In Love With the President's Daughter

I kicked my Thanksgiving off with a bang by meeting the president. Actually, that’s a lie. I’d already met him twice.

“Nice to see you again, Krista,” he said, shaking my hand. I shook hands with his wife, and a number of other important people whose names I would forget within the hour.

My phone vibrated in my purse, but something told me it was a bad idea to flip it open in the middle of an important dinner party at the White House, so I asked a maid where I could find a bathroom, and once I was locked inside, I took out my phone.

From Alex: heyyy hows turkey day with the pres?

I texted her back: I'm in a bathroom the size of my room right now lol

From Alex: lucky tell me all about it l8r

I flipped my phone closed and made my way back to find my parents. As soon as I reentered the room (which it took me ten minutes to find again) my mom pulled me over. She was talking to a well-dressed lady (but then again, who wasn’t here?) and a boy with shaggy brown hair, brown eyes, and was a little taller than me. Pretty darn good looking. Clutching her leg was a little girl probably around six or seven. With blonde hair pulled into a headband and an adorable smile.

“Krista, this is Mrs. McLean, her daughter Leah, and her son Jack. They’ll be living with us in January.” The vice-president’s wife and kids. Right.

“Hi!” I gave a little wave. “I’m Krista, nice to meet you.” Gotta love formality.

“Hey, Kris, why don’t you and Jack go ‘chill’ or whatever it is you teens do these days.” She laughed and Mrs. McLean laughed along with her. I rolled my eyes at Jack and we started walking away.

“Sooo… you’re Krista?” he said. I nodded. “Yeah, I’ve seen you on the news.”

“I try to avoid it whenever possible, actually, but sometimes you can’t help it. You’re gonna have to get used to it yourself.”

“I know. How old are you anyway?”

“Sixteen, you?” I asked.

“Same. And you go to Stillbridge Valley, yeah?”

“Yup.”

“How’s that?”

“It’s a really good school… I mean, teacher-wise, class-wise, all that stuff. But everyone wants to hang out with my now that my dad’s going to be president and it’s really annoying.” I described everything I could about the school, teachers to watch, kids to watch, and all of the important stuff the new kid wants to know. “I can show you around though.”

“Yeah, that’d be good. So are you an only child?” I had a feeling he already knew the answers to all these questions already and was just making small talk, but I didn’t know what else we were going to talk about, so I let him.

“No, I’m an only child. But you have one sister. Is she the only one?”

“Yeah, and she’s plenty.”

At that moment someone got up and announced that dinner would be in the dining room. We followed the group of people through big double doors and into a gorgeous dining hall.

“Woah,” said Jack.

“No kidding.”

“Have you ever been here?” he asked me.

“Only once or twice. My parents have been here lots of times, but I don’t usually come. My aunt stays at my house so when they go away, there’s still someone in the house.”

We walked around the table looking at the place cards. We’d gone half way around when my mom called out. “Krista! Jack! Over here!” We walked over. I was sitting between my parents; Jack next to his sister between his. As we took our seats, I felt my phone buzz in my purse. Oh, well, I’d have to get it later. Probably Alex.

‘Later’ turned out to be three hours later. And then another hour of mingling. Which in turn meant another hour of small talk between Jack and myself. I found out he was from Washington state and he’d had to move across the entire country to live here. His sister was six years old. He was going into his junior year, same as me. And a bunch of other things that you never learn about someone unless you’re forced to make small talk with them for hours. Nevertheless, he was cute and nice and I didn’t really mind. I mean, I was going to be living with him for four years.

We took a limo back to our house, even though it was only twenty miles away. Of course, the press and media were all clustered outside the White House, held back by security and hoping to catch a glimpse of any one of us.

“Did you have fun, Kris?” my dad asked me as we pulled out. Probably the first time he’d spoken to me in the past day or two, but he was a pretty popular guy.

“Yes, Dad.”

“Did you meet Jack and Leah?”

“Yeah, they seem like really nice kids,” I told him. And they had.

“I’m sort of expecting you to take Jack under your wing here. He just moved here and he doesn’t know how tough it is with the press and the people. Yet.”

“Sure.”

When we got home it was past eleven. I crawled into bed and took my phone out of my purse, remembering my text message earlier.

Text from Alex: You wanna come over tomorrow and see the fam?

Text to Alex: sure probably but I got to ask my dad. Text you tomorrow.

And with that I flipped my phone closed and drifted off to sleep.