White House Rules (14 page)

Sameera was starting to feel at home almost everywhere in the White House. She began wandering down to the press corps room to chat with the journalists and bloggers who were there 24/7. To her relief, they seemed to consider these conversations off the record; it helped that she always brought along a carafe full of hot, fresh-brewed coffee and a plate of Miranda's scotchies. During one visit, she gathered her courage and approached one of the seasoned investigative reporters assigned to cover her father's presidency.

“Hello, darlin',” he said, flashing a dimple in his cheek. John Malone was renowned as a flirt, and having a midlife crisis to boot. She'd heard rumors that he was serially dating every young blogger on the White House beat. But he was also supposed to be one of the best reporters in the country.

“Listen, Mr. Malone, I was wondering something. Does an idea ever get hold of you like it's…a Labrador and you're a bone?”

He grinned. “Great image, Sparrow. Yes, it does. It gnaws away at you and doesn't leave you alone. Why? Something got your interest?”

“Yeah. It's a…place I want to see for myself. And write about.”

“You sound like a journalist to me. Did you ever hear of a reporter named Daniel Pearl?”

“Of course.” Daniel Pearl was kidnapped and killed in Pakistan while on duty, and somehow the fact that he'd died in the land of her birth had always made it seem to Sameera that they had some kind of connection. If Pearl could pass the journalistic baton to her from the unseen realms, she'd take it with both hands.

“I knew him,” Malone said. “And that's how Pakistan grabbed him. It held him by the jaws and wouldn't let go. We warned him about how dangerous it was to go there, but he went anyway. He got to know good people. He wrote his heart out. And he made a strange, new place feel like home.”

That's what I want to do,
Sameera thought.
Get to know good people. Write my heart out. Make a new place feel like home.

As soon as her father got back from London, Sameera got things going. First, she asked Tara Colby to invite Uncle Muhammad and Mariam back to the White House. This time, Mariam's mother came along and so did her grandmother. Clad in burka and full head coverings, they both hugged and kissed Sameera, but everybody could tell they were overwhelmed with shyness at meeting the president and the First Lady.

Mom and Dad, who each knew a few phrases in Urdu, exerted their diplomatic skills to set their visitors at ease. Soon everybody in the room was chatting, with Mariam translating like she worked for the United Nations.

Mariam's mother had brought along a couple of burka for Mom and Sandra, the Cougarette who'd be accompanying them. Before leaving, Mariam's grandmother demonstrated how to move without tripping over the voluminous folds, while Mom and the agent watched dubiously.

“I'll have to practice,” Mom said.

“Me too,” said the Cougarette named Sandra. “Wearing that outfit looks tougher than some of the training I had to go through to become an agent.”

“My brown-tinted contact lenses came,” Mom said. “I'm thinking of wearing them every now and then just to throw people off.”

“You must be turning more brown all over,” Mariam's mother said, putting her hand next to the First Lady's to demonstrate the difference.

“I will be, don't worry. My niece is taking care of that.”

By the end of the tea, plans for the big school visit day had been set. Uncle Muhammad would speak to the principal and set up the visit without letting him know the identity of the
observers
. The Cougars were going to make sure everybody followed appropriate security protocol, and had code named the event SVD.

“Sounds like a disease,” Miranda muttered in her cousin's ear.

“Phir Melenge,”
said Mariam's grandmother, meaning “we'll meet later” in Urdu, and Sameera felt a pang. That's how Bobby sometimes said good-bye, too.

She was longing for another e-mail to arrive from him. No news either meant his grandfather was still alive or that Bobby couldn't get to the city or the cybercafé. Sameera asked for prayer for the Ghosh family every Sunday at church, wishing she could somehow get an update.

It was so hard not to talk or write to him. She couldn't send a sympathy note, describe her public school adventure in the making, share how excited she was over her cousin's emerging cookie business, describe their innovative old and new decorating schemes, or just confess how much she missed him.
I'm starved for words,
Sameera realized.
Words from him to me. Words from me to him.

When SVD finally arrived, Sameera couldn't help feeling nervous, despite the fact that she was experienced at heading out in public in disguise.

“I'm sorry you can't come with us, Ran,” she told her cousin.

“I'd like to film the whole thing,” Miranda admitted. “Those outfits hide a lot, but I doubt I could hide a camera under a head covering.”

