The First Gardener (4 page)

Her own experience as a young volunteer had started over a bowl of fried okra, which Eugenia had set in front of her at a Sunday lunch. Mackenzie, who normally loved fried foods, had popped one of the cornmeal-encrusted balls in her mouth—and hated it. Hated it. That first complaint had resulted in a trip downtown to feed the homeless and hungry. “Next time you whine about okra that I picked from my own garden and fried with my own hands,” Eugenia had told her, “you need to think about people who don’t have food and would love some of your mama’s okra.”

That one experience didn’t change Mackenzie’s opinion of okra, but it did change her life in significant ways. Helping at the soup kitchen so touched her heart that she began to refuse food just so she could go again. Eugenia caught on after the third showdown, and they started volunteering regularly at the Nashville Rescue Mission.

Mackenzie had gone on to major in social work at the University of Tennessee and later worked as an advocate for children in crisis. Now she had the opportunity to help children themselves recognize the needs around them. That was one of the benefits of her role as first lady. She could be a mouthpiece for the issues most important to her.

Mackenzie scribbled down a reminder to review her notes before bedtime and checked to see what else her calendar held. It was going to be a full week, especially with Maddie’s first day of kindergarten and the big soiree on Wednesday night honoring the volunteers and heroes of a string of natural disasters that had hit the area the past few years.

It had all begun with the horrific flood a few years back—an unprecedented disaster for Tennessee. For the first two days in May, some areas of Tennessee had received a record-breaking nineteen inches of rain. There had been twenty-one deaths and more than 1.5 billion dollars in damages. The devastation included some of Nashville’s most precious landmarks—the Grand Ole Opry, the Ryman Auditorium, and the Opryland Hotel and Convention Center. And because few outside the state even knew about the floods—they coincided with an oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and an attempted car bombing in New York City—Nashvillians had mostly been left to fend for themselves.

But Tennesseans had done what Tennesseans do. They hadn’t complained. They hadn’t blamed. They’d just dug in their heels and served . . . each other.

Mackenzie had been right in the middle of those efforts—and similar efforts in the wake of a massive tornado in northwest Tennessee and an ice storm that crippled two-thirds of the state for a full week. Each time, she had recognized the spirit that made her state special.

That was the reason for Wednesday’s dinner. Mackenzie was determined to honor those local heroes she had come in contact with day after day, those heroes the national media or
People
magazine would never interview. She had been involved in every detail of the celebration, and she couldn’t wait for it to get here.

“What’re you doing, babe?”

She looked up. Gray was in his running shorts and red Nike T-shirt. Sweat clung to his face and glistened as the light hit it. He paced around the room, trying to cool off.

“Seeing what the week holds. Good run?”

“Felt great.” He leaned down and kissed her lightly on the lips.

She closed her folder and set it down. “Getting hungry?”

He was back to pacing. “Yeah. Have time to shower?”

“Sure. Maddie’s out with Oliver. She’ll enjoy not being rushed.”

He wiped the top of his head with the sleeve of his shirt. “Maddie figured out what kind of pizza she wants tonight?”

Sunday nights at the governor’s mansion were pizza nights. Maddie’s favorite. The child could smell a pepperoni six streets over. She spotted pizza deliverymen quicker than Mackenzie spotted a nice pair of shoes.

“She’s not branching out this week, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

He laughed. “I guess after almost three years of the same meal every Sunday night, I should quit hoping. But what’s life without a little hope, huh?”

She smiled. “A little hope got us a long way, didn’t it?”

“That’s what I’m saying.”

The phone rang on the side table by Mackenzie. She picked it up. In a few moments she said, “Sure, Joseph, send him up.”

Gray looked at her. “For me?”

She nodded, certain the disappointment showed. “Yep.” She had hoped for an entire day to themselves without an interruption.

He looked at his watch. “Well, we made it almost twenty-four hours. Unfortunately not all of those were in the same day.”

The buzzer sounded at the entrance to the mansion’s family quarters. Mackenzie watched as Gray walked down the long, carpeted hallway.

This was a piece of the sacrifice—the only piece that really got to her. The capitol hill bickering she tried to ignore. The picketing of events outside the mansion she saw as people’s rights to their opinions. The media’s interest in Gray’s breakfast choices she simply found silly. But the constant interruptions to their life and the heavy demands on their time challenged her on her best days.

