Long Live the Queen by Ellen Emerson White Page B

later. About all of the plays and tennis matches and assemblies and teachers’ conferences her mother had never been able to come to—big vote on an appropriations bill, or something otherwise stupid—and how it was sometimes even worse if she did come, because the press would almost always show up, too, and waste a lot of time asking The Congresswoman, or The Senator, or The Candidate, or whatever the hell she was that particular year— damn her.
    And damn that bastard out there for making her feel this way. Her family had spent a lot of time trying to work through these very things. Accepting them, in fact. Her mother was a difficult person, she was a complicated person, but she was a good person.
And she did love them; she always had. So, Meg was god-damned if she was going to let this son-of-a-bitch change any of that.
    She had to concentrate on good memories. About Christmases they’d had, or times they’d gone skiing, or even how much closer they had all gotten since moving into the White House. Suddenly, her mother was there for meals, and birthdays, and just plain old conversations. She worked harder than she ever had, but then again, she worked right downstairs. Obviously, she still had to travel constantly, but as a rule, especially when the trip was overseas, the family went with her. All in all, things had gotten much better since she’d been inaugurated, and during the past year, it was the outside world that had been making things terrible. First, her mother’s shooting, and now—but, she was not going to think about it. She wasn’t. Period.
    Only, that naturally made her think about something else she was avoiding. Some one else. Josh. The guy couldn’t have been telling the truth—but, what if he was? What if—she’d seen poor Chet, and god-damn Dennis, and all the blood—and Josh could easily have—good things. “Think good thoughts,” her father had often said, “life is short.” He certainly had that one right.
    She slouched lower, very close to crying. Josh was so nice. So nice to her . If only she’d broken up with him completely , so that there was no chance that he would have been anywhere near her, and no chance that he—or not broken up with him at all. Not done anything to make him unhappy. If, yeah, she’d slept with him. She should have—oh, Christ. She knew she had Secret Service agents, and she knew she had them for a reason—letting Josh be a target was at least as bad as her mother letting her be one. If anything had happened to him—now, she was crying again, and she pressed her face—nose be damned—into her arm.
    She was still crying when she heard the key in the lock, and quickly sat up, wiping her face off with her sleeve so he wouldn’t be able to tell.

    The man came in, cocky as ever. “Keeping yourself amused?” he asked.
    She didn’t say anything, blinking as the light came on, and he smiled when he saw her face.
    â€œNow, did I have you pegged as a crier, or what ,” he said.
    â€œFuck you,” she said, and whisked her sleeve across her eyes again.
    He shook his head. “Those manners sure are going downhill.”
    She hated him. She hated this arrogant son-of-a-bitch. Smelling food suddenly, she realized that he was holding what was left of a hamburger. A Big Mac. A delicious, beautiful Big Mac. Without meaning to, she licked her lips, which—judging from his grin—he found very funny.
    He sat down in the wooden chair. “Give me a minute to finish this, and you can go to the bathroom.”
    The hamburger smelled so good that she couldn’t look at him, her stomach hurting so much that she had to resist the urge to hold it with her uncuffed hand.
    â€œAll of this excitement makes me hungry,” he said.
    Bastard. The smell was almost dizzying, and she hunched over, not wanting to give him the satisfaction of watching.
    He