Long May She Reign (18 page)

The night before she left, dinner was very quiet. Even Steven was subdued. The chefs have gone all-out, and they were having steak—her portion arriving presliced; something which
wasn't
going to happen in the dining hall, she assumed—and jazzy little potato baskets, along with an assortment of grilled vegetables and full soup, salad, bread, and dessert courses. Preston had come upstairs to eat with them, but he wasn't much more talkative than anyone else.

“So,” her father said. “You all packed?”

Which he had asked her at breakfast, and then again during lunch.

“How come I can't come?” Neal asked, for about the tenth time.

Her parents looked at each other; her mother shrugged, and her father nodded.

“I guess you could miss a day of school,” he said.

“All right!” Neal said happily. “Steven, too?”

Their father nodded again. “Sure.”

“Okay,” Steven said, without much enthusiasm. “If you want.”

Knowing perfectly well that he had a basketball game, Meg wasn't sure if she should be amused, or hurt. “I think you should play in your game,” she said.

He looked guiltily at their parents. “Hey, no big deal. I mean, you know, I want to come. Say good-bye and all.”

What a liar. “It's not like I'm going off to
war
,” Meg said. “I mean, Christ.” She glanced at her mother. “I mean, shoot.” Golly. Gosh.

“An ivory tower,” Preston remarked, “but a battleground, nevertheless.”

Now, they all looked at
him
. Meg, for one, was amused.

“How poetic,” she said. “Do you have a special dance that goes along with that?”

He winked at her. “We few, we happy few,” he said, and cut into his steak.

However, back to the matter at hand—before either of her parents took a committed position, from which they would be reluctant to back down. “Anyway,” she said to Steven, “just play in the game. I'd rather not have it be such a production.”

Neal looked hurt. “You don't want me to come, either?”

Jesus. Everyone was so damned touchy. “Of course I want you to come,” she said. “Give me a break, okay?”

“Then, let's consider it settled,” her mother said, no doubt anticipating the potential deterioration of this conversation. “Neal can come; Steven can stay here.”

“What about Preston?” Neal asked.

Her mother grinned. “If he brings a permission slip, yes, he may come along as well.”

“Okay, then. I shall call Beatrice Fielding at once,” Preston said.

Did his mother know he did that? “Do you ever say that right in front of her?” Meg asked. She had been introduced to Mrs. Fielding several times, at ceremonies and functions, but couldn't remember him ever being anything other than extremely respectful towards her. And Mrs. Fielding, who had raised four daughters by herself—as well as Preston, who was the baby of the family—struck her as being cheerful and affectionate, but definitely also a formidable woman.

Preston shook his head. “I just say, ‘Yes, ma'am,' ‘Thank you, ma'am,' and ‘No excuse, ma'am.'”

“I bet he calls her Mommy,” Steven said with his mouth full.

Neal laughed. “Mommy
dear
.”

“Only if I really,
really
want something,” Preston said.

Dinner with Preston was definitely preferable to dinner without Preston—and she was fairly certain that, if asked, four other people at the table would be in complete agreement. “Just make sure to give your outfit some thought,” Meg said. “I have a fashion reputation to uphold.” She hadn't seen it, with her own eyes, so she could neither confirm nor deny, but the word was that she had made more than one Ten Worst Dressed List this year.

He nodded solemnly. “I will select the finest pair of sweatpants I own.”

Meg couldn't resist watching her mother, who was clearly dying to ask the obvious question, but forcing herself to remain silent. “Well, luckily,” Meg said—just to be a little bit mean, “Linda and I spent a good chunk of the afternoon exploring my options, since it's vital to send exactly the right message.”

Upon which, her mother came very close to dropping her fork—and quite possibly stalking out of the room to pick up the nearest telephone.

“That would be humor,” Meg said.

After only a tiny hesitation, her mother nodded and resumed eating.

Not terribly good humor, but humor, regardless.

After dinner, she went to her room to finish up some final packing—and, what the hell, decide what she was going to wear.

