Long May She Reign (19 page)

They walked through the gate to the edge of a snowy quadrangle, which was surrounded by three old brick buildings, and huge bare-limbed trees. Several paths had been cleared around and across the quad, although the snow was marked up enough to make it look as though a rowdy game of touch football or something had just ended. There were a fair number of students clustered nearby, most of whom were trying to look jaded—but they were, after all, hanging around to watch, so they couldn't be all
that
jaded.

Reporters were still shouting questions in their general direction, but Meg just nodded at them, trying to keep her balance on the slick walkway, assuming that Preston was going to take care of it. The god-damn cameras had almost certainly captured her stumbling out of the car, and the shot was probably going to be shown all over the place tonight.

It was maybe too soon to form a strong opinion—but so far, college
sucked
.

12

HER DORM WAS
a large L-shaped building off to their right, and she set her good foot carefully with each step, dreading the thought of tripping again. Various flyers and notices were taped to the green-painted door to her entry, and she saw one of the deans frown, probably because the papers flapping in the wind looked pretty haphazard and messy. For her part, she kind of appreciated the fact that no one had bothered tearing them off or in any way tried to make the door look pristine for her arrival. One of her father's agents held the door for them, and the small foyer and inside stairs were very congested, predominantly by men in suits. Which was unsurprising, since she, Neal, and her father were at the same location, but had to be incredibly irritating for the people who actually lived here, so they had all probably already decided to dislike her, as a result.

There was a small Secret Service security desk just inside the main entrance, with a large room set aside as the command post up a small flight of stairs, and she had been told that one of the rooms on her floor was going to be used as an additional checkpoint. She'd also already seen more than one tiny camera and what looked like a couple of high-tech sensors of some kind, too. Christ. Maybe everyone in the dorm was getting a tuition rake-off or something to make up for all of this.

There were some more introductions—too many, really, for her to take in, although she tried to focus more acutely when she saw a couple of people who were her age, and one of the deans said, “And these are your Junior Advisors, Dirk Broadlund and Susan Dowd.”

Junior advisors were the Williams equivalent of Resident Dorm Advisors, and Beth and Josh had both been giving her mixed reviews about
their
RAs, so she was uneasy about having to deal with these two strangers. But, it was safe to assume that they had each been so thoroughly vetted that neither of them was, for example, trying to make a point of sleeping with every single female freshman in the dorm, like the guy Beth had been doing her best to avoid ever since he had made an incompleted pass at her during the second week of classes.

Dirk was a big guy with light brown hair and a patchy beard, who was wearing hiking boots, baggy cargo pants, a t-shirt which read “
WOC. Get Outside and Play
.” and a blue blazer—the latter, presumably, in an effort to look presentable when he greeted the First Family.

Her other JA, Susan, was a good four inches shorter than she was, and quite thin, with chin-length dark hair and very blue eyes. She looked faintly familiar, for no good reason, but maybe her photo had been somewhere in the massive sheaf of housing and other paperwork she and her father had spent several hours filling out right after Christmas. In any case, she had on running sneakers, jeans, and a purple Williams sweatshirt, which meant that she had either decided not to dress up at all to meet the First Family, or that she had forgotten they were coming.

Almost certainly the former.

Realizing that she still had her sunglasses on, Meg pushed them up on top of her head, and tucked her cane under her elbow, so she could shake hands with them. Dirk, who had automatically put out his right hand, blushed and held out his other one, instead. Susan must have taken instant note of that, because when it was her turn, she led with her left hand, which made things much less awkward.

Although they both seemed very friendly, Dirk hung back to a degree, while Susan unhesitatingly went over to introduce herself to her father and Neal, so she probably served as the primary JA in the entry. Or, maybe, she just wasn't quite as shy.

“Is this where she's going to live?” Neal asked, looking at Susan, not Dirk, so he must have sensed the same supervisory hierarchy.

