Long May She Reign

by Ellen Emerson White

  He did, however, avoid her eyes. “I don’t know. I hope there aren’t any.”

  The man was a cockeyed optimist. She leaned forward to steal a bite of his cake, remembered that she didn’t want any, frowned, and put her fork down. “Care to put money on that?”

  He pushed the plate closer to her. “Well, for sanity’s sake, let’s assume they don’t exist.”

  She shook her head, and pushed the plate back to him. “They got to my mother; they can sure as hell get to me again.” Or her father, or her brothers—which was too awful to imagine, in all three cases.

  “Unfortunately, your mother makes some kind of twisted sense as a target,” he said. “You don’t.”

  Christ, was he really that naive? Or just trying to sound reassuring? “We’re dealing with maniacs, Preston,” she said. “I don’t think they’re real logical about these things.”

  He glanced down at his plate, and set it aside.

  She looked at the remaining cake, then decided that she would have—what the hell—just one bite.

  “It’s good,” he said.

  She nodded. Maybe two bites wouldn’t be the worst idea she had ever had.

  “You know what I think?” he asked.

  Three bites would be pushing it. She lowered her fork. “This isn’t going to be more honesty, is it?”

  He nodded. “I think it’s worth the risk.”

  Jesus, what was this, Bluntness Day? Maybe he should try reading his trauma books more carefully. “Yeah, well, you’re not the one they’re going to blow away,” she said. Bluntly.

  He nodded.

  “So, you can afford to be sort of—free and easy—with advice,” she said.

  He nodded again, and this silence lasted longer than any of the others had.

  “I’m often very rude to you,” she said.

  He grinned at her. “Actually, I figure it’s a compliment.”

  She really was having lunch with Annie.

  “Maybe a little backhanded,” he said.

  She laughed. “Maybe.”

  They sat there.

  “So,” he said. “Sure you don’t want to hang out downstairs for a while?”

  She nodded.

  “Some other time, then,” he said.

  She nodded.

  * * *

  HER MOTHER DID not, in fact, make it home in time for dinner, although after checking the White House closed-circuit television feed, Meg caught ten minutes of a speech she was making in Detroit to some auto workers who had just begun production on a new, much more energy-efficient line of hybrid minivans—and that was almost like being in the same place together.

  Or, maybe not.

  After supper, her father went wherever the hell it was he went— usually, they found him reading in the Yellow Oval Room, or out on the Truman Balcony—and her brothers headed up to the solarium to watch some action movie, while she stayed in her room, finished Winesburg, Ohio, and started Main Street.

  At about nine-thirty, her phone rang. She didn’t feel like talking to anyone, but she sighed and picked it up.

  “Good evening, Miss Powers,” a White House operator said. She had all of her very few calls routed through the switchboard these days, instead of the direct line, so that she didn’t have to answer them. “Miss Shulman for you?”

  Beth. “Okay,” Meg said. “I mean, thank you.”

  There was a clicking sound, and then Beth came on. “Meg?”

  “No, this is her secretary,” Meg said. Who did she think it was? “Can I take a message?”

  “You may,” Beth said cheerfully. “Tell her to get up here and visit me—this town is great.”

  Jesus. Meg grinned in spite of herself. “You’re already calling it ‘town’?”

  “Well, hey,” Beth said, somewhat self-consciously.

  Another month, and she’d be a native. Pick up an accent and everything.

  “So. How’s it going?” Beth asked.

  “Super,” Meg said. “It’s kind of like a carnival.”

  “You hate carnivals,” Beth said.

  It was nice to have someone appreciate the subtext in a joke. “Yeah,” Meg agreed. Circuses, too. She—and, oddly, her entire family—particularly despised clowns. The Moscow Circus had once come to the East Room to perform after a state dinner, and they’d had to sit there in the front row and look happy. It was very hard. Even Neal hated every second of it, and later that night, had actually thrown up. Naturally, they all blamed the clowns.

  “How are you, really?” Beth asked.

  Meg shrugged. “Well, you know.”

  “I don’t know,” Beth said.

