Confessions of a First Daughter (14 page)

“A little?”

“Okay, a lot. But I’ve learned my lesson.”

Despite my effort to remain skeptical, he got me listening, spellbound. Me, beautiful? Me, freaking Konner Tippington out?

“I really miss you, Morgan.” He hung his head like the admission cost him something. “Could we get back together?”

I automatically started shaking my head. Put my heart through the Konner Tippington meat grinder again? No way.

But out of the corner of my eye, I caught sight of Max returning to his station by the door. His eyes zeroed in on me talking to Konner. I was suddenly reminded of how stupid I’d been to think someone like Max would fall for someone like me. We were all business and that was that.

Konner continued, a touch of desperation in his voice. “At least let me take you to the homecoming dance on Saturday—”

I glanced at Max and felt a tug of sadness. “Okay.”

“—because I really want to make everything up to you—”

“I said okay, Konner. You can take me to the dance.”

“I can?” He perked up.

Max’s full attention locked on us now. I made a big show of leaning over to Konner and wrapping my arms around his shoulders. “We’ll have a great time,” I said, smiling like mad into his face.

Konner reacted like lightning. He planted an intense kiss on me and practically sucked my lips off.

When I got over my surprise, I pulled away.

And stared right up at Max looming over us.

“Class starts soon, Morgan,” Max said tonelessly.

Konner tightened his grip on my waist. “Relax, dude. We’ve got time for this.”

Konner lowered his head to mine again. I gave him a halfhearted kiss back and pulled away quickly. Max had moved to wait for me under the lighted exit sign, but I felt confused and embarrassed. As if I’d disappointed him.

“I got reamed again by Gibson,” I told Konner. “So I’d better not be late for any more classes.”

Konner resisted when I pulled away from him, but the explanation made him relax. “Okay. I’ll text you later.”

“Yeah. Later.”

Max followed me down the halls without a word.

I met Hannah by our locker. “Guess what? Konner’s taking me to the homecoming dance.”

“Konner?” She made a gagging noise. “Are you two back together?”

“I wouldn’t say that. But I’m letting him take me to the dance. It’s a test to see if he can stop acting like a jerk for one night. Besides, it’s not like anyone else is going to ask me.” I couldn’t help glancing at Max waiting nearby.

“Hold up,” Hannah muttered. “Aren’t you supposed to be the president on Saturday?”

“Uh…”

Leave it to me to forget something as monumental as me impersonating the president of the United States.

“I can do both,” I said with a confidence I only partially felt. “President by day, hot disco mama by night. Piece of cake.”

Hannah wasn’t fooled by my bull. “You’re pushing your luck, girl.”

Didn’t I know it.

But now I had a new mission: score a killer dress for the homecoming dance. Hannah bagged out of shopping with me because she was seeing Prince Richard off on his private jet. So I instructed Max to send the advance team to my favorite boutique in Union Station. I told myself the hot dress was because I wanted Brittany Whittaker to drop dead with envy. And if I left a certain Secret Service agent nursing his regrets, so much the better.

Union Station had to be about my favorite place in D.C. Part shopping mall, part historical museum, and all gorgeous Art Deco architecture. I’ll never forget Mom’s inauguration ball held smack in the middle of the train station. The cavernous interior had been packed shoulder to shoulder with black-tie guests. Stars and stripes everywhere. The “President’s Own” United States Marine Marching Band played “Hail to the Chief” for Mom the first time that night, and I remembered how my heart swelled with pride to see my mom stride across the stage and be welcomed as the president of the United States.

I grabbed a box of chicken nuggets at the food court and headed toward Mimi’s Boutique with Max on my heels. He’d had the advance team sweep the store, so Mimi herself was waiting for me when I arrived.

“Morgan, honey, it’s been too long.” Mimi swept me up in a big hug, her dreadlocks bouncing and million bracelets jangling. “Big date coming up?”

“Yeah. Can you hook me up with something sick?”

“Have-His-Tongue-Hanging-Out sick, or She’s-Gonna-Die-With-Envy sick?”

“How about both?” I needed a miracle—a dress to make Konner humble, Brittany jealous, and Max forget the rule book.

“You got it.” Mimi sorted through her amazing inventory of funky-chic dresses and loaded a dressing room with options.