Susan smiled. “Yeah.” Then, she glanced at Meg. “Come on, I'll show you your room.”

Which was on the third floor. Meg looked up the stairs, not too eager to start climbing, but then Susan motioned her off to the left, past the security desk, instead, where there was an elevator. Which made her feel handicapped and pitiful—but, to hell with it. The damn thing would make life easier.

The elevator wasn't very big, so only Susan, and the head of her father's detail, Ryan, got on with them for the ride up.

“Do you prefer Meghan, or Meg?” Susan asked.

A thoughtful question, given the fact that most people she didn't know just went ahead and called her Meghan. “Meg,” Meg said. “Uh, do you like Susan, or Sue, or—?”

“Definitely Susan,” her JA said, and flashed a smile. “But, I answer to almost anything.”

“Here, pup!” Neal said, immediately. “Come here, pup!”

Susan laughed, and Meg grinned, too, wondering when, exactly, he had started developing this unexpectedly amusing smart-ass streak. It also suddenly made her miss Steven terribly, but she didn't want to think about that, or the fact that she really wished her mother was here with them, or anything else that would make her feel homesick, like—oh, God,
Vanessa
. What was she going to do without Vanessa? How was she going to be able to get to sleep, or—she ducked her head, so she could close her eyes for a second, and make sure that there was no chance in hell that she was going to cry, or look, in any way, vulnerable.

The elevator stopped, and Susan got off, pointing out the bathroom, and then leading them down a cramped hallway. Grey floors, white walls, with a thin wooden strip running along them about waist high, blond wooden doors, round institutional lights placed every ten feet or so, and there was a gun-metal grey storage closet or something next to the elevator. Red and white exit signs, fire alarms, sprinklers and emergency lighting, what might be heating grates. Meg didn't see anyone other than Secret Service agents and aides, but the dorm seemed crowded. Or, at any rate,
sounded
crowded. Lots of noise, mostly rock and roll. Strange voices everywhere, both male and female.

Susan stopped in front of a room in the corner and opened the door. “Here you go,” she said.

Meg took a deep breath, and limped inside.

Some of her stuff was unpacked, and some of it wasn't, but the first thing she noticed was the bed. An extra-long twin bed, with a sturdy wood and white metal frame, across from the door, exactly where the bed in the room where she'd been held for all that time had been.
Exactly
.

Feeling dizzy, she flipped her sunglasses down and turned to look in the other direction, at the utilitarian desk and padded wooden chair.

“This is an orientation packet for you,” Susan said, holding out a manila envelope, “and it'll tell you a lot of the things you'll want to know.”

Meg nodded, still so rattled by the bed that it was hard to pay attention to anything else. Susan was telling her some other stuff, and she nodded at the right times, resting her hand on the edge of the desk so that she could lean on it and take the weight off her knee.

“Well, tell you what,” Susan said, looking increasingly uncomfortable. “Why don't I let you do some unpacking, and have a look around, and I'll stop by later to see how you're doing.”

Meg nodded, managing—barely—to smile.

Once Susan had left, there was a short silence.

“Well,” her father said. “How about we start out by—”

“Can we move the bed, Dad?” Meg asked, and heard her voice shake. “I
really
don't want it there.”

Her father looked slightly alarmed, but then nodded and leaned out into the corridor. “Sammy?” he said to one of his aides. “Want to give me a hand here for a minute?”

Sammy came scurrying in—although, Christ, it wasn't his fault that he had a pale little rodenty face and big horn-rimmed glasses that overwhelmed his features. Although he probably could have chosen more flattering frames, had he been so inclined.

“We're just going to change a few things around,” her father said, pulling the bed away from the wall. “Where do you want it, Meg?”

Anywhere else. “I don't—” Did her damned voice
have
to tremble? “Over here, maybe?”

