White House Autumn

  As he reached down to take her hand, she pulled away.

  “Just—don’t, okay?” she said.

  He withdrew, putting his hands uncomfortably in his pockets. It was probably only because she was tired and upset, but there was something so annoying about the way he was standing, that she had to concentrate on not looking at him. He must have sensed that, because he shifted his weight, looking even more uncomfortable.

  It was very quiet upstairs.

  “Meg,” he said. “Maybe—”

  “I think I hear people in the kitchen,” she said, moving past him and towards the West Sitting Hall.

  She found Steven and Neal at the table with glasses of milk, while Trudy stood at the stove, stirring things in various pots. Seeing her there, wearing a familiar blue flowered dress with an apron over it and bustling about, Meg leaned against the doorjamb, feeling—for a second—as if they were home, and none of the damn White House stuff had ever happened.

  “Meg’s here,” Steven said, and Trudy turned, crossing the room to hug her.

  “Uh, you remember Josh, don’t you?” Meg said, before she could do so.

  “Of course.” Trudy smiled at him. “How are you, Josh?”

  “Fine, ma’am,” he said, although, mostly, he looked as though he wanted to run away.

  Trudy gave Meg a little squeeze that was almost a hug, and Meg inhaled a couple of times. Trudy always smelled so good. Like sachets, and Altoids, and talcum powder. As if she had just eaten a gumdrop.

  “Why don’t you two sit down with the boys?” she said. “I’m just getting dinner ready.”

  “What are you making?” Meg asked, even though she wasn’t hungry.

  Trudy went back over to the stove to turn the heat down on one of the burners. “That hamburger casserole you all like.”

  Meg nodded. It was one of the few casseroles all of them did like, even her mother, and they had had it many times over the years. Her head hurt suddenly, and she rubbed her hand across her forehead. All she wanted to do was go to her room, get into bed, and turn off the lights. She should just tell Josh that she wanted to be alone—except that she felt so shaky that she was either going to yell at him or start sobbing.

  “Meg?” Trudy said. “Why don’t you sit down?”

  “No, I—” Control. She didn’t want to lose control. But, all of a sudden, she felt—“Um, I’ll be right back, okay?” She pushed past Josh and out to the West Sitting Hall, walking quickly—almost running—down to her room.

  She was going to cry. She was very definitely going to cry. But, she didn’t want—she headed straight into the bathroom, turning on the cold water full blast, washing her face once, and then again. It didn’t help and she closed her eyes, gripping the sides of the sink with her hands. Control. She had to—she bit the inside of her cheek, increasing the pressure to try and keep the tears back. The man aiming the gun, the bullets ripping—she hung on to the sink more tightly. If he had aimed a little higher, or two inches to the left, her mother would be lying in the Rotunda at the Capitol Building, and they would all have to be brave and follow the riderless horse to Arlington National Cemetery, while—okay, she had to stop it. Josh was here, and she couldn’t fall apart. But, Jesus, she should have told him to go home, and not tried to put on an act.

  She sat down, pressing her face into the cold washcloth, counting to ten. To thirty. Okay, okay. She was okay. Except she couldn’t stop thinking about the man, waiting at the window, while she sat in physics, wishing for something, anything, to—she had to stop this. She couldn’t keep—thirty-one, thirty-two—she stopped at fifty, under control again.

  They were all waiting for her in the kitchen—she had to go back there. Slowly, she rewashed her face, then went out to her room, lifting Vanessa up for a quick cuddle. Then, she walked out to the hall, so tired that her arms and legs felt heavy.

  Josh was sitting in an antique wooden chair, waiting for her, and she stopped, not sure where the anger had come from, but suddenly furious.

  “What are you doing,” she asked, “following me?”

  He looked surprised. “No, I—”

  She scowled at him. “I said I’d be right back.”

  “I know. I just”—he blinked—“wanted to be sure you were okay.”

  “Of course I’m not okay!” she said. “Christ, would you be?”

  He shook his head.

  “Yeah, well, I just wanted to be alone for a minute,” she said. “Jesus, don’t you understand anything?”

