The Governor's Lady (9 page)

“Maybe.”

“Well, think about it. Later, I’ll give you a pop quiz.” Then to Cooper: “Give us a few minutes. A consultation room is down the hall on the right, sign on the door.”

Fifteen minutes, and Cutter was there with two Styrofoam cups of coffee. He handed Cooper one, gave her a hug, and plopped into a chair. He looked weary—deep lines around his eyes, stubble of whiskers on pallid skin. He sipped his coffee while she waited.

“False alarm,” he said.

“The hospital called and said she was dying.”

“Well, she is, but not just yet. Being who she is, the hospital …” He shrugged. “When I got here, she seemed okay. She might have had a panic attack.”

”Knowing my mother, probably not.”

Nolan Cutter had been her first boyfriend, after a fashion, beginning that February day when she was thirteen, the blizzard. Nothing much was moving except the National Guard. Cleve had dispatched one of the Guard’s big trucks to the homes of a dozen of her classmates, boys and girls, and brought them to the Executive Mansion, where they built a snowman in the front yard. Nolan was one of the kids—easy grin, nice, open face, shock of blond hair that poked out from under his toboggan. Cleve watched from the window of the upstairs bedroom where he had set up a temporary command post. Later, he came down and put a hat on the snowman’s head while a TV cameraman and a photographer from the
Dispatch
took pictures.

When they finished the snowman, they trooped around to the back door for hot chocolate and brownies in the kitchen. The National Guard truck returned to load them up for the trip home, and Nolan was the last to leave. She lingered to tell him goodbye, just the two of them, and when he opened the door to go, he turned suddenly and kissed her. It wasn’t just a peck on the cheek either. His lips lingered on hers for a moment, and her hand went on its own accord to his cheek, and she tasted warmth and chocolate and something else indescribable. Then he pulled away, eyes dancing. “I had a really super time,” he said, and bounded out the door, leaving her open-mouthed with astonishment, her hand lingering in the air where his cheek had been.

She told no one. This was just hers, something to hold close and savor. For a few weeks after, they held hands shyly at school and talked on the phone at night. And then the whole thing passed in the way of junior-high romances, and they found themselves just friends, which
they had now been for years, seeing each other occasionally, mostly at social functions. Every time, Cooper felt the faint taste of chocolate drifting up from some well-protected place.

“You look like you’ve been up all night,” she said.

“Emergency surgery about three this morning. Seventeen-year-old kid on a motorcycle tangled with a stop sign. Ripped his chest open. Tried to patch things back together.”

She waited a moment. “Did you?”

He shook his head.

“I’m sorry. Go home and get some sleep.”

He smiled through the weariness. “Yes, Mom.”

“You know, Nolan, you should have stuck with me.”

“I should have stuck with somebody, that’s for sure.” Nolan had been through two wives and was now enmeshed with a rather infamous local attorney who had been through two husbands. “We could run away, I guess.”

“To where?”

“I was in Zambia last year. Medical mission, small villages out in the bush. Sleeping in thatched huts, lions wandering through and roaring in the middle of the night. After a while, I got used to the lions and just slept through the parade. Forgot about the rest of the world. Are you game?”

“Ask me again in a couple of months.”

They sipped their coffee.

“Do you remember the big snow, the snowman?” she asked.

It brought a twinkle to his eyes. “Of course. I’ve still got the clipping from the paper. All of us, and your dad and Mickey, with the snowman.”

“Mickey was there? I don’t remember that. I don’t remember her being there at all.”

“Check the clipping.”

“So what’s her situation now?”

Nolan finished his coffee and tossed the cup into a trash can. “Congestive heart failure isn’t something to recover from, but we have ways to keep it at bay. Medicine can help, but there are also things that have absolutely nothing to do with medicine.”

“Such as?”

Nolan spread his hands. “Maybe something like force of will. People go on long after you think there’s nothing keeping them here.”

“How long can she keep it at bay?”

“Anywhere from now to next year. I learned a long time ago to stop guessing. She’s a good bit better than yesterday. Things are stable. Her heart is precarious, but it’s still ticking.”

“Maybe her orneriness is keeping her alive.”

Nolan studied her for a moment, then: “Whatever works.”

“If I don’t get a cigarette,” Mickey growled, “I’m going to hit somebody.”

Cooper stood at the foot of the bed.
Yes, orneriness. Sick and dying or not, it’s stuck like glue to her
. Mickey looked almost perky, eyes showing a trace of the old dance and flash. She was still hooked to the IV tower and the heart monitor, but the oxygen tube was gone.

“Is that what you called me over here for? A friggin’ cigarette?”

“You don’t have to be nasty,” Mickey said primly. “Such language is inappropriate for someone in your position.”

“Mother,” Cooper said, “you are absurd.”

“They won’t even bring me a newspaper.”

“But they brought you a telephone, for God’s sake. I’d like to know which idiot did that. Whoever brought it can come get it.”

“How can I keep up with all the foolishness going on in the world without a telephone or a newspaper? They keep saying I need rest. Well, I’m worn out with resting.” She rolled her eyes. “I’m almost dead any-way.
What’s a cigarette going to hurt?”

