Long Live the Queen

by Ellen Emerson White

  Her parents nodded reluctantly.

  Meaning that there was probably no way of avoiding a crowd of media—and maybe even an actual crowd. Apparently, there had been a huge one when she came to the hospital, but she couldn’t remember any of that. This time, she wasn’t going to have the luxury of sleeping through the whole thing.

  “We’re going to get you right inside,” her father said. “You don’t have anything to worry about.”

  The Szechuan shredded beef and Yu-Hsiang chicken were suddenly feeling pretty lousy inside her stomach. “Do I have to say anything?” she asked. “Like, a statement?”

  Her father frowned at her mother, who immediately shook her head.

  “Of course not,” she said. “Linda or Preston, or maybe Natalie”—who was the Deputy Press Secretary—“will brief them after we’re inside.”

  “What if there are signs?” Meg asked, getting more and more nervous. “Or, if they clap or something?” Which they had done when her mother came home from the hospital.

  Her mother reached over to take her hand. “We’re going to get there, and go right inside to the elevator. The staff is under very strict instructions.”

  Meg swallowed. “And we’ll go right to my room, and I won’t have to deal with anyone? Won’t it look rude?”

  “I don’t bloody care how it looks,” her father said, her mother giving him a warning glance.

  Okay, okay, maybe she wasn’t the only one who was a little on edge here. Meg took a deep breath. “I care how it looks, Dad. I mean—” She needed another breath. “I’m the one they’re going to be looking at tomorrow, not you guys.” The eyes of half the damned free world, probably. Most of the news networks might even—what she needed, although it was going to hurt his feelings, was to talk to her mother for a minute. Alone. “Um, Dad?” She didn’t quite look at him. “Would you mind getting me a Coke?”

  He barely hesitated. “Sure,” he said, and got up.

  When he was gone, she looked at her mother. “What’s really going to happen?”

  “Precisely what we just told you,” her mother said. “You honestly don’t have to—”

  “Is it going to be safe?” Meg asked.

  Her mother nodded. “The security is extremely—”

  “I don’t mean just tomorrow,” Meg said.

  Her mother nodded, not answering right away, her hands tight in her lap.

  “Should I take that as a no?” Meg asked stiffly.

  Her mother shook her head. “No, I just think we should take it one step at a time.”

  “Explore our options?” Meg asked, even more stiff.

  Her mother gestured towards the door. “Explore their limitations.” They, meaning the Secret Service. “But, it’s not something you should be worrying about tonight. We’ll talk about it later. As a family.”

  “Oh, yeah,” Meg said. “Neal’s going to enjoy that conversation a lot.”

  Her mother sighed. “Please don’t worry about it, Meg. I promise that we’ll be able to arrange something that we’re all comfortable with. I promise.”

  Yeah, that sounded real promising. Meg moved her jaw, the room so quiet that she could hear a phone ringing somewhere far down the hall. “You should have told me about the teeth,” she said.

  Her mother hunched down, looking visibly smaller. “I’m sorry,” she said, her voice so low that Meg almost couldn’t hear her.

  Meg touched the side of her face, remembering the terror of unknown metal objects being forced into her mouth. “It was—a surprise.”

  Her mother kept hunching, not looking at her. “I’m sorry, Meg. I never—that is, your father and I—”

  “Yeah, no precedent,” Meg said, still holding her jaw. Of course, what it really came down to was “can not, have not, and will not negotiate”—“You kind of sold me out,” she said, her voice even lower than her mother’s had been.

  Her mother nodded, looking less like the President than Meg had ever seen her. “I know.”

  Meg nodded, too. “Yeah.”

  The silence was more awkward than any of the others, her mother rubbing her hand across her eyes.

  “I wouldn’t accuse you of wanting to do it,” Meg said. “And—well, I’m here, right?”

  Her mother folded her arms tightly around herself. “I expect you to hate me for it.”

  Which was more than a little annoying. “I’m a better person than that, don’t you think?” Meg said.

  For the first time, her mother looked at her. “Yes. Actually, I do.”