  He looked at her nervously. “I’m sorry.”

  “Sorry? What good is sorry?” She rubbed her forehead, the ache much worse. “Please just leave me alone.”

  He nodded, edging towards the stairs. “Okay. I’m sorry, I—”

  Jesus. “Stop saying that!” she said.

  “Okay,” he said, looking at her as though she had just turned into a raging demon—which she possibly had. “Y-you want me to call you later?”

  She shook her head. “No, I want you to leave me alone. Are you deaf or something?”

  “No. I-I hope you feel better,” he said.

  “I’m not the one’s who’s sick. I mean, hurt. I mean—” She turned away, walking back to her room. “Just leave me alone. Okay?”

  She stood in the middle of her room, fists clenched, trembling and out of breath. Some kind of angry energy came bubbling up and she kicked her desk as hard as she could, several books flying off, her computer sliding precariously close to the edge. Vanessa woke up and ran out of the room. Meg grabbed a book, wanting to throw it after her, but controlled the impulse, throwing it at the fireplace, instead, and knocking over the screen and one of the andirons.

  “Stupid cat.” She kicked two more books out of her way, walking over to the bed.

  “Meg?” Steven asked, behind her.

  She whirled around. “Don’t you knock? Jesus!”

  “Sorry.” He took a step backwards. “I was just—”

  “Leave me alone, okay?” she said.

  He didn’t move, staring at her.

  “Okay?” she said.

  “Yeah, sure. Anything you say.” He left, slamming the door behind him.

  Finally alone, Meg climbed into bed, pausing only to take off her shoes. She turned off the light, then burrowed down under the covers, trembling from anger or fear or—someone knocked on the door.

  Christ almighty. She sat up, the anger back, full force. “I said, leave me alone!”

  “Meg, it’s me,” Trudy said.

  Oh, God. Meg slumped back down. “I’m sorry. I need to be alone for a while,” she said, more quietly.

  “Are you all right?” Trudy asked.

  Oh, yeah. Totally. “Yeah,” she said. “I just need to be alone.”

  “Call me if you need me,” Trudy said.

  Meg held her breath until she was sure Trudy was gone, then relaxed. Still shaking, she wrapped the blankets around herself and huddled down. She closed her eyes, fairly sure that she was going to cry, but fell asleep, first.

  When she woke up, it was very hot and she wondered if she was sick, or—maybe it was just the blankets. She untwined them, then sat up and looked at her clock, the red numbers blurry in the darkness. Ten-thirty. She slouched back down, staring at the ceiling. Sometimes, when she was upset, sleeping for a while helped—but, not this time. Her stomach hurt, but she wasn’t sure if it was hunger or real pain. When was the last time she had eaten? Breakfast. Part of a bowl of Special K. And she hadn’t really eaten any dinner the night before, either.

  She felt too sick to get up, so she rolled over onto her side, watching the numbers on her clock change. She was just falling asleep when the phone rang. She wasn’t going to answer, but what if it was the hospital? Maybe something had—she grabbed the receiver.

  “Miss Shulman, for you,” the switchboard person said. “Shall I put the call through?”

  Good question. Meg sighed. “Yeah, I guess. I mean—yeah. Thanks.”

  Beth came
on. “Meg? How is everything?”

  Jesus Christ, she was tired of that question. “Terrible,” Meg said, “how do you think?”

  “That’s what I figured,” Beth said.

  “What do you mean, ‘you figured’?” Meg asked, irritated. “What do you know about it?”

  There was a long pause.

  “In prime asshole mode tonight, hunh?” Beth said.

  There were very few people on the planet whom she would allow to get away with saying that—but, Beth was one of them. Possibly the only one.

  “Look, I was thinking,” Beth said. “You want me to come down or something?”

  Meg moved the receiver away from her ear, looking at it. “Come here?” she asked, bringing the receiver back. “What do you mean?”

  “You sound like you need some company,” Beth said. “I could hang out with you at the hospital, and—well, whatever you want.”

  Yeah, because having Josh keep her company had worked out so well. “Beth, I really don’t—” Meg let out her breath. “This isn’t a very good time, know what I mean?”

