In Love With the President's Daughter

“Krista, this is my son Tyler. You both must be about the same age, right?” He nodded. Well, at least I now knew that he knew I existed.

“Well, let’s go get the boxes!” my mom chimed in. The four of us walked out to the truck where Phil was waiting and he took the boxes out of the back while the four of us carried them into the house.

“This way, Krista, honey! We’re keeping them in the living room for now,” Michelle called to me. “Ty, show Krista where we’re putting everything!”

“In here,” he said, carrying three boxes into the room with ease, quite the opposite of myself as I peered over the top of one box trying to see the door. He pushed it open with his elbow, revealing what probably used to be a spacious room. Now boxes and bags were lining the walls and on top of the furniture. Nevertheless, the room was clean, as the Landon’s had just moved in and the room wasn’t lived in yet. My mom and Michelle followed us in.

“This is the living room,” Michelle said unnecessarily putting down her boxes. “I’m sorry our house is such a disaster, but with all the donations and just having moved in both at once… we just haven’t had the time.”

“Hey,” my mom said, holding up a hand. “I may have a famous husband, but I still know all about that kind of stuff.” Michelle laughed.

They talked for another fifteen minutes while Tyler leaned against the wall with his arms crossed and I stood awkwardly next to my mom, half-listening to the conversation, and half-aware that Tyler was standing ten feet away. By the time we left, they had planned a lunch date together. Leave it to my mom. The whole way home all she could talk about was ‘the Landons this’ and ‘the Landons that’.

Once at the house, I ran upstairs to my room and pulled out my phone, texting Alex:
U will never believe what happened!!!!

I’d barely hit the send button when Jack waltzed into my room. “Hel-looo Krista!” he called, sounding like the announcer on the sport’s channel. I rolled my eyes.

“Are you going to make breaking into our house like this a habit?” I asked him.

He shook his head and held up two fingers. “One,” he said, pointing to the first finger, “Layla just let me in, and two,” he pointed to the other finger, “your mom said I’m welcome to let myself in whenever I want.”

“Terrific,” I groaned.

“You know you love me,” he said with a grin. I threw the closest thing to me at him, which happened to be my teddy bear. It obviously didn’t do any damage and he caught it by the leg and held it up. “Who’s this?”

“That’s Teddy,” I said, snatching the bear away.

“Gee, you’re original,” he laughed. I stuck out my tongue. My phone buzzed then and I picked it up.

From Alex: try me

I described the afternoon as briefly as I could so that it would all fit into one text message, and hit send.

“Who ya textin’?” Jack asked casually, leaning against the doorframe.

“Alex. Like you care,” I said, just as his phone buzzed. He pulled it from his pocket.

“Really…” he said, dragging out the vowel sound and tossing his phone to me. I looked at the screen.

To Jack: I went to help my mom bring some boxes over to some1s house and it was tyler’s house! can u believe that?

“What…? I flipped open my phone and went to the ‘sent items’ box. I opened the most recent message I had sent, and sure enough, the word ‘To:’ had Jack’s name next to it instead of Alex’s. “I accidently sent it to you!”

“It would appear that way,” he said, shrugging. “I know, I know, it’s an easy mistake to make because A and J are so close to each other in the alphabet…”

“They would be if you were in my contacts as Asshole.”

He chose to ignore me. “So you like Tyler?”

“No!” I said, maybe a little too quickly.

He got onto my bed and jumped up and down on my blue and purple quilt. “Krista and Tyler sitting in a tree…”

I grabbed his ankle and down he came. Unfortunately, the bed wasn’t that big and he had no where to fall but on top of me. “What are you? A first grader?”

He propped himself so that he was on his hands and knees, pinning me under him on the bed. “Tell me!” I just looked at him. He pushed his forehead against mine. “Tell me!”

I sighed. “Maybe… okay, okay, probably. Is that good enough?” He got off me and sat on the edge of the bed.

“Krista and Tyler sitting in…” he chanted quietly to himself. This time I pushed him off of the bed.

**********

A week passed uneventfully and life was normal… well, as normal as possible for someone like me. There was snow on the ground and the Thanksgiving high was wearing off, quickly being replaced with excitement for the holidays. My dad was hardly ever home, but he had set aside the Christmas Eve and Day for us as a family. After Christmas it would be the mad dash to finish packing everything before the big move three weeks later.