I slipped a silk mini dyed in an intense shade of violet over my head and regarded my reflection critically. Hmm. I wasn’t wild about the asymmetrical hemline. I wished Hannah were here to help me with this decision.

I swept the dressing room curtain aside. Maybe Mimi could give me an unbiased opinion.

Mimi was nowhere to be seen. But Max stood by a rack of beaded camis next to the full-length mirror, clearly bored out of his mind.

“Max.” I strutted toward him like a supermodel on a runway. I struck a pose, then spun slowly. “What do you think?”

Max’s brows snapped up. “It’s, erm, an interesting look,” he said carefully.

No help. What did guys know about fashion, anyway?

Back in the dressing room, I gave the dress another once-over.

Oh. My. God.

What I took to be an asymmetrical hemline was in actuality the back of the dress stuck in my neon green boy-briefs. Which Max just saw up close and personal.

I let out a shriek of horror.

“What is it?” In a flash, Max was right outside the dressing room. “Is something wrong?”

Nothing that being swallowed up by the floor wouldn’t take care of.

“I’m coming in there if you don’t answer me,” he persisted.

“Don’t!” My face flamed. “The last thing I need is my Secret Service agent seeing my underwear
again
.”

Silence.

Then a splutter of laughter.

I yanked the curtain aside. Max stood there shaking with suppressed laughter.

“It’s not funny,” I said sourly.

“Actually, it was.” A big fat grin split his face. God, he was so cute when he laughed like that. “Knowing you prefer boy shorts could be crucial information for your file.”

“Don’t you dare!” I threw my wadded-up T-shirt at him. “If this incident makes it into my file, I’ll have my mom put you on the Caboodles detail.”

Caboodles was the previous president’s cocker spaniel, much beloved by the American people and hated by White House staffers for its evil temper and incontinence.

Max cracked up again. “C’mon, Morgan, you know me better than that,” he said when he got himself under control. “Besides, I think your underwear preference is already in your file.”

“Max!” I wailed.

“Sorry. Bad joke.” He became contrite when he saw how upset I remained. “Don’t worry, Morgan. This is between us. A Secret Service agent takes his protectees’ secrets to the grave.”

“You better. Or I’ll make sure your grave is an early one.” But I gave a reluctant grin of relief.

The cell phone in Max’s jeans pocket chirped and he was all business again.

“Excuse me,” he said, and turned away to take the call. I disappeared back inside the dressing room, and had tried on a cherry-colored halter dress when I heard him say: “I’ll be there as soon as possible.”

His tone made my heart stop beating. Something serious had happened.

I stuck my head around the curtain. “What is it?”

Max had been staring blindly at the cell phone in his hand, face white. “It’s my mother. She’s been in an accident.”

Chapter Nineteen

“Oh my god!” I ran over to him.
“You’ve got to go be with her, Max.”

“Yeah.” Dazed, he pulled his wireless com out from the pocket of his shirt. “I need to call in a replacement agent.”

“Don’t be silly, we can’t wait for a backup. Let’s go! We’ll use the limo. We can cut through traffic if we put on the lights and siren.”

“I can’t do that. It’s the property of the president—”

“Max!”

I shook his shoulders. “The president’s daughter wants to go to where your mother is right now and that’s an order.”

“Yeah. Okay. Thanks, Morgan.”

Ten minutes later we were in the car. Max directed the driver to head to the northeast area of D.C. Glitzy shops and condos were replaced by dilapidated apartment buildings and dollar stores. Graffiti. Plastic sacks of uncollected garbage piled on corners.

We pulled up outside a run-down brick building that looked like it’d once been an office suite.
NORTHSIDE HOMELESS ADVOCACY CENTER
was painted over the scarred door. A line of shabbily dressed people, some with kids, waited patiently on the sidewalk. A
CLOSED
sign hung crookedly out front.

A homeless shelter?

“You wait here,” Max ordered. “I’ll be right back.”

Yeah, right. I waited a second and then scrambled after him.

The cavernous interior of the building looked worse than the exterior, but it was clean. Cots were piled at one end, and boxes of old clothing and used toys at another. It reeked of stale body odor and simmering onions.

A solidly built man in his fifties wearing a knit cap and sweatshirt came out of what appeared to be an office. He looked as if he’d been a nightclub bouncer in a former life.

