Long May She Reign (45 page)

Before she even had a chance to check her voice-mail, her mother called.

“I am
not
that thin,” Meg said, as soon as she heard her voice.

“Actually, you are,” her mother said, “but we don't have to argue about it right now. I've been talking to your father and Bob, and I just wanted to see how you're doing.”

She was tired, and cranky, and more than a little pissed off. “Excited, mostly, about getting to spend my vacation in the hospital,” Meg said.

Her mother sighed. “I know. I'm sorry. Bob says it'll probably be for only one night, two at the most.”

Whereupon she would spend the rest of her Spring Break dancing and leaping for joy, post-surgical complications be damned.

“How's Susan?” her mother asked.

Good question. “I don't know,” Meg said. “She went to bed really early, I guess.” Which reminded her of one of the main reasons she was angry at her mother right now. “Preston's been great, though.”

“I know he would be,” her mother said. “Even though he's probably going to be leaving his job soon, he's still the only person, other than Trudy, I would ever have trusted to send up there in our place.”

Okay, now she was
more
than angry. Meg clenched the receiver so hard it made her fingers hurt. “If you're dumb enough to fire him, you should be impeached. In fact—I mean, I can't even believe that you'd
consider
—”

“I offered him Communications Director a few days ago, Meg,” her mother said, sounding unruffled. “He's still thinking about it.”

Oh. That was, um, actually a promotion. A
major
promotion. “I—didn't know that,” Meg said.

Her mother laughed. “No. You didn't. But, at least you weren't quick to jump to conclusions.”

Heaven forfend.

Her mother laughed again. “You're suddenly very quiet, Meg.”

“I had a really hard day,” Meg said. “And, you know, I'm awfully thin and frail. Maybe you should just be nice to me.”

“Yes, maybe I should,” her mother said, sounding much more gentle now.

They talked until Preston showed up with sandwiches, sodas, and a bag of groceries.

“Preston's back with the food,” Meg said. “I'm going to hang up, so we can watch the game, okay?” College basketball, in this case. She looked at him. “Do you want to talk to the President?”

“Tell the President that I am, as ever, her humble servant,” he said wryly.

But, of course. Especially the humble part. “Did you hear that?” Meg asked her mother.

“I did,” her mother said. “Tell him to enjoy his supper and whatever it is that you're going to be watching. And—tell him I said thank you.”

Right. When she'd hung up, she watched Preston put fresh milk, orange juice, apples, pears, carrots, and cheese into the refrigerator before unpacking their dinner.

“Mom says thank you.” She raised an eyebrow at him. “Communications director?”

He took one of her reusable ice packs out of the tiny freezer and handed it to her. “I'm thinking about it.”

Christ, it was an incredibly powerful position. A career-making position. “What's to think about?” she asked.

“You,” he said. “Your father. Your brothers.” He looked at her. “You, primarily.”

Meg frowned, not sure where he was going with that.

“I'd be working about twenty-eight hours a day, Meg,” he said. “So, I wouldn't be able to help. Not the way I can now, anyway.”

Rachel, his ex-girlfriend, was the biggest fool in the world. A pox on her. Or, possibly, she was owed fervent thanks for not having had the good sense to snap him up once and for all. She slid the ice pack inside her brace and then looked back at him. “You've helped more than I could ever tell you. But, take the job, okay?”

Preston shrugged. “I'm thinking about it.”

He was obdurate. “Think
hard
,” Meg said.

He gave her a small salute, and then turned on the television, flipping channels on the remote until he found the game.

“Who's replacing you?” Meg asked, unwrapping her sandwich one-handed. Hot roast beef, cheese, lettuce, barbeque sauce. It looked good.

“Maureen,” he said. “Today's been kind of a dry run for her.”

She had to admit she was relieved to hear that it wouldn't be Ginette. “That's good. I like Maureen.”