Her father nodded, Sammy lifting with him. They hauled the bed to the other side of the room—where it didn't fit, and blocked the combination bureau-closet. So they moved it again, so it was in a different corner, near the window. It wasn't a very big room, and after some discussion—Neal was full of well-meaning, impractical suggestions—her father and Sammy shifted the desk and MicroFridge unit over to where the bed had originally been, and put the small bookcase near the foot of the bed.

While they did all of this, Meg went through her knapsack, looking for absolutely nothing. She'd asked the advance people not to unpack for her, but—not unexpectedly—books were already on the shelves and the bed had been made, with one of Trudy's crocheted quilts on top of it. Moved to the new spot, the bed didn't bother her quite as much, and she was relieved to see that it was lower than the other one had been, and the frame was different, too.

“Okay?” her father asked.

Sammy was breathing hard—and only in his late twenties—which, under different circumstances, she might have found funny.

She nodded. “Thank you.”

“Okay, then.” He looked at Sammy. “Thanks. When Preston gets through, you can send him in here.”

Sammy nodded, closing the door behind him.

“They put away your clothes and everything,” Neal said, checking inside the closet.

But, of course. The advance people would have been trying to be nice, but it made her feel—incompetent. Childish. Helpless. Suddenly very tired, she sat down on the bed, touching Trudy's quilt for reassurance.

“S-sorry you had to move stuff,” she said. It wasn't anything she wanted to explain, but her father wasn't an idiot, so he had probably figured it out.

He sat next to her. “I like it better this way.”

Right.

He put his arm around her for a minute, and she knew he understood. Thank God.

“It's a nice room,” he said. “Especially once you put some posters up on the walls.”

She nodded.

“You going to be all right?” he asked.

Doubtful. But, she nodded.

“Well. Let's get you the rest of the way unpacked,” he said.

She shook her head. “No, let me finish up. So I'll, you know, have something to do.”

When they were gone, and she was alone.

He kissed the side of her head. “Okay. But, how about I set up the computer for you?”

A fair compromise. She nodded. “Thank you.”

Neal had checked each of the bureau drawers, as well as the small closet, where even her
jeans
had been neatly hung. After that, he sat at her desk and looked through those drawers, too. A small paper shredder had been set up—everyone in her family routinely shredded
everything
remotely personal, without thinking twice—-and he leaned over to make sure that it was plugged in. The WHCA people had installed a telephone with three different lines, and he lifted the receiver, then nodded approvingly, and hung up.

“Leave the drop-line alone, okay, Neal?” their father said, as he reached for the other, super-secure telephone, which would connect directly to the White House switchboard as soon as anyone picked it up.

Neal looked disappointed, but nodded. Then, he opened the MicroFridge, which was crammed full of groceries, and she also caught a glimpse of several gel ice packs in the tiny freezer. Finally, he used the remote to turn on the small television, which was on top of the bookcase, to make sure the prearranged cable service was working, and that the recorder had been set up properly.

“Everything seem okay?” Meg asked.

“Yep, so far,” Neal said cheerfully. “Can I try the bed now?”

Why not? She lifted herself up onto her cane, and he took her place, lying down. When he saw her watching, he pretended to be asleep.

“It's that comfortable?” she said.

He nodded, laughing.

There was a knock on the door, and Preston came in, pausing to admire the room. “Looks good,” he said. “Looks very good.”

To her, it looked monastic—but, hey, America was a melting pot. She gestured towards the window facing the side street, and the waiting, lurking media. “Are they going to be out there constantly?”

Preston shook his head. “I think most of them'll leave once we take off.”

Most.

“And Ginette will handle the rest of them,” he said. “She'll be up here through Friday, or longer, if you want.”

Her father's rather annoying and snippy deputy press secretary. But, Meg nodded.

Preston leaned against the bureau, slightly adjusting the crease in his slacks. “Looks like a nice place, Meggo. I think you're going to do all right here.”

Oh, yeah. Without a doubt. Meg nodded.

“Russell-baby,” Preston said, “need some help with the mechanics there?”

Her father, bent over the all-in-one printer, just grunted.