White House Autumn

by Ellen Emerson White

  “Did you play kickball, too?” Meg asked.

  Her mother nodded. “Yes, indeed. Hank and I were out in the Rose Garden for hours.”

  Hank, being the Vice President, Mr. Kruger.

  Watching her cross the room, Meg meditated vaguely about the fact that she would probably never meet another woman with her mother’s skill on high heels as long as she lived. Meg generally fell off espadrilles, forget high heels. She also fell off things like sneakers and Topsiders, and if it happened in public, would pretend that she suffered from a severe inner ear problem.

  “Hey, Prez,” Steven said.

  “Hi.” Their mother smiled at him, as she bent down to accept the hug Neal offered.

  “Madam President,” Pete said from the door, “may I bring you anything before dinner?”

  Her mother decided on a scotch and soda—and a double espresso, which was not an unusual combination for her, and her father asked for a beer. Pete left, returning a few minutes later with the drinks, and a platter of crackers and artisanal cheeses—most of which did not look American. The voting public would, presumably, be appalled.

  Their mother let out a sigh—which meant she was planning to relax for at least five full minutes. “I must say, I’ve been looking forward to this all afternoon.”

  “More than another round of kickball?” their father asked.

  “Surprising as it may seem, yes.” She closed her eyes for a brief, apparently rejuvenating, second, then opened them, looking at Meg and her brothers. “So. Tell me what you all did in school today.”

  “Dickens,” Meg said.

  MEG SAT IN bed that night, patting Vanessa and reading a very trashy, but entertaining, political conspiracy novel. She was supposed to be working on her college essays, but after an hour on the phone with Beth—who kept saying things like, “How about we blow off this whole college thing and just go to Colorado or someplace and be disreputable for a few years?”—she wasn’t in the mood anymore. Besides, questions like, “What message, in twenty-five words or less, would you send to the inhabitants of another planet?” were kind of holding her back. What did they want her to write? “Hello from Earth. Having a wonderful time. Wish you were here.” Of such answers, college acceptances were not made. Not that the President’s daughter wasn’t going to get into any school where she deigned to apply. Terrific. Nice to be accepted, or rejected, on her own merits—or lack thereof.

  Someone knocked on the door and she considered hiding her book and running to her desk to hunch industriously over essays—but figured she wouldn’t be able to pull it off.

  “May I come in?” her mother asked.

  It would be sort of fun to snap “Hell, no!” and see what happened. “Yeah,” Meg said. “Sure.”

  Her mother opened the door, closing it behind her. The President, in her lounging gown. Yes, Virginia, Presidents do wear bathrobes.

  “What are you reading?” she asked.

  Meg held up her book and her mother nodded.

  “The man has a very depressing view of it all,” Meg said.

  “The man is not completely off-base,” her mother said.

  Meg arched one eyebrow, putting on a “pray, continue” expression.

  “Oh,” her mother waved that aside, “I’m just tired. Long day.”

  Meg flipped her right hand over to use as a make-believe notepad. “Would you like to talk about it?”

  Her mother grinned. “No, thank you, Doctor.”

  Meg kept the notepad ready. “Do you feel alone? Friendless? Persecuted?”

  “You read a few too many books, my dear,” her mother said.

  “Yeah, I finished a really swell one yesterday.” Meg reached onto her night table for Witness to Power. “It was about this President named Nixon, see, and—”

  Her mother sighed.

  “It was really good,” Meg said.

  “I can imagine.” Her mother sat at the bottom of the bed, with top-notch posture. “How’s everything going?”

  “Fine, thank you,” Meg said politely. “And you?”

  Her mother leaned over to cuff her. “Seriously.” She recrossed her legs. “How are things going?”

  Had she and her mother talked much lately? Not really. Less so than usual, since the President had been on the road a lot and had, among other things, only gotten back from Ottawa late the night before. Meg tried to think of her recent Life Highlights—other than beating Melissa Kramer, about which she had preened a bit during dinner. “Josh asked me to the Homecoming Dance.”

