So why should I feel bad about skipping my drawing lesson? I mean, it is only a drawing lesson. Catherine, on the other hand, is skipping out on God.
Surely my parents, in the unlikely event they are to find out what I’ve done, will understand that I was merely trying to preserve my integrity as an artist. Of course they will understand this. Probably. Maybe. On a good day, anyway, when there haven’t been any PCBs found in some Midwestern town’s water supply, or too many plunges in the North African stock market.
If anybody at Static thought it was strange that this fifteen-year-old red-headed girl, dressed in black from head to toe, was hanging around for two hours, sampling CDs but not buying any, they didn’t say anything about it to me. The chick behind the counter, who had the kind of spiky black hair I’ve always wanted but have never had the guts to get, was too busy flirting with one of the other workers, a guy in plaid pants and a Le Tigre T-shirt, to pay any attention to me.
The other customers were ignoring me too. Most of them looked like college students, wasting time between classes. Some of them might have been in high school. One of them was a kind of old guy, like in his thirties, wearing Army clothes and carrying a duffel bag. For a while he was hanging out by the headphones near me, listening to Billy Joel. I was surprised that a place like Static even had any Billy Joel, but they did. This guy kept listening to ‘Uptown Girl’ over and over. My dad is actually a Billy Joel fan—he plays it all the time in the car, which makes driving with him mad fun, let me tell you—but even he is way over ‘Uptown Girl’.
My cookie was gone about midway through the Spitvalves’ second album. I reached into my pocket and found nothing but crumbs. I thought about going over to Capitol Cookies to get another, but then I remembered I was broke. Besides, by that time it was almost five-thirty. I had to go outside and wait for Theresa to pick me up.
I put my hood up and walked out into the rain. It wasn’t the steady downpour it had been when I’d arrived, but I figured the hood would keep anybody coming out of the Susan Boone Art Studio from recognizing me and being all, Hey, where were you, anyway?
As if any of them would have missed me.
It had gotten dark outside while I’d been in the record store. All the cars going by had their headlights on. And there were a lot more of them than before, because it was rush hour and everyone was trying to get home to be with their loved ones. Or maybe just to watch Friends. Whatever.
I stood on the kerb across from the Founding Church of Scientology, squinting into the light drizzle and headlights in the direction Theresa was supposed to come. As I stood there, I couldn’t help feeling kind of sorry for myself. I mean, there I was, a fifteen-year-old, left-handed, red-headed, boyfriendless, misunderstood middle-child reject, broke, standing in the rain after skipping her drawing class because she couldn’t take criticism. What was going to happen if I grew up and started my own celebrity portrait-painting business, or something? Was I just going to quit if it didn’t work out right away? Was I going to go hide in Static? Maybe I could just go ahead and get a job there, to make things easier. It didn’t seem like a very bad place to work, actually. I bet employees get a discount on CDs.
While I was standing there being ashamed of myself for being a quitter, the old guy who was such a big Billy Joel fan came out of Static and stood next to me, even though the crosswalk sign was green. I looked at him from the corner of my eye. He was messing around with something under his rain poncho, which was in a camouflage pattern. I wondered if he was a shoplifter. At Static I’d noticed they had a Wall of Shame, where they stuck up Polaroids of people who’d tried to swipe something. This dude looked as prime a candidate for the Wall of Shame as I’d ever seen.
And when, right after this, I saw all these flashing red lights coming out of the rain and darkness, I was like, Oh, yes, here come the cops. Mr. Uptown Girl is so busted.
Only it turned out the sirens didn’t belong to the cops at all. Instead, they were part of the President’s motorcade. First came the lead car, a black SUV with a rack of flashing red lights on its roof. Then came another black SUV and, behind it, a long black limo. Behind that were some more SUVs with flashing lights.
Instead of being excited that I was going to get to see the President go by—even though you can’t really see him when he’s in his limo because the windows are those weird ones the people inside the car can see out of, but the people outside the car can’t see into—I was like, Aw, crud. Because Theresa was probably somewhere behind the motorcade, which was crawling along at a snail’s pace. Not only was she going to be in a really bad mood by the time she finally picked me up, but no way was I going to miss David coming out of Susan Boone’s. He would probably see me standing out here and be like, Man, she’s weird, and never speak to me again. Not that I cared, because I am fully in love with my sister’s boyfriend. But it had been nice of him to notice my boots. Hardly anyone else ever had.
And, besides, when you live in DC, seeing the President go by is really no big deal, since he goes by all the time.
Then the strangest thing happened. The first SUV in the motorcade pulled up right in front of me . . . and stopped. Just stopped.
And the traffic light wasn’t even red.
Behind the first SUV, the second one stopped, and then the limo, and so on. Traffic was totally stopped behind them, all along Connecticut Avenue. Then these guys with these earpieces climbed out of the cars and all went towards the limo.
And then, to my utter astonishment, the President of the United States got out of his limo and walked into Capitol Cookies, a bunch of Secret Service guys clustered around him, holding up umbrellas and looking around and speaking into their walkie-talkies.
That’s right, just walked into Capitol Cookies, like he did it every day.
I didn’t know that the President liked Capitol Cookies. Capitol Cookies are good, and all, but they’re not the most famous cookies around, or anything. I mean, there’s just the one store.
And wouldn’t you think that if you were the President, you could get the owner to send you a personal supply of cookies, so you wouldn’t have to go ducking out of your limo, in the rain, just to get your hands on some? I mean, if I owned a bakery and I found out that the President of the United States liked my cookies, I would fully make sure he got a steady supply of them.
On the other hand, the people who owned Capitol Cookies would probably prefer to have the President be seen ducking into the store. That is way better publicity than you could ever get by privately shipping him his own supply.
And then, as I stood there in the dark and the rain, with the red lights from the top of the SUV in front of me flashing in my face, I saw Mr. Uptown Girl throw back his rain poncho.
And it turned out what he’d been doing under there had nothing to do with him being a shoplifter. Not at all. It turned out what he’d been doing under there had to do with a great big gun, which he brought out and pointed in the direction of the door to Capitol Cookies . . . the door through which the President, his cookies having been secured with miraculous swiftness, was just exiting.
I am not what most people would call a particularly brave person. I stick up for the kids at school who get picked on only because I remember what it was like to get picked on back when I lived in Morocco, and during the whole Speech and Hearing thing.
But that does not mean that I am the sort of girl to throw herself into the path of danger without the slightest concern for her own personal safety. I mean, the closest thing I have been in lately that could qualify as a physical altercation would be the last time Lucy and I wrestled over possession of the remote control.