Long May She Reign

  “Well, if you need anything—” he started.

  “Yeah,” she said. “I mean, thanks.”

  After hanging up, she slumped back down on the bed. Her leg hurt. Her hand hurt. Her stomach hurt. She was too exhausted to go over and close the curtains, so she covered her eyes with her left arm to make it seem dark. If she was lucky, she could fall asleep until dinner-time.

  If she wasn’t lucky, it was going to be one hell of a long afternoon.

  * * *

  THEY GOT HER on her way home from school. On her way out of the school, to be precise. One minute, she was joking around with her friend Josh; the next, she was inside a van, reeling from having a gun butt slammed into her face, and being punched by a group of masked men until they managed to knock her out. Unknown hours later, she woke up missing a few teeth, dizzy and sick, handcuffed to a metal bed in a small dark room somewhere.

  It was never clear exactly who they were, or what they wanted, except that they were Americans, hired to do the job by some damned Middle Eastern fundamentalists. One of the men kept coming into the room, and—well, he came in a lot.

  Which was pretty much all she ever felt like remembering about that. He hadn’t actually physically raped her, but—it was safe to say that he hadn’t been kind.

  On the fourth day, they panicked, and came in to kill her—except that, for reasons she still couldn’t understand, she ended up in an abandoned mine-shaft. Alone, without food or water, her left knee destroyed, her right wrist chained to a rock wall. She liked to think that they were giving her a chance—hoping someone would find her, maybe—but the simple truth was, they had left her to die.

  The only way out, she’d finally realized, after a few very long days—she was pretty foggy on time—was to shatter her right hand. She used a rock. Repeatedly. Her logic had been, better crippled than dead.

  Sometimes, she still felt that way.

  Once she got through the boards nailed across the entrance—only a really sadistic son-of-a-bitch would have added that touch—she was in the middle of the mountains. North Georgia, she found out later. She spent the next week—maybe?—staggering, falling, drinking from streams, crazed from hunger, and in so much pain that she could damn near feel herself losing her mind. And, as far as she could tell, most of it was still out there somewhere.

  It was, historically speaking, a Tuesday afternoon in June, thirteen days after she’d disappeared, that she crawled into a backyard. Scaring the hell out of the teenaged boy who happened to be standing in it at the time.

  And now, here she was, enjoying a life of physical therapy, isolation, and constant nightmares.

  Which made her wonder, all too often, why the hell she had gone to the trouble of surviving. At this point, it seemed—ill-considered. At best.

  There was a knock on the door, and she took a minute to decide whether to answer it. Usually, when she didn’t, whoever it was would assume she was asleep, and go away.

  Leave her alone.

  “Who is it?” she asked, finally.

  “Just came up to say hi,” a voice said. Preston. “You busy?”

  Since he was one of the very few people she could stand to be around, she picked up her cane and limped over to open the door.

  “Hey,” he said. “Feel like hanging out for a while?”

  Not even remotely. “How come you’re not at the lunch with my father?” she asked.

  He shrugged. “We’re back. Come on.”

  Preston rarely took no for an answer, so she followed him down to the West Sitting Hall, one of the only places in the White House decorated with furniture from their house in Massachusetts. As a result, they all found it comforting to spend time there.

  She sat down on the yellow paisley couch, moving a pillow over to the coffee table and propping her leg up on it.

  “Looks like it hurts today,” Preston said, sitting in one of the matching arm chairs.

  Just for a change. But she shrugged, instead of answering. After the first several thousand times, complaining became tiresome.

  “I could do with some lunch,” he said. “How about you?”

  Well, that wasn’t transparent, was it. “You just had lunch,” Meg said.

  “You know how it is, you never really eat at those things.” He got up. “Any requests?”

  “Spam,” she said. Haggis. Jellied eel.

  He laughed, and disappeared into the kitchen, where, in all probability, the on-duty upstairs chef would leap to attention. Not that the White House was—regimented, or—militaristic.