  “Big surprise,” her mother said.

  Meg nodded. “I said yes.”

  “Even bigger surprise,” her mother said. “What are you going to wear?”

  Because, naturally, it was semi-formal. “Can I borrow your Inaugural gown?” Meg asked.

  “Well,” her mother said, “don’t you think it might be just a trifle sophisticated?”

  Meg sat up straight, trying to look as mature as she could in her “What’ll Ya Have” t-shirt from the Varsity in Atlanta. “Maybe a trifle.”

  Her mother nodded. “I’m sure we can come up with something more appropriate.”

  “I prefer black evening wear,” Meg said.

  Her mother looked dubious. “We’ll see.”

  Which almost always meant no. Meg shrugged. “I’m not leaving the house in pastels.”

  “Oh, but I had my heart set on rose,” her mother said.

  Did she need to repeat the obvious? Meg frowned at her. “I’m not leaving the house in pastels.”

  Her mother laughed.

  “Well, I’m not,” Meg said.

  “Fine,” her mother said. “We’ll just have the dance here.”

  It was a potentially humorous concept, but Meg sighed deeply, anyway.

  “In all seriousness.” Her mother leaned back against the bedpost, folding her arms, and Meg pictured the caption that would go with that pose: the President, caught in a rare moment of leisure. “I thought we might discuss your interview.”

  Meg shuddered. People was coming to interview her the next day, and she could think of about nine thousand ways she’d rather spend the afternoon. Like raking leaves, or cleaning the cat box, or having her appendix out, or—

  “Preston will be sitting in with you, of course,” her mother said, “but I thought you might want to talk about it.”

  Actually, Meg had been thinking along the lines of contracting a rare, and very contagious, disease—so that the interview would have to be canceled.

  “You’ll be fine,” her mother said. “And once you do this one, we really can turn down all of the others.” Since, apparently, the press office was regularly bombarded with requests to interview one—or any combination—of the President’s children. “Just remember to count to three before answering questions.”

  Meg grinned. “What if I forget and count to four?”

  Her mother also smiled. “You’ll look rather daft. Three is just long enough to plan your answer.”

  “May I quote you?” Meg asked.

  “What, and give away my trade secrets?” Her mother reached over to give her another cuff, to which Meg reacted as theatrically as possible, lying dazed and unconscious against her headboard. Her mother kept talking, giving no indication that she had even noticed. “You might want to watch your grammar. If the woman has a poor ear, you could come across as a bit of a ruffian.”

  Meg frowned. “You mean, I can’t say ‘ain’t’?”

  Her mother shook her head. “I meant ‘going to’ and ‘have to,’ as opposed to ‘gonna’ and ‘gotta.’”

  “I don’t say ‘gotta,’” Meg said, offended.

  “If you were speaking quickly, you might. Just be careful,” her mother said.

  Meg nodded, the thought of this interview making her feel very sulky. Not like a good little trooper at all.

  Her mother looked at her carefully. “It’s not too late to call it off, Meg. We can just—”

  And have a major nationa
l magazine think that she was a delicate little flower, incapable of handling a puff piece interview? Meg shook her head.

  Her mother looked at her some more, and then nodded. “Okay, but if you change your mind, all you have to do is say so. Anyway, I’m sure you’ll be fine, and Preston will be right there, if you need help.”

  She had always been pretty comfortable—sometimes too comfortable, she had been told—making off-the-cuff comments to reporters, but a formal, sit-down, solo interview was different. “I probably can’t make jokes or anything, either, right?” she said, feeling fretful enough to give her mattress a small kick.

  “You might want to watch it,” her mother agreed. “It’s altogether possible that she won’t appreciate your sense of humor.”

  Meg grinned sheepishly. Sometimes, she had the feeling that there were a lot of people like that.

  “Not that I don’t appreciate your sense of humor,” her mother said.

  Meg made her grin shy.

  “To a degree,” her mother said.

  Meg made her grin sad.