  “Hmm,” Beth said. “Not exactly hospitable, are you?”

  Meg was going to yell at her, but found her face relaxing, instead. “Has anyone ever told you what a jerk you are?”

  “Just about everyone,” Beth said.

  Something they had in common.

  “Okay, I’m going to hang up now,” Beth said. “Take it easy, okay?”

  “Oh, yeah,” Meg said. “Absolutely.”

  She lay back down in bed, staring up at the ceiling—and the chandelier she really disliked, carefully not thinking.

  There was a quiet knock on the door. “Meg?”

  Trudy. “What.” She shook her head. She shouldn’t be rude to Trudy. She was never rude to Trudy. “I mean, come in.”

  Trudy opened the door, carrying a tray into the room. “I thought you might be hungry.”

  “Oh.” Meg sat up, managing to smile instead of saying that her stomach hurt and she would rather be left alone. “I mean, thank you.”

  Trudy put the tray on her lap: vegetable soup, a grilled cheese sandwich cut in triangles—Trudy was big on bread triangles, a dish of chocolate chip ice cream and a glass of milk.

  “Um, thank you,” Meg said. “It looks good.”

  Trudy reached out to touch her forehead. “How do you feel?”

  “I don’t know,” Meg said. “Tired, mostly.”

  “Well.” Trudy withdrew her hand. “I want you to sleep late tomorrow.”

  “What about the hospital?” Meg asked.

  Trudy shrugged. “You can go in the afternoon.”

  Meg nodded, too tired to argue. She still wasn’t hungry, but picked up her spoon to try the soup.

  Trudy sat down on the edge of the bed. “Is there anything you want to talk about?”

  Meg shook her head.

  Trudy might be a nice, nurturing lady—but she also had eyes like laser beams. “What happened with your friend today?”

  Meg scowled. “Nothing.”

  Trudy looked worried, but didn’t pursue that.

  They sat quietly, Meg moving the spoon around the bowl of soup without eating any.

  “This is what you always worried about,” Trudy said.

  Meg nodded. Even before her mother had run for President and was just a Senator, Meg had worried about security. It had started to get especially scary when she became a serious Presidential candidate and had to be given Secret Service protection very early on—because she had gotten so many threats. But, she had never thought that anything awful would actually happen.

  She looked up at Trudy, noticing—for the first time—that Trudy was smaller than she was. Kind of weird. When she was little, she had spent a lot of time on Trudy’s lap, playing with her pearls or her crocheting, probably being quite annoying. Lots of times, she would try on her glasses, too, draping the chain around her neck.

  “Are you sure you don’t want to talk about it?” Trudy asked.

  “Yeah,” Meg said. “Very.”

  SHE SPENT THE next two days at the hospital, either sitting in her mother’s room—or waiting to sit in her mother’s room. When she was at the White House, she stayed in bed, sometimes reading, but mostly lying down with the lights out, trying to sleep. Being alone was easier than anything else, and she left strict instructions with the switchboard not to take calls from anyone other than her parents or Preston. One good thing about the White House—probably the only thing—was that it was very simple to arrange to stay completely isolated, if one were so inclined. No one could get in, or call, without her permission. And, right now, she just wanted to be alone. Monday, when she would have to go back to school, was more than soon enough to have to deal with people. Even Josh. Especially Josh. She wasn’t sure if she was mad at him for not knowing what to do, or mad at herself for being mad at him—but, she was mad, and it was easier to avoid him. To avoid everyone.

  Sunday night, her father came home for the first time, shaky and exhausted. As Meg passed the Presidential Bedroom on her way to the kitchen for some orange juice, he stopped her.

  “Could we talk for a minute?” he asked, an untucked Oxford shirt and grey flannel slacks all that remained of the suit he’d had on all day.

  In the room, he indicated the couch and she sat down. Something in his expression suggested that it was bad news, and she swallowed in advance. Maybe her mother had taken a turn for the worse—except, if she had, he would still be over there, but—

  “I’m going to ask you to do something that you won’t like,” he said, “and I’m also going to ask you to please not argue.”