  Despite his official position on her father’s staff, more than anything else, Preston was probably her entire family’s best friend. He and her father were a quirky pair—the tall, ever-cool young black guy, and the uptight, conservative tax attorney who never saw a plain white Oxford shirt and dark Brooks Brothers suit he didn’t like. It had the makings of a very banal, big-budget buddy movie, frankly.

  When he came out of the kitchen, she examined his outfit: grey windowpane-plaid wool suit, black and white pencil-striped shirt, and a golden silk tie with diamond patterns.

  “Well?” he asked, pulling out his handkerchief to show her that it was gold, too.

  “I don’t know about this tie business,” she said, imitating her father’s inflections. “It’s a little bold.”

  Preston just laughed.

  “Did you see the President today?” she asked. “She’s looking pretty bold herself.”

  He nodded. “I keep waiting for her to bring back pillbox hats.”

  Meg grinned, picturing that. Her mother was nothing if not elegant, but hats did not always favor her. This had presented problems, now and again, during poorly-advanced photo ops on the campaign trail.

  “So,” Preston said. “Learn a lot about the solar system?”

  “Kepler’s Laws.” About which, she had retained nothing. “You know,” she said, tentatively. “I’m way stupider than I used to be.” Her diction wasn’t so terrific, either.

  Preston looked worried. “I think you’re just having trouble staying focused.”

  Maybe.

  “It’s very common,” he said.

  She raised an eyebrow at him. “Still reading Post-traumatic Stress Disorder books?”

  “Passes the weary hours, Meg,” he said.

  Well, so it would.

  “Try to remember to cut yourself some slack,” he said. “It hasn’t been that long.”

  It sure as hell seemed long.

  There was the sound of a helicopter outside on the South Lawn—Marine One, about to go somewhere or other. She’d have to be sure and turn on CNN, find out what excuse her mother was using to skip dinner tonight.

  “What?” he asked, looking at her.

  Where to begin? “All we had were the meals, Preston,” she said.

  He sighed. “I can see how it might feel that way, but you had a lot more than that.”

  Yeah, they’d had skiing, too. And now, they weren’t anything resembling what they had been. Just five repressed people who rarely found themselves in the same room together, and when they did, avoided looking at one another.

  Ten words—from a speech which was now considered iconic enough so that snippets were still regularly being broadcast at unexpected moments, spoken by a world leader with an unrecognizably cold and fierce expression on her face—had essentially been all it took to destroy her family.

  Can not, have not, and will not negotiate with terrorists.

  And, by all reputable accounts, the world leader did not negotiate with terrorists. Or allow any other country or third party to do so. Strong rumor had it that a couple of well-meaning, highly-placed officials, who made tentative back-channel overtures, had been gone from the administration, permanently, within a matter of hours.

  Ten words. Damn. They might have been necessary words, but—damn.

  One of the stewards, Pete, was setting the shiny mahogany table where they had casual Sunday breakfasts, and late-night snacks, an
d things like that. Informal things. Once she and Preston were sitting down, her leg resting on a footstool, Felix brought out glasses of lemonade, small salads, and two cups of vegetable barley soup which had been sent up in the elevator from the main kitchen downstairs.

  “Would you like your hamburger medium-well, Miss Powers?” he asked.

  Christ, she wasn’t even hungry. “Sure,” she said. “I mean, thank you.” After he and Pete had returned to the kitchen, she looked at Preston. “Little snack?”

  He pushed the basket of crackers and breadsticks in her direction. “Can’t stand to see you looking so frail.”

  “I’m not frail,” Meg said, somewhat crankily. “I’m not fat, but I’m not frail.”

  He nodded, helping himself to a few breadsticks without further comment.

  Fine. Whatever. She managed two spoonfuls of soup, before losing interest in it, and moving the bowl away.

  Preston didn’t say anything, but there was something so god-damn judgmental about the way he glanced at her, that she had to swallow and close her eyes to keep from snapping at him.

  “At least try the salad,” he said.

