“That would be humor,” Meg said.
After only a tiny hesitation, her mother nodded and resumed eating.
Not terribly good humor, but humor, regardless.
After dinner, she went to her room to finish up some final packing—and, what the hell, decide what she was going to wear.
She had just about settled on her red ragg sweater—Williams was, after all, deep in the New England countryside—when Steven showed up in her doorway.
“So, yo,” he said. Christ, his voice was deep now. “You’re out of here tomorrow.”
Meg nodded. “Yeah.” As far as she knew, her brothers had been up in the Solarium, watching the Celtics with their father. “Is it halftime?”
He shrugged, but she knew that meant yes.
“So, uh, look,” he said. “You mad I’m not coming?”
She shook her head. “The fewer people, the better, as far as I’m concerned.”
“You going to miss Stupid?” he asked, indicating Vanessa, who was asleep inside an open Camp David duffel bag.
She was going to miss Stupid very much. “Yeah,” Meg said.
“Well—you’ll be back lots,” he said. “On, like, vacations and all.”
“Yeah.” She reached over to pat her cat, who woke up long enough to grab her hand between her paws and wrestle violently with it.
“You scared?” Steven asked.
Enough to destroy her capacity for rational thought. But, she shrugged.
“It’ll be good, though,” he said. “You know, college.”
Either that, or a total, humiliating, very public disaster. Meg shrugged again.
“I’ll pat her and stuff,” he said. “So she isn’t sad. I mean, you know, even if she bites.”
And Vanessa was highly likely to bite. “Thanks.” Meg unhooked a claw from her wrist. It hurt, but not enough to stop patting her.
“Be weird,” he said. “You not being around.”
Meg swallowed, feeling—already—a strong jolt of homesickness. “At least it’s under better circumstances this time.”
He nodded, not looking at her.
Intelligent of her to bring up the last time—the only time—she had ever been away from home for more than a couple of days.
“I guess there really isn’t any comparison at all. I mean, it’s not as though—” Nothing like compounding the issue. Jesus. “Anyway,” she said. “What’s the score?”
“Celtics up by three,” he said.
“Well—good,” she said, and it was quiet.
“So, uh, you’re going to be really busy up there?” he asked.
Meg frowned, not sure what he meant by that. “I don’t know. I’m taking four classes.”
He nodded, rocking slightly on his heels.
“I guess it’ll be pretty hard to make friends,” she said. “I mean, you know how people always act.”
He nodded, rocking.
What the hell did he want? “So, I’m guessing I probably won’t be all that busy,” she said.
He stopped rocking, but still didn’t make eye contact. “So, it’d be okay if I, you know, call you up sometimes? If I like, want to talk to you?”
Meg smiled. She was quite fond of her brothers. In fact, excessively so. “Yeah,” she said. “I hope you do.”
* * *
THE PRESS POOL the next day seemed large enough to invade Normandy. And she had to do lots of waving and smiling, along with making tedious “yes, I’m certainly looking forward to it” and “this is an exciting new step” comments.
During the flight up, her mother enacted a closed-door policy for the Presidential suite—broken only twice, by Winnie, her deputy chief of staff—so that Meg and her parents and Neal could be alone together. Normally, her mother’s flights tended to be gregarious and quite social, with people popping in and out to say hello, so there was probably some grumbling about the lack of access, but Meg didn’t particularly care, and she was pretty sure her mother didn’t, either.
They were served a very attractive lunch, which none of them really ate. Meg managed maybe three sips of her Coke, and then gave up.
When the plane landed, she said good-bye to her mother inside, rather than out in front of all those damn cameras. Her mother hugged her so fiercely that it was hard to breathe, and there was a lot of blinking going on.
“You’re sure you don’t want me to—” her mother started.
Christ, not again. Meg shook her head. Firmly.
“Right. Okay. You’ll call tonight?” her mother asked.
Meg nodded. The easiest way to avoid crying was just to do as little talking as possible.
