26

A week later, they had the award ceremony. The one where I got my presidential medal. You know, for valor, and all of that.

I didn’t wear black. I didn’t even want to wear black. I didn’t care what I wore. When you are in love, that’s how it is. You don’t care about things like clothes, because all you can think about is the object of your affections.

Well, unless you’re Lucy.

But even though I didn’t care how I looked, my mom and Theresa and Lucy made sure I looked good. They put me in another suit—this one light blue—that later, after the award ceremony, while we were all having cake in the Vermeil Room, David said matched my eyes.

Anyway, the award ceremony, as promised, was in front of the official White House Christmas tree in the Blue Room. It was way beautiful, with all the decorations and lights and everything.

It was also way serious. Everyone who was anyone was there, including all these colonels in fancy uniforms, and senators in suits, and my family, and Theresa, and Catherine and her family, and Candace Wu, and Jack and Pete and Susan Boone, whom I’d invited especially.

The president made a speech about me, and it made me feel way patriotic. It went, “Samantha Madison, I award you this medal for extreme bravery in the face of personal peril…” blah blah blah. Actually, it was kind of hard to pay attention, on account of David standing right there next to his dad, looking totally cute.

I can’t believe there was a time I used to think David looked geeky in a tie. Now the sight of him in one makes me go frisson all over. Well, the sight of him in anything does, really.

Anyway, after I got my medal—which was pure solid gold, hanging from a red velvet ribbon—everybody applauded, and we had to pose for about a million photos, while everyone else started filing around for cake. David, instead of going for cake, waited for me, and when I got done with the photos he came up and kissed me on the cheek. A photographer took a picture of that, too, but we weren’t embarrassed or anything. That’s because in that past week we’d been doing a lot of kissing, and not just on the cheek, either.

And let me tell you something: kissing—which, needless to say, isn’t something I had really had a whole lot of experience with up until now—is nice.

Anyway, after we joined everyone for cake, I went around, trying to make the different clusters of people I’d invited feel comfortable with each other. Like I introduced Susan Boone and her boyfriend to Catherine’s parents, and David introduced Jack and Lucy to the attorney general and his wife, and so on.

And then, while everyone was shaking hands with each other and saying what a nice time they were having and all, David came over to me with one of those secretive little smiles of his and whispered to me, “Come here.”

I whispered back, “Okay.”

I followed him out of the room and down the hall to where we had first had burgers together, looking out over the White House’s back lawn.

And there on the windowsill where David had carved my name, I saw that he had added something.

A plus sign.

So now it said:

 

David

+

Sam

 

Which, all things considered, is not a bad way to leave your mark on history.

Top ten reasons I’m glad I’m not actually Gwen Stefani:

• 10. I don’t have to go on tour. I can stay home with my dog. Plus see my boyfriend whenever I want to…well, until my eleven o’clock curfew on weekends, ten o’clock on weeknights, and only so long as I keep my German grades up.
• 9. Between school, art lessons, being teen ambassador to the UN, and my social life, I really don’t have time to put that much thought into my wardrobe. Dressing whimsically is actually a lot of responsibility.
• 8. I don’t think singing and songwriting could ever be as satisfying creatively as drawing a really excellent egg.
• 7. Gwen has to give a lot of interviews, which I can completely relate to in my capacity as teen ambassador to the UN. But Gwen gets interviewed by, like, Teen People, who totally report on what you are wearing to the interview. I get interviewed by The New York Times Magazine, who totally don’t.
• 6. Gwen wears a lot of navel-baring outfits. My navel isn’t exactly my best feature. Fortunately, my dad told me if he ever caught me in a navel-baring outfit, he would force me to work as a summer intern in his office, instead of letting me draw eggs and cow skulls all summer at Susan Boone’s.
• 5. According to Theresa, whose sister is a licensed beautician, if I dyed my hair as often as Gwen has, it would all fall out.
• 4. Gwen has to hang out all day, every day with the rowdy boys in her band. The only boys I ever have to hang out with are my boyfriend, my sister’s boyfriend, and my best friend’s boyfriend, and none of them, so far, has expressed any interest in playing the drums wearing nothing at all, which, if you ask me, would be totally embarrassing.
  But then again, one must make sacrifices for art, I suppose.
• 3. Gwen may not be aware of this little known fact: that geeks make the best boyfriends. It sounds surprising, but it is true. You know those smiles of David’s, the little secret ones he always seemed to have on his face? Those smiles, he says, are on account of me. Because, he told me, he never thought he’d meet a girl as cool as me.
  Besides, there is something to be said for having your parents actually like the person you are going out with.
• 2. Gwen’s sister, though she’s probably nice and all, can’t possibly be as cool as Lucy, who, even though she can be a real pain sometimes, is actually pretty righteous the rest of the time. I mean, she was willing to dump her boyfriend for me. Does that tell you something?

And the number-one reason I’m glad I’m not Gwen Stefani:

• 1. Because then I wouldn’t be me.