Long May She Reign

  “Not bad,” Meg said to her father, who nodded.

  Once, in Little League, Steven had yelled so furiously at a teammate who screwed up a crucial play that her parents had threatened to make him quit baseball altogether, if he couldn’t be a better sport. Typically, it had been her father who did most of the lecturing on the subject, while her mother looked disappointed and took the more moderate position that lambasting a teammate simply wasn’t done, and that he needed to learn how to keep his composure, because otherwise, it was very bad form.

  “Come on, Steven!” Neal said, as the catcher trudged back to the plate and Steven scraped his cleats across the dirt. “Smoke ’im!”

  Steven must have been paying attention, because he blew away the next—and final—batter on three straight pitches.

  “Went right up the ladder,” her father said, and Meg nodded, as Steven’s team erupted into a small victory celebration, with the exception of the shortstop and third baseman, who looked somewhat shamefaced. But Steven gave them each a friendly smack with his glove, and the two guys relaxed and returned the slaps.

  “I’ll just head down there for a minute,” her father said. “Do you want me to meet you in the car?”

  Meg shook her head. “I’ll wait for you here. Tell him I said he was really good.”

  Once he had finished shaking hands with everyone on both teams, Steven looked up at the bleachers until he was able to make eye contact with her. Meg gave him a left-handed salute, and he grinned back.

  Some of the reporters, Hannah among them, took advantage of her father’s departure to come traipsing over, and Anthony moved to intercept them. Normally, she might have told him not to bother, and wasted some time bantering around, but she was tired, and out of sorts, and her new pain medication had either worn off—or wasn’t any damn good. So, she pretended that she hadn’t even noticed that they were there, and some of their many agents, along with school security people and a few police officers, began escorting them away.

  The guys from her school weren’t too happy about having lost—or the fact that they thought her punk little brother had been head-hunting—but they were friendly enough about it as they went slouching past the bleachers on their way to the locker-room, giving her nods and good-byes, and telling her to be sure and say hi to Josh and Nathan and Zachary the next time she spoke to any of them.

  Which wasn’t likely to be soon, much to her discredit.

  Steven was going to ride back to school with his team, but he came up to say hello—and accept profuse compliments about his pitching prowess, which she gave him, at length. He was holding a plastic bottle of Gatorade, and she had to force herself not to look at it.

  Steven, who had been about to gulp some, stopped. “I don’t really want this. You feel like taking it for me, so I don’t have to carry it around?”

  Christ, had she been staring? Meg felt her face turning red. “No, I’m fine, Steven. And you were really great—made them look like freshmen.”

  “Yeah, kind of,” he said, and grinned. “But, look, if you don’t want it, I’m going to pour it out.”

  And he would, just to prove a point. Maybe he was a punk.

  Steven sighed. “Meg, they have more down there. Like a whole cooler full. I’ll just get another one.”

  Since it would be less stressful than arguing, she accepted the bottle, drinking more than half of it immediately, then feeling like an idiot and trying to give it back.

  Steven shook his head. “What, with your germs all over it now? No way.” He started back down the hill. “Thanks for coming and stuff. Later.”

  His father walked Neal and his friends to their minivan, waiting until they had pulled away. He seemed to be having a conversation with Ryan, the head of his detail, but she knew he was also going to stand there until Steven’s bus left safely, too. Probably a fruitless exercise, but maybe it made him feel better. She hoped so, anyway.

  By the time he came back, she had finished Steven’s Gatorade, and was looking at the empty bottle, wishing that, moments after he’d won a big game, she hadn’t managed to remind him of all of the bad aspects of their lives by the stupidity of a longing glance at the cold drink he’d more than earned.

  Her father looked worried. “Are you thirsty? I’m sorry, I didn’t think to bring anything along, but—”

  And now, she was two for two, in the selfishness category. Christ. Meg shook her head, tucked the bottle into her sling so she would be able to throw it away later, and pulled herself up onto her crutch. “I’m fine. Thanks.”