  Meg nodded. “That’s not the part I’m mad at you for. It’s the only thing you could have done, really. I mean, like, it’s already too late at that point.”

  “Last fall,” her mother said. “It would have been better if—things—had worked out differently last fall.”

  If she’d been killed? Meg scowled at her. “That’s like saying you wish the three of us had never been born.”

  “I know, I’m sorry.” Her mother looked at her, her eyes very bright. “I really am sorry. If I’d ever dreamed that—I never would have—”

  “What about what happened to you?” Meg asked. “Would you still have run, if you’d known that was going to happen?”

  Her mother considered that, then shook her head. “I don’t know. Probably. But, not any of you. Not ever.”

  Jesus. So, her mother considered herself an acceptable loss? Then, Meg thought of something that had never really occurred to her before. “You didn’t think you’d win, did you? I mean, you really—you thought you were like, paving the way.”

  Her mother took a long time answering. “I don’t know,” she said finally. “I’ve spent a lot of hours wondering.”

  Meg nodded. It probably wasn’t a question that had an answer. Particularly not in retrospect. “I wish you hadn’t run for Senate. That’s where it started.”

  Her mother nodded, too. “I think you’re probably right.”

  There was a quiet knock on the door.

  “Um.” Meg glanced at her mother, then raised her voice. “Just a minute, please.” She didn’t want to keep hurting her father’s feelings, but she still had to—“How bad do I look? For the cameras?”

  “You look beautiful,” her mother said without hesitating.

  Which wasn’t very helpful. “I’m serious.” Meg touched her hair self-consciously. The nurses had managed to keep it pretty clean lately, but—well, it wasn’t exactly bouncy. “I don’t want to look—beaten.”

  “You don’t,” her mother said. “You’re just—very pale.”

  Meg lifted her hand towards her nose, but didn’t touch it. “How bad is my nose? I mean, is it different? Is it terrible?”

  Her mother started to stand up. “Let me get you a mirror. You’ll feel much—”

  Meg shook her head. That, was something she was going to do in private. And not any time soon.

  “Mainly, you look exhausted,” her mother said.

  Which she was. Too exhausted to continue. Her mother was already tucking her blankets in and, increasingly sleepy, Meg didn’t protest.

  “I don’t want them all to pity me,” she said, as her mother turned her pillow, the fresh side nice and cool.

  “Hero-worship is going to be more like it,” her mother said.

  Oh, yeah. Definitely.

  “You’d be amazed by how many people care about you,” her mother said. “How many people admire you.”

  “Not hardly. I mean—” She shook her head, trying to stay awake.

  Her mother spread the extra blanket over her. “I think you should get some sleep.”

  No argument there. Meg nodded. “Can you have Dad come in and say good-night to me?”

  “I’ll go get him.” Her mother leaned down to kiss her cheek, not straightening up right away. “I love you, Meg.”

  Meg held herself stiffly, then couldn’t not return the hug, her good arm tight around her mother’s shoulder and neck. “I love you, too,” she whispered.

 
When her mother finally let go, Meg had just enough time to wipe the unexpected tears off her face before her father came in, looking a little tentative.

  “Are you comfortable?” he asked, picking up her hand. “Everything okay?”

  She nodded, the extra blankets feeling nice and warm.

  “This’ll be right here, if you get thirsty.” He put a glass on her bedside table, and she remembered, faintly, having asked him for a Coke. Then, he sat in the chair next to the bed. “You okay for tomorrow?”

  She nodded, more and more sleepy.

  “Is it all right if I stay in here for a while?” he asked. “Keep an eye on you?”

  She smiled, seeing that her mother was already in the chair by the window. “Yeah. That’d be nice.”

  24

  LEAVING THE HOSPITAL was pretty James Bond-ish. Wearing clothes—her own clothes—felt strange. Not having been able to shave her good leg and all, she really hadn’t wanted to wear a skirt, and she didn’t want to ruin any of her jeans by cutting them to make the brace fit better, so she ended up in blue sweatpants, a tennis shirt she’d always loved—and one sneaker. Since she couldn’t take the surgical brace on and off by herself, Dr. Steiner had carefully strapped it on over her sweatpants, and she assumed he or Dr. Brooks or one of the WHMU nurses would help her take it on and off, when she got home.

