Chapter Seven
TWELVE YEARS AGO
HOME OF THE VICE PRESIDENT
NUMBER ONE OBSERVATORY CIRCLE
A man in a dark suit and tie entered the far side of the circular library and approached Mandy as she sulked on the couch. He hovered. She ignored him, and when he refused to leave, she tipped her chin up and packed as much mistrust into her glare as she could manage. “Who are you?”
He didn’t answer so much as he returned the smirk. She pushed aside her newly bleached hair, deciding that this guy annoyed her as much as the scent of the hair dye. Three showers and shampoos, and it still clung to her hair. Not that she’d let anyone know it was bothersome.
The man moved closer until he stood in front of the antique coffee table where she sometimes propped her feet. He sharply assessed her, then chuckled and slid his hands into his trouser pockets. “So you’re the scary kid that sends grown men running?”
She rolled her eyes, then inspected her fingernails, which she’d colored with a black Sharpie marker.
He didn’t leave, and she planned to stare at her nails until he did or until someone else took his place, hovering by shelves of rare books.
Time ticked slower than Mr. Driech’s chemistry class.
Finally, she dared a quick glance. “What?”
He grinned. Not one of those professional, placating half-smiles taught to federal agents on their first day. No, this guy seemed amused.
“What?” she snapped again.
“You don’t look that scary.”
“Neither do you.”
“It wasn’t in the job description when I applied.” He tilted his head with a knowing look. “But I can see why you might think that.”
“Why?”
“Higgins’s mustache?” He pretended to recoil. “Looks like a swamp thing lives on his face.”
Exactly! Mandy had never been able to pinpoint why Higgins creeped her out, but this guy had nailed it. Not that she’d let him know.
“It’d help if he cut the thing back,” the agent continued. “It’d make him look more like a spook from the eighties and less like a monster.”
Mandy snickered. “Especially with that trench coat he likes to wear.”
“Yeah, where did he find that thing?”
She caught herself from laughing and stared into her lap until she could keep a straight face, then eyed the new agent. He was younger and far more casual than the standard security detail assigned to the second family’s detail, but she didn’t trust him or the charade.
The corners of his lips twitched. “I don’t recall your profile details including bleach blonde hair.”
Mandy scowled, irritated at how quickly the agent had pivoted to her latest scandal. “Call the NSA and Homeland Security. Someone’s slacking.”
“Nah.” He shrugged. “They’re probably on it already.”
She almost smiled, caught herself, and scowled again. His lack of a stiff upper lip made her wary.
“Do you mind if I take a seat?” Without waiting for an answer, the agent rounded the coffee table and sat down next to her on the couch. His gaze dropped to the style section of yesterday’s newspaper folded between them. “They’re relentless, aren’t they?”
Relentless? That wasn’t a good enough description if he was referring to the adults who made a living off of her misery.
She’d describe them more as obsessed, nosy liars, but that was too kind, or maybe the agent meant the students at her school.
The so-called friends and the classmates she’d never spoken to who provided anonymous anecdotes about her high school life.
Angry tears caught at the back of her throat.
Mandy clamped her molars together until the well of emotion peaked, then she bitterly added, “What would you know about that?”
“Not much,” he admitted. “My family is the epitome of boring.”
“Must be nice.” Her family fascinated the world. Chatterboxes and rumormongers had rejoiced when a pretty-faced young couple and their gangly, awkward kid moved into the political limelight.
The agent picked up the newspaper, perused one side, flipped it over, then whistled. “This is brutal, Sparkler.”
She didn’t have to ask him which part, because she’d memorized every word before she walked into school yesterday. By the time Mandy had walked into homeroom, the few friends that she trusted had offered her pitying platitudes. The rest of her classmates had failed to hide their giggles.
With another breakout of teenage hormones, Mandy Hearst was seen at the pharmacy near school, perusing zit creams. She left with a tube of Clearasil, a Hershey bar, and a high-end bottle of watermelon-flavored water.
The newly-minted Second Daughter wore a school uniform of a khaki skirt and polo shirt emblazoned with the high school’s coat of arms. Her typically unruly dark brown hair looked to be tangled more than usual and was secured into a low ponytail.
Ms. Hearst’s classmates reported that her hair debacle started in PE class while playing capture the flag when she tripped. Not known for her athletic prowess or gracefulness, the knobby-kneed teenager still managed to assist a classmate in a flag-capturing play.