We, meaning my mom, Aunt Ella, and myself, were eating dinner Monday night when my mom sprung something on me. “Hey, Kris, I was talking to Dad today, and you’ve been invited to go on the Sara Hanna show this week.”

Sara Hanna was a talk show hostess with her own live show every Sunday night. She wasn’t extremely annoying like a lot of the talk show people out there. I watched her show every week. So did everyone else all over the planet.

“Sara Hanna? Mom, do you know how many people watch that? I’m going to seem so stupid!” I groaned.

“We’ve already told them yes. You and Jack are both doing it. It’s about time people see that the president has a life besides work.”

Sara Hanna. Oh. My. God. After dinner I went straight up to my room and called Jack. He was a little more optimistic about it.

I spent the entire week in class, at home, in bed, trying to come up with answers to possible questions. By the time Sunday morning rolled around, I had psyched myself out so bad, I was pretty positive I would pass out before the show even aired. I’d said a couple of words to the camera before on a few occasions, like on election night and all that, but filling up an entire hour… this could go anywhere.

At three o’clock my mom, Sara the mother, Jack and I piled into the limo with Phil and a couple of others and we started our drive to the studio. It was a three and a half hour drive there, and the show started at eight.
We pulled into the back parking lot just before six thirty and security let us in the back doors. From there, Jack and I were hustled into a small room on the side where experts applied make-up to both of us so we wouldn’t look completely pale in the camera’s lights. Just as we finished, the door opened and Sara Hanna marched through.

“Hi Krista, hi Jack. I’m Sara.” We each shook her hand and she spent the next twenty minutes telling us what to expect and how everything worked. For that I was grateful. We were still talking when someone came and ushered the three of us to a backstage room that led out onto the stage.

When the lights came up and the Sara Hanna jingle played, she walked out onto the stage. We couldn’t see her, but we could hear the live audience applauding and Sara saying, “Hello D.C.! How is everyone tonight?” More applause.

“Tonight is a very special night…” she started. Jack looked at me.

“Nervous?”

“You have no idea.”

“Oh, I think I do,” he said.

Out on the stage, Sara was saying, “Kids have lived in the White House for decades. Children like Tad Lincoln and Caroline Kennedy have all spent their time there. And as you all know, three new kids will be moving in this January. Two of them are here with me tonight. Please welcome Krista Hale and Jack McLean!” Applause.

“You go first,” I whispered, giving Jack a little push. He stepped out into the bright lights, giving a smile and waving. I did the same. Sure, why not.

Sara stood up from her chair and shook our hands again, smiling. Then we took a seat on the couch. Here goes nothing.

“Thanks for coming.”

“Thanks for having us,” Jack said. Way to go, Jack.

“So Krista, you’ve lived here for a while in Washington D.C.” I nodded. “And Jack, you just moved here not too long ago.”

“Two or three weeks.”

“How’s that going for you?” she asked.

“It’s great. The kids are great, and the teachers are really helpful. Krista’s helped me a lot too.”

Any other talk show hostess would have asked about our ‘relationship’ or something like that, but Sara said, “How’s school for you Krista? You go to public school, yes?”

“Yeah, I do. Sometimes it’s hard because a lot of people treat me like a celebrity, and Jack too. But we’re really just pretty normal kids. It’s our dad’s jobs that are the difference. All of my teachers are really awesome though. They don’t treat me differently for my status in the political world, so in that way, it’s great.” Might as well suck up to the teachers while I can.

“So you both will continue going to public school after you move into the White House?” I looked at Jack and he nodded. “Are you looking forward to it?”

“Absolutely,” Jack said. “We’re living in a sea of boxes right now. There wasn’t really any point to unpacking since it’s so temporary, but I’ll be happy to finally be somewhere permanent.”

“And you, Krista? You’ve been an only child for sixteen years. What’s it going to be like having two more kids in the house?”

“It won’t be that different,” I told her. “He practically lives at my house right now anyways.” I rolled my eyes. Sara laughed.

“Don’t go anywhere! We’ll be right back after this brief message!” The lights went down and Sara escorted us off the stage for the commercial break