Gray opened the door to Kurt Green, his frazzled-looking chief of staff. Kurt’s white polo shirt hung loosely over his khaki shorts as he hurried through the door. He had been in a rush since Mackenzie had met him. And except for his bald head, he looked virtually the same as when he and Gray were Kappa Alphas at the University of Tennessee.

Gray closed the door and moved past Kurt. “What happened to your phone? It’s Sunday. You should be doing something. Family something.”

Kurt’s flip-flops beat against his heels as he followed Gray across the thick damask carpet and into the living room. “Okay, sure. I’ll call next time.” He extended a folder from his hand. “But today we’ve got a lawsuit on our hands.”

Gray reached out and took the file from his friend’s hand. “I know. The lawsuit from that victims’ advocacy group over the prisoner release.” He raised an eyebrow at Kurt. “The lawsuit we agreed to look over next week.”

“That was before the press got wind of it and decided it would make a great Monday morning headline.” Kurt ran his hands across his hairless skull—a bad habit Gray jokingly claimed had led to his present state. “Stuff like this is what completely destroys reelections.” Kurt had been thinking about the reelection since the day Gray took the oath of office. Maybe even before.

Gray scanned the file. “A reelection campaign won’t prevent me from doing what needs to be done, Kurt.”

Kurt shook his head. “Well, that’s fine, Gray, but we’ve got to respond to this
now
. There are Democrats and Republicans alike who want you out.”

“And there are Democrats and Republicans who will change their minds tomorrow. It’s those same Democrats and Republicans who have left this state with no choice but cutbacks. I would prefer to not release prisoners either. But it’s nonviolent offenders only, and it’s better than firing schoolteachers.” Gray closed the folder and handed it back to Kurt. “Though I still haven’t ruled out shutting down the government and letting everybody go a couple of months without paychecks.”

Kurt looked at the file in his hands, then back at Gray, his expression utterly dumbfounded. “We are just a little over a year away from an election, Gray. We have made huge progress in this state in spite of all the budget issues we’ve faced, and there’s so much more we need to do. We can’t let something like this lawsuit prevent the voters from seeing the real impact you’ve made here. Remember, voters have short memories.”

Gray’s sigh was heavy in the room. Mackenzie felt her shoulders sag. She knew he was going to work now. “I’ll give you two hours,” he told Kurt.

The veins in the front of Kurt’s head stopped bulging. “I’ll call Fletcher. He can come over and help us draft a statement.”

“You can call him from my office.” He motioned toward the stairs, but Kurt was already there. Gray walked over to Mackenzie, gave her another small kiss, and ran his hand through her soft black hair. “Sorry, babe. Save me some pizza.”

She puckered her lips. “Yep, I’m sorry too. And no one likes your pizza, remember?”

He laughed. He was sensitive to dairy, so his pizza never had cheese. Maddie declared it gross. Oliver found it intriguing. “Good thing, then, huh?”

“Two hours only, right? It
is
Sunday. Even the governor deserves some rest.”

She watched his brow furrow, and he opened his mouth to speak.

“I know. I know,” she interrupted. “We knew this part when we took the job.”

“I’ll be done as soon as I can.”

She watched him as he too headed downstairs toward the office he kept there. And sighed. Over the last three years, it seemed, she had seen more of him going than coming.

Chapter 2

“Berlyn, give me a break. I don’t have a shred of desire for that man. Seriously, you and Dimples need to get you a life.” Eugenia snatched up the Skip-Bo cards scattered across her glass-topped breakfast table and plopped the deck in front of Sandra.

She’d known the women gathered around her table since grade school. Their mamas had been friends, and so the progression of their friendship had felt natural, even though Eugenia was the youngest of the bunch. They called themselves the last four remaining Franklin natives, since most everyone else in the city was a transplant. And even though she knew she could never live without them, they had the ability to make her madder than a hornet.

Dimples, the oldest of the bunch at seventy-four, picked up one of Eugenia’s good cloth napkins and coughed right into it. Eugenia tried to give her the eye. But poor Dimples only had one good eye. The other was so cockeyed she had to tilt her head just to look at you straight. So Eugenia was pretty certain she never really saw her looks of disapproval. If she had, she would’ve quit hacking into Eugenia’s napkins forty years ago.