She had just about settled on her red ragg sweater—Williams was, after all, deep in the New England countryside—when Steven showed up in her doorway.

“So, yo,” he said. Christ, his voice was deep now. “You're out of here tomorrow.”

Meg nodded. “Yeah.” As far as she knew, her brothers had been up in the Solarium, watching the Celtics with their father. “Is it halftime?”

He shrugged, but she knew that meant yes.

“So, uh, look,” he said. “You mad I'm not coming?”

She shook her head. “The fewer people, the better, as far as I'm concerned.”

“You going to miss Stupid?” he asked, indicating Vanessa, who was asleep inside an open Camp David duffel bag.

She was going to miss Stupid very much. “Yeah,” Meg said.

“Well—you'll be back lots,” he said. “On, like, vacations and all.”

“Yeah.” She reached over to pat her cat, who woke up long enough to grab her hand between her paws and wrestle violently with it.

“You scared?” Steven asked.

Enough to destroy her capacity for rational thought. But, she shrugged.

“It'll be good, though,” he said. “You know, college.”

Either that, or a total, humiliating, very public disaster. Meg shrugged again.

“I'll pat her and stuff,” he said. “So she isn't sad. I mean, you know, even if she bites.”

And Vanessa was highly likely to bite. “Thanks.” Meg unhooked a claw from her wrist. It hurt, but not enough to stop patting her.

“Be weird,” he said. “You not being around.”

Meg swallowed, feeling—already—a strong jolt of homesickness. “At least it's under better circumstances this time.”

He nodded, not looking at her.

Intelligent of her to bring up the last time—the
only
time—she had ever been away from home for more than a couple of days.

“I guess there really isn't any comparison at all. I mean, it's not as though—” Nothing like compounding the issue. Jesus. “Anyway,” she said. “What's the score?”

“Celtics up by three,” he said.

“Well—good,” she said, and it was quiet.

“So, uh, you're going to be really busy up there?” he asked.

Meg frowned, not sure what he meant by that. “I don't know. I'm taking four classes.”

He nodded, rocking slightly on his heels.

“I guess it'll be pretty hard to make friends,” she said. “I mean, you know how people always act.”

He nodded, rocking.

What the hell did he want? “So, I'm guessing I probably
won't
be all that busy,” she said.

He stopped rocking, but still didn't make eye contact. “So, it'd be okay if I, you know, call you up sometimes? If I like, want to talk to you?”

Meg smiled. She was quite fond of her brothers. In fact, excessively so. “Yeah,” she said. “I hope you do.”

*   *   *

THE PRESS POOL
the next day seemed large enough to invade Normandy. And she had to do lots of waving and smiling, along with making tedious “yes, I'm certainly looking forward to it” and “this is an exciting new step” comments.

During the flight up, her mother enacted a closed-door policy for the Presidential suite—broken only twice, by Winnie, her deputy chief of staff—so that Meg and her parents and Neal could be alone together. Normally, her mother's flights tended to be gregarious and quite social, with people popping in and out to say hello, so there was probably some grumbling about the lack of access, but Meg didn't particularly care, and she was pretty sure her mother didn't, either.

They were served a very attractive lunch, which none of them really ate. Meg managed maybe three sips of her Coke, and then gave up.

When the plane landed, she said good-bye to her mother inside, rather than out in front of all those damn cameras. Her mother hugged her so fiercely that it was hard to breathe, and there was a lot of blinking going on.

“You're sure you don't want me to—” her mother started.

Christ, not again. Meg shook her head. Firmly.

“Right. Okay. You'll call tonight?” her mother asked.

Meg nodded. The easiest way to avoid crying was just to do as little talking as possible.

“I'm very proud of you,” her mother said, and Meg nodded.

Outside, it was cold and windy and snowing a little, with plowed drifts running along the side of the tarmac. The Secret Service, along with what looked like most of the police officers in New York, was keeping the crush of journalists and civilians back, but it was still pretty intense. Her mother gave her one last hug, and then they went to their separate motorcades. Once she and her father and Neal were safely inside their car, Preston joined them.