“I wish I didn't feel like I had to pee,” Sameera said. “Remember during hide-and-seek how we always felt like going to the bathroom when it was time to hide? Well, that's exactly what's happening to me today.”

Mom didn't seem worried at all. “I feel like we're in a Bond flick,” she said, humming the theme song from the movies as she, Sameera, and Sandra stole through the secret tunnel and into the Treasury Building. A taxi was waiting around the corner with JB beside the driver, who was an undercover agent dressed like a cabbie.

“Remember, Mom,” Sameera warned. “Don't
say anything
, or someone might recognize you. And don't wash your hands if you have to go to the bathroom. I'm not sure how waterproof Miranda's bronzer is.”

“Don't worry. I won't go to the bathroom. I'm going to remain totally silent and let you answer any questions that come our way with that amazing Pakistani accent you do. Your tongue wraps around those retroflex
t
's and that impossible
dhuh
sound—impossible for me, that is.
You
sound like the real thing.”

I
am
the real thing
. “I'm not going to say anything either,” Sameera said. “Mariam's going to handle the questions. She'll translate them into Urdu, we're going to pretend to understand, and then she's going to make up some answer.”

“I hope she's not going to have to lie on our behalf. I'd hate that.”

“No way. Mariam's an expert in telling the truth without betraying secrets. Her parents are so strict, she's got it down to an art.”

They were there. It was time. Sameera took a deep breath. This was no Bond movie; this was real. If they didn't pull it off, the First Lady and First Daughter could end up getting tarred and feathered in the media. Mom's eyes suddenly looked as anxious as Sameera felt, and they clasped each other's hands as they climbed the stairs to the main entrance of the school.

A female security officer scanned them from head to toe with a metal detector, and cleared them to enter the building. The principal was too busy to stop and talk, but he smiled when Mariam introduced them and said he hoped they would enjoy their visit. Sameera felt herself relax a bit. If he wasn't wary or suspicious, maybe nobody else would be, either.

People stared, of course, as three burka-clad women followed Mariam from class to class, and a few students asked questions. But when Mariam answered briefly that these were guests who wanted to observe the school, nobody pursued the subject.

Sameera started taking in the sights, sounds, and smells of Jacob Lawrence High School. The halls were narrow, the classrooms crowded and in need of painting, the bathrooms clean but fitted with ancient fixtures. The gym doubled as a cafeteria. A so-called multipurpose room that served as a makeshift auditorium actually had a couple of old, unused urinals along one wall.

But as Sameera walked through the crowded hallways and overheard the joking and chatting and arguing and complaining, she realized again how much she missed being with people her age. And unlike St. Matthew's students, who could effortlessly blend into the most formal of White House social events, there was nothing “traditional and timeless” about the scene at Jacob Lawrence. The atmosphere was electric, new, and fresh. Some people were pulling off a set-the-trend kind of style that Sameera figured would travel the planet in a couple of months. A few were so out there they were virtually sci-fi.

Mariam, it turned out, was a quiet but highly respected nerd, exactly as Sameera had anticipated. In her first class, the teacher looked even more bored than the kids as she droned on, reading verbatim from an ancient textbook about the Roman Empire. Next, a math teacher handed out worksheets and drowned out the din by putting headphones on and listening to music. Sameera glanced over the worksheet and was glad to see that she could finish it without any problems, thanks to Westfield's help.

Third came a PE teacher who picked two captains, ordered them to divide into teams, and left the class on the windy basketball court, while she ducked behind the gym to grab a smoke. The few guys who started a pickup game were the only ones who stayed warm, along with Sandra—who raced around with them in her burka and scored two baskets. Sameera and her mother were fine, too, thanks to the thick wool they were wearing, but the rest of the class stood huddled together against the chilly wind.

Mariam's two best teachers came in a row right before the visitors left. The first taught history and made a discussion about the Civil War so interesting that Mom got carried away and raised her hand to answer a question. Sameera reached over and yanked on her burka, and Mom managed to shift the hand raising into a stretch yawn kind of motion.

“He's good,” Sameera whispered to Mariam as they left the class.

“He treats us with respect,” Mariam answered. “And gets it back.”

Her last period before lunch was English, taught by a young woman who managed to maintain perfect order, even in a class of forty-some rambunctious, distracted students. She was tough and demanding, but the kids settled down and tuned into every word. Sameera listened carefully when Mariam was called to read her essay. The class had been assigned to review Khaled Hosseini's
The Kite Runner
, and Mariam's lyrical, concise description of the novel made Sameera decide immediately to read it.

