In Love With the President's Daughter

After Christmas, everything turned to chaos. With less than a month before moving into our new house, my mother and Aunt Ella were packing like crazy. We wouldn’t actually move in until inauguration day, but my mother had made it clear that I would have everything but the necessities packed by the end of Christmas break. Which is why, while my parents were at the White House New Years party, I was home packing.

At seven o’clock, Jack stopped by. He attempted to karate kick the door open, but it was locked, and I heard him groan outside the door. I reached over and unlocked it.

“Krisss... seriously?” he said, hopping on one leg into my room and collapsing on the one vacant spot that wasn’t occupied by boxes.

“You are such a baby,” I commented, surveying my closet. I couldn’t decide what I wanted to leave and what I wanted to pack. I gave up and sat on a box.

Jack and I were long past our almost-make-out-session… pretty much. We just hadn’t mentioned it to Alex and pretended it never happened.

“I thought you had a hot date tonight.”

“What?”

“Alex said that you were going out to a New Years thing with some jock… Cabana?”

“Alex likes to THINK I’m going out with Ben Cabana,” I corrected. It was true. Ben had asked me to some party or something for tonight. I’d said no. Obviously.

“Let’s do something,” he said, hopping off the bed, obviously recovering quickly from his life threatening injury.

“What exactly did you have in mind?”

He looked at his watch. “Wheel. Of. Fortune!” he yelled in the announcer’s voice. We ran down the stairs, grabbed some milk, cookies, and peanut butter from the kitchen, and turned on the TV in the living room.

“Now that’s the definition of greedy,” Jack said, throwing a cookie at the TV and missing. “She knows the answer is William Shakespeare. Everyone on the planet over the age of three knows the answer is William Shakespeare. And does she solve the puzzle? Noooo! Really now? Really?” Not until tonight did I find out just how intense Wheel of Fortune could get.

*******

School started back three days later. I had almost forgotten about Tyler over break. Almost. Unfortunately, I was rudely reminded walking into science class the day we returned. He was silent as I stood at their lab table, deep in a debate with Jack.

“That looks like… not a pig,” he said. He was referring to my lab drawings that had been homework over vacation. We had dissected pigs the week before break and Jack claimed my sketches were going to get me a failing grade.

“Nowhere did it say they had to be accurate.”

“Isn’t that what science is about? Accuracy?”

“No,” I argued. “It’s about experimenting. I was experimenting. Besides, that’s what labels are for.” I was hoping he wasn’t right and our teacher wasn’t going to agree with his opinion. Silently, I wished Tyler would join in the argument. He didn’t.

Outside of class, people were being even friendlier than they had before vacation. With the inauguration two weeks away, I guess it was to be expected. Who wouldn’t want to friends with the girl living in the biggest house in town? Or, in this case, would be living there in two weeks time.

I was in for a surprise when I got home that night. Over dinner (just my mom and aunt, my dad wasn’t eating with us as per usual) my mom announced I would be skipping school the following day.

“We’ve been invited over to the White House to see where we’ll be living. You know, like your room and all that.”

Ooh. “Jack too?”

She nodded. “Daniel and Sara have another engagement. We’re bringing Jack and Leah with us.”

After dinner I went straight up to my room to call Jack. “Can you believe it? We’re actually going to get to see the place!” I squealed. The attention I got from everyone wasn’t of interest to me. Our new house, however, was.

*******

We picked up Jack and Leah at ten. In the limo. Of course. We went through a billion methods of security before we actually got in the place. Some member of the staff accompanied us into the house and showed us all the points of interest – game room, movie room, all that jazz.

“This is currently a conference room, although they intend to change it into a schoolroom for the children,” said our tour guide. I couldn’t remember her job in the place, rather, I hadn’t been paying attention, but recalled she had introduced herself as Maggie.

“But we go to public school,” I protested. “We don’t need a schoolroom.”

“Rather, a study room, if you please,” she said. I was perfectly fine just studying in the living room like I did at home, but I didn’t bring it up.

“This is the President’s bedroom,” she said, opening a door to the left. A bedroom probably about twice the size of the one my parents had at home. “And attached to it is your private sitting room. Your private dining hall is across the hall,” she said, gesturing. We’d already seen three other sitting rooms and two dining halls. I looked at Jack and raised my eyebrows.

We continued down the hallway several paces. She opened another door. “These rooms are currently used as guest spaces, but they’re currently unoccupied. The plan is to give these two to Miss Hale and the young Mr. McLean and the one just across the hall to Miss McLean. No one is in them. You may look if you like.” My mom opened the door across the hall for Leah and Jack and I went into one of the ones Maggie had pointed out.

“Oh, this one is sooo yours,” Jack said as we entered. It was a really pretty room. The color scheme was purple and white. There was already a bed, a couch, a table, a dresser, and all the room essentials.

“Are you sure? Because I’m pretty sure purple is your color,” I told Jack. He just shook his head and we moved on to the room next door. The color scheme was blue and gray and the décor was all in all much less feminine. I opened a door across from the bed and found a closet about a fifth a size of the room itself. And the room was big.

“Look! I bet my room has one of these too!” I yelled to Jack through the doorway. He came over.

“I’m pretty sure I don’t have the clothes to fill up a quarter of this.” He rolled his eyes. “I know you do.”

“You could turn it into a clubhouse!” I said.

“You’re kidding. Only you would come up with that.”

“Admit it. You were already planning it,” I accused.

“Was not!”

“Was too!”

“Was not!

“Was toooo!”

“Hey, kids?” Aunt Ella said, poking her head in. “Nice room. Maggie’s going to take us on up to the next floor.”

“There’s another floor?” Jack said, raising his eyebrows.

“Jack. Do your research. There’s also like thirty-five bathrooms in the place,” I said. Truth be told, my dad had given me a book about the place for Christmas.

“Awesome! When we move in, we’re finding them all,” he said.

I had been planning the same thing.