  Meg nodded.

  “I’d like you to drop off the tennis team,” he said.

  She blinked. “What? There’s only two matches left.”

  He nodded. “I know, and I’m sorry, but I don’t want you exposing yourself that way. The Secret Service agrees with me.”

  Meg stared at him. “How am I exposing myself?”

  “With—” He hesitated, and she saw a muscle near his jaw move—“everything that’s happened, I don’t want any of you in situations where you’re unnecessarily vulnerable. Tennis courts are practically impossible to protect, Meg, you know that.”

  “Yeah, but—” He didn’t want her to argue, so she shouldn’t argue. “I won’t get my letter or anything,” she said.

  He shrugged that off. “I said I was sorry, Meg, but this is the way it’s going to have to be.”

  It was only two matches, so if he wanted her to quit, she should just do it. Even if tennis was the most important—“I’m captain, Dad,” she said quietly. “How can I quit?”

  “They won’t survive without you?” he asked.

  She shook her head. “It’s not that. It’s just—” Just what? She should shut up already. But, something about having to quit made her feel panicky, made everything seem more real. “Dad, if you want, I’ll practice on the court here. It’s just two stupid matches and the ISL tournament. Nothing’s going to happen.”

  His expression changed so swiftly to fury that she flinched. “Nothing’s going to happen?” he said, his face flushing. “Where the hell have you been for the last week? We’re living in a country full of crazies, can’t you get that through your head? We get hundreds of threats every day, and you’re—Jesus, Meg! You think I like this? You think I like knowing that there’s nothing I can do to protect any of you? How do you think that makes me feel?”

  Meg hunched into her shirt, feeling too guilty to say anything.

  “You think I like having to pen all of you up in this place,” he gestured around the room and she could see his arms shaking, “because maybe, maybe it’s safe? Anyone in the country who wants to hurt you can, and there’s nothing I can do about it! I was standing two feet away from your mother, and I still couldn’t—I—” He spun away, gripping the footboard of the bed, shaking visibly. “Please leave,” he said his voice thick and almost unfamiliar.

 
She hesitated. “Dad, I’m sorry, I didn’t—”

  “Please get out!” he said.

  Scared and guilty, she hurried out to the hall, hearing the door close behind her. She leaned against the small dining table in the West Sitting Hall, trembling.

  “Meg?” Steven asked, just coming down the hall.

  She jerked up. “What? What do you want?”

  “You okay?” he asked.

  No! “Yeah,” she said, and ran down to her room, slamming the door. She fell back against it, closing her eyes and trying to calm down. Bruce Sampson probably didn’t even know how many people he had hurt with his god-damn bullets. Or maybe he did know, and was happy about it. Steven was right to hate him—she hated him, too.

  More than anything.

  SHE STAYED ALONE in her room for the rest of the night, crunched up in bed, reading Sense and Sensibility, and holding her cat. Sense and sensibility. Yeah, sure. She threw the book across the room and just held Vanessa.

  Would someone really hurt her while she was playing tennis? If it was insane to hurt the President, it was even more insane to go after the President’s children. How could anyone be that sick?

  Her stomach was killing her, and she held onto it, instead of Vanessa, thinking about the afternoons she and Steven and Neal sometimes spent in the Treaty Room, answering as many of their screened letters as they could, until they were too tired to keep going. Meg tried to get through at least two hundred a week, scrawling quick notes on White House stationary, or just signing her name at the bottom of pregenerated responses—which was less labor-intensive. Some letters were funny, some were sad or lonely, some—a lot, actually—criticized the way she talked or dressed or led her life. Other letters asked her to give her mother such and such advice, or wanted to be her pen pal, or requested autographed photos and stuff like that.

  She tried not to think about the letters she and her brothers never saw. But now, everything seemed scary, and she had trouble sleeping, dreaming about people with guns firing at her family, people dressed as nurses and orderlies creeping into her mother’s room to hurt her—terrible dreams. She would wake up, out of breath, usually crying, and have to turn the light on, holding Vanessa until the fear subsided enough for her to try sleeping again.