew was, as I sat there drawing the gourds Susan Boone had arranged on the table in front of us, my daisy helmet on my head to guard against aerial crow assaults, I felt pretty stupid.

Stupid because of how disappointed I was that David hadn't showed. Stupid because I'd actually thought it would be that simple—I'd just apologize, and that would be the end of it.

But most of all, I felt stupid that I even cared. I mean, I didn't even
like
David. Oh, sure, as a friend I liked him all right.

And yeah, there was that freaky frisson thing that happened every once in a while when I was around him.

But it wasn't like just because of that I was going to forget all about Jack. Okay, yeah, Jack had acted like a jerk at Kris's party. But that didn't mean I'd fallen out of love with him, or anything. I mean, when you have loved someone as much and for as long as I have loved Jack, you totally see beyond jerky behavior and that kind of thing. The way I felt about Jack was
deeper
than that. Just like, I knew, the way he felt about me was deeper than the way he felt about Lucy.

He just didn't know it yet.

Anyway, if David thought just by blowing off Susan Boone's on Tuesday he'd be rid of me, he had, as Theresa would say, another think coming. Because, as teen ambassador to the UN, I went to the White House every Wednesday. So what I figured I'd do was, if David hadn't left for the holidays yet, I'd just go, you know,
find
him. Sometime the Wednesday before Thanksgiving when Mr. White, the press secretary, wasn't paying attention.

Only that didn't work out too well, either, because Mr. White was totally paying attention that day. That was on account of the fact that entries for the From My Window contest at the UN were pouring in. We were getting paintings from as far away as Hawaii
and as close as Chevy Chase (Jack's entry). Mr. White was doing a lot of complaining because there were so many paintings, we had nowhere to put them all. We could only pick one to send on to the U.S. Ambassador to the UN in New York.

Some of the paintings were very bad. Some of them were very good. All of them were very interesting.

The one that interested me most had been painted by a girl named Maria Sanchez, who lived in San Diego. Maria's painting depicted a backyard with freshly laundered sheets hanging from a washline. Between the hanging sheets, which were fluttering in an unseen breeze, you could catch glimpses of this barbed-wire fence a pretty far ways away…but not far enough away that you couldn't see that there were people sneaking through this hole they had cut in the wire. Some people had already got through the hole, and they were running away from men in brown uniforms, who had guns and sticks, and were chasing them. Maria called her painting
Land of the Free?
With a question mark.

Mr. White, the press secretary, hated this painting. He kept going, “This contest is not about making political statements.”

But I felt kind of differently about it.

“The contest is about what you see from your window,” I said. “This is what Maria Sanchez of San Diego sees from her window. She is not making a political statement. She is painting what she sees.” Mr. White ground his teeth. He liked this painting that had come from Angie Tucker of Little Deer Isle, Maine. Angie's painting was of a lighthouse and the sea. It was a nice painting. But somehow, I didn't believe it. That that was what Angie saw every day from her window. I mean, a lighthouse? Come on. Who was she, anyway, Anne of Green Gables?

For that reason, I didn't think Angie's painting was as good as Maria's.

Neither, surprisingly, was Jack's.

Oh, Jack's was good. Don't get me wrong. Like all his paintings, Jack's entry to the From My Window contest was brilliant. It depicted three disillusioned-looking young guys standing around in the parking lot outside of the local 7-Eleven, stamped-out cigarettes at their feet and broken beer bottles lying around, the shards of glass sparkling like emeralds. It spoke eloquently of the plight of urban youth, of the hopelessness of our generation.

It was a good painting. A great painting, actually.

Except that guess what?

It was so not what Jack sees out of his window.

I know this for a fact. That's because the closest 7-Eleven to Jack's house is all the way out in Bethesda. And no way could you see it from his window. Jack lives in a great big house with lots of tall leafy trees around it and a long circular driveway out front. And while I admit, the real view out of Jack's window might be a bit on the boring side, in no way could I reward him for basically lying. Much as I loved him, I couldn't, you know, let that affect my judgment. I had to be fair.

And that meant that Jack's entry was effectively out of the running.

Mr. White and I had reached an impasse. I could tell he was bored of the argument and just wanted to get out of there. It was the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, and all. I thought I'd give him a break and went, “Well, Mr. White, listen. What do you say we cut our little visit short this week? I was thinking of stopping by the family quarters and just saying hi to David, you know, before he leaves for the holiday….”

Mr. White shot me a look.

“You aren't stopping anywhere,” he said. “We still have a ton of work to do. There's the International Festival of the Child coming
up this Saturday. The president particularly wants you there….”

I perked up upon hearing this. “Really? Will David be there?”

Mr. White looked at me tiredly. Sometimes I got the feeling that Mr. White cursed the day I'd stopped Larry Wayne Rogers from killing his boss. Not that Mr. White wanted the president dead. Not at all. Mr. White worshiped the ground the guy walked on. It was me I think he would have been happy to be rid of.

“Samantha,” he said with a sigh. “I don't know. There will, however, be representatives from over eighty countries in attendance, including the president, and it would really help if you would, just this once, dress up a little. Try to look like a young lady and not a video jockey.”

I looked down at my boots, black tights, the kilt that had once been red plaid that I had dyed black, and my favorite black turtleneck.