“I’m very proud of you,” her mother said, and Meg nodded.
Outside, it was cold and windy and snowing a little, with plowed drifts running along the side of the tarmac. The Secret Service, along with what looked like most of the police officers in New York, was keeping the crush of journalists and civilians back, but it was still pretty intense. Her mother gave her one last hug, and then they went to their separate motorcades. Once she and her father and Neal were safely inside their car, Preston joined them.
“Imagine what it would be like if you weren’t going to school in the middle of nowhere?” he said, and Meg smiled. Weakly.
The drive was less than an hour, even with the weather, but again, there wasn’t much conversation. Mainly, her father kept going over details. Like the checking account and credit card that had been set up for her, the technical details of her upgraded encrypted satellite phone, and what to do if she ran into any one of a number of complicated and improbable situations.
“Russell,” Preston said, very serious, “what if she can’t find just the right kind of paper for her printer? You know, the perfect kind. What should she do?”
“The Marines, damn it,” Meg said.
Preston shook his head. “It’s domestic, Meg. I think the National Guard is the way to go.”
Her father sat back, folding his arms. “Fine. I’m just trying to be practical.”
“Check out these mountains,” Neal said, looking out the window. “They’re pretty neat.”
Be a lot neater if she were going to be skiing down them—but, this wasn’t the time to be thinking about that. She had a terrible headache, so she took off her sunglasses, rubbing them across the front of her sweater. She was carrying some ibuprofen in her pocket—she had decided to wear jeans and her now elastic-laced L.L.Bean boots, despite her mother’s almost-invisible wince—and she pulled a couple out, borrowing Neal’s orange juice to swallow them.
Naturally, she also had her cane, her brace, and her splint, as well as her laptop, and a knapsack full of things like tampons, a hairbrush, and a small collection of framed photographs. Saying good-bye to Vanessa had been very, very hard, and it was the only time all day she had—privately—cried a little.
So far, anyway.
She had taken a tour of the college—Christ, a long time ago—and suddenly recognizing a motel, she realized that they were almost there. She had been assigned to a dorm called Sage Hall, somewhere off this main street. They had given her a single room—the Secret Service had insisted—but, apparently, lots of freshmen had singles, so it might not seem like favoritism. The dorm was co-ed, and had vertical entries, although she wasn’t sure what that meant. That guys lived nearby, presumably.
“Go, Ephs!” she said to her father, Ephs being the nickname of the Williams sports teams.
He smiled, although she knew that the fact that she had decided to enroll at the archrival of his undergrad alma mater, Amherst, was still something of a sore spot. And her mother didn’t always remember to hide the fact she would have far preferred seeing her go to Harvard, or—at the very least—Princeton, or Yale. But even though she had been accepted everywhere she applied—unsurprisingly, given the prestige of admitting a Presidential child, regardless of his or her intellect—she had been so sold on the idea of going to an academic powerhouse which also happened to be in ski cou
ntry, and have an excellent tennis team, that back in April, when her life still seemed promising, she had turned all of the other schools down without a second thought.
The campus was just about as New England picturesque as it was possible to be, and the snow only added to the effect. It was easy to tell where Sage Hall was, because there was a crowd. Exactly what she’d hoped there wouldn’t be, but it was too late now. Most of the people seemed to be there intentionally—press and the like; and the rest seemed to be passing by and stopping to see what was going on. Although with all of the Secret Service agents and the motorcade, it couldn’t be all that tough to figure out.
“Looks like we have company,” she said, as the car slowed to a stop.
Her father frowned at Preston, who shrugged.
“What did you expect, Russ,” he said.
Her father just frowned.
Some agent or other opened the car door, and Neal was the first one out.
“This is nice, Meggie,” he said. “It’s really pretty.”
At least someone was thinking positively. Meg got out after him, gripping her cane, and trying to decide if she was going to use it or not. The sidewalk had been shoveled, but it was still icy, and she almost slipped—which was one hell of a way to start college. Her father put out his hand to help her, and she shook him off. Christ, he didn’t have to stress the fact that she’d almost fallen, did he?
