White House Autumn

by Ellen Emerson White

Instead, she picked up A Moveable Feast, pushing Vanessa off her pillow, so she could lie down. It was a book by Ernest Hemingway, about his days in Paris, hanging around with people like Gertrude Stein and F. Scott Fitzgerald, and—one assumed—spending every free moment drinking and carousing. It must have been kind of fun to be a lost generation. Maybe someday, she and Beth should spend some time being officially disaffected.

  After a while, Neal showed up, holding a mug of cocoa.

  “Meggie?” he said, from the hallway.

  “Don’t be dumb,” she said. “You know you can come in.”

  He carried the mug over, smiling and setting it down on her night table. “It’s to help you work on your essays.”

  Meg flushed and pointed at her book. “I was just sort of reading essays, first. Like, to warm up.”

  He nodded, believing her.

  “Thanks for the cocoa,” she said. “Aren’t you going to have some, too?”.

  He smiled, and she noticed the chocolate mustache. “We did.”

  “Yeah, I see,” she said.

  He stood there, smiling at her, and he was so cute that she smiled back.

  “I have to go to bed now,” he said. “But, will you play pool tomorrow?”.

  She laughed. “Sure. Why not?”.

  He reached up to hug her. “I’m glad you aren’t hurt,” he said, his voice muffled against her shoulder.

  A sentiment she shared. “Me, too.” She ruffled up his hair, which was freshly trimmed. “I like you, even though you’re an ugly peasant.”

  He giggled. “You’re the ugly Queen.”

  “I’m the beautiful Queen,” she said.

  He made a face, and then giggled again. “Blech.”

  “Come on.” She started to lift him up, but he was too heavy. “You’re a. fat peasant.”

  “I’m not fat,” he said.

  “Well, you’re getting big, then.” She headed for the door. “Let’s go get me some Oreos, so I can work, and you some Oreos, so you can sleep.”

  Once they had eaten a few cookies, and her father showed up to haul Neal off to brush his teeth, she went to see what Steven was doing, and found him on his bed, reading. Definitely a member of her family.

  “You busy?” she asked.

  He didn’t look up. “Don’t you knock?”.

  “No,” she said. “Just wanted to tell you good-night.”

  He shrugged. “Good-night.”

  Since he probably wouldn’t hit her while she was already bruised, she decided to take a chance and walk all the way into his room.

  “I kind of want to be alone,” he said.

  “Want a cookie?” she asked.

  He glanced over and took two from her, leaving her with one.

  “That was singular,” she said.

  He stopped chewing. “You want it back?”.

  “No, thanks.” She sat on the bottom of his bed. “Today was kind of scary.”

  “Kind of?” he said.

  Yeah. “Remember when Trevor died?” she asked. Trevor was the German shepherd mix they had had before Kirby. “You know how it was really bad at first, and then, it was only bad sometimes? Like if you remembered it all of a sudden, and you would feel like crying all over again?”.

  “I still remember it pretty often,” he said.

  So did she, actually. Trevor had been one great dog.

  “What,” he said, “and all of this is going to be like that?”.

  She shrugged. “Makes sense, doesn’t it?”.

  “Swell,” he said.

  “Swell?” she asked. “What is this, 1950?”.

  He sort of smiled—and sort of scowled. “You always say it.”

  “That’s different,” she said, “I am the Queen.”

  He groaned. “Oh, Christ. Not that again.”

  “You’re just jealous,” she said.

  “Yeah, right.” He took her last Oreo, then stopped when the cookie was already in his mouth. “Did you want this or anything?”.

  She shook her head. “Not now that it has peasant germs.”

  “You only wish you had some of my germs,” he said.

  She nodded. “Every time I see the first star.”

  “Bet you wish on your birthday, too,” he said.

  “Yup, every year.” She punched him lightly on the shoulder and then stood up to go work on her essays.

  “You look fine,” he said.

  “Fine?” she asked, confused.

  He gestured towards his own cheek. “Your face. In case you thought you looked ugly or something.”

  “Oh.” Self-consciously, she touched the scrape. “Thank you.”

