The President's Daughter (7 page)

The teapot summoned from the kitchen, and Dina hurried to silence its annoying shriek. She made her tea and went into the den, where she studied the notes she had made for Monday’s 6:00 A.M. appearance on the local news. Last visit she had talked about caring for shrubs through the winter. This week, she’d talk about pruning—which shrubs to prune in the spring and the best way to do it. The station liked to shoot these segments on location there at the nursery, which was perfect. Besides the fact that she’d have plenty of specimens to choose from, it was excellent publicity for her business.

While her tea cooled, Dina called down to the greenhouse, expecting Polly to answer, and was startled when a blast of unintelligible sound assaulted her unsuspecting ears.

Dina pictured William scrambling to turn down the music.

“Yeah, Dina, hi.”

“Wow, William.” Why, she wondered, was this child not deaf? “You know, you shatter the windows down there, you’re going to have to clean it all up.”

William laughed self-consciously, then turned the radio down even more.

“I thought
soothing
music was recommended for plants, William. What is that, anyway?”

“Mötley Crüe,” he told her. “The hollyhocks like metal.”

Dina rolled her eyes and shook her head as if to shake away the ringing in her ears.

“Now, the annuals, I think they like classic rock the best, but the perennials, they definitely prefer metal.”

She could imagine her young employee, his brown hair pulled back from his face in a ponytail, his glasses etched with a touch of condensation, his quietly amused smile as he offered his theory on the musical preferences of plants to his boss.

“Is Polly down there with you?” As soon as she asked the question, Dina realized how unnecessary it was. If Polly had been there, the radio would have been tuned to golden oldies and the Crüe would have been replaced by the smooth sounds of Motown at a fraction of the decibel level.

“Polly went up to her place around one. She was here for a while, but she was sneezing and coughing a lot so I told her I’d finish up mixing the soil for the stuff you wanted to pot up this week.” William paused, then asked, “Was that okay? I mean, she seemed really sick.”

“No, that was fine. Absolutely. She’s been coming down with that cold for the past few days. Thanks for taking over there.”

“No problem. I like this part of the work, you know? I like the greenhouse and all. Planting up those flats and watching the little shoots come up. It’s cool.”

“William, you have the makings of a fine nursery-man.”

“Thanks,” he mumbled.

“You’re welcome.” She smiled, knowing that his adolescent face had turned scarlet, as it always did when Dina praised his efforts. “I’ll be coming down in a while. If you leave before I get there, just leave the door unlocked.”

“Okay. I’ll probably be heading out after I finish with this mix. Unless you need me for something special.”

“No, you go on whenever you need to. There’s nothing that has to be done this afternoon. Just don’t forget to fill in your hours on the calendar.”

He was a good kid, she thought as she hung up the phone. In spite of his dizzying taste in music, he was an all-around good kid. Hard worker. Honest. Dependable. A quick study. A raise was probably in order, she was thinking as she pulled on waterproof boots to prepare for her short trek to the greenhouse.

Dina stopped in the kitchen to call Polly, then chatted with Erin, who informed her that her mother was napping because she had a cold.

“Don’t wake her, honey,” Dina told her. “Just let her know that I called and that she can get back to me whenever she’s feeling better. It’s nothing important.”

“Okay.”

Dina was smiling to herself as she got a rain jacket out of the closet. Erin was such a sweet child. For the briefest of moments, Dina considered the special tie that held Polly to Erin, mother to daughter, that same tie that connected her to Jude.

Endless circles,
Dina reflected as she trod on stepping-stones touched with a silvery glaze where sleet had turned to ice. Mother to child and child to mother, on and on, through time, a certain and necessary continuation. Dina wondered if it was in her cards to one day form a link of that chain with a daughter of her own.

Assuming, she thought wryly, that she’d find that man who could . . . what had she said to her mother? Raise her heart rate? A man who set her pulse racing and brought a smile to her lips and filled her nights with dreams.

He had to be out there somewhere.

She wondered what it was going to take to find him.

CHAPTER SIX

Miles Kendall reminded Simon a bit of his grandfather, who, in spite of his frail physical condition and his own loss of memory, had lived to the ripe old age of eighty-six before succumbing to pneumonia five years ago. Simon had never quite forgiven himself for not making the trip back to Iowa during those last few weeks before his grandfather’s death. The fact that he probably wouldn’t have recognized Simon didn’t matter. He should have made the effort and hadn’t. He’d never ceased to regret it. That regret may have been at the heart of Simon’s decision to pay a second visit to St. Margaret’s.

On his way, Simon stopped at a convenience store where he filled up the Mustang with gas and stocked up on mints. Minutes later, he parked in the lot at the home, locked the car, and headed for the front door, mints in one pocket, his tape recorder in the other.

“You’re back.” June, the nurse’s aide he’d met on his first visit, waved from a concrete bench that was set in a patch of sunlight to the left of the steps.

“I thought I’d stop in for a minute and drop off some mints for Mr. Kendall.”

“That’s nice of you. He’s feeling pretty spunky today.” June closed the book she’d been reading.

“Spunky?”