The President of the college was waiting out in front of a cast iron gate and two brick pillars to greet them, along with a bunch of deans and trustees and other officials, and there was a flurry of quick greetings and introductions. Luckily, it was starting to snow even harder, and cold as hell, and therefore, unlikely to be prolonged.
They walked through the gate to the edge of a snowy quadrangle, which was surrounded by three old brick buildings, and huge bare-limbed trees. Several paths had been cleared around and across the quad, although the snow was marked up enough to make it look as though a rowdy game of touch football or something had just ended. There were a fair number of students clustered nearby, most of whom were trying to look jaded—but they were, after all, hanging around to watch, so they couldn’t be all that jaded.
Reporters were still shouting questions in their general direction, but Meg just nodded at them, trying to keep her balance on the slick walkway, assuming that Preston was going to take care of it. The god-damn cameras had almost certainly captured her stumbling out of the car, and the shot was probably going to be shown all over the place tonight.
It was maybe too soon to form a strong opinion—but so far, college sucked.
12
HER DORM WAS a large L-shaped building off to their right, and she set her good foot carefully with each step, dreading the thought of tripping again. Various flyers and notices were taped to the green-painted door to her entry, and she saw one of the deans frown, probably because the papers flapping in the wind looked pretty haphazard and messy. For her part, she kind of appreciated the fact that no one had bothered tearing them off or in any way tried to make the door look pristine for her arrival. One of her father’s agents held the door for them, and the small foyer and inside stairs were very congested, predominantly by men in suits. Which was unsurprising, since she, Neal, and her father were at the same location, but had to be incredibly irritating for the people who actually lived here, so they had all probably already decided to dislike her, as a result.
There was a small Secret Service security desk just inside the main entrance, with a large room set aside as the command post up a small flight of stairs, and she had been told that one of the rooms on her floor was going to be used as an additional checkpoint. She’d also already seen more than one tiny camera and what looked like a couple of high-tech sensors of some kind, too. Christ. Maybe everyone in the dorm was getting a tuition rake-off or something to make up for all of this.
There were some more introductions—too many, really, for her to take in, although she tried to focus more acutely when she saw a couple of people who were her age, and one of the deans said, “And these are your Junior Advisors, Dirk Broadlund and Susan Dowd.”
Junior advisors were the Williams equivalent of Resident Dorm Advisors, and Beth and Josh had both been giving her mixed reviews about their RAs, so she was uneasy about having to deal with these two strangers. But, it was safe to assume that they had each been so thoroughly vetted that neither of them was, for example, trying to make a point of sleeping with every single female freshman in the dorm, like the guy Beth had been doing her best to avoid ever since he had made an incompleted pass at her during the second week of classes.
Dirk was a big guy with light brown hair and a patchy beard, who was wearing hiking boots, baggy cargo pants, a t-shirt which read “WOC. Get Outside and Play.” and a blue blazer—the latter, presumably, in an effort to look presentable when he greeted the First Family.
Her other JA, Susan, was a good four inches shorter than she was, and quite thin, with chin-length dark hair and very blue eyes. She looked faintly familiar, for no good reason, but maybe her photo had been somewhere in the massive sheaf of housing and other paperwork she and her father had spent several hours filling out right after Christmas. In any case, she had on running sneakers, jeans, and a purple Williams sweatshirt, which meant that she had either decided not to dress up at all to meet the First Family, or that she had forgotten they were coming.
Almost certainly the former.
Realizing that she still had her sunglasses on, Meg pushed them up on top of her head, and tucked her cane under her elbow, so she could shake hands with them. Dirk, who had automatically put out his right hand, blushed and held out his other one, instead. Susan must have taken instant note of that, because when it was her turn, she led with her left hand, which made things much less awkward.
