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Authors: Ellen Emerson White

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BOOK: The President's Daughter
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“Mom?” she asked, not sure what to do.
Her mother looked over, and Meg saw that she was laughing so hard that tears were coming out of her eyes. “Is this possibly the funniest thing ever?” she asked.
Meg stared at her. “
Funny?”
“I mean, I've been horrible all day, and now we're watching little men in shorts, and—” Her mother broke up completely, covering her eyes with her hand.
Worried, Meg glanced at her father.
“Katharine,” he said, smiling.
“Don't call me that,” she said, laughing almost too hard to speak. “I hate that name.”
“She's flipped,” Steven said to Meg. “She's really flipped.”
Their mother just laughed, changing the channel back to one of the news stations.
“The trend is obvious now,” the commentator was saying, “and it's only a matter of an hour or so before—”
Their mother clicked the television off.
“Well,” she said, her voice weak from laughing. She looked at all of them, her expression softening. “I guess—I mean, it looks as though—”
There was a knock on the door and Meg held her breath, knowing that this was it.
“Kate,” Glen said. “You have a telephone call.”
Griffin, calling to concede. Meg gulped, feeling her stomach tighten with incredible fear. President. Her mother was the President of the country.
Her
mother. Jesus Christ.
“Mr. Griffin,” her mother said, sounding stiff and formal.
Glen nodded.
“Well, then,” she said, automatically raising her hands to straighten her hair. “I guess I'd better take it.”
Her father stood up too, his grin huge. “Think I might come for the walk,” he said. Then, his grin widened. “Madam President.”
MEG NOTICED ONE big change after the election—boys were breaking their backs to ask her out, quite a few of whom she barely knew. It was flattering, in a way. It was tempting, in a big way. But, how could she say yes to a guy she knew was only asking her because she was the President-elect's daughter? Talk about demoralizing. She had a feeling they were going to go out with her, see how far they could get, and then run to the tabloids with the news.
Two days after the election, Linda came over when she knew Meg's mother wasn't home and sat Meg down for a Talk.
“We need to set some ground rules for you,” she said. “First of all, is anything I don't know about going to surface?”
What, like the media hadn't
already
completely invaded their lives? And Linda—or one of her little acolytes—had asked her some version of that question at least twice a week since the New Hampshire primary. “You mean like, topless photos, me holding a loaded gun, and smoking pot at a party?” Meg asked.
In her cool and collected way, Linda looked a little bit terrified
“I don't think any of that is going to come
out
,” Meg said. “I've been pretty careful.”
“It may seem terribly funny to you,” Linda said, after a pause, “but the reality is that you have to be more cautious. And that
definitely
includes the shoot-from-the-lip habit. Anything you do from now on, no matter how innocent it may seem at the time, is going to reflect on your mother, more than ever. We can't have you running around with a lot of boys, or coming home drunk. And, as far as sex is concerned—” She closed her eyes.
“Well, you don't have to worry about boys,” Meg said, “because I'm very,
very
gay.”
Linda pursed her lips.
“
Toujours
gay,” Meg said.
Linda looked down at her coffee cup—one of Trudy's special blends; Trudy was very particular, when it came to coffee—and slowly and delicately stirred one-third of a teaspoon of sugar into it. “Well, be that as it may, I have some concerns, and I think it's important for us to address them now, as opposed to down the road.”
Yeah, because she was such a total rebel and miscreant, without a single political instinct anywhere in her body. “Shouldn't my mother be the one doing this?” Meg asked stiffly.
“She trusts you,” Linda said.
Meg nodded. “But
you're
expecting me to come home pregnant.”
“You're sixteen years old, you're moving into a national spotlight, and I think we need to discuss it,” Linda said.
Oh, really? Meg resisted the urge to grit her teeth. Clench her fist. All that good stuff. “I didn't know we were discussing. I thought you were telling.”
“Meg, come on.” Linda made an impatient gesture. “We have to work together on this.”