  “A small degree.” She glanced at Meg’s empty desk. “How are your essays coming along?”

  Meg patted Vanessa.

  Her mother frowned. “Have you even started them?”

  “Well, the one to the Barbizon School’s almost finished,” Meg said.

  Her mother humored her by nodding.

  “Would you like to read the one I’m doing for Julliard?” Meg asked.

  Her mother sighed. “You don’t play an instrument.”

  “Oh, but I sing,” Meg said. “Haven’t you heard me sing? Want me to do ‘I Got Rhythm’?”

  Her mother shook her head. “No, thank you.”

  Meg pulled in a deep breath, to center herself. “‘I got rhythm, I got music, I got—’”

  “It is October,” her mother said. “Those applications are going to be due before you know it. And—well, I think it would be a good idea if you started taking the whole thing more seriously. Particularly the, um, Ivy League schools.”

  In other words, Harvard. Her mother’s alma mater, and the only place she really wanted Meg to go. Especially since the Vaughns—her mother’s maiden name—had been going there for several generations. Her father had graduated from the law school, so he was very enthusiastic about the idea, too.

  Not that they were pushing her or anything.

  “I don’t know, Mom,” she said. “I mean, I’ll apply there, and Yale, and Brown, and all, but—well, there are a lot of places I want to apply, not just the Ivy League.”

  Surprisingly, her mother didn’t faint. “Well, then, you really do need to start working. That’s a lot of essays.”

  Since almost all of the schools had supplemental forms, in addition to the Common Application. “You want to see the one I wrote for Bob Jones University?” she asked.

  Her mother laughed. “No, thank you.”

  “Well,” Meg said, “how about the one for Oral Roberts, or—”

  “Have I ever told you that you are perhaps the most annoying person I know?” her mother asked, not unpleasantly.

  Meg shook her head. “Not that I recall.”

  There was a knock on the door.

  “Madam President?” a male voice said. Frank, her primary personal assistant. “Secretary Brandon, for you.”

  “Thank you.” She kissed the top of Meg’s head. “Excuse me.”

  “Tell him I think it’s time we show China exactly who’s in charge,” Meg said, imitating her mother’s presidential frown of concern.

  Her mother smiled again. “I’ll give him the message.”

  AS USUAL, THE conversation at lunch the next day centered around where people were applying to college, who was going to get in—and why, what schools were good, and what schools were a joke. Meg usually kept her mouth shut during that sort of conversation, although sometimes she felt as if she spent a good portion of her life keeping her mouth shut.

  She looked around the table, sipping some skim milk. Except for Alison, most of her friends were male, which was strange, because at home in Massachusetts, the opposite had been true. She had always been kind of nervous around the opposite sex. Shrinking Violet. Stuttering Violet, even. But here, a lot of girls seemed to see her as a competitor, especially insofar as guys were concerned. Meg had assumed that that would die down after a few months, but even now, she would see girls take their boyfriends’ arms when she walked by.

  Not that she had ever moved in on someone else’s boyfriend—or planned to do so, in the future.

  She spent most of her time hanging around with Josh, Alison, Nathan, and another friend of theirs, Zachary, who was a basketball and baseball jock, as well as a serious trombone player.

  “So, you getting the cover, or what?” Nathan asked.

  Meg stopped sipping milk, seeing that he was looking at her. “Who, me?”

  “People,” he said.

  “God, I hope not.” She glanced at Alison. “You doing anything after practice?” From which she, unfortunately, had been excused today.

  “Going to the dentist,” Alison said.

  “Want to pretend to be me, and I’ll go to the dentist?” Meg asked.

  “Meg Powers, Young Woman in a Hurry,” Zachary said solemnly, and they all laughed, Meg imagining a picture of herself in a floppy hat and raincoat, fleeing madly.

  “Here.” Josh handed her a chocolate chip cookie. “Maybe if you eat this, you’ll have cavities by two-thirty.”

  “No such luck,” she said. Especially since she’d only had one cavity in her entire life, despite sometimes being lazy about flossing and such.