  After spending all that time in that one awful pair of sweatpants, she felt brave for wearing this pair. Falling off the horse and getting right back on, and all. Wearing a bra felt really strange. Comforting, and uncomfortable. And embarrassing, since she’d had to have her mother help her put it on.

  It felt rude not to be able to say thank you to all of the hospital people, but once everything was ready to go, the Secret Service didn’t waste any time, whisking them right onto a large, private elevator, the corridors crowded with agents and Marines and people from the White House advance team.

  She sat very straight in the wheelchair, too scared to try and make conversation, her parents and Dr. Brooks hovering around. The elevator was taking them to a sub-basement or something, so that they could secretly meet the motorcade. Preston, who was lounging against the side, grinned at her and she tried to smile back.

  “Are you, um, riding with us?” she asked.

  He shrugged. “Whatever you all want me to do.”

  Meg looked up at her mother, who nodded.

  The doors slid open, and they were in a parking garage, the motorcade ready and waiting for them. There were men—and a few women—with guns everywhere, and she suddenly thought about bombs. Terrorists, with bombs, throwing one in front of the car, and they would all be—her father and Dr. Brooks had lifted her gently inside, her mother and Preston right behind them. The door closed, and the car started moving almost before she was buckled into her seat, her leg propped up on a special cushion.

  She could see light ahead—the outside—and held her breath, terrified. Her parents were on either side of her, her father holding her hand, her mother with her arm around her. They might have been talking to her—probably were, in fact—but her heart was thumping so loudly that she couldn’t hear them. Couldn’t hear anything.

  They were outside now. Targets. Who else could be in a large motorcade speeding away from the National Naval Medical Center? Even though the windows were tinted, she could see out, and the sunlight made her dizzy. Afraid that she was going to cry—or maybe even scream, she dug her teeth into the inside of her cheek, feeling a couple of tears spill out, anyway. She turned her head towards her mother’s shoulder, hoping that none of them had seen.

  “Hey, kid,” Preston said.

  She looked up. Barely.

  “Forgot to give you your gift.” He put a small, brightly-wrapped package in her lap. Green and white checked paper, with a green bow. “Meant to give it to you inside.”

  Opening it with one hand was hard, but she shook her head when her father offered to help her, preferring the difficulty. She managed to rip one end open, then slide the paper down the rest of the way. Inside, was a glasses case. Sunglasses. Ray-Bans. Black.

  “Better try them on,” he said, “or I’ll think you don’t like them.”

  Cooperatively, she put them on, blinking to focus.

  “Very nice,” he said. “Very Hollywood.”

  She looked at her parents, to see if they agreed.

  “Very cool,” her father said.

  “Greta Garbo,” her mother said.

  She looked back at Preston. “Um, thank you. Thank you very much.” Ray-Bans were expensive, he shouldn’t have—

  He shrugged. “You don’t look right to me without them.”

  She felt a little safer behind the glasses, safe enough to peer past her father and out the window for a second. Road. Trees. Buildings. The speed at which they were passing was scary, so she stared down at her leg, instead.

  “Any pain?” Dr. Brooks asked.

  Yes, and no. “It feels kind of dead.” Numb. She wasn’t supposed to, without therapists supervising her, but she tried moving her foot—which did hurt. A lot. But, her ribs were okay—as long as she didn’t cough, moving her head didn’t make her dizzy anymore, and her nose and mouth felt pretty normal. Odds were, they didn’t look so great.

  The main thing, still, was fatigue. In fact, it was a long enough ride—oh, gosh, forty whole minutes—so that a nap wasn’t altogether out of the question. The dark glasses were making her sleepy, too.

  “Are you tired?” her mother asked. “Do you want to rest?”

  Yes. “No, I’m all right.” She sat up, adjusting her sling, and looked around some more.