  He shrugged and picked up his book again. “Wasn’t lying or anything.”

  With luck.

  She crossed the hallway to her room, where her cocoa was quite cold. It still tasted perfectly good, though. She brought it and Vanessa over to her desk, and pulled up the Universal College Application on her computer. Yeah, most of the schools where she was planning to apply had additional essay questions of their own, but she should probably tackle the main one, first.

  A life-changing event? Hmmm. A person she admired? Double hmmm. Her viewpoint on a particular current event? Triple hmmm.

  Christ. Admissions officers had to get extremely tired of reading about other people’s significant experiences. But, it was even more boring to write about them. She held her hands above her keyboard, and waited for profound inspiration—but, nothing happened.

  Maybe she needed to write this in—God forbid—longhand. Maybe she would be able to think more clearly, that way. So, she took out a legal pad, and a pen with the Presidential Seal on it—and waited for inspiration.

  “I have had a lot of significant experiences. This makes it very difficult to choose one.” Oh, yeah, real original. A grabber. She was going to have to try again.

  “On January 21st of this year, my mother was sworn in as the President of the United States.” Just in case they hadn’t noticed that 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue was her home address.

  Page three. “Call me Meghan.” That is, if they really wanted to get on her nerves.

  Page four. “If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you’ll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and—” Very original. With just a little help from J.D. Salinger.

  Page five. Christ, this was wasting a lot of paper. The potential environmental implications were disturbing. Maybe she should give up, and go back to reading. “I don’t know if I really want to go to college. It just kind of seems like the thing to do.” “Then, why are you applying, dear?” they would ask, and promptly reach for the next application.

  She looked at her telephone for a minute. Maybe she should call Josh and talk to him. Again.

  “Nothing significant has ever happened to me,” she wrote. “I lead a very dull life and can’t imagine why any college anywhere would want me, or even if I want them—” Garbage, garbage, garbage.

  She slouched down in her chair, lifting Vanessa onto her lap. “You want to do this for me?” she asked. “I’ll give you speechwriter rate.”

  Vanessa kneaded her paws on the front of her sweatshirt.

  “This is a major drag,” Meg said. “I’m really not into this.”

  Vanessa purred.

  One more try, and then she really would quit for the night. “The thing about most of my significant experiences is that they happened to my mother. I’ve never run for President. I’ve never been a world leader. I’ve never walked into gunfire. But, even though I’ve never done any of those things, they’ve affected me.” She paused. Maybe this wasn’t such a great idea. “In my family, small things end up being so large-scale that you kind of feel like stepping back and observing them, instead of participating. Not experiencing. Like this photo I saw recently.”.

  She hesitated. Heading for dangerous territory there. Oh, well. Damn the torpedoes. “There was a girl sitting on a bench with her head in her hands
, and you could tell that she was trying as hard as she could not to fall apart. And the caption said: ‘The First Daughter, in a moment of private grief.’ And I looked at it, and all I could think was that it belonged in some Year-in-Review issue. I mean, it was a really disturbing, thought-provoking picture, a horrible image, caught on film. Except, it was me.“.

  Meg lowered her pen, skimming what she had written so far. Sentimental tripe. Emotionally manipulating. But, accurate. She walked over to her dresser, taking that particular magazine out of the drawer where she had hidden it underneath some t-shirts. She looked at the First Daughter’s private grief—which was pretty god-damn public grief. She looked at the black Levi’s, and the shoulders hunched into the blue Oxford shirt, then closed the magazine and returned to her desk.

  “When I came home that night, there was chicken soup. Very yellow, with big chunks of chicken and thick noodles. I think Carl makes the pasta himself. There were also grilled cheese sandwiches, with Neal’s crusts cut off to make him happy. But my stomach hurt, and I went down to my room to pat my cat. I patted her most of the night. There was some dumb rerun on, and Steven talked me into watching it with him. We did, but I don’t remember the plot or anything. I do remember a McDonald’s commercial being on, because it was one we liked, but neither of us laughed. I guess it didn’t seem very funny. Under the circumstances. So, I looked out the window at the Washington Monument. All bright, and lit-up, and brave-looking When we were still living in Massachusetts, I remember someone threatened to dynamite the monument, and a SWAT team blew him away, instead. You really have to wonder. Not that I know the answer. It seems like there might not be one. I don’t know.”.

