Long May She Reign (35 page)

“You okay?” he asked. “I didn't see you in here on Friday.”

Not that he'd been looking, right? Considering that they hadn't exchanged a single word recently. There hadn't even been many
nods
, of late. And, of course, she'd been down on Spring Street, anyway, which would have made her more difficult to find. Meg shrugged. “I was in the front row, taking notes like crazy.”

“Right,” Jack said, and smiled briefly. “I just wanted to be sure you weren't sick or anything, or—well, you know.” He shook some snow off and unzipped his jacket. “Mind if I sit here?”

Yes, and no. “As long as you promise to pay
very
close attention if we cover erotomania today,” Meg said.

Jack nodded. “Okay. If you explain the really hard words.”

It wasn't quite a “touché”—but, it wasn't bad.

Despite the weather, all he was wearing under his jacket was an old flowered Hawaiian shirt, jeans, and high-tops. No gloves, a baseball cap which said “SM,” with a scripted “SAMOHI” below the logo, black sunglasses. California boys didn't get cold, apparently.

The class started, which meant that they didn't have to sit there and try to make conversation. Which was just as well, but she found herself a little too aware of the fact that he was right next to her. For better or worse, he was exceedingly attractive. But she made a strong, if only minimally effective, effort to concentrate on the lecture.

“What's the cap?” she asked.

“My high school,” he said. “Santa Monica.”

Good to hear that it had nothing to do with sadomasochism.

“You have terrible handwriting,” he said quietly at one point.

Yes. She did. She glanced over at his notebook and saw neat, very organized printing, with sections carefully lettered and numbered in outline form. Kind of a dramatic contrast to her jagged stream-of-consciousness scrawling.

“Security reasons,” she said. “I'm sure you understand.”

For at least a second, he fell for that, but then he grinned.

When the class ended, her plan was to stall until he gave up and went away, except that he was taking his own sweet time packing up, too.

“You going to lunch with anyone?” he asked.

It would be way too embarrassing to admit that she was going to go take a pre–physical therapy nap after her Shakespeare class. Meg shook her head. “I have an appointment later, and I need to get ready for it.”

“Oh.” He looked disappointed. “Well—you going to dinner with anyone?”

Dinner was likely to coincide with her
post
–physical therapy nap. “I'm sorry, I really can't,” Meg said. “It's nice of you to ask, though.”

“Aren't you even a little bit curious?” he asked, as she started to leave.

Christ, couldn't the guy take a hint already? After all, she'd just turned him down twice in less than a minute. Meg stopped, without turning to look at him. “About what?”

He walked around her so that they were facing each other. “About whether it was just alcohol, or whether we really
did
have that much chemistry. I mean, it was—I've never felt that way with anyone before. I can't stop thinking about it.”

Well, actually, she couldn't, either. And even his bringing it up was, frankly, um, arousing. “Really? It's always like that for me,” Meg said.

He grinned, and reached out to run his hand across hers.

Maybe, just possibly, she felt a tiny electric charge. A frisson, even. “Sorry,” she said. “Didn't do a thing for me.”

“Okay.” He removed his hand from hers. “So, do I give up, or do I keep trying?”

It would be so easy just to get rid of him.
Too
easy. And maybe easy wasn't what she needed right now, despite its overall appeal as a lifestyle strategy.

“Keep trying,” she said, and then limped away.

*   *   *

WHEN SHE GOT
to physical therapy, Vicky was running late with her previous patient, so she started with Cheryl, and her hand.

“Do you think I'm going to have to have more surgery?” Meg asked, trying to distract herself from the pain by watching her fingers refuse to respond, over and over, as they attempted various exercises.

Cheryl hesitated—which was pretty much an answer in and of itself.

“So, all of this PT, trying to break up the scar tissue and the contractures, and get some movement back and all, will pretty much be canceled out,” Meg said.

Cheryl hesitated again.

Swell.