Mariam took them into the principal's office before they left. Mr. Richards was a middle-age man who was built like he'd once been an athlete, but today he looked exhausted even though it was only noon. “We just got a shipment of computers from some company that wants a tax write-off,” he said, pointing to about twenty huge cartons piled in the lobby. “The problem is that we don't have anywhere to put them and nobody has time to set them up.”

Sameera checked out the boxes and recognized the brand name of the desktops immediately.
Wow
, she thought.
Those are some nice machines. I could make them HUM.
She noticed Sandra also taking a close look.

“I'm so glad your guests came to our school,” Mr. Richards was saying. “I still think they should see some other American schools, though. Ours isn't typical, which is probably good.”

Mom whispered something into Mariam's ear.

“My guest is wondering something. If you received a substantial sum of money for the school, how would you use it?” Mariam asked.

The principal grinned. “She wants me to dream big, huh? Well, I can do that. Our facilities are crowded and we don't have money for extracurriculars, but I know exactly how I'd spend a nice chunk of change—that is, if I had absolute power. I'd double my good teachers' salaries, and recruit some new people with vision and energy.” He sighed. “You can translate that later, Mariam. For now, thank them so much for coming. I hope it was a valuable experience.”

Mariam said good-bye at the door. “Call me later,” she whispered to Sameera. “I want to know what your parents decide.”

The three burka-clad women slid into the back of the getaway car. The moment they were safely around the corner, Sandra yanked off her head covering and cracked her window, even though the February air outside was frigid. “This head thing is suffocating,” she said, panting like Jingle on a car ride. “How do they take it?”

“You get used to it,” Sameera said, her voice still muffled under her veil. “Well, Mom. What do you think?”

Mom turned to face Sameera, and there was a definite sparkle in her fake brown eyes. “I think the First Lady might take on teacher salaries as another domestic focus. How does a Double Their Salaries Foundation sound, Sparrow?”

“You go, Mom. Sounds good to me.”

“The best part is that we got to see the school without the fuss of a formal visit. I'm sure the teachers didn't change their style much—they thought we couldn't understand a word they were saying. We really got to see what that place was like.”

“So what about
me
, Mom? Are you okay with me going to Jacob Lawrence now that you've seen it?”

“Yes, I am. And your father will be, too, I'm sure. But do you still want to go now that
you've
seen it? It's so crowded, and I heard a lot of rough language.”

“I've heard worse, Mom. But you've cleaned up your act quite a bit since Dad became president.”

Her mother grinned. “You should hear me vent in the shower when none of the White House staff can hear. Anyway, Sparrow, the kids seemed pretty nice on the whole. I don't get why we had to go through all that security at the entrance.”

Sandra cleared her throat. “Assault with a knife two years ago,” she said. “A boy was almost killed. It's safe now, though. That's a state-of-the-art metal detector they've got.”

“Oh. There's no need to tell the president about ancient history, then, is there? Sparrow, what do
you
want to do? Would you like to study at Jacob Lawrence next year?”

“I'd love it, Mom. And the best part is that I already have a friend there. Isn't Mariam wonderful?”

“She is. And she's obviously a good all-around student, but she really shone in that English class, didn't she? When she read her essay out loud, you could tell that she loves to play with words almost as much as you do, Sparrow. When Ran goes back to Maryfield in June, you'll be glad to have a friend like Mariam around.”

“You're right, Mom,” Sameera said.

“We can ask the Secret Ser vice office about having JB and Sandra on permanent assignment with you at school. I'll have no worries about your safety if the two of them are there with you.”

“I'm all over it, ma'am,” said Sandra. “But you couldn't pay me to put on one of these outfits again.”

Mom fingered her own burka. “I'm holding on to mine,” she said. “You keep yours, too, Sparrow. Who knows when we might need to go undercover again? It felt great to be out in public without every eye staring at me. A huge relief, actually. For the first time I see how some of my Muslim friends feel that wearing a burka can be a freeing thing. I'm not sure I agree, but at least I understand.”

Sameera gazed out of the window as the taxi sped back toward the Treasury Building.
You don't really get someone until you've walked a mile in her burka,
she thought.