As always, we have omitted the name of Ms. Hearst’s school and relevant locations to protect her privacy. In other style and entertainment news, celebrity chefs partnered with the A-List cast of …
Mandy didn’t waste her time guessing which classmates had developed relationships with reporters. “I guess they’ll have to take mention of my dark hair out of the newsroom rotation.”
He leaned back against the sofa, then tossed the newspaper onto the coffee table that was a priceless gift from the English Monarch. At least, that’s what her mother had said as if it had sat in Sir Isaac Newton’s personal study.
“That’s an antique,” she pointed out.
“I’m sure you care.” He leaned back. “Is that why you bleached your hair?”
Mandy lifted a shoulder. “I don’t know.”
“It’s more interesting than a zit,” he said.
Her jaw dropped, and she gaped at him. “That’s rude.”
“You should cut it short and wear makeup that’d match your nails. That’d be interesting.” He held out his hands to frame an invisible headline. “Second Daughter gone punk rock.” He chuckled. “Though I’m probably out of a job if you tell your mother that was my suggestion.”
She could picture the headline as well as her parents’ reaction and almost smiled, but the agent wasn’t serious. “What would you have done if you were me?”
“Instead of bleaching my hair?” he asked.
She tugged her hair over her face and fidgeted. “Yeah.”
He hummed as though giving her question serious thought.
She had to commend his acting skills. It was more than she got out of the Vice President’s office, the White House communications staff, or her mother’s chief of staff when she complained.
Everyone told her to ignore it. That was impossible when it encompassed everything in her life.
Political pundits discussed puberty. Pseudo-psychologists offered unsolicited advice on raising teenagers in the public eye.
Stylists suggested ways to make her uniform hipper.
No one debated whether she’d signed up for this life.
“You could rip your braces off.” She opened her mouth as wide as the rubber bands would let her and waited until he acknowledged the railroad tracks cemented to her teeth.
Unimpressed, he rolled his wrist like she should keep trying.
She closed her mouth and tried another tactic. “You could hike your skirt up.” She waited for his discomfort level to rise. “Or go with everyone’s favorite suggestion, buy a padded bra.”
Undaunted, he hummed again as he thought. “I wouldn’t stuff my bra. I don’t think it would flatter my hips.”
She couldn’t help it. That time, she laughed. “I don’t know if it works that way.”
“Yeah, I don’t know shit,” he admitted.
A comfortable silence fell between them. He pulled out his phone—a definite no-no when on vice presidential babysitting duty—scrolled, then cracked up. She tilted to see what was so funny. The agent repositioned the screen. For the next five minutes, they laughed at clips of dogs.
A staffer walked into the library and stopped short. “I’m sure,” she said with a heavy dose of distaste, “there is a more comfortable place upstairs for you to spend your free time.”
“We’re pretty comfortable here,” the agent said. “But thanks for the suggestion.”
The woman harrumphed and theatrically retrieved the discarded newspaper from the coffee table. “Please don’t put anything on the table again.”
After they were alone again, Mandy turned her attention onto the agent. “I can’t believe you said that.”
“You warned me about the table.” He shrugged. “Guess I should’ve known.”
The corners of her lips quirked. “So you’re the new guy?”
He nodded. “Yup.”
“I don’t know if you’ve been told.” She picked at her cuticle. “But no one wants this detail.”
“I’ve been warned about that, too.” He put the phone down, then ticked off on his fingers as he said, “You cut school, ditch details, and somehow bleached your hair when no one was lording over you.”
“And I’m just getting started,” she warned.
He chuckled. “I’ll tell you a secret.”
Oh, joy. This was the moment when he became like every other agent. Maybe he’d regale her with tales about his adventurous youth or teenage angst or promise that nothing she could do would shock him. “What?”
“I’ve got a hundred bucks riding on whether or not I make it as your primary detail for more than a month.”
Her eyes bulged. “You bet on me?”
“I’ll split it with you fifty-fifty if we make it to day thirty-one.”
Was he genuinely this chill, or had the Secret Service partnered with FBI profilers to determine a new way to handle her? “Double or nothing, you won’t last the week.”
He stuck out his hand. “Shake on it.”
Mandy eyed him, waiting for the usual curl of dread that always arrived over the last few weeks when she saw her new bedroom, read the new rules, or met her new lead security detail.
It didn’t come. She didn’t trust him yet and probably never would.
But at least she could have some fun. Their hands clasped. “Bet.”