“You're a very hard worker,” Cheryl said. “And I'm really seeing some progress with your pinky.”

Yeah. She could flick it, a little. Sometimes without even getting tears in her eyes.

When they were finished, Cheryl attached the TENS—Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulation—unit to Meg's hand. It was supposed to work wonders for pain management, and she even had a portable one to use in her dorm room, if she were so inclined—but, she really didn't think it had much effect at all, so she rarely bothered with it.

She had a short rest between sessions, and then Vicky came in to work with her knee. By the time they started doing the weight-bearing exercises, Meg was so worn out that she wanted to go back to lying down, covered with ice packs.

“I think that's going to be enough for today,” Vicky said, watching her legs—even her good one—tremble as she tried to negotiate a barely moving treadmill.

“What about the Cybex?” Meg asked, although the thought of being strapped into the machine to do weight-resistance exercises was enough to make her feel like crying.

“We'll do that first on Wednesday,” Vicky said, walking with her hand just below Meg's elbow, as though she might be going to crash to the floor at any second.

Did she really look that close to collapsing? Damn.

“I don't want to nag,” Vicky said, setting her up with a fresh batch of ice packs.

Could have fooled her.

“But, what did you have for lunch?” she asked.

Should she tell the truth? Why not.
So
much easier than off-the-cuff lying. “A Coke and some M&Ms,” Meg said.

Vicky pursed her lips.

“And, of course, my latte,” Meg said, indicating her long-since empty cup. “Full of milk, for strong bones, and overall good health.”

Vicky did not seem to be amused.

“The M&Ms really gave a boost to my fast-twitch muscles, I think,” Meg said.

Now Vicky looked—faintly—amused. “You need to do better with your eating, Meg. I'm not kidding about this.”

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

When she got back to the campus, she had her agents drive her as close to the dining hall as possible, so she would have to do less walking. She wasn't looking, of course—not even
peeking
, much—although if she had been, she might have been sad not to see Jack either in line, or at any of the tables. In fact, she didn't really see anyone she knew. But then, a couple of guys from her entry waved her over to their table, and she was relieved not to have to sit by herself.

Dinner was more relaxing than she expected—Andy was a really funny, high-energy African-American guy from New York, who had just gotten cast in a huge part in the next play the Theater Department was putting on, and she had already gotten to know Quentin a little, because he had a mild case of cerebral palsy and she saw him on the dorm elevator pretty frequently. He had something of a political science bent, too, and she had had an unexpectedly stimulating conversation about the pitfalls of free trade with him down in the laundry room once. So she couldn't exactly say they were her friends, but they were definitely moving out of the mere acquaintance category.

It was also, in all honesty, a relief to walk up the hill to the dorm, and not be the only one who moved slowly.

“I gotta get a sling,” Andy said, watching Quentin swing back and forth on his metal crutches and Meg limp on her cane. “Then we'd all look really good together.”

“Or an eye patch and a parrot,” Meg said, and was pleased when they both laughed.

“Or a piccolo,” Quentin said, and it was Meg's turn to laugh.

When she got off the elevator, there was a certain amount of emotional turmoil taking place on her floor. It turned out that Tammy's longtime high school boyfriend had broken up with her earlier that afternoon—by email, no less—and she had been crying in her room pretty much non-stop ever since, while Susan kept her company. Actually, Susan was so universally well-liked as a JA that a steady stream of people from all over the dorm—not just their entry—often shuffled into the JAs' suite to weep, or get gentle advice and sympathy about whatever was currently going wrong in their lives. Dirk handled some of it, but even the guys—Dirk included, probably—seemed to prefer confiding in Susan. If it hadn't been for the security issues, freshmen from other dorms—and maybe even other
campuses
—might well be showing up on a regular basis, too.

After filling her in, Juliana started shoving books into a knapsack and getting ready to escape to the library.

“I can wait for you,” she said, “if you want to clear out for a while, too.”

