Don't Judge a Girl by Her Cover

Page 27

I stepped farther down the narrow hallway, away from the crowded dining room, stretching the phone's greasy cord to its limit as I said, "They don't know she ran away, do they?"
"Of course not," Mom answered, the ultimate spy. "That's too much trouble."
I thought about Senator and Mrs. McHenry, and something made me smile.
"So how mad are they that she isn't there?"
"I've taken care of everything," Mom said, her voice still perfectly even and delightful.
A television blared live news coverage—a map of the United States, ready to be divided state by state into red and blue. It was election day in America, but there was one vote left that mattered, and, ironically, it was the one the McHenrys had lost a long time ago.
"Cam!" Bex yelled, "it's time."
"Mom," I said, suddenly needing to say it, "I love you."
A long pause filled the line. For a second, I thought I might have lost her.
"I feel exactly the same way. And Patricia." My mother's voice grew lower. "Hurry. And be careful."
I might have said a hundred other things, except the pay phone wasn't secure (not to mention sanitary), and besides, my friends—and our mission—were waiting.
The Operatives began preparations to go undercover inside hostile territory (a.k.a. the official Winters-McHenry presidential watch party).
Operatives Sutton and Baxter were thrilled to learn that this would require shopping for new clothes.
Unfortunately, according to Operative McHenry, to fully blend in, The Operatives' new clothes couldn't be too cute. Or comfortable.
Washington, D.C. was the first home I'd ever really known, but that night the streets felt foreign for the first time. Maybe it was the vehicle I was driving (Dodge minivans with state-of-the art engines aren't exactly common, you know), or maybe it was the fact that the most famous girl in the country was in the backseat in a red wig, but I felt anything but invisible as we turned down streets lined with news vans and Secret Service barricades.
As we walked closer to the hotel, we passed correspondents reporting live for every news outlet in the country, and I couldn't help myself—I thought about Boston. Beside me, Macey trembled, and I knew I wasn't the only one.
I was beginning to contemplate exactly how we were going to sweet-talk or sneak our way inside (Macey couldn't exactly show up Secret Service-less, after all!), when a familiar voice cut through the chaos. "Cameron!"
The Operatives remembered that potential kidnappers aren't always as scary as highly trained operatives-slash- mothers-slash-headmistresses who happen to know that you're away from campus without permission.
"Cammie," my mother called again, hurrying to meet us.
"Mom, I—" I started, wanting to explain or apologize, to beg forgiveness or mercy, but I didn't get to do any of that because, in the next instant, Secret Service agents swarmed around us. I noticed the comms unit in my mother's ear. I realized the agents around us were all women. One of the agents winked at me, and I wondered for a second if Aunt
Abby wasn't the only Gallagher Girl who had taken a special assignment.
And yet my mother didn't wink. She didn't smile. Instead, she grabbed my arm and steered us toward the building.
Something's happening, I thought. Something's wrong. There were a hundred questions I wanted to ask, but I didn't have the time—much less the breath—to do so as an emergency exit door was thrown open and my friends and I were ushered inside.
Walking through the narrow hallway, the sense of deja vu was strong as we passed stacks of Winters-McHenry signs and catering carts—the backstage of the party—until finally we broke free into a space with gilded mirrors and silk- covered walls. It reminded me of Madame Dabney's tearoom and I realized that, in a way, our school had been preparing us for that moment for the past four and a half years.
A normal girl might have looked at the ornate ceilings and wondered if anything bad could ever happen in a place that beautiful. But we're Gallagher Girls. We know better.
"Macey," Mom said to my roommate, not even looking at me. "Go with these agents. Your parents are expecting you."
But Macey didn't move, and I remembered that this was the world Macey had been born into. The world she'd chosen was a shack by a lake.
"Go on, sweetheart," Mom urged.
Governor Winters himself passed by just then—and I knew we were in the middle of one of the most secure places in the country, and yet something hung in the air as my mother said, "I need to talk to Cammie a—"
I'm not sure what my mother would have said—what she would have told me—but she never had a chance to finish, because in the next instant a cry of "There you are" went through the room. The polls were closed, so maybe that's why Cynthia McHenry didn't hesitate to snap at her daughter. "What are you wearing?"
Macey reached up as if she'd forgotten all about the red
wig.
"Protocol, ma'am," one of the agents at Macey's side replied. "We thought it best to keep your daughter disguised as we moved her from the school."
"Well, she's in a secure area now," Macey's mother said, then started through the ballroom, which was becoming fuller by the second. "Well, are you coming or not?" she asked, wheeling on us all. Macey looked at us as if asking for backup, but we knew that she had to go on alone.
She took a step away, but I was so busy trying to decipher the worry in my mother's eyes that I barely saw my friend move.
"Cam, we need—" Mom started, but again she didn't get to finish.