  What little appetite she’d had was now gone, and she clenched her good fist, resisting the urge to storm—stagger—down to her room and slam the door.

  “Meg,” he started. “I’m not trying to—”

  “Then, don’t,” she said.

  He nodded, reaching for his salad fork, and it was unpleasantly silent.

  Meg moved her jaw, fighting to keep her temper under control. “Look. I’m sorry. I don’t meant to be rude to you.”

  Preston shrugged. “I think if you’re angry, you should be angry.”

  Oh, yeah. Like she wanted to open Pandora’s god-damn box.

  “Delicious dressing,” Preston remarked, eating his salad.

  “I’m not angry!” Meg said.

  He nodded. “Okay.”

  She scowled at him. “All anyone does is fucking humor me.”

  He nodded.

  “I’m sick of it,” she said. “I’m sick of everything.”

  There was another—short—silence.

  “Well,” he said. “As long as you’re not angry.”

  For a second, she was furious; then, she relaxed. “Yeah,” she said.

  Because she wasn’t angry at all. Not at anyone, or anything.

  Hell, no.

  3

  “SO, WHAT’S THE word from People?” she asked, while they were waiting for their hamburgers. The last she had heard, they were threatening to put her in their 25 Most Intriguing People of the Year issue.

  “Not too good,” Preston said. “I think they’re going to lead off with you.”

  Oh, swell. “You can’t stop it?” she asked.

  He shook his head. “Sorry. Their feeling is that it was such a major story that they’re not about to ignore it.”

  Bigger than Patty Hearst, the media was always saying. Bigger than—well, big. Very big. No wonder she couldn’t escape from the damned thing, with everyone writing about it all the time. “I’m not giving them any kind of interview,” she said.

  His grin was ironic. “That has been indicated.”

  She laughed. Indicated very strongly, in other words. “What pictures are they using?”

  “The usual, I assume,” he said.

  Meaning some kind of “before” photo—probably from one of her tennis matches, or else, on a ski slope; a view of the school exit where it had all happened; another of her just home from the hospital, gaunt and battered; and finally, one of her forlornly limping around GW. Or they might also pick one of the photos of the mammoth piles of flowers and cards and candles and other remembrances which people had placed along the White House fence while she was gone, mostly directly in front of the North Portico, and at the foot of the South Lawn. Those shots always gave her the creeps, because they were so blatantly funereal and meant as a memorial—except for the little detail that she hadn’t actually been dead.

  Technically, anyway.

  Felix and Pete carried over trays with hamburgers, condiments, French fries, and onion rings, as well as another pitcher of lemonade.

  “It’ll die down soon,” Preston said, when they were alone again. “It’s just going to take a while.”

  Right. She tasted her hamburger. It was very good—but she still wasn’t hungry. “Before I know it, I’ll be a trivia question,” she said. A “Whatever happened to…?”, which would leave people faintly disappointed if it turned out that she hadn’t been trundled off to rehab, had a nervous breakdown, found God, or done something otherwise predictable and life-altering.

  “A trivia question everyone gets wrong,” he said, and grinned at her.

  In the best of all possible worlds, yeah.

  After that, he shifted the conversation to the Patriots, the unseasonably warm weather, and how hilarious and adorable Neal had been when he flipped the switch during the official White House Pageant of Peace holiday tree-lighting ceremony. In fact, there were cynical types who referred to him as a walking vote machine, although Meg’s feeling was that he was probably just a nice kid. She nodded, and agreed, and shook her head at appropriate moments, happy to let Preston do most of the talking.

  She didn’t want dessert, but when he decided to have cake and coffee, she stayed in her seat.

  “When’s Josh get back?” he asked conversationally.

  Meg shrugged. She and Josh had broken up right before everything happened, but they were still trying to maintain a friendship, with only modest success. It had pretty much been reduced to emails here and there—he had gone to Stanford, and seemed to be loving college, but going out of his way not to rub it in, to her relief. She’d lost touch with most of her other high school friends, too, both the ones from Massachusetts, and the people she’d met in Washington.