  She stopped writing. Could she put “I don’t know” in a college essay? Was any of this like a college essay? Maybe it wasn’t allowed.

  “Working hard?” her mother said.

  “What?” Meg turned to see her just inside the door, a bathrobe draped over her shoulders, covering the sling. “Yeah, kind of.”

  Her mother nodded. “Are you getting much accomplished?”.

  “Probably not.” Meg turned the legal pad over, too embarrassed to let her read it.

  “Is there anything I can help you with?” her mother asked.

  “No, thanks.” Meg leaned forward, weight on her left foot, pretending she had on a ski boot.

  “Are you sure you’re all right?” her mother asked.

  Meg stopped leaning on her foot. “Yeah, I was just—oh.” Her mother probably hadn’t even noticed the Ski Foot. “I mean, yeah.”

  Her mother bent to examine her cheek, then straightened, apparently satisfied. “As long as you’re sure.”

  “I’m fine.” Meg looked at her mother, who was only somewhat hunched now, and less so every day. And it had been quite a while since she had seen her face go white with pain. “Ate you better?”.

  Her mother nodded. “Much.”

  Meg wasn’t sure “much” was the right word, but she did seem to be improving. Then, she coughed. “Are you, um, mad at me?”.

  Her mother looked confused. “Mad at you? Of course not, Meg—why would I be?”.

  “Because—” Meg couldn’t look at her. “I was such a jerk that day. About the sweatpants, I mean.”

  Her mother still looked puzzled for a minute, but then she smiled. “Don’t tell me you’re worried about that.”.

  “Well, yeah,” Meg said. “I mean—yeah.”

  Her mother laughed. “Really not to worry, Meg. I’d completely forgotten.”

  Oh. Meg shifted her position, still feeling uncomfortable. “I didn’t mean to be such a jerk to you, I—”.

  “Yeah, you did,” her mother said. “You just didn’t mean for anything bad to happen.”

  Maybe. “Yeah, but—” Meg swallowed, her throat hurting. “I was in physics, and I hadn’t studied for the test, and—I was wishing for a fire drill or something, to get me out of there.”

  Her mother smiled, putting her hand on Meg’s shoulder. “It doesn’t mean you wanted anything bad to happen to me.” Her smile expanded into a grin. “Although we may need to discuss the part about you being unprepared for your exam.”

  Hmmm. Maybe she shouldn’t have mentioned that. “Yeah,” Meg said, “but—”.

  “Just forget it,” her mother said. “Worrying about things like that is a waste of energy.”

  Energy she should, presumably, apply to schoolwork. Meg let out her breath. “Okay. But—really?”.

  Her mother nodded.

  She should probably just leave it at that, but—“Are you—scared?”.

  Her mother studied her sling, not answering right away. “To some degree. It’s not going to be debilitating, though.”

  Meg looked at her thoughtfully. “Can I ask you something else?”.

  “You may,” her mother said.

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. “Something, um, sort of unfriendly?” Meg asked.

  Her mother nodded uneasily.

  Okay, then. Meg very carefully made direct eye contact. “How come you were such a jerk when you left the hospital? You were like, waiting for someone to shoot you.”

  A muscle in her mother’s cheek twitched. “I gather you saw a film clip.”

  Meg nodded.

  “Well.” She sat on Meg’s bed, hunching again.

  “What if something bad had happened?” Meg asked.

  “I suppose the hospital would have checked me right back in,” her mother said.

  Meg shook her head. “It’s not funny.”

  “No,” her mother said. “It isn’t.”

  “When she didn’t elaborate, Meg couldn’t help getting annoyed. “Yeah, well, something could have happened. I mean, weren’t you thinking about us?”.

  “No,” her mother said, and Meg blinked. “I was thinking about how scared I was, and how I wasn’t going to let anyone in the whole god-damn country know that.”

  Her mother never swore.

  “Yeah, but—” What a frustrating conversation. Meg frowned at her. “Something could have happened.”