If she weren't so exhausted, it would have been a relief to tag along—even if it meant having to do some concentrated studying in exchange. Meg shook her head. “I'm sorry, I'm really tired. I'm just going to crash.”

“Okay, your call,” Juliana said. “Keep your head down, though.”

Meg nodded. With luck, she'd be able to go get cleaned up, and then disappear into her room without anyone else even knowing that she was here.

But when she went into the bathroom, Mary Elizabeth was standing in front of the mirror, brushing her hair and putting on makeup, apparently getting ready for a date—or what she was hoping might turn
into
a date. “Juliana tell you?”

“Yeah,” Meg said, using her arm to press the toothpaste tube against her right side so that she could open it. “By email. That really sucks.”

“Sure does.” Mary Elizabeth carefully applied some mascara. “My girlfriend pulled the same thing last October. Then she thought we were going to get back together during Christmas break. Oh, yeah, like
that
was going to happen.”

“I'm sorry,” Meg said. Wait,
girl
friend? Well, okay. What the hell. She squeezed out so much toothpaste, that a large blob landed on her clothes. Which happened more often than not, so she ignored it. “You must have been really upset.”

Mary Elizabeth looked disgruntled. “That's your whole reaction?”

Meg stuck her toothbrush in her mouth, recapped the tube, and flicked most of the stray splotch from her shirt into the sink. “Why? Did you want something else?”

“I don't know.” Mary Elizabeth put away the mascara rather sulkily. “I mean, I just came out to you. Couldn't you have cringed and asked if I was attracted to you, or planning to check you out in the shower, or something?”

Yeah, and purple cows could all fly. “You don't exactly hide the fact that you actively dislike me,” Meg said. “So I can't say that I'm really plagued by the notion of your suddenly becoming besotted.”

“Well, okay,” Mary Elizabeth conceded. “I'm not crazy about your personality.”

It was mutual.

“But even though you're not at all my type, objectively-speaking, you're damn attractive,” Mary Elizabeth said, and looked her over critically. “Except for being such a slob. I mean, yuck.”

Meg laughed. Yeah, she was a slob. Always had been. Even before becoming crippled and ungainly. So what? “I've
forgotten
more about sweatpants than most people will ever know.”

“I'm sure you have,” Mary Elizabeth said, but she was smiling now. “Straighter than a ruler, anyway, right?”

Meg nodded. So far, at least. “Enough to make a certain percentage of rulers very nervous.”

Mary Elizabeth's smile broadened. “That was the vibe I got, yeah.” She started to walk out, then paused. “You're not who I thought you'd be. Not even close.”

Meg shrugged. “Who the hell is?”

“Well, yeah,” Mary Elizabeth said, and then she did leave, the door swinging shut.

Meg finished brushing her teeth and turned off the faucet, resisting the urge to sit down on the cold, tile floor and fall asleep right there.

It had been a very god-damned long day.

21

TIRED AS SHE
was, she couldn't convince herself to go to bed at eight o'clock at night. She thought about calling home, but then remembered that—according to an excited email she'd gotten from Neal earlier—her father and brothers were going to a Washington Capitals game, and her mother had been at the UN all day, and was still in New York, as far as she knew, at what was politely called “a dinner,” but was actually a major fund-raiser.

Maybe she should have gone to the library with Juliana, after all.

She turned on C-Span, where a State Department spokesperson was giving a briefing, mostly about the Secretary, who was off grandstanding, as usual. India, this time. She watched for a few minutes, until the self-aggrandizement-by-proxy became too irritating, and flipped around the channels to see if anything interesting was on.

Unsurprisingly, there wasn't.

Of course, she
should
be studying. She should probably
always
be studying.

However.

Without giving herself time to think of all the reasons why she might regret it, she went out to the hall, and then, tentatively, down to the second floor. With the constant snow, she pretty much always had to use her cane outside, but when she was in the dorm, she usually tried to get along without it. As long as she stayed close to a wall, or hung on to the banister, so far, it seemed to work out okay.