“Then, how come you
tell
me, instead of discussing?” Meg asked.
Linda sucked in a hard breath.
“Well, you are,” Meg said defensively.
“Look,” Linda said. “I know you're pretty well politicized—”
That word again.
“—no conception of what it's going to be like,” Linda went on. “People are going to be watching every move you make. So, your image—”
Meg grinned. Linda just couldn't say “politicized” without saying “image.”
“—very important.” Linda frowned at her. “Are you listening to me?”
Meg nodded.
“All right, then. On another subject,” Linda said, “you also need to stop posting on the Internet from now on.”
Yeah, like
that
was going to happen. Meg shook her head.
“We're aware that you don't use your real name,” Linda said, “but if my people can trace your footprints without any trouble, so can anyone else with a little initiative.”
Whoa, wasn't that against the law? Had they been going behind her back for months now? “You're
tracking
me?” Meg said. “Who the hell gave you permission to do that?” If it turned out to be her mother, she was going to be really pissed off.
Linda hesitated. “Well, I don't mean to suggest that we—that is, it isn't our intent to interfere with—”
Yeah, right. “It's no one's damn business what I say on the Internet—or anywhere else,” Meg said.
Linda sighed. “No, but your screen name isn't exactly a state secret, and I'm concerned that you may not be sufficiently restrained, and we're now on a much bigger playing field than you seem to realize.”
Make that, her
former
screen name. Besides, it wasn't as though the world was waiting with bated breath to find out what she thought about various television shows, and the Red Sox, and so forth. Just Linda and her cohorts, apparently.
“I'm sorry if you're offended by any of this, but I'm much more worried about you than I am about your brothers,” Linda said. “You're sixteen—it's going to be very difficult for you. You have to be prepared for—”
“Is my mother honest?” Meg asked suddenly.
Linda blinked. “What?”
Meg felt her cheeks reddening, but decided that now that she had asked, she really wanted to know. “Is my mother honest?”
Linda looked at her as if she were an extremely odd specimen. “Are you putting me on?”
“I was just—curious,” Meg said.
“Shouldn't you and your mother be having this talk?” Linda asked.
Meg laughed. Unexpected humor from the Ice Queen. “I just wondered. What's your opinion?”
“That she is, to a rather ridiculous degree.” Linda shook her head. “A difficult woman to work for, your mother.”
“You're not just”—Meg put on a serious expression—“fabricating this for the sake of her image, are you?”
“Are you kidding?” Linda obviously wasn't sure. “I'll tell you, honesty isn't as easy to package as you might think. That kind of image, when it's genuine, requires—”
Meg sat back, grinning, knowing that Linda, despite all of her huffing and puffing, would have given her a straight answer.
“—listening to me?” Linda asked.
Meg nodded.
“Well, I hope you're convinced. Now,” she looked down at her clipboard, “insofar as you're concerned—”
“Hey,” Meg said. “A man from the
Post
asked me what kind of birth control I used, and I told him I was on the Pill, but was thinking about getting one of those implants, instead. Was that okay?”
Linda looked at her with the same expression she'd had at the top of the mountain at Stowe.
“I mean, I figured in the interests of honesty—” Meg let her voice trail off.
“I do not find your humor amusing,” Linda said, half-smiling.
Meg grinned.
 
PEOPLE KEPT ASKING her out. Knowing that Linda was right, albeit something of an alarmist, Meg said no to almost all of them, giving in only to Rick Hamilton, because she still had a wild crush on him and didn't care
what
his motives were.
She was on her way to her biology class one day when Carl
Lehman, a guy she knew from the Ski Club, but almost never saw otherwise, stopped her, wanting to know if she'd go to the movies with him.
She didn't want to be rude to him—necessarily—but—“I'm sorry, I can't. I promised I'd—”
“Yeah, sure.” He shoved his hands in his pockets, rocking back on his sneakers. Carl was pretty good-looking, in a scruffy way, but was the kind of guy who took
pride
in underachieving—and also made a point of abusing the school's already fairly liberal open campus policy. “Heard you went snob on us.”