  Her headmaster and principal were both standing nearby, to say good-bye, she assumed. She was incredibly tired, but odds were, it was going to be a very long time before she came back here again, and—well, she wasn’t sure if she was quite ready to leave yet.

  She turned towards her father. “Is it okay if I maybe look around for a few minutes?”

  He didn’t seem to like that idea, but he nodded. “Think it would help?”

  Either that, or set off a massive post-traumatic flashback, and send her spiraling irretrievably into the depths of insanity. “Guess we’ll find out,” Meg said.

  There were still some press people lingering around out on the sidewalk, but they were far enough away so she hoped that they wouldn’t factor into any of this.

  Except that she knew Hannah, and felt somewhat at ease with her, and it would be nice to have someone— “Do you think Hannah Goldman would keep it off-the-record, if I let her walk along with us?” she asked Anthony.

  He shook his head. “I think she would try in good faith, but that there’s no way she could keep it from coloring her writing.”

  Yeah. He was probably right. And it didn’t matter that she was pretty much surrounded by men at the moment; it was fine. Many of them, very large men. She was used to that. The fact that most of her agents—including Nellie and Paula—and Martin—were either on vacation, or doing a training cycle at Beltsville this week, and that the people on her detail today were replacements didn’t matter, either. Her father was here, and Garth, and—well, she sort of knew Anthony. So, they weren’t all near-strangers.

  Her father went over to her headmaster and said something in a low voice. Dr. Lyons nodded, clicked open his cell phone, and within about a minute, a woman she knew from the Human Resources Department came outside.

  “Hi, Meg, how are you?” she said. “I was hoping I’d get a chance to see you before you left.”

  She was going to tell her father that she really didn’t need to have any women around to do this—but, she couldn’t help feeling better when, in short order, the female softball coach also joined them, and as they walked towards the Arts Center, she saw the head librarian walking towards them, too.

  “Thank you,” she said very softly to her father, and he smiled at her.

  It was also good to see places where she had happy memories, first. The football field, where they used to come and watch Nathan and Zachary play, and where the track team was currently finishing up practice. An alcove where she remembered making out with Josh during more than one lunch or study period. The library. The wooden bench near the office, where they all used to hang out and make enough noise to annoy every adult within listening distance.

  Her father was chatting with people about the baseball game, thereby relieving her of the pressure of having to make idle conversation—which had to be his exact intention.

  As they walked around the main Upper School building and approached the place where it had happened, she caught herself holding her breath.

  But, the reality was that it was just—an exit. A door. A driveway. A couple of tennis courts, where her matches had sometimes been specifically assigned, because the courts were more secluded than the ones in front of the school. A few more speed bumps than she remembered—which had maybe been constructed to slow down other careening vans, if a similar situation were ever—God forbid—to come up again. In fact, a good chunk of the area had been resurfaced, and she w
ondered whether there had been bloodstains to clean up. Probably.

  She stood there, gripping her crutch, wanting very much to lean on her father, but not allowing herself to do so.

  “Where were you?” he asked.

  She looked back at the door, to try and set herself in space, then limped forward and to the right a couple of steps. “Here.” She raised her crutch to point. “And then, Chet was—”

  Something moved in her peripheral vision, and she lifted her elbow, ready to defend herself, but then saw that it was Anthony, looking taller and far more assertive than usual, for some reason. “Just use your voice, Meg,” he said.

  What the hell did that mean? She frowned at him.

  “It’s an irresistible visual,” he said.

  Christ, it was, wasn’t it? And by standing that way, he was blocking her, from any possible cameras on the street. In fact, almost everyone in the group seemed to have moved to form a protective semicircle around her.

  “Where was Chet?” her father asked.

  Did she want to answer that question? Or would it be better just to get in the car and go home? Avoid reliving any of it. Of course, if she stood here without speaking, everyone would think she was too traumatized to function—and that would be bad.