  Upon which, Meg decided to change the subject. “How about you? Things are—okay?”

  A month or so earlier, Beth had been completely freaked out when her period was three days late, and Meg had come up with a wildly impractical and potentially politically inflammatory plan wherein she would get herself admitted to the hospital, under the auspices of another surgical revision of her hand or knee, and Beth would conveniently come down to visit—and instead, they would take care of the situation somehow, as quietly and privately as possible. Maybe not the most ideal stratagem in the world, but it had been her first, and best, suggestion. Of course, Beth had promptly gotten her period the next morning, and neither of them had brought it up again.

  “Fine,” Beth said, sounding embarrassed. “I mean, things are good, except for finals. What about you?”

  “Well—I have finals, too,” Meg said. Defensively. Especially since she didn’t have a sex life about which to fret, or celebrate, as the case might be. And, of course, she had only two finals, instead of the normal four or five other people had.

  “You worried about them?” Beth asked.

  What, because she was psychologically delicate? “No more than anyone else,” Meg said.

  “Well, since I’ve missed like, every other class, I sure am,” Beth said.

  Hmmm. Beth hyperbole, or reality? Meg thought about that. “Do you really miss that many?”

  “Yeah,” Beth said, and then laughed. “Don’t tell anyone.”

  “What do you do instead?” Meg asked.

  “I don’t know.” Beth paused. “Sleep. Go to movies. Drink coffee in disreputable cafés.”

  Often, she very much wished that she were Beth. If she went off to college and did any of that, the wire services’d probably pick it up.

  “How’s physical therapy?” Beth asked.

  “The same.” Which sounded kind of self-pitying. Although Beth had sat in on a few sessions, so she knew what it was like. “I mean, you know,” Meg said. “Um, how’s Ramon?” Beth had pretty much joined the Man of the Month Club since she’d been away at school, and Ramon was the replacement for Jimmy, who had been her not-particularly-gentlemanly cohort in the pregnancy alarm.

  “He’s okay,” Beth said. “Hear that noise?”

  Meg listened, hearing indistinct, but monotonous, music. “Is that a bass?”

  “Yeah,” Beth said. “Catchy, hunh?”

  Oh, yeah. Terribly. Even so, it was hard to suppress a flash of envy.

  “I’m being careful this time,” Beth said. “I mean, I’m not—well, anyway, he’s all right. But, I don’t know. I don’t think we’re going to make it through winter break.”

  Not exactly a ringing endorsement. Meg frowned. “I thought you said he was really cute.”

  “He is,” Beth said. “I mean, he could give Preston a run for his money, but—oh, I don’t know. I’m bored.”

  “As cute as Preston?” Meg said. No small feat.

  “In a different way, but yeah. He’s just—he sort of walks around trying to be this real hip inner-city guy, but he’s actually from Shaker Heights, you know?” Beth said. “Not your type.”

  Beth had not, to Meg’s knowledge, ever spent time with anyone who was even vaguely her type.

  Whatever the hell her type was.

  Emphasis on the past tense.

  “You
’re still not telling me anything about your life,” Beth said.

  And, gosh, there was so much to tell. “Where should I start?” Meg asked.

  “Anywhere,” Beth said, sounding just the tiniest bit too supportive.

  She knew everyone was just trying to be nice to her, but Christ, it was patronizing. Meg gritted her teeth, the implants on her left side—yet another one of her many physical souvenirs—still feeling unfamiliar in her mouth. “Before or after the strip-tease at the Washington Press Club?”

  “Oh, during,” Beth said. “Definitely during.”

  The bass had stopped playing, and Meg could hear a very deep male voice saying, “You done yet?”

  “No,” Beth said, sounding impatient. “I’m on the phone.”

  “Still?” the male voice said.

  “Wait a minute, Meg,” Beth said, and Meg could hear her covering the receiver with her hand. “I’m on the phone, Ramon, okay? Jesus.”

  “Look, it’s not a big deal,” Meg said quickly. “I kind of have to go, anyway.”