  Her parents’ faces were tired and nervous—and quite pale. Her mother was wearing a yellow linen dress—nice and crisp and perky, and her father had on his standard summer blue blazer and light khakis ensemble, with a blue-striped tie. Dr. Brooks had on the same sort of outfit, except that his coat was white, and rumpled. She saved Preston for last—he had on a purple-and-white striped shirt with a skinny mauve tie, and beautifully creased cream-colored cotton pants. His shoes were Italian leather slip-ons; his belt was leather, too.

  Preston smiled at her. “Well?”

  “No jacket?” she asked.

  “I left it at the house,” he said.

  “Well—all right,” she said, making her voice sound disapproving. Her mother’s arm felt very tense around her shoulders, and she felt very stupid for not remembering that it was her bad one. “Mom—” she leaned forward—“why don’t you rest your arm a little.”

  “Excellent idea, Madam President,” Dr. Brooks said, and her mother nodded, removing it with almost-disguised relief.

  Nothing like a family of the Walking Wounded. Meg was going to crack a joke to that effect, but decided that it would just make things more tense.

  “Trudy’s mashing you a batch of potatoes,” her father said.

  Meg grinned, picturing the scene. Trudy was nothing if not a tyrant, when it came to people underfoot in the kitchen. “Is she creaming me some corn, too?”

  “I expect she is,” her mother said.

  Meg had always been big on mashed potatoes with creamed corn. Odds were, Trudy had cooked up—she always made it from scratch—a batch of butterscotch pudding, too. And maybe some tacos. And she would make all of them drink milk. Sometimes even her parents.

  When she saw the first landmark she recognized in downtown Washington, she began to get scared again, the two swallows of juice she’d had for breakfast jumping around her stomach. She could feel herself trembling and struggled not to, not wanting her parents to worry.

  “L-looks pretty much the same,” she said. Who the hell did she think she was—Ulysses? It hadn’t been that long. She couldn’t repress one especially hard shake, and her father’s arm came around her.

  “It’s going to be fine,” he said.

  She nodded, but still couldn’t stop the trembling. “I wish I could walk in, not look all—” She gestured to indicate the wheelchair, which was
in one of the cars behind them.

  “We’re going to get you right into the elevator,” her mother said. “Preston’ll stay outside to give a statement.”

  Meg nodded, the streets more and more familiar. More and more threatening. She could see tourists—and even Washingtonians—stopping to stare as the motorcade sped by. At least they weren’t going to be driving anywhere near the school. She had no intention of ever going near there again.

  Then, they were approaching the Southwest Gate. She could see people—Jesus, a lot of people—gathered out in the street to watch, many of them holding cameras—and flowers. Lots and lots of flowers. And, yeah, stuffed animals. There were police officers and uniformed Secret Service agents all over the place—but, it was still scary.

  There were cameras and reporters stationed behind a rope-line, near the South Entrance, and she pressed her left hand into a nervous fist. A large sign, red and blue on white, was hanging from the Truman Balcony, reading: “Welcome Home, Meghan, and God Bless You.”

  She nudged her father. “Is that on account of us being so religious and all?” she asked, amused in spite of herself.

  He actually grinned. “No doubt.”

  When the car doors opened, her wheelchair was already set up, and she was helped into it, aware of voices and lights. Possibly—probably not—some applause; she was too nervous to look up all the way. There were faces everywhere, mostly male, mostly unfamiliar. Or, maybe some of them were familiar, and she was just having trouble focusing.

  Her mother was on the left side of her wheelchair, while her father pushed it, and she fought the urge to grab on to them.

  “—you feeling?” one of the louder voices yelled.

  “Um, fine.” Her voice was weak, and she tried to make it stronger. “Fine, thank you.”

  “—feel about—”

  “—home?”

  “—courage in—”

  “—your leg?”

  Not that she had heard the whole question, but she decided to answer that one, anyway, turning in her chair to face the direction from which it had come. The television lights and camera flashes were blindingly bright, and she was very glad to have the sunglasses on.