  She could see that all of the nearby agents were listening intently, and Garth and Ryan seemed to be getting ready to take notes. Christ, the Secret Service must have been dreaming of the opportunity to participate in an on-site debriefing for months, although no one had ever asked her to do anything other than identify locations in photographs or crime-scene sketches. But now, they had an actual eyewitness perspective, and she was the only non-terrorist alive to give it. Although however many backup agents she’d had must have been able to write relatively comprehensive reports, and since Josh had come running outside when he heard the shooting, he’d been forced to sit through repeated interviews with the Secret Service and the FBI, even though he’d admitted to her privately that it had been so smoky and chaotic—and he had been so scared—that he hadn’t been able to tell them much of anything.

  She glanced at Anthony, who nodded, so she must be safe from outside eyes at the moment.

  “He was there,” she said, gesturing with her chin, “ahead of me. And Dennis was over here, behind me.”

  And then, they had both been lying on the cement, bleeding to death.

  With the resurfacing, no one who walked by would have any idea that two men had died in this very spot. Actually, four men, counting the two terrorists who had been killed, and there was another terrorist who had been wounded badly enough to be left behind by the others, although she had no idea where any of them had fallen. She also couldn’t remember whether there had been other students, or teachers, around, but since it happened only about an hour after school ended, there must have been some.

  She looked at Dr. Lyons. “Were there other people nearby, sir? During everything?”

  He nodded. “Yes, but the ones who hadn’t already ducked did when you yelled for them to get down.”

  She had no memory of doing that, but Josh had always insisted that she had—and that he was pretty sure that it was the only reason he hadn’t gotten shot.

  In fact, he felt guilty that he’d listened to her, because he was convinced that he should have done something—although, realistically, she couldn’t imagine what—to try and rescue her.

  “So, no one else got hurt,” Meg said.

  Dr. Lyons shook his head.

  That was another thing she’d been told—but she was glad to hear that it was true; she had always had her doubts.

  Ryan and Garth each had a few logistical and procedural questions, which she answered, but she wasn’t sorry to see some of their other agents bringing the cars around, so that she would be able to escape soon.

  As they pulled away from the school, one of her father’s agents, Morty, was behind the wheel, and he drove very slowly and carefully, probably to make the ride seem as different as possible from being kidnapped. Even so, she felt as though she could almost hear the men shouting and swearing at her again. Laughing at her. Egging each other on. The way the punches sounded. The way the punches felt. The grimy fingers wrenching her mouth open, the metal tool banging against her teeth, the horror of having large, unfamiliar male hands grabbing at her body. The stench of—

  “You okay?” her father asked.

  She nodded, holding her sling against the front of her chest and gripping her right elbow with her good hand.

  “Here, put this on,” her father said, and tried to slip his suit jacket around her shoulders.

  She shook her head. “Thanks, but I really don’t need it.”

  “You’re shivering, Meg,” he said.

  She was? She paid attention for a minute, and realized that her teeth were chattering. In an enclosed car, on a warm March day. “I, um, I must have gotten a chill,” she said.

  He was considerate enough to nod as he tucked the jacket around her.

  When they got back to the White House, she spent approximately twenty seconds worrying about whether Steven would think less of her if she went straight to her room and stayed there for the rest of the night—and then decided that she was too god-damned tired to care either way.

  Trudy brought her a tray, and clucked and fussed when she ate very little of the food, although she forced down a full glass of milk. Neal came in after supper to watch a couple of sitcoms with her, and Steven showed up long enough to say, “That looks totally dumb, you mutts,” before leaving.

  Once Neal had gone off to finish his homework, she just lay in bed, patting Vanessa, who purred non-stop, but also gave her a querulous swipe every so often.

  At about eleven-fifteen, her mother came in, moving much more slowly than usual. Her hair, however, looked impeccable.

  “Hey,” Meg said, without sitting up.