  “Beth going to come down?” Preston asked.

  Meg shrugged again. She and Beth had been almost inseparable since kindergarten, but even their friendship was a little strained lately—mainly because Meg was embarrassed about being such a basket case, while Beth was off at Columbia, enjoying effortless success.

  “She taking the city by storm?” Preston asked.

  Meg nodded. New York was, unquestionably, Beth’s kind of town.

  “I wouldn’t be surprised to see you end up there, too,” he said.

  How tiresome. “Your books tell you to initiate discussions about the victim’s future?” Meg asked.

  “Just an observation,” he said.

  Yeah. Sure.

  Preston tasted his coffee, then added some sugar. “What are you going to do this afternoon?”

  Sit in the nearest window, and sing happy songs to herself. “I’m probably going to read,” she said. After doing her god-damn physical therapy. The White House physician, Dr. Brooks, wanted her to have formal, supervised PT and OT sessions six days a week, but their current agreement was three days, and other than that, she did the exercises by herself.

  Most of the time, anyway.

  “Want to come downstairs, help answer some of the animals’ letters?” he asked.

  Yes, people actually wrote letters to their dog, Kirby, and to Vanessa, and their other three cats, Adlai, Humphrey, and Sidney. So many letters that she really had to wonder about the mental health of a large number of Americans. “I think I’ll pass,” she said.

  He shrugged. “Okay. How about we—”

  “I’m doing my best, Preston, okay?” she said. Snarled, actually. She took a deep breath. “I’m sorry. My best just sucks these days.”

  He smiled, but his eyes were sad. “It won’t always, Meg.”

  She looked at him, quite close to smiling herself. “What could be nicer, than having lunch with Annie.”

  “Mr. Rogers,” he said.

  She laughed. “That would be nicer.” To get one of her exercises out of the way, she unstrapped her splint, took a rubber band out of her pocket, and fit it around the fingers on her rig
ht hand. “Do you mind if I do this in front of you?”

  “I think it’s great if you do it,” he said.

  Mr. Rogers probably would have, too. She could flex a couple of the fingers, slightly, but none of them would really extend at all—and trying to force them was beyond excruciating. Not the surgical outcome she’d anticipated, and they had been in there three times so far. She stretched the rubber band a fraction of a millimeter, concentrating on not yelping or gasping. “I don’t mind the hand so much, but I can’t god-damn stand not being able to walk.”

  He nodded.

  It hurt like hell, and she shut her eyes. “I mean, if I can’t get around, I’m going to be stuck in this god-damn house forever.” Or, at any rate, until her mother left office. At which point, she’d be trapped in the house in Chestnut Hill, presumably.

  “We need to figure out a way to help you past that,” he said.

  She nodded. The pain was actually starting to make her feel faint, so she slipped the rubber band off and put her splint back on, keeping her eyes closed until she was sure she wasn’t going to cry. Her putty exercises were going to have to wait until later. Much later.

  “What’s your feeling on next semester?” he asked.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “What do you think?”

  He looked at her thoughtfully. “Truth?”

  That was a moronic question. Meg frowned at him. “No, Preston—lie to me.”

  He grinned, then looked serious. “My feeling is that you should get the hell out of here. Maybe you’re making some progress with the PT, but the rest of you is going way downhill.”

  She’d asked for honesty; she got honesty. “Way downhill?” she said.

  He sighed, and put down his coffee cup. “Meg, you’re eighteen years old, and you’re practically a shut-in. You don’t eat, you don’t sleep, you don’t see anyone your own age, you suddenly think you’re stupid—” He shook his head. “I’d like to see you go away before it gets even worse.”

  She couldn’t really contradict him, but it wasn’t quite that easy. “How many people do you think there are out there who cut my picture out of magazines, hang them up on the wall, and—make plans?” she asked, looking right at him so he wouldn’t avoid the question.