These are important problems that I, as US Teen Ambassador, should have been addressing. But what did they have me doing instead? Yeah, that’d be counting paintings.
And you know, it was starting to occur to me that the whole teen ambassador thing had just been made up; a way for the President—who I was starting to think cared more about his image than he did about the teens of this country—to look good. You know, giving a high-profile job to the girl who’d saved his life, and all.
But I didn’t say all that. I should have. I totally should have.
But I was conscious of all these people—the Beaux Arts Trio; the French Prime Minister; the Ambassador to Sri Lanka; not to mention David—standing there, listening. I couldn’t make a speech like that in front of all those people. I mean, I couldn’t even talk to the reporters who hounded me every day, and all they wanted to know was which I liked better, Coke or Pepsi.
I had a lot of views about stuff—that was certainly true. What I did not have was a lot of confidence about expressing them to anyone but my family and friends.
But there was one thing I knew I had to do. I had to get Maria’s painting into the From My Window show in New York. I had to.
And so I put my hand on the President’s arm and said, “Excuse me, but that painting has to go to New York. It is the best painting. Maybe it doesn’t show America at its best, but it is the best painting. The most honest painting. It has to be entered in the show.”
There was a kind of silence after I said this. I don’t think every single person in the room was looking at me. But it sure felt like it.
The President said, looking very surprised, “Samantha, I’m sorry, but that isn’t going to happen. You’re going to have to pick another painting. How about the one with the lighthouse? That’s a good representation of what this country’s all about.”
Then he started talking to the Prime Minister some more.
I couldn’t believe it. I had just been dismissed. Just like that!
Well, you know what they say about redheads. What happened next, I couldn’t stop. I heard myself saying the words, but it was like some other girl was saying them. Maybe Gwen Stefani was saying them, because I sure wasn’t.
“If you didn’t want the job done right,” I said to the President, loudly enough so that it seemed to me that a lot of the waiting staff and most of the other guests, including the Beaux Arts Trio, turned to look at me, “then you shouldn’t have given it to me. Because I am not going to pick another painting. All the rest of the paintings are of what people know. That painting—Maria’s painting—is of what one person sees, every day, from her window. You may not like what Maria sees, but keeping everyone else from seeing it isn’t going to make it any less real, or make the problem go away.”
The President looked down at me like I was mentally deranged. Maybe I was. I don’t know. All I know is, I was so mad, I was shaking. And I imagine my face was a very attractive shade of umber.
“Are you personally acquainted with the artist, or something?” he asked.
“No, I don’t know her,” I said. “But I know her painting is the best.”
“In your opinion,” the President said.
“Yes, in my opinion.”
“Well, you’re just going to have to change your opinion. Because that painting is not going to represent this country in any international art show.”
Then David’s dad turned his back on me and started talking to his other guests.
I didn’t say anything more. What could I say that I hadn’t said already? Besides, I had been dismissed.
David, who had come up behind me without my noticing, went, “Sam.”
I looked up at him. I had forgotten all about David.
“Come on,” he said.
I guess if I hadn’t already been so shocked about what had happened—between me and the President, I mean—I might have been more shocked that David was actually speaking to me. Speaking to me, and apparently trying, at least, to make me feel better about what had just happened. At least that’s what I had to conclude when he led me out of the Vermeil Room and back into the room where we’d sat that very first night I’d come to dinner, where he’d carved my name into the window sill.
“Sam,” he said. “It’s not that big a deal. I mean, I know it is to you. But it’s not, you know, life and death.”
Right. It wasn’t Sierra Leone or Utah. Nobody was getting their hands chopped off or being forced to marry, at the age of fourteen, a guy who already had three wives.
“I realize that,” I said. “But it’s still wrong.”
“Probably,” David said. “But you have to understand. There’s a lot of stuff we don’t necessarily know about that they have to consider.”
“Like what?” I wanted to know. “My choosing that painting is going to compromise national security? I don’t think so.”
David was taking off his tie like it had been bothering him.
“Maybe they just want a happy painting,” he said. “You know, one that shows the US in a positive light.”
“That’s not what the contest is about,” I said. “It’s supposed to show what a representative of each country sees from his or her window. The rules don’t say anything about what the person sees having to reflect positively on his or her country. I mean, I could see someone in China or something not being allowed to show a negative aspect of his nation, but this is America, for crying out loud. I thought we were guaranteed freedom of speech.”
David sat down on the arm of my chair. He said, “We are.”
“Right,” I said, very sarcastically. “All except the Teen Ambassador to the UN.”
“You have freedom of speech,” David said. He said it with a funny sort of emphasis, but at the time I was too upset to realize what he meant.
“Do you think you could talk to him, David?” I asked, looking up at him. Once again, he hadn’t turned on any lights in the room. The only light there was to see by spilled in from the windows, the bluish light coming in from the Rotunda. In its glow, David’s green eyes were hard to read. Still, I plunged on. “Your dad, I mean. He might listen to you.”
But David said, “Sam, I hate to disappoint you, but the one thing I make it a point never to discuss with my dad is politics.”
Even though David said he hated to disappoint me, that’s exactly what he ended up doing. Disappointing me, I mean.
“But it’s not fair!” I cried. “I mean, that painting is the best one! It deserves to be in the show! Just try, David, OK? Promise me you’ll try to talk to him. You’re his kid. He’ll listen to you.”
“He won’t,” David said. “Believe me.”
“Of course he won’t, if you don’t even try.”
But David wouldn’t say he’d try. It was like he didn’t even want to get involved. Which only made me more peeved. Because he was acting like it didn’t matter. He obviously didn’t understand how important it was. I thought he would, being an artist, and all. But he didn’t. He really didn’t.
I was so frustrated that I couldn’t help blurting out, “Jack would try.”
And even though I’d been saying it mostly to myself, David overheard.
“Oh, sure,” he said, in a mean way. “Jack’s perfect.”
“At least Jack is willing to take a stand,” I said, hotly. “You know, Jack shot out the windows of his own father’s medical practice with a BB gun in protest of Dr Slater using medications that had been tested on animals.”