Although they both seemed very friendly, Dirk hung back to a degree, while Susan unhesitatingly went over to introduce herself to her father and Neal, so she probably served as the primary JA in the entry. Or, maybe, she just wasn’t quite as shy.
“Is this where she’s going to live?” Neal asked, looking at Susan, not Dirk, so he must have sensed the same supervisory hierarchy.
Susan smiled. “Yeah.” Then, she glanced at Meg. “Come on, I’ll show you your room.”
Which was on the third floor. Meg looked up the stairs, not too eager to start climbing, but then Susan motioned her off to the left, past the security desk, instead, where there was an elevator. Which made her feel handicapped and pitiful—but, to hell with it. The damn thing would make life easier.
The elevator wasn’t very big, so only Susan, and the head of her father’s detail, Ryan, got on with them for the ride up.
“Do you prefer Meghan, or Meg?” Susan asked.
A thoughtful question, given the fact that most people she didn’t know just went ahead and called her Meghan. “Meg,” Meg said. “Uh, do you like Susan, or Sue, or—?”
“Definitely Susan,” her JA said, and flashed a smile. “But, I answer to almost anything.”
“Here, pup!” Neal said, immediately. “Come here, pup!”
Susan laughed, and Meg grinned, too, wondering when, exactly, he had started developing this unexpectedly amusing smart-ass streak. It also suddenly made her miss Steven terribly, but she didn’t want to think about that, or the fact that she really wished her mother was here with them, or anything else that would make her feel homesick, like—oh, God, Vanessa. What was she going to do without Vanessa? How was she going to be able to get to sleep, or—she ducked her head, so she could close her eyes for a second, and make sure that there was no chance in hell that she was going to cry, or look, in any way, vulnerable.
The elevator stopped, and Susan got off, pointing out the bathroom, and then leading them down a cramped hallway. Grey floors, white walls, with a thin wooden strip running along them about waist high, blond wooden doors, round institutional lights placed every ten feet or so, and there was a gun-metal grey storage close
t or something next to the elevator. Red and white exit signs, fire alarms, sprinklers and emergency lighting, what might be heating grates. Meg didn’t see anyone other than Secret Service agents and aides, but the dorm seemed crowded. Or, at any rate, sounded crowded. Lots of noise, mostly rock and roll. Strange voices everywhere, both male and female.
Susan stopped in front of a room in the corner and opened the door. “Here you go,” she said.
Meg took a deep breath, and limped inside.
Some of her stuff was unpacked, and some of it wasn’t, but the first thing she noticed was the bed. An extra-long twin bed, with a sturdy wood and white metal frame, across from the door, exactly where the bed in the room where she’d been held for all that time had been. Exactly.
Feeling dizzy, she flipped her sunglasses down and turned to look in the other direction, at the utilitarian desk and padded wooden chair.
“This is an orientation packet for you,” Susan said, holding out a manila envelope, “and it’ll tell you a lot of the things you’ll want to know.”
Meg nodded, still so rattled by the bed that it was hard to pay attention to anything else. Susan was telling her some other stuff, and she nodded at the right times, resting her hand on the edge of the desk so that she could lean on it and take the weight off her knee.
“Well, tell you what,” Susan said, looking increasingly uncomfortable. “Why don’t I let you do some unpacking, and have a look around, and I’ll stop by later to see how you’re doing.”
Meg nodded, managing—barely—to smile.
Once Susan had left, there was a short silence.
“Well,” her father said. “How about we start out by—”
“Can we move the bed, Dad?” Meg asked, and heard her voice shake. “I really don’t want it there.”
Her father looked slightly alarmed, but then nodded and leaned out into the corridor. “Sammy?” he said to one of his aides. “Want to give me a hand here for a minute?”
Sammy came scurrying in—although, Christ, it wasn’t his fault that he had a pale little rodenty face and big horn-rimmed glasses that overwhelmed his features. Although he probably could have chosen more flattering frames, had he been so inclined.