  Beth sighed. “Meg, I’m not—”

  “I really do,” Meg said, even more quickly. “I mean—uh, talk to you later. Or, you know, sometime.” She hung up, feeling unexpectedly shaky and upset. In case Beth was going to call back, she disconnected it, holding the plastic cord tightly in her good hand. So, she wasn’t away at school, or having a social life, or—it wasn’t a big deal. She should just sleep. It was the easiest—the only—way to get through the—but first, some ibuprofen.

  As she reached for her cane, she heard someone at her door and turned, angrily, to see who it was.

  “What, for Christ’s sakes?” she asked, and saw her mother standing there.

  Naturally.

  Her mother spoke as carefully as ever. “I just wanted to let you know that I was back.”

  “Good,” Meg said, not looking at her. “Fine.”

  Her mother hesitated. “Is there anything—”

  Jesus! “No,” Meg said. “Give me some god-damn space, how about?” For once.

  Her mother nodded and withdrew, and Meg limped over to close the door behind her. Slam it, really. Christ, her room was about as far from a sanctuary as—she swung the cane, hard, at her dresser, hoping to chip the antique wood. To smash it. But the cane glanced off the side and down, knocking her off-balance. She landed on the rug, groaning as her knee buckled underneath her. It hurt so much that she wanted to cry, but someone would probably open the god-damn door to check on her, and—oh, Christ, it really hurt. And she’d managed to bang her hand pretty badly, too.

  She stayed on the floor, eyes closed, fighting off an absolute torrent of tears. If only they would prescribe some real painkillers again, instead of just useless over-the-counter stuff. But, she’d better take some now, so maybe, in an hour, her leg would feel less—she pulled in a couple of deep breaths, trying to get under control. She was tired of hurting. Beyond tired.

  She took one more deep breath, rubbed her sleeve across her eyes—she was probably god-damned entitled to cry, but she still hated doing it—and reached for her cane, slowly dragging herself to her feet.

  Her life was a complete and total fucking nightmare.

  4

  PHYSICAL THERAPY WAS awful. And she had to do it day after day, week after week, month after month. Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, without fail, and then, more often than not, occupational therapy on Sundays.

  Although she had had to deal with so many different medical and dental professionals during the past six months that she had, frankly, lost track of who most of them were, a hand rehabilitation specialist named Carlotta came to the White House regularly, and a somewhat shy woman named Edith was the physical therapist who usually worked on her knee, as well as her balance and general conditioning, often under the supervision of one or more of the military nurses who were assigned to the White House Medical Unit. The occupational therapists were almost always from Walter Reed or the NNMC, and instead of worrying about names, she just called them by their ranks. None of them ever talked much during the sessions, by Meg’s choice. She would just sit there quietly and let them hurt her, cooperating when it seemed to be indicated.

  For her knee, mostly they did range-of-motion stuff, and very few weight-bearing exercises. Like, she would sit on an examining table, with her leg hanging over the side—painful in and of itself—and Edith would make her raise it. Or she would lie down on the table and try to straighten her leg, tighten her quadriceps, or flex and extend her foot. Sometimes, she would have to lift a light weight or pull against some Thera-Band, which hurt so much that it was always a struggle to keep from slugging whoever was asking her to do it. Instead, she would grip the edge of the table with her good hand, her teeth pressed against her lower lip, attempting not to bite right through it.

  Once, she’d had a male physical therapist—Edith was home sick, maybe—and he’d been so critical about the “results of her therapy thus far,” exhorting her to “dig in,” that she’d told him to get the fuck away from her, or she’d god-damn well make him regret it.

  Since then, she’d always had female therapists, she’d noticed. Although the guy’s gender hadn’t been nearly as much of a problem as the Nazi-coach attitude.

  Not that men in their thirties were her favorite people these days. Particularly tall, muscular Caucasian men with dark hair.

  Be interesting to see how that PT guy would feel if some son-of-a-bitch had kicked his god-damn knee apart.

  And then stood there, smiling faintly, afterwards. Making her literally crawl down that filthy hallway, back to the room with the metal bed, handcuffed the whole time, and—Christ, talk about degrading. Even among the many bad memories, that one ranked pretty high.