“Tobias!” Max made a beeline for him. “Where’s Mom?”

Tobias gave Max a clap on the shoulder like an old friend. “She’s in the kitchen getting her cut looked at.”

“What happened?”

I’d never seen Max look so upset.

“One of the residents went for her with a knife…but don’t worry—”

“Mom!” Max took off toward the back of the building.

I ran after him, whipping out my cell phone. Maybe I’d need to call for an ambulance.

The back room had been set up as a makeshift soup kitchen, with canned goods and boxes of pasta and cereals neatly arranged on shelves. Sitting on a stack of crates, a slender woman with graying dark hair was trying to wrap a gauze bandage around a wicked cut on her arm. Laugh lines surrounded her blue eyes, which slanted at the corners. Just like her son’s.

“Jesus, Mom.” Max dropped to his knees in front of her. “What happened?”

Max’s mother gave him a wide smile. “Hi, honey. Don’t worry, it’s not as bad as it looks. Tobias shouldn’t have called you for this.” Curiously, she regarded me standing in the doorway.

Max took the gauze roll out of his mom’s hand and began expertly wrapping her wound. “I should call the cops,” he said. “This is assault.”

“No, I don’t want that. Besides, she’s gone.” His mother was firm. “You know how junkies behave when they’re trying to get clean. She didn’t know what she was doing. I’ve survived worse.”

Max smiled wryly at her. “Yeah, I know.”

“Besides, we don’t need the bad publicity. I’d like to get through one week without having D.C.’s finest pulling up.”

“Mom—”

“No, Max. We’ve talked about this before.” Her attention shifted to me. “Where are your manners? Aren’t you going to introduce me?”

“Morgan Abbott,” I said without waiting for Max to perform introductions. “I’m pleased to meet you, ma’am.”

“Morgan Abbott,” she repeated thoughtfully. “You certainly look different in person than you do in the papers.”

Eeek
. “Thanks, Mrs. Jackson.”
I guess
.

“Trisha. We’re on a first-name basis around here, despite the knives.” She laughed. “Just a little gallows humor. Helps get you through the rough patches.”

“Got it, Trisha.” I was beginning to like Max’s mom.

Max had finished bandaging her arm and stared at her with a look I recognized. Someone was about to get a scathing lecture.

“Could I look around?” I said. “I’ve never been to a homeless shelter before.” I winced. I couldn’t have sounded more elitist if I’d been trying.

“Knock yourself out.” Trisha stroked her son’s head fondly. “Max wants to lecture me, and that’s best done in private.”

I totally agreed with her.

“Stay close by, Morgan,” Max warned. “I need to keep you in visual.”

“I will. I’ll prop the door open so you can keep me in sight.”

God knows I didn’t want to add any more stress to his day.

I wandered back out to the main room. Tobias and another volunteer were setting up tables and chairs. “Need some help?” I asked.

“Sure do, mama.” Tobias’s West Indian accent was cheerful. “You could start by hauling out those chafing trays. Dinner starts in an hour, and once our operating hours begin, they’ll be banging the door down.”

“So where’s everyone now?”

“We close the shelter in the afternoons for cleaning and to discourage loitering.”

And knife fights
, I added silently.

Eventually I found myself back in the kitchen, chopping carrots, onions, and celery stalks.

Trisha emerged from a back room. Other than the bandage wrapped around the cut on her arm, she seemed like an ordinary soccer mom in a flannel shirt and jeans. “Thanks, Morgan. We really appreciate your help today, since the, uh, incident put us behind schedule.”

“No problem, Trisha.” I ran a knife through a rib of celery the way I’d seen the sous chefs in Nigel’s kitchen do. “I’m having fun. What are we making with this?”

“Alphabet soup. The kids love it, and it gets some vegetables in them. Plus, soup can feed plenty of folks.”

“How much does it cost to feed the shelter residents each night?”

“We have a budget of two dollars per person for a meal.”

“That’s all?” A vending machine candy bar cost two dollars at AOP.

“With food donations and volunteers, we make it happen. We have to. If we don’t open our doors, we have kids sleeping on the streets. A newly clean addict might relapse. We’re all they have, in some cases.”

“Wow.”

“It’s hard sometimes.” Trisha patted her bandaged arm wryly. “But we manage. Never underestimate the power of a safe place to sleep—or alphabet soup!”