The President's Daughter Read Online Free PDF Page A

Candidate B joined the race, too?” variety seemed to come out almost every day, and her mother generally placed second or third among the eight or nine candidates who were currently officially in the race.

    Naturally, ultraconservative types were making all sorts of noise about a woman’s place being at home with her children, and the country’s need for a Strong Leader in such perilous times—which, Meg assumed, meant a male leader—but her mother was so well-respected as a Senator, that the negative publicity didn’t seem to be doing very much damage. So far, anyway. She had been a prominent member of the Senate Foreign Relations and Armed Services Committees for years, and was the chairperson of the Emerging Threats and Capabilities subcommittee, and she also served on the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, and the Select Committee on Intelligence. And, of course, it went without saying that she had successfully sponsored, and co-sponsored, legislation across the spectrum, going back to her first term as a House Representative. A pretty fair political package, as Linda would say.
    Meg and her brothers had decided early on that their favorite campaign person was Preston Fielding. He was this young, incredibly cool black guy who had been a top aide to the Speaker of the House, and was now a full-time media relations and legislative outreach consultant for her mother. Titles aside, Meg had noticed that Preston just sort of did whatever needed doing. When other people had lost or forgotten demographic sheets or expenditure lists or whatever, Preston invariably had copies handy. He would show up with pizza and a case of Heineken when everyone was getting uptight and grouchy; he seemed to know about six important people in every government agency—all of whom owed him favors; he was great at fund-raising. Important as all of that was, Meg liked him because he was so funny. And, okay, unbelievably handsome .
    Every day, their lives seemed to change a little more, as a direct result of the campaign. Like the telephone company showing up to install multiple extra land-lines in the house. Or the Secret Service all over the place, studying their neighborhood and interviewing people, because her mother was going to start receiving protection soon—an idea too scary to even think about yet. Since—as far as she
knew—none of the other candidates were being protected yet, she assumed it meant that her mother was already getting significant threats. The post office was delivering so much mail that they came to the door with sacks, instead of trying to use the mailbox, and the mail was being carefully examined first, before any of them were allowed to touch it.
    The concept of which was also very god-damn unsettling.
    Maybe the hardest part of all was that her father was now out of town frequently, too. The house felt so empty. Steven would slouch around, pretending not to miss them, and Neal would have ten times as many bad dreams as usual. And Meg never knew what to do for either of them. Thank God for Trudy.
    One Sunday night, when her parents were in Pennsylvania or someplace, Steven and Neal wandered off after dinner, while Meg hung around in the kitchen to help Trudy with the dishes.
    â€œI can take care of this,” Trudy said, smiling at her over grandmotherly glasses. “You should do your homework.”
    â€œI don’t have any,” Meg said. Which was a flat-out lie.
    â€œA sophomore in high school, and you don’t have any homework?” Trudy clicked her tongue with disapproval.
    â€œNope,” Meg said, drying the spaghetti sauce pan.
    Trudy looked at her through her glasses this time.
    It wasn’t all that hard to get away with things around her mother—but Trudy had a much more suspicious nature.
    Or else, she was just paying closer attention.
    â€œOkay, I maybe have a little bit left,” Meg said, and then looked at the clock.