  Her mother shrugged, wincing almost simultaneously. “Then, I suppose it would have.”

  “Yeah, but—” Meg shook her head impatiently. “You don’t have to go looking for it.”

  “Yes,” her mother said. “Sometimes, I do.”

  It was quiet, as Meg thought about that. “Terrific,” she said. “That’s—that’s just terrific.”

  Her mother sighed. “It’s part of my job, Meg.”

  “Great,” Meg said. “And we all just sit around, waiting for the next bad thing to happen.”

  “If that’s the way you want to live,” her mother said.

  Jesus Christ, was she even a tiny bit human? Meg stared at her. “I don’t get it. Don’t you care at all?”.

  “For the rest of my life, every time I get dressed, I’m going to have to think about it. Every time—” Her mother shook her head. “Let’s put it this way. Off-the-shoulder dresses are a thing of my past.”

  Meg looked at her, for the first time thinking about physical scars. The ones that did show.

  “When you’re trying to save the President’s life,” her mother said, “the cosmetic aspects of it all are certainly not on your list of priorities.”

  The mood in the room was so unhappy that Meg decided to risk a joke.

  She sat taller, even being a little sultry. “Well, it looks like I’m in line for a lot of nice clothes.”

  “Over my dead body,” her mother said, and Meg winced. It was briefly silent; then, unexpectedly, her mother grinned. “A rather unfortunate witticism.”

  “Yeah,” Meg said. Flatly.

  “And yet,” her mother’s voice was solemn, “appropriate in its way.”

  “That’s sick,” Meg said. “That’s just plain sick.”

  “Yes,” her mother agreed. “Rather.” She looked at Meg, her eyes bright with amusement, and Meg had to laugh, her mother relaxing and joining in. It was loud laughing, and Meg felt out of practice.r />
  “The—” She tried to get her breath. “The blue dress. You know, the one you wore for the astronaut thing. Can I have that?”.

  Her mother stopped laughing instantly. “My blue dress? I love that dress.”

  “Well, yeah,” Meg said. “But, if you’re not going to be using it—”.

  “No. I’m not giving you that dress.” Her mother’s grin was self-amused. “It’s mine.”.

  Meg nodded. “Said the dog, from her manger.”

  Her mother laughed. “Damn straight.”

  “Ah,” Meg said. “You seem to have acquired quite the gutter mouth.”

  “Yes, indeed,” her mother said, using her formal voice. “That appears to be the case.”

  They looked at each other, grinning.

  “No way do you get that dress,” her mother said.

  Meg nodded. “Thank you. I applaud your generosity.”

  Her mother laughed again, coming over to hug her with her good arm. “I suppose I’m taking you from your work,” she said, not straightening up right away.

  “Yes,” Meg said. “Rather.”

  THANKSGIVING WAS WONDERFUL. Peaceful. Quiet. Relaxed. Meg did a lot of hiking around with Kirby, and once, he even fetched a stick. Agents and soldiers and staff people were lurking everywhere, but her parents had prepared a list of supplies, and the kitchen in their cabin had been stocked with Thanksgiving food, which her parents—alarmingly—were planning to cook themselves. As usual, her father did most of the work, with her mother being a backseat driver about it, and Meg heard a lot of laughing coming out of the kitchen. Steven shot baskets, and played one-on-one with Marines, while Neal spent almost all of his time on the Internet, playing some dumb game with which he was obsessed.

  They left Washington on Wednesday, flying up in Marine One, and returned to the White House on Sunday. Josh came over that night, and they went down to the projection room to watch a new comedy, which was going to be released in a couple of weeks. It was fun to be able to sit in a movie theater in the house, especially since the easy chairs in the front row were so comfortable, and there was a popcorn machine and everything. But, the theater was for lounging, rather than being romantic. When Josh was around, Meg generally felt like being romantic. The easy chairs were far enough apart so that they could really only hold hands—which they would never do in front of Steven and Neal, anyway. Sometimes, when they were alone, they would sit in the same chair, Meg mostly on Josh’s lap, but that would end up being too distracting for serious film-watching.