“Imagine what it would be like if you
weren't
going to school in the middle of nowhere?” he said, and Meg smiled. Weakly.

The drive was less than an hour, even with the weather, but again, there wasn't much conversation. Mainly, her father kept going over details. Like the checking account and credit card that had been set up for her, the technical details of her upgraded encrypted satellite phone, and what to do if she ran into any one of a number of complicated and improbable situations.

“Russell,” Preston said, very serious, “what if she can't find just the right kind of paper for her printer? You know, the perfect kind. What should she do?”

“The Marines, damn it,” Meg said.

Preston shook his head. “It's domestic, Meg. I think the National Guard is the way to go.”

Her father sat back, folding his arms. “Fine. I'm just trying to be practical.”

“Check out these mountains,” Neal said, looking out the window. “They're pretty neat.”

Be a lot neater if she were going to be skiing down them—but, this wasn't the time to be thinking about that. She had a terrible headache, so she took off her sunglasses, rubbing them across the front of her sweater. She was carrying some ibuprofen in her pocket—she had decided to wear jeans and her now elastic-laced L.L.Bean boots, despite her mother's almost-invisible wince—and she pulled a couple out, borrowing Neal's orange juice to swallow them.

Naturally, she also had her cane, her brace, and her splint, as well as her laptop, and a knapsack full of things like tampons, a hairbrush, and a small collection of framed photographs. Saying good-bye to Vanessa had been very, very hard, and it was the only time all day she had—privately—cried a little.

So far, anyway.

She had taken a tour of the college—Christ, a
long
time ago—and suddenly recognizing a motel, she realized that they were almost there. She had been assigned to a dorm called Sage Hall, somewhere off this main street. They had given her a single room—the Secret Service had insisted—but, apparently, lots of freshmen had singles, so it might not seem like favoritism. The dorm was co-ed, and had vertical entries, although she wasn't sure what that meant. That guys lived nearby, presumably.

“Go, Ephs!” she said to her father, Ephs being the nickname of the Williams sports teams.

He smiled, although she knew that the fact that she had decided to enroll at the archrival of his undergrad alma mater, Amherst, was still something of a sore spot. And her mother didn't always remember to hide the fact
she
would have far preferred seeing her go to Harvard, or—at the very least—Princeton, or Yale. But even though she had been accepted everywhere she applied—unsurprisingly, given the prestige of admitting a Presidential child, regardless of his or her intellect—she had been so sold on the idea of going to an academic powerhouse which
also
happened to be in ski country, and have an excellent tennis team, that back in April, when her life still seemed promising, she had turned all of the other schools down without a second thought.

The campus was just about as New England picturesque as it was possible to be, and the snow only added to the effect. It was easy to tell where Sage Hall was, because there was a crowd. Exactly what she'd hoped there wouldn't be, but it was too late now. Most of the people seemed to be there intentionally—press and the like; and the rest seemed to be passing by and stopping to see what was going on. Although with all of the Secret Service agents and the motorcade, it couldn't be all that tough to figure out.

“Looks like we have company,” she said, as the car slowed to a stop.

Her father frowned at Preston, who shrugged.

“What did you expect, Russ,” he said.

Her father just frowned.

Some agent or other opened the car door, and Neal was the first one out.

“This is nice, Meggie,” he said. “It's really pretty.”

At least someone was thinking positively. Meg got out after him, gripping her cane, and trying to decide if she was going to use it or not. The sidewalk had been shoveled, but it was still icy, and she almost slipped—which was one hell of a way to start college. Her father put out his hand to help her, and she shook him off. Christ, he didn't have to
stress
the fact that she'd almost fallen, did he?

The President of the college was waiting out in front of a cast iron gate and two brick pillars to greet them, along with a bunch of deans and trustees and other officials, and there was a flurry of quick greetings and introductions. Luckily, it was starting to snow even harder, and cold as hell, and therefore, unlikely to be prolonged.