“Your father and I figured she'd be the best person for the job, yeah,” he said, and moved her desk chair so that he would be able to see the television better. “Of course, I'm still only thinking about it.”

She studied his grey suit, white shirt, and dark red tie. “Not exactly a carefree, freewheeling, East Wing sort of outfit you have going here.”

“Let's watch the game,” he said.

It was a poor substitute for baseball—and, in Preston's case, football, but the world was an imperfect place. And, luckily for her, April would arrive in the very near future.

She started to bite into her sandwich, and then stopped. “You sly dog.”

Preston, already halfway through his, glanced over.

“You offered your resignation last night, because if you're going to move over to the West Wing, you need to establish new boundaries with her,” Meg said.

“Or, also, because I happen to believe that I booted this one,” he said.

That, too. She grinned at him. “Take the damn job, Preston.”

He shrugged affirmatively, and then they watched basketball.

*   *   *

THE GAME WASN'T
terribly interesting, but it was relaxing just to sit, and eat, and discuss nothing other than sports, and movies, and a few books they had each read recently when they were supposed to be busy doing other things. Both of their phones rang more than once, but they would just look at each other, shake their heads, and keep watching television.

Before he left, they decided to meet over at the Inn for breakfast, which Hannah Goldman either would, or wouldn't, attend. They also came to a mutual agreement that they would try to get something resembling a good night's sleep. Meg had every intention of following this edict, but with midterms coming up, she had to do some studying, first. Reading Plato made her drowsy, and she switched over to
Pericles
, which tired her out all the more.
Julius Caesar
and
Henry V
were the only two plays she'd enjoyed at all so far, despite being, of course, a devoted English major.

There was a tiny little tap on her door. She didn't feel like getting up, but she certainly wasn't about to ignore Susan, if she felt like talking—or yelling at her—or something. So, using her cane, she maneuvered her way over there, opening it to find—Juliana.

“You busy?” Juliana asked, sounding, and looking, atypically apprehensive.

Busy trying not to fall asleep. Meg shrugged. “Kind of. Why?”

Juliana hesitated. “Can I come in?”

Meg shrugged again, and limped back over to her bed. Juliana leaned against the desk, her eyes widening when she noticed the new, cumbersome brace.

“Are you all right?” she asked.

Meg shrugged, picking up
Pericles
and using her good thumb as a bookmark.

“I was really a jerk this morning,” Juliana said.

Meg glanced down at the page she had been reading. “Whatever. Hadn't given it much thought.”

Which was a total lie, of course.

“Seeing them go after Susan like that was just—” Juliana shivered. “I kind of wigged out. I mean, she looked so scared.”

No argument there, considering Meg had pretty much wigged out herself.

There was a long silence.

“That it?” Meg asked.

“I don't know,” Juliana said. “Depends on how good you are at accepting apologies.”

“Okay.” Meg returned to her book. “No big deal.”

It was silent again.

“It
was
a lot less high-pressure around here last semester,” Juliana said. “I wish I could tell you it wasn't, but—it was. I mean, it was just
college,
you know?”

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Meg nodded. “I know, I wrecked everything by coming here, and you wish I would just go away once and for all. Got the message loud and clear, okay?”

Juliana started to leave, but then shook her head and sat down in the desk chair. “You really want to spend the rest of the semester being mad at each other? On a floor
this
small? Why don't we try to straighten it out? Christ, Meg, people have fights, you know? It's not the end of the damned world.”

Except that it was so much less work to keep her distance from people. Had been for a long time.

“Sometimes, it is the end of the world,” Juliana said suddenly.

Meg looked up.

“My sister Tracy had this huge blowup with my parents last year, and I thought, okay, she'll get over it,” Juliana said. “But, she stopped speaking to us, and didn't show up for Christmas or anything—it's really awful.”

“I'm sorry,” Meg said. “If that happened with either of my brothers, it would completely tear me apart.” In fact, she couldn't bear to imagine such a thing. “Do you think it'll be okay?”