“You think I look like a veejay?” I asked, touched by this unexpected compliment.

Mr. White rolled his eyes and asked if there was anything I could do about my cast. It was looking a little worse for wear. As I'd told David I would, I'd decorated it in a patriotic motif, with eagles and the Liberty Bell and even a tiny celebrity portrait—of Dolley Madison. Fourteen girls had already asked me if they could have the cast when it came off. Theresa had suggested I auction it off on the Internet.

“Because,” she said, “you could probably get thousands of dollars for it. They auctioned off chunks of the Berlin Wall after it fell. Why not the cast of the girl who made the world safe for democracy?”

I didn't know what I was going to do with my cast when it came off, but I figured I had time to figure it out. It wasn't due to come off for another week.

I could see Mr. White's point, though. The cast had gotten kind
of dirty, and parts of it were sort of crumbling off where I'd gotten it wet (it was very hard to wash my hair one-handed).

“Maybe your mother could rig something up,” he said, looking kind of pained. “A nice sling to, um, hide it.”

If I hadn't already known from his attitude about the whole painting contest, I would have known it from the way he was eyeing my cast: Mr. White had no appreciation for art.

By the time he was done yammering on about all the people who would be at the International Festival of the Child, it was five o'clock, and time to go home. No way I was going to be able to sneak off to find David now. I'd missed him once again.

This didn't exactly put me in a real festive holiday mood, know what I mean? I didn't even care that we had four whole days off from school. Ordinarily four days of being Deutsch free would have delighted me. But for some reason this year it wasn't so exciting. I mean, technically, it meant that, if David didn't show at the International Festival of the Child, it would be five whole days until I saw him again. I could have called him, I guess, but that wasn't the same. And I didn't have his e-mail address.

Even the fact that Theresa was in the kitchen baking when I got home didn't cheer me up. It was just pumpkin pies (blech) for tomorrow. And they weren't even for us. They were for Theresa's own kids, and grandkids, too. What with being with us all week, the only chance Theresa had to get ready for Thanksgiving was when she was at our house. My mom didn't mind. We always had Thanksgiving at my grandma's in Baltimore, anyway, so it wasn't like she needed the oven, or anything.

“What's the matter with you?” Theresa wanted to know when I came into the kitchen, dropped my coat and backpack, and started right in on the graham crackers without even complaining about how come we only got the good stuff when Jack came over.

“Nothing,” I said. I sat down at the kitchen table and stared at the back of the novel Rebecca was reading. She'd apparently abandoned romance for sci-fi once again, since she held the latest installment in the Jedi Academy saga. I felt, all things considered, that she had made a wise decision.

“Then stop with the sighing already.” Theresa was tense. Theresa was always tense before the holidays. She said it was because she never knew which one of his ex-wives Tito was going to show up with…or if he'd show up with an entirely new wife. Theresa said it was more than any mother should be forced to bear.

I sighed again, and Rebecca looked up from her book.

“If you're upset because Jack's not here,” she said in a bored voice, “don't be. He and Lucy'll probably be rolling back in a few minutes. They just walked down to the video store to get a copy of
Die Hard
. You know that's Dad's favorite holiday movie.”

I sniffed. “Why would I be upset about Jack not being here?” I demanded. When Rebecca just rolled her eyes, I went, in maybe a louder voice than I ought to have, “I don't like Jack, you know, Rebecca. In that way, I mean.”

“Sure, you don't,” Rebecca said—but not like she believed it—and went back to her book.

“I don't,” I said. “God. As if. I mean, he's Lucy's boyfriend.”

“So?” Rebecca turned a page.

“So I don't like him like that, okay?” God, was I going to have to spend the rest of my life denying my true feelings to everyone I knew? I mean, at school everyone was all, Sam and David, Sam and David. Even the press, since our big “date,” had been all, Sam and David, Sam and David. There'd been something about it on the news. The
national
news. Not, like, the lead story, or anything, but one of those little human interest things five minutes before the news hour was up. It was totally humiliating. The reporters were
all, “And Christmas isn't the only thing in the air here in the capital. No, young love seems to be in the air, as well.”

It was totally revolting. I mean, it was no wonder David hadn't shown up at Susan Boone's. The place had been crawling with reporters, a bunch of whom had yelled, as I'd darted past them, “Did you and David have a nice time at the party, Sam?”

Which reminded me of something. I looked at Rebecca and went, in the snottiest voice I could, “Besides, if I supposedly like Jack so much, what's with this frisson thing you said you sensed between me and David? Huh? How can I have frisson with one guy if I'm supposedly in love with someone else?”

Rebecca just looked at me and went, “Because you are completely blind to what's right in front of you,” then went back to her book.

Blind? What was she talking about, blind? Thanks to Susan Boone, I had never seen better in my life, thank you very much. Wasn't I drawing the best eggs in the studio? And what about those gourds I'd done yesterday? My gourds had been better than anyone's. My gourds had blown everyone else's gourds out of the water. Even Susan Boone had been impressed. During critique at the end of class, she'd even said, “Sam, you are making enormous strides.”

Enormous strides. How could a blind person be making enormous strides in ART class?

I mentioned this to Rebecca, but she just went, “Yeah? Well, maybe you can see eggs and gourds, but you sure can't see anything else.”