  It had been a few months after she got back before one of her orthopedic surgeons had told her, hesitantly, that such a severe traumatic dislocation of the knee could actually have been fatal, because if there had been significant vascular injuries—in other words, if the bastard had managed to shred her arteries, along with the ligaments, cartilage, and nerves—she probably would have bled to death. No one had said anything at the time, but for several weeks, they had also been very concerned about the prospect of having to amputate her leg, because of possible necrosis or some damned thing. Apparently, her instinct in the mountains, to try and force the joint back into place and rig up an incompetent splint with sticks might have saved her life.

  During physical therapy—usually at the beginning, while she still had some energy—they also made her do weight-resistance and strengthening exercises with her good arm and leg, to “keep them well-toned.” Like she really gave a damn. But she did all of the stupid repetitions, allowed them to shoot the dumb electro-stimulus and ultrasound stuff into her, got grimly into the White House swimming pool when they asked her to do slow-motion versions of the same movements in the water, let them strap ice or heat packs all over her, afterwards—oh, yeah, it was a great way to spend a few hours.

  Day, after day, after god-damn day.

  Bright and early the next morning, she sat in the little physical therapy room which had been set up near the White House Medical Office on the ground floor. Personally, she didn’t see why she couldn’t do it in the family quarters—maybe up in the third-floor gym, or in the little room where President Eisenhower used to paint landscapes, and where the current occupant of the Oval Office got her hair done—but she had a feeling that Dr. Brooks wanted the sessions to be held downstairs just to make her leave the second floor more often.

  With luck, it wasn’t because the President was afraid that someone might notice a faint scent of ammonia in the tiny second-floor cosmetology room, and suspect that all of that thick auburn hair was actually, deep down, getting pretty god-damned grey.

  “How is it today?” Edith asked, unfastening the knee brace, one Velcro strap at a time.

  It was ice cream in the spring. “It’s okay,” Meg said evenly, trying to prepare herself not to wince as Edi
th helped her ease her leg over the edge of the table.

  It hurt. It hurt a lot. Fuck. She pressed her teeth together.

  Edith smiled at her. “You’re making much more progress than you think you are.”

  Well, that was good news, seeing as she was shooting for the Olympics and all. Edith was moving her knee around gently, and Meg clenched all of her muscles—she was supposed to try and keep her leg relaxed—waiting for it to be over.

  “Do you want to try now?” Edith asked.

  More than she wanted world peace. Meg set her teeth into her lower lip, and then raised her leg so that it was mostly straight—she was still at least twenty degrees short of full extension—which seemed to take an incredibly long time. Then, very slowly, she lowered it. She was supposed to do ten of these. Christ.

  “Okay?” Edith asked.

  Oh, yeah. It was a day at the beach. An afternoon in the Green Monster Seats. A devil-may-care night gallivanting on the town. Meg nodded. She was supposed to concentrate on lowering her leg as slowly as she had lifted it—and not arching her back, and not holding her breath—but mostly, she had to focus on not groaning or crying.

  “Let’s try a weight,” Edith said, when she was done.

  Meg nodded, not looking at her.

  Lifting the weight—was it three pounds, maybe? five?—hurt so much that she couldn’t stop shaking.

  “Only four more,” Edith said, her voice encouraging.

  Meg finished the set, trembling so hard that the whole table seemed to be vibrating. The whole room. She brushed her sleeve—surreptitiously, she hoped; yeah, right—across her eyes. “Should I do a couple more?” she asked, hearing her voice quiver. “Sets, I mean.”

  Edith looked uneasy, moving a blond wisp of hair back behind her ear. “If you think you can.”

  Of course she couldn’t. But, then again, she did have those Olympics looming ever closer. Wanted to nail her compulsories and such.

  “Take your time,” Edith said.

  Well, true, it wasn’t like she had any place to go. So, she pushed herself through ten more leg lifts, but when she started the last set, the pain was so severe that she felt sick to her stomach. She closed her eyes, forcing herself to continue. To keep the third of a glass of orange juice and half piece of raisin toast she’d had for breakfast down in her stomach, where they belonged.