"Mrs. Morgan," Cynthia McHenry snapped. "Walk with me, please." Mom could have said no. She could have walked away.
But instead she said, "Wait here," and I knew she wasn't just my mother and headmistress—she was a Gallagher Girl, and she was going to cling to her cover to the end.
PROS AND CONS ABOUT CRASHING A PRESIDENTIAL WATCH PARTY:
PRO: Secret Service personnel and members of the national media are everywhere, so your mother can't yell at you for running away.
CON: You know she will yell at you eventually, and the longer it builds up—the worse.
PRO: People who have given up sleeping, eating, and any kind of normalcy for two years (and/or vast amounts of money) in order to make someone president, really don't skimp on the giant shrimp for the food buffet.
CON: People who have been campaigning and living out of suitcases, buses, and trains for that amount of time also have a tendency to let their personal hygiene (not to mention their respect for personal space) get a little, shall we say, skewed.
PRO: It turns out, political watch parties come with bands!
CON: The bands play that same song from the campaign rallies over and over and over again.
Spies spend most of their time waiting. I know it sounds crazy, but it's true. And standing in that big ballroom that night, counting the balloons that hung in the nets overhead (there were are least 7,345, by the way), I couldn't help but think that we were experiencing the best covert operations training we've ever had.
Bex spent a good portion of the evening talking with an oil executive who we later learned was guilty of insider trading (a few days later we hacked into the Securities and Exchange Commission and left an anonymous tip, FYI). Liz used her photographic memory to reread her copy of Advanced Encryption and You in preparation for a big test in Mr. Mosckowitz's class.
But all I could do was think about the look in my mother's eyes as Cynthia McHenry pulled her away. I whispered, "Something's wrong."
"Cammie." A voice sliced through my worries, so I turned around. "Hey, I thought that was you," Preston said, making his way toward us.
Bex eyed him up and down. Liz fiddled with her top. At the front of the room, the announcer called everyone to silence, and ordered the sound on one of the televisions to be turned up while an anchorman said, "Yes, it's official. We are officially calling Ohio for Governor Winters and Senator McHenry."
A massive cheer filled the ballroom. People raised their glasses to toast the Buckeye state, but my mind was flashing back to the shadows beneath the bleachers on a sunny day.
"So, are you friends of Macey's too?" Preston asked, turning to Bex and Liz, and I could actually feel my grade
in Culture and Assimilation take a nosedive.
"Oh, I'm sorry," I rushed to say. "Preston Winters, this is Rebecca."
"Bex," Bex corrected me in her American accent.
"And Liz," I said. Liz blushed but didn't say a word. "So, are you ready for this to be over?" I asked, because…well, I was pretty sure I was supposed to say something.
He looked around, then leaned closer and whispered, "Dying for it."
"I have a feeling the Secret Service wouldn't like your choice of words," Bex told him.
"I guess not." He laughed.
All around us I could feel the room changing as the night got later and the map on the wall became divided down the battle lines of red and blue.
"Hey," Preston said, looking at me. "Can I talk to you for a second?"
I glanced at Bex and Liz, who nodded for me to go, so the potential first son and I walked to a quiet corner of a party. "I fully admit that what I'm about to say will officially make me a girl." For a second, I forgot my fears and laughed. "And I'm owning that," the boy in front of me carried on. "So that's got to be worth something, right?"
"Right," I answered, biting back a smile.
"But it's just that I've got to ask you about…Does Macey ever say anything about me?" he finally blurted.
Despite my exceptional education, I totally didn't know how to answer his question. Maybe it was because we'd spent more than a year trying to figure boys out, but in all that time it had never crossed my mind that we might be just as encrypted to them. But more likely, it was because I didn't have a clue what to say.
"She doesn't say much about any of this," I finally admitted, gesturing around at the elaborate party—her other world. "It's not really…her, you know?"
Preston smiled. He did know. And right then I knew that it wasn't really him either.
"Do you ever think about Boston, Cammie?" he asked, but I didn't get a chance to admit that I did think about it— too much. "I do," Preston said, and then he smiled. "She's really something, isn't she?"
"Yeah," I said slowly. "She really is."
He looked at me then like I've been looked at maybe once or twice in my entire life, and I felt the subtle tremor that comes with being truly seen. "Something tells me she's not the only one."
"Preston—" I started, but the potential first son just shook his head.
"Whatever secrets you and Macey have, Cammie, I don't want to know them." He took a step away but then stopped suddenly and moved closer. "Just tell me one thing: does it involve Spandex?" He closed his eyes and a really goofy look crossed his face. "Because in my mind it involves Spandex."
"Preston," I said, laughing and slapping him gently on the arm.
I saw Macey walking toward Bex and Liz, and before I could say another word, Preston made a beeline toward her.