  The bell rang, and after they threw away their trash, Josh put his hand on her arm.

  “Are you really that nervous?” he asked.

  She nodded. “Yeah, kind of.”

  “You’ve done a bunch of interviews before,” he said.

  “Yeah, but not anything this big,” she said. Her parents had always said that they thought “focused publicity” was looking for trouble. Preston sent out occasional, vague news releases—“Today, Meghan took her SATs,” or “Steven was three for four, and struck out twelve batters, in his most recent baseball game,” but her parents wanted the three of them to have as little exposure as possible, for both security and privacy. She wasn’t supposed to know about the percentage of letters and emails, out of the hundreds—sometimes thousands—she got every week, and usually spent Sunday afternoons trying to answer, that were obscene, or threatening—or both. The correspondence staff, as well as the Secret Service, screened everything first, but she had overheard people talking about some of the sick letters she had gotten. No one ever mentioned it directly.

  Except once. In July, some horrible fundamentalist revolutionary group had decided that they wanted to kidnap her, and had mailed all kinds of detailed threats and made phone calls and posted all over the Internet and everything. She had been confined to the White House for over a week, everyone treating her like a little bundle of dynamite. She wasn’t supposed to go out on the Truman Balcony, she wasn’t supposed to walk around on the lawn, she wasn’t supposed to do anything. What she did, was pace nervously around the house. Her parents had been extremely upset and, to counteract that, Meg tried to be cheerful and make jokes and pretend that none of it was happening. Since they had yelled at her for taking it too lightly, she was pretty sure the bravado had worked. She had tried to handle the whole thing with a certain panache. Humphrey Bogart all the way. Luckily, no one knew that she had gotten sick to her stomach almost every time she ate. Even now, when she thought about it, her stomach hurt.

  But, nothing had happened, and gradually, her security eased back to its normal level. She really only worried about it once in a while—usually when she was alone in a car with her agents, and they were at a red light. If a van pulled up, she would get scared to death, gripping the door handle, expecting terrorist commandos to come leaping out with machine guns and drag her inside. Drag her insi
de, and—God, she didn’t even want to think about it.

  Anyway, her parents had decided to sign off on the interview with People, because they thought it seemed pretty safe—and that it would be a one-time-only event. Little things would still be printed, of course—like photos of Neal playing soccer, or Steven and her father shooting baskets. The first time Steven’s picture had shown up in a gossip magazine, describing him as “a new teen heartthrob,” he had been impossible to live with for a couple of weeks.

  Pictures of her doing things like walking out of movie theaters with Josh, who was always described as “regular escort Joshua Feldman,” popped up in the tabloids all the time, but more often, it would be a trumped-up shot of her—with some movie star she had never met, but with whom she was purportedly madly in love. After her mother had thrown out the first ball at Fenway Park in April, quite a few players had come over to their seats to say hello and shake hands with all of them—Steven had been absolutely overjoyed—and for a couple of weeks, photos of her kept surfacing, assuring the general public that she was currently dating several members of the Boston Red Sox.

  Which actually didn’t sound so bad to her.

  Naturally, Josh had been somewhat less amused.

  One pretty funny picture had been when some photographers took pictures of the three of them swimming in the White House pool for part of a story about her mother, which was going to include “The President’s children at play.” Meg had been wearing a somewhat skimpy two-piece bathing suit at the time, and had to stay underwater so that they wouldn’t be able to get her from the neck down. The photographers thought she was a bad sport.

  “What are you thinking about?” Josh asked, holding the cafeteria door for her.

  Meg sighed. “The stupid pictures I’m going to have to pose for.”

  “What are you wearing?” he asked.

  Good question. “I’m supposed to ‘dress conservatively,’” she said. “Anyway, that’s what my parents said.”

  “They’re right.” He rested his hand on her waist. “The country would get too excited, otherwise.”

  She shook her head. “Yeah, right.”

  “Would I lie to you?” he asked.