  Her mother nodded, then patted Vanessa, who hissed and flounced off to the bottom of the bed, more offended than was probably indicated for the minor offense of an unsolicited stroke on the head.

  “How’s the pain tonight?” her mother asked, instead of commenting on that.

  Meg shrugged.

  Her mother felt her forehead, then indicated the new prescription bottle on the bedside table. “When did you last take some?”

  Meg felt sluggish enough for it to be hard to remember exactly. “Half an hour ago, maybe.” Or, at any rate, recently enough so that there was still a slim chance it might kick in.

  Her mother looked concerned. “Have you noticed a difference today?”

  Meg shook her head. “Not really. I think they might be making me a little sick to my stomach.”

  “Do you want me to call Bob now,” her mother asked, “or—?”

  Meg shook her head again.

  “Okay,” her mother said. “But we’ll talk to him tomorrow, and reassess things.”

  Another day, another medical appointment. Christ, what else was new?

  Her mother sat down on the edge of the bed. “How was it, being over there again?”

  So many conflicting emotions, so little time. “Stressful,” Meg said finally.

  Her mother nodded. “I wish you had waited longer. It was much too soon.”

  Probably, yeah. “Does it ever come back to you?” Meg asked. The shooting. “When you’re outside somewhere?”

  “Almost every time I see a rope line,” her mother said, after a long pause. “And, whenever I get out of a car in public.”

  In other words, several times a day. Jesus. She looked at the way her mother was holding herself. “Does your arm still hurt?”

  Her mother nodded, reflexively touching her bad shoulder.

  “Always?” Meg asked.

  Her mother shrugged. “More so, when I’m tired.”

  Which meant that today must have been very bad, painwise.

  And—no thanks to her—probably in many other ways. “What about your chest?” Meg asked.

  “I don’t kno
w,” her mother said. “Mostly, it’s fine.”

  She’d qualified it. Meg frowned. “Does it hurt to breathe?”

  Her mother shook her head. “Not really. It just feels—different. I guess I lost some lung capacity.”

  Christ, they’d really taken some body blows, hadn’t they. “I’m sorry,” Meg said.

  Her mother shrugged.

  “The rest of the time I’m here, could we just watch movies, and maybe play Monopoly, and stuff?” Meg asked.

  “God, could we ever,” her mother said, leaned over to hug her, and then stood up. “Sleep well, okay?”

  “You, too. One thing, though?” Meg asked.

  Her mother paused, tensing.

  “That was a counterfeit hair-bump,” Meg said.

  Her mother’s smile came and went so quickly that Meg would have missed it, if she hadn’t been waiting to see it.

  “I’ll never tell,” her mother said, and left the room.

  * * *

  THE NEXT AFTERNOON, they went up to Camp David, for what she hoped was going to be a nice, low-key vacation. They watched movies—lots of movies, played air hockey and foosball and pinball, sat around the pool in lawn chairs, and stayed up too late. No tough conversations. No pressure. Almost no conflict. Neal was predictably cheerful, her father read non-stop, and Steven was somewhat less combative than usual. Whenever she could talk the Navy chefs into giving her free rein in the kitchen, Trudy cooked lowbrow stuff her brothers liked—meatloaf, tacos, spaghetti—and Meg noticed that her father put away more than his share, too.

  She didn’t do much herself, other than lie down almost constantly, call Beth several times, and talk to Jack and Josh once each. All of them seemed to be fine, although except for Beth, she kept the calls short. Which probably hurt Jack’s feelings, but he sounded pretty awkward, too, since he was getting ready to go up to Tahoe to ski for several days.

  Not that she was envious, of course.

  She also got caught up on her email, finding—among other things—short “so, how was the surgery?” sorts of messages from Susan, Juliana, and Mary Elizabeth. As well as a couple of off-hand, if probing, ones from Hannah Goldman—whose article was supposed to run soon, but who still had lots of questions—which Meg politely deflected, forwarding both the originals and her responses on to Maureen and Anthony, just in case.