“Oh, yeah. He’s been talking all morning about a trip he and his sister took to Chicago on the train. Sounds like they had a hell of a time.” June laughed.

“Is he in the same room?” Simon paused with his hand on the doorknob.

“The dayroom, yes. You remember how to get there?”

“Yes. Thanks. Through the French doors and straight ahead to the end.” Simon paused in the doorway. “Did he say what his sister’s name was?”

“Yes.” June nodded. “Dorothy.”

Simon stepped into the cool quiet of the lobby and waved to the receptionist, who never missed a beat in her telephone conversation while pointing to the sign-in book. Simon wrote his name and the date and proceeded on his own to the dayroom, where he found Miles Kendall in the same chair close to the windows.

“Hi, Mr. Kendall,” Simon said as he approached the chair.

Kendall turned and smiled. There was a life in his eyes that Simon hadn’t seen in his previous visit.

“How are you today?”

“Quite well. And you?” Kendall appeared alert and tuned in to his surroundings.

“I was just speaking to June outside,” Simon said as he pulled up a chair.

“June?”

“One of the aides.”

“Ahhh, the cute little strawberry blonde?”

“Yes.” Simon smiled. The old man may be forgetful, but he wasn’t blind. “June was saying that you’d told her about a trip you took to Chicago with your sister.”

Kendall nodded. “I met Dorothy in New York, and from there we took the train to Chicago. It was very pleasant; do you remember?”

“I wasn’t there with you,” Simon told him. “What year was that?”

“It was for Cousin Eileen’s wedding. Lovely week in May we spent there.”

Simon’s heart fell. He couldn’t even begin to guess at what year it might be in Miles Kendall’s world.

Simon dug his hand into his pocket and pulled out a box of mints. He had started to hand them to Kendall when the old man said, “Dorothy wanted to stay an extra week, but I had to get back to Washington.”

Simon’s hand froze in midair and his heart tripped at the words.

“Flying was faster, but Dorothy wouldn’t fly, so I took the train out and back with her,” Kendall added.

“Why were you going to Washington?”

Bony fingers reached out and grabbed the box of mints. “Because I worked there, of course.” He scrutinized the box, shook it, and started to bite into an end.

“Of course. I’d forgotten.” Simon took the box and opened the bottom flap before handing it back to him. “When Graham was President, you worked in the White House.”

“You do remember.” Kendall popped a mint into his mouth and sucked on it loudly. “Remember when the bagpipers were there? They always had bagpipers around Christmas. That Christmas . . . remember the Christmas Ball?”

Simon nodded and slipped a hand into his pocket to turn on his recorder. He shouldn’t, of course, record without permission, but since asking for permission might only serve to distract Kendall, Simon let it pass. After all, no one would ever know about the tape. Simon only intended to use it in place of the notes that he would normally take on paper, and who knew that even that might serve as a distraction to the old man? The last thing Simon wanted was to run the risk of stopping the flow of memories now that Kendall apparently had some.

“Wasn’t she lovely that night?” Kendall stopped chewing for a long minute and looked out the window, as if watching something that only his eyes could see.

“Beautiful.” Simon leaned forward hoping to catch every word.

“She wore that long dress of pale lavender. Matched her eyes. We danced and danced. . . .”

“She was your lady friend?”

“She danced like . . . well, light as a cloud. Everyone was watching us.” Kendall began to slip into the past. Simon wasn’t sure where it would take them, but he was happy to follow. “All the women, they all wanted to be her; you could tell by the way they looked at her. And all the men wished they were me. If they only knew . . .” He shook his head slowly; a sadness settled into the lines of his face.

“She was
who,
Mr. Kendall?”

“She could light up a room just by walking into it. And her laughter . . . just like those little silver bells on the tree.” He cocked his head slightly to the side, as if listening. “She loved to dance. And everyone wanted to dance with her. Cut right in whenever they saw a chance. But not
him
. Not that night.
She
was watching him like a hawk that night.”

“So all the other guys were lining up to dance with your lady?” Simon wondered who
him
and
she
might have been. “That’s some feeling, isn’t it, when all your friends stare at your girl and wish she was with them?”

“Oh, not really my girl,” Kendall said softly, the sadness deepening. “Not really. She never could see anyone but him.”

“Your lady had her eyes on someone else?”

“Who could blame her? He was everything.
Had
everything . . .” The tired blue eyes drifted to the window and beyond once again. “He couldn’t stop looking at her, couldn’t take his eyes off her. And
she
knew; if I’d suspected it before, I was pretty certain then. ‘This is dangerous,’ I told him. ‘Can’t you see that she’s watching every move you make?’ Of course, he knew that I loved her, too. Maybe he thought I just wanted her for myself.” He turned back to Simon and smiled a half smile that was etched with pain. “And of course, I did.”

“You and a friend were in love with the same woman,” Simon said softly.

Kendall nodded.

“And he was married? It was dangerous because he was married and his wife was there, too?” Simon was touched that, so many years later, Kendall still felt the loss of his old love.

Another nod.

“I’m sorry, I don’t remember her name—”

“Blythe.”

“Of course, Blythe. And she came to the party with you.”

