In Love With the President's Daughter

I stood at my locker, pulling out books and putting them in my backpack. It was two days before Thanksgiving break, and tonight I was planning to finish all the projects due the next day. Teachers all wanted to end their most recent unit conveniently the day before break. Obviously, it wasn’t the least bit convenient.

“Hey!” sang Alex as she waltzed over to my locker, backpack slung over one arm. “Are you almost ready?” She was coming over after school so we could finish our project for history.

“Bye, Krista!” one girl chirped as she headed for the front doors. I waved.

“Who’s that?” demanded Alex, staring down the hallway.

“No idea.”

Of course the girl knew me. Everyone here did. I had lived in Washington D.C. my whole life, and no one had ever known who I was… until recently. My increasing popularity grew more and more as my father’s campaign did, and it practically burst when he won the election. After almost a month, the hype still hadn’t died down. I was the cool kid in school.

“You really shouldn’t put up with all this crap from people. I mean,” said Alex. “People drool over you like you’re a celebrity.”

“I kind of am. My dad is the incoming president,” I reminded her. Alex had been my friend since the second grade, and she really didn’t care about my status. “So are we going or not?”

We headed down the hall towards the back set of doors. Since school had started, I had been picked up after class by two of my dad’s body guards. Sure I was popular, but that didn’t mean everyone was a fan of my dad.

“Hey, Phil,” I said as Alex and I climbed into the back of an unmarked, normal car. I refused to take a limo to school.

“Hey, Krista, Alex, how was school?” I’d gotten to know him pretty well over the past few months, and Alex too.

“Fine,” we said in unison.

People stared as we pulled out of the parking lot. Just because you have a normal car doesn’t mean you’re normal, I guess. Alex rolled down her window and gave the queen’s wave, sitting up straight. I smacked her. “Alex!”

“What, just because they’re stupid doesn’t mean I can’t make fun of them!” I rolled my eyes.

We drove across town to my house. We’d be moving out in January, but for now we lived in a normal house. It was just kind of… big. Alex hopped out of the back seat and walked right in. I followed. “Mom?” Someone looked over the balcony on the second floor. Not mom, but my Aunt Ella. She’d been living with me and my parents for the past several months too. I guess it’s no surprise that they weren’t exactly home twenty-four seven.

“Hi, Kris. Your mom and dad went… to some meeting or other. I don’t remember. But they’ll be back around ten tonight. I went into the living room and switched on the television. CNN.

“Hale and the President make an appearance at the Sunshine Nursing Home dinner party tonight” scrolled across the bottom of the screen. “Nursing home?” I called up the stairs.

“Yeah, that’s it!”

Alex tugged on my sleeve. “Come on, let’s hurry up and do this.” The project. Right. The assignment had been to pick an influential famous person still living and make a calendar with factual information about them on each page. I guess the calendar par t was supposed to signify the history part, but to be honest, I didn’t really know.

Of course, my dad was going to be on some of the calendars, I knew. My teacher had made it clear that we weren’t allowed to do it on family members, probably with me in mind. He didn’t have to worry. Why would I do my project on that?

The doorbell rang, and I called to Layla, our housekeeper, to get it. She was in her mid fifties and bustled around the house cooking and cleaning and best of all, answering the door so we didn’t have to.

“Hello… no, Krista is working on homework right now… no, you can’t come in! Now didn’t your parents teach you anything? Shoo!” I heard her walk out on to the steps. “Sam! You’re going to be fired if you don’t stop sleeping on the job! Get up!” Sam being another of our security guards. Technically he was supposed to keep kids and people like that away from the house, but we all knew he did more sleeping than watching.

Alex and I went up to my room and I booted up my laptop to print out our pictures and information to paste onto the calendar. We sat on my bed with glue sticks and tape and talked while we pasted our project together.

“What are you doing for Thanksgiving?” I asked her.

“My crazy cousins and grandmother are coming. God bless me.” She rolled her eyes. I’d met her cousins once before, and I couldn’t see what was wrong with them, really, but Alex could be dramatic. “Why, what are you doing?”

“You don’t even want to know.”

“Now I do. What are you doing?”

I sighed. “We’re going to the White House and eating with the President and his family, plus Daniel and his family,” I told her. Daniel was my dad’s vice president. He lived across the country, but his family was moving into a temporary house this weekend so his kids could start in the school system. Oddly enough, I had met him, but never his family.

“Sure you are,” Alex said, wrinkling her nose. “Next Thanksgiving, you’re inviting me to your house.”