Berlyn stood up from the table and tugged at the low-cut blouse she had tried to cram her double-Fs into. The resulting floral explosion only enhanced how big they were. Berlyn was a year older than Eugenia—seventy-one—but still had her grandchildren telling people she was thirty-nine. Eugenia was pretty sure Berlyn had convinced even herself it was true.

Berlyn picked up her glass Coke bottle—the only way she’d have a Coke—and headed toward the trash can. “Say what you will, Eugenia Quinn, but everyone knows you and Burt Taylor got the eyes for each other. Ever since that wife of his died from heatstroke trying to beat you for the best hydrangeas in Franklin, he’s been after you.”

Eugenia huffed. “You sound like you’re twelve, Berlyn. Mary Parker Taylor did not die trying to beat me at anything. She died from pneumonia in the wintertime and was a beautiful lady who was never in competition with me like you are.”

Berlyn huffed back, but Eugenia went on. “Besides, I have had eyes for one man and that is all.”

Sandra got up from her side of the table and picked up her empty iced tea glass. Her gnawed lemon lay at the bottom of the glass as if a piranha had spent the afternoon with it.

Sandra was actually only two months older than Eugenia but had always acted just plain old. She was the most prim, most proper, and according to Berlyn, the most prudish. She didn’t know how to not dress up, and most of the time the collars of her clothes looked like they had a stranglehold on her neck. Even her short-sleeved blouses had ruffled collars.

“He is such a sharp man, Eugenia,” she said. “So dapper and refined. There would be nothing wrong if you two went out on a date. But I do agree that Berlyn’s characterization of it is simply tawdry.”

Berlyn grabbed a toothpick and jammed it in her mouth—something Sandra swore ladies never did. “You read too many bad Southern novels, Sandra. Get out of books and into the land of the living. No one has said
tawdry
since Scarlett O’Hara.”

Dimples rose, leaning slightly to the right as if she were trying to follow Sandra with her good eye. “I think he’s hot,” she announced.

Eugenia about swallowed her teeth—and she and Berlyn were the only ones in the room who actually still had theirs. Sandra would deny that to her grave, but Dimples would just pull hers right out of her mouth to clean them whenever she needed to.

“Dimples Bass, what in the world do you know about someone being hot?” Eugenia asked.

Dimples came into the kitchen and scratched at her head, her blue curls moving beneath her hand as she did. “I know my fifteen-year-old great-granddaughter says that about that boy who sings those songs about pop.”

Berlyn sidled up next to her and leaned down toward her ear. “You mean, sings pop songs.”

“Yeah, sings them pop songs. Says he is h-o-t, hot. And I’ve seen Burt Taylor, and—” she leaned against the side of the granite countertop, more to hold herself up than anything else—“well, he
is
hot!”

That was it. Eugenia swatted them out of her house and bolted the door. As she returned to the kitchen, she dropped her clothes along the way and walked through the house plumb naked, just because she could. She poured herself some sweet tea, grabbed her iPod, climbed into the tub, and clicked on her new Kenny Chesney album.

Who cared if she had borrowed the CD from the kid up the street? Mackenzie might call it stealing. And Eugenia’s late husband, Lorenzo, a circuit court judge, would probably agree.

But after a night like tonight, Eugenia just called it therapy.

Chapter 3

Gray stepped out into the early morning and stretched hard, letting loose a loud grunt as he did. He heard Jeremiah chuckle. If not for the laughter, he would never have seen the lanky figure striding up the driveway with all of Gray’s morning newspapers tucked under his arm.

“Greetin’ the mornin’, Gov’nor?”

“Yep.” Gray put his hands on the waistband of his khaki slacks. “Thought I might beat you out here this morning, Jeremiah.”

“Gov’nor, you should know one thing ’bout me. I always gon’ be here right at five thirty so I can get the boys started. And I always gon’ be
leavin’
right at five thirty too. Been that way these twenty-five years, and I ain’t thinkin’ it gon’ change much ’til I up and retire. Besides, these is the best hours for a gardener.” He extended the bundle of papers toward Gray with another chuckle. “I ain’t knowed we was racin’ anyways.”