“She always went there with me. Everyone thought she was my girl, because she always came there with me. But she was his. She was always his. Only his.”

“Remind me again who
he
was.” His curiosity piqued, Simon leaned forward.

Just far enough for Kendall to drop a bomb in his lap.

“Graham,” Kendall whispered. “She was always Graham’s.”

When his wits resurfaced, Simon asked, “Graham Hayward? The President of the United States, Graham Hayward?”

Kendall paused, his face softening just a bit, as if suddenly amused. “She was so young. Much too young for him. Much too young for me. And yet, we both . . .”

Kendall stopped, as if unable to speak the words.

“Loved her.”
Mr. Morality, Graham Hayward?

“Yes. We both loved her.”

“And you took her out in public because he could not?”
Graham “High Road” Hayward?

Kendall’s eyes welled up.

“That must have been very hard for you, sir. To be with the woman you loved, knowing she loved someone else.” These were the ramblings of a confused old man, weren’t they?

“Every minute she was with me, she was only waiting for the time she would be with him.”

Simon reached out a hand to touch Kendall’s arm. “Mr. Kendall, are you saying that Graham Hayward had an affair while he was President?” He tried to keep the words from gasping out of his mouth.

Tears sped down Kendall’s face, some falling onto his chest as he nodded.

“Graham Hayward had an affair?” Simon repeated, wondering if Kendall could possibly be telling the truth. And yet the pain on the man’s face was so keen. Even after the passage of so many years, it had a fresh, new look.

“Yes.”

“With . . . ?” Simon had to hear Kendall say it. Say the name.

“Blythe. My Blythe.”

“Are you sure of this? How can you be sure they actually had an affair?”

“Because I brought her to him.”

Stunned, Simon sat back and felt the thunder roll through him. “You brought her to the party . . .” He swallowed hard, trying to imagine how it might have been.

“As my guest, yes. And we would stay, sometimes, stay the night at the White House. Until it became too dangerous. And only when
she
was out of town, of course.” Kendall’s voice had fallen to a whisper so low that Simon had to lean forward to hear him. “Blythe loved him, but she would never have dreamed of staying there while
she
was there. It just wouldn’t have been . . . right.”

The rest hung between them, unspoken.

“By ‘
she
’ do you mean the First Lady?”

Kendall nodded.

“Was she aware of the affair?”

“There were times when she would look at me . . . at Blythe. At
him.
Nights when she never let him out of her sight. For a long time I wondered if she knew, or if she merely suspected. But there at the end, I believe that she knew.”

“The end? How long did this go on?” Simon asked. “This affair. How long did it last?”

“Till she died.”

“Until Blythe died? When? How did she die?”

“She left, remember? But she came back.” Kendall’s bottom lip began to quiver uncontrollably as tears began to stream down his face. “I told her not to come back. Begged her to stay away. If she’d stayed away, she wouldn’t have died.”

“Mr. Kendall, when did Blythe die? How did she die?”

“Hit-and-run, they said.” Kendall turned to the window, his mumbled words coming in an incoherent rush between his sobs. “. . . a terrible thing. A terrible, terrible thing . . .”

A stunned Simon sat in the parking lot, keys in the ignition but the engine not yet turned on, trying to make sense of what he’d just heard.

If Miles Kendall was to be believed, Graham Hayward had had an affair while in the White House.

But could Kendall be believed?

On the one hand, Miles Kendall had, admittedly, a frail memory at best. On the other, he’d sure as hell sounded like he knew what he was talking about.

And yet hadn’t Simon plowed through mountains of biographical material about the former President, written material, interviews and articles written by admirers and detractors alike? Nowhere had there been even the slightest hint of scandal. How then could such a story be true?

Could Miles Kendall have made up such a tale?

Yet there had been something in the man’s face, something in his eyes, when he spoke of the woman. Blythe . . .

If it was true and Simon could prove it was true, he’d have one hell of a story.

He started the Mustang and drove slowly toward the exit, his head spinning with possibilities.

He wondered if there might have been something in one of the boxes he hadn’t gotten to yet, then realized that there would be nothing of this story in any of the material he had. Hadn’t all of his research material come from Philip Norton?

Dr. Philip Norton, the keeper of the Hayward flame. What was the likelihood, Simon stopped to consider, that Norton had not known about Blythe?

Yeah, right, Simon snorted. How could he not have known?

Of course there would be no mention of the President’s fling in the material provided to Simon. If Norton wanted a book that cast Hayward in the best possible light, the last thing he’d want would be for that book to air Hayward’s dirty linen. Especially since it had always been believed that there
was
no dirty linen.

And if Norton was in fact in the market for such a book—a book that would perpetuate the myth of Hayward as saint—who better to entrust it to than a former student? Someone who knew and trusted him?

Someone who was writing a book of his own.

Someone who’d need a publisher for that book.

“Damn it!” Simon slapped at the steering wheel. “Damn!”

Hadn’t his mother always said that if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is? Hadn’t his little voice tried to warn him that things might have been just a little too easy? Hadn’t he been willing to overlook the whisperings of that little voice because he wanted what Norton had offered?