Juliana looked miserable. “I don't know. I was trying to run interference, but they all just ended up getting mad at me.”

Tolstoy, and his unhappy families. “My mother and I are afraid of each other,” Meg said. “It causes most of the tension in our family.”

“Afraid of
each other
?” Juliana asked. “It goes both ways?”

“Much more so on her side, actually,” Meg said.

Juliana thought about that, then grinned. “Well, you scare the shit out of me, so maybe I'm with her on this one.”

All right, that was funny. Meg grinned back.

“So. We okay?” Juliana asked.

Meg nodded. “Yeah, we're fine.” Then, she remembered something. “This morning, Jesslyn was saying something about a couple of people who turned down being my JA?”

Juliana shook her head. “Lori and Angela. No, they were freshmen. You know, here in the entry.”

Oh. “Who didn't want to live near me,” Meg said.

“Did you think these two rooms were just sitting here empty all last semester,” Juliana asked, sounding very irritated, “in case you might decide to show up?”

Christ, she'd never really thought about it. “You mean, people got
kicked out
?” Meg said. Oh, hell. “Jesus, I never wanted anyone to—”

Juliana shrugged. “Lori decided to double up with Amber, over in Sage A, and someone in Mills decided not to come back this semester, so Angela was just as happy to go down there, since her boyfriend lives in Pratt.”

Why hadn't something so obvious—the fact that she had
displaced
people—occurred to her long ago? “What about the security room downstairs?” Meg asked.

“It was just a common room before, so that wasn't too complicated,” Juliana said. “Those guys always hang out in the JAs' common room, anyway.”

Yeah, but still. Maybe she
was
a damn princess, after all. Accustomed to having trays of food magically appear, her sheets changed—which was hard as hell to do alone with one hand, and Susan had had to help her almost every time so far, her clothes washed and folded and put away, fresh flower arrangements everywhere, magazines and newspapers brought to her room—and every other conceivable convenience and luxury, regardless of whether she requested anything or not.

She let out her breath. “I
knew
there was something off about Susan, but I never once asked you, hey, what's Susan's deal, anyway?”

Juliana looked right at her. “No,” she said. “You never did.”

*   *   *

THERE WAS A
heavy sleet falling the next morning, so her agents drove her to the Inn, even though it was just down the street. Despite taking two pain pills the night before—damaging her original plan to hoard the prescription as long as possible—she had slept badly, and her knee felt worse than ever.

A lot of the remaining media people must have been staying at the Inn, because the group standing in front of the main entrance smoking all put out their cigarettes as soon as they saw her. Meg just nodded, and limped past them. Most of the other reporters were in the dining room, having breakfast, and she was the focus of attention the second she came in.

Preston was sitting at the far end of the room, with Hannah Goldman, and four or five other reporters were also gathered around the table, holding cups of coffee. Today, he had gone with another tedious grey suit, a white shirt, and a blue and grey striped tie, although at least he had a snazzy pocket handkerchief to liven it up a
little
.

“How's the knee?” he asked, after walking over to meet her.

She shrugged, instead of answering, because she didn't really feel like complaining.

He indicated the small group of reporters with a slight movement of his eyes. “Up to giving them a few generalized remarks?”

No
. “I thought it was just going to be Hannah,” Meg said.

Preston nodded. “I know. But I have some carrot and stick action working here, and if you could hand them a couple of vague little carrots, I'd be very pleased.”

She had to assume that he wouldn't ask, if it weren't important. “Okay. Do you want to take five minutes, and figure out a script for me, first?”

“Planning to swear at them?” he asked.

She shook her head.

“Then, I'm not going to worry about it,” he said. “Just tell them how much you're going to appreciate it, if they give you some room to have a normal college experience, and that sort of thing. I'll let them have a couple of questions, too, okay?”

Well, she'd already agreed, so she could scarcely back out now. Meg nodded.