Long May She Reign

  She nodded, and waited.

  “Oh,” he said.

  She nodded.

  “Can I come in for a while?” he asked.

  She nodded.

  33

  HER MIDTERMS WENT reasonably well, and by one o’clock on Friday, she was packed and ready to go. Her parents had wanted to fly up to Albany International to meet her—her father had damn near insisted—and she had made an ineffective argument that she should just take a commercial flight, with a few of her agents, and not have everyone make such a fuss. The uneasy compromise was that a small military jet would pick her up at one of the tiny local airports, and then take her directly to Andrews Air Force Base, and home. It seemed like a significant waste of the taxpayers’ money, but—as her mother pointed out—firing up Air Force One and having the President, essentially, play hooky for a good chunk of the day was not terribly frugal, either.

  A fair number of people from the dorm, including Juliana and Mary Elizabeth, had already left, so it was pretty quiet. Susan, to no one’s surprise, was planning to stay an extra day, in order to wait until the very last person in the entry was safely off on his or her journey home. Then, presumably, she would spend the next two weeks in a state of suspended animation, until she could get back to school, and resume being an authority figure again.

  Jack, who was planning to take the afternoon bus to Boston to visit a friend at Tufts on his way to Los Angeles, carried her computer and leather Camp David duffel bag downstairs for her. They had exchanged phone numbers, although she wasn’t sure if either of them would get up sufficient nerve to call the other—she was sure she wouldn’t—since whatever it was that they were doing was still at such a delicate, early stage.

  “So,” he said, once they were outside, near the cast iron gates by the street.

  “Yeah,” she said.

  They stood there.

  Then, he leaned over to kiss her, and she heard a camera start clicking away—right across the road, telephoto lens, great—and dodged the kiss, moving so that her back would be to the photographer, but making sure that her expression stayed pleasant, in case she was still within range.

  “Oh, sorry,” Jack said, and jumped back, staying at a distance. Then, he frowned. “Except, is this some big secret? Like, so what if they see us?”

  He had a point. “Just not a public display of affection,” she said. “It’ll be the difference between being buried somewhere inside, or showing up on the cover.”

  He grinned. “I like that phrase.”

  Well, America was a free country, and he had every legal right to be—predictable. Pedestrian. “‘Public display of affection’?” she asked. “Or ‘showing up on the cover’?”

  “‘Buried somewhere inside,’” he said.

  On further reflection, that was even more predictable, but also kind of funny. Although still in the category of wishful thinking. Not that she couldn’t feel herself blushing furiously. Nellie was the nearest agent, and Meg glanced over, hoping like hell that she hadn’t overheard that one. Judging from her expression, she either hadn’t, or wanted it to seem that way.

  “I’m not going to see you for two weeks,” he said. “I’d really like to kiss you good-bye.”

  And she wouldn’t mind having him do so. She looked around until she caught Garth’s eye. “I need a couple of minutes, okay?”

  He nodded, and gestured to the nearby agents to adjust their protective positions accordingly. Brian and Ed were already on their way over to the photographer, in, she assumed, an attempt to discourage him from remaining in the area.

  She limped back towards the dorm, with Jack following her. On