“I didn't,” Meg said. “I just—”
“Yeah, sure.” He opened a piece of gum, putting it in his mouth and crumpling the piece of paper. “Well, see ya.”
“Wait a minute,” she said after him.
He turned.
She looked him straight in the eye. “How come you never asked me out before my mother won the election?”
“Don't know.” He had the grace to blush. “Guess I never thought of it.”
“Oh, please, you flatter me,” Meg said.
He smiled a little. “You sound like her.
A lot
like her.”
“I do not,” Meg said. “I sound like
me
.”
“Yeah, sure.” He opened another piece of gum.
Christ, she was sick of this. Meg scowled at him. “If you want to go out with my mother, don't ask me, okay? And tell your stupid friends! I don't go out with people who don't ask
me
.”
“How come you said yes to Rick?” he wanted to know.
“It's none of your business,” she said.
Carl shrugged. “Why you think
he
asked you out?”
She held tightly to her biology book, not looking at him.
“You're in AP
everything
, and you can't figure it out?” he said.
There was really no way to respond to that, so she just hunched her shoulders and headed down the hall.
He caught up to her, putting his hand on her arm. “I'm sorry. I didn't mean that. 'Sides, it's not why
I
asked you out.”
“Yeah,” she said. “Sure.”
“Well, think what you want,” he said. “Only, I asked you out, 'cause I always thought you were kinda—I don't know—quiet and stuff. Only, you got up and made that speech, and looked really beautiful and everything—you were kinda something else.”
Well, at least it was a creative attempt to dig himself out. “I was being my mother,” she said.
He shook his head. “Naw, you were just wearing her blazer.” He tossed his crumpled ball of gum paper and foil at a wastebasket farther up the hall. “F'you don't want to go out with me, don't go out with me.”
“What if you were only telling me that so I'd go?” she asked.
“Hey, think what you want.” He went down the hall. “Maybe I'll try again sometime.”
“Maybe I'll say yes,” she said.
“Hey, don't flatter me.” He flipped her back a piece of gum. “See ya.”
She was late for class. And when she walked in, everyone stopped working on their experiments and stared at her.
“Sorry I'm late,” she said to her teacher, Mr. Collinsworth.
“Uh, no problem,” he said, blinking several times. “No problem at all.”
Meg frowned. “You're not going to make me go get a pass?”
“No,” Mr. Collinsworth said. “That won't be necessary.”
She started to go over to her lab bench, where Beth and Sarah had already started setting up their equipment, but changed her mind. “Sir,
everyone
who's late has to go get a pass. It's a rule.”
He straightened his glasses. “I told you. It's not necessary.”
“Yeah, well, I think it is,” she said.
Now, everyone was
really
staring.
“Meghan,” Mr. Collinsworth said, “I might remind you that unexcused tardiness to class is an automatic detention.”
“So what?” she asked. “I broke a rule.”
He sighed. “Meghan—”
She looked at him, stubbornly folding her arms across her chest.
“Very well,” he said. “Go get a pass.”
“Thank you, sir.” She left the room and went down to the office, where no one was very eager to give her a late pass. Finally, a reluctant aide wrote one out.
“Thank you,” Meg said. “Where's detention tonight?”
“Well, perhaps your teacher would be willing to overlook—” the woman started.
Meg shook her head. “No, that's okay. I'd rather jump straight to an administrative detention.”
“Then, um, please report to your housemaster during J-Block,” the woman said uneasily.
Meg nodded. “Thank you.”
“Hey, all right,” the guy next to her, a senior who had apparently been caught skipping, said. “Way to go.”
She gave him a tough-kid grin, which he returned. “See you there.”
Back in biology, she handed her teacher the pass. Then, because everyone was watching her, she couldn't resist swaggering a little on her way to her lab bench.
BOOK: The President's Daughter
13.03Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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