“You’re in a hospital, Mother,” Cooper said, trying to keep her voice even. “They don’t let people smoke cigarettes in hospitals. You can blow yourself up with all the oxygen around.”

“I’m not on oxygen anymore,” she said grandly. “I’m remarkably improved. These people”—she waved her arm, taking in the whole hospital—“can’t believe it. I may last another hundred years.”

“You just said you’re almost dead.”

“Well, maybe fifty. But if I can’t smoke, and if I can’t talk on the telephone or read the newspaper, I’d just as soon go ahead and croak. Then you wouldn’t have to interrupt the crucial affairs of state to tend to your poor old mother. Everybody could say, ‘What a relief for Cooper. The old bitch finally bought the farm.’ ”

Cooper threw up her hands and collapsed in the bedside chair.

“Tough day?” Mickey asked sweetly.

“Don’t.”

Mickey was studying her. “Well, if I can’t have a cigarette, how about a little conversation? These people have no conversational talents whatsoever. All they want to do is stick a thermometer down my throat or a needle in my butt. What shall we talk about? The weather? Hog prices?”

“I can’t think of a thing we can talk about, Mother. We’ve never had much to talk about.”

“Is it snowing?”

Cooper rose, pulled back the curtains, and stood looking out at the lights on the broad boulevard. It was midafternoon now, but street lamps were already on. In the cones of light beneath the lamps in the parking lot below, she saw the first twinkling specks of white.

“It’s starting,” she said. She turned back to see Mickey staring at her.

“How is it going at the Capitol? Not quite what you thought it would be?”

“I’m not sure
what
I thought it would be.”

“What did Pickett tell you about it?”

“Not much.”

“Why not?”

“He was busy.”

“Pickett’s never too busy to do what he wants.”

Cooper’s eyes narrowed. “What do you mean by that?”

Mickey pursed her lips. “Just watch yourself.”

Cooper picked up her coat and purse.

“You know, you wouldn’t be where you are without me,” Mickey said.

“You didn’t have a damn thing to do with it. I made sure of that.”

“I don’t mean your campaign.”

“Then what?”

Mickey wrinkled her brow. “I mean everybody who came before you, all the women, me included, me especially. I proved that women can be as good at politics as men—just as hard-assed, just as stubborn, just as persistent. I never ran for office, but by God, I helped a lot of women who did get elected. Look at the legislature. I’ve lost count. Even fifteen years ago, it was almost entirely an old-boy club. They could spit on the floor, tell dirty jokes, without anybody paying much attention. Now, they have to deal with women, and it has cleaned up the place considerably. And look at all the county commissioners and school-board members, even a woman sheriff upstate. People vote for women, and part of the reason is women like me.”

The effort took the wind out of her. She slumped back against the pillow. “You wouldn’t have stood a chance, even with Pickett’s help, without women like me. We paid your dues.”

“You’re right about all that,” Cooper admitted. “It was your obsession, as I know better than anybody, and I give you credit for it.” She started for the door. “And now, since I’ve stood on your shoulders and won, I’m going back to work.”

“And I’m getting out of here,” Mickey said. “I’m going home, where
I can have a telephone and cigarettes and whiskey and a newspaper and watch all the goddamn television I want.”

“Going home. Of all the things you’ve said since you got here, that’s the one that makes the most sense.”

Snow was coming down steadily, beginning to stick to streets, sidewalks, lawns, a white swirl making it hard to see the Capitol at the far end of the boulevard as Ezra turned onto it and ran into a snarl of traffic. They crept along, pulling even now with the Highway Department building. Workers were pouring out in a rush, heading for the adjacent parking deck, which was disgorging cars and adding to the confusion. Not far from the deck entrance, two cars had tried to occupy the same space and had dented sheet metal to show for it.

Cooper looked at her watch. Just after three. “Ezra, turn on the radio.”

“… Public schools are being dismissed early, and Piedmont Community College has announced that tonight’s classes are cancelled. And this just handed to me … The Governor’s Office says state employees have been sent home. Lots of traffic on the streets, folks, so remember to take it easy….”

“Want me to take you home?” Ezra asked.

“Do I look like a state employee who needs to be sent home?”

“No, ma’am.”

“Sorry, I didn’t intend to bark.”

“Quite all right.”

Her outer office was empty except for a harried-looking Roger and Grace Stoudemeyer, who sat behind her desk next to the inner-sanctum door, white-knuckling a handbag. Grace had been Pickett’s secretary for sixteen years, and now Cooper had inherited her. She was a sturdy but
prim woman in her early sixties, graying hair pulled back tightly from her forehead and anchored at the rear in a ponytail. Half glasses sat perpetually atop her head.

“Grace, what are you still doing here?”

“Mr. Tankersley asked me to stay.” Grace pulled the glasses down onto her nose and gave Roger a stern look over them.

“Well, go home. Be careful and take your time.”

“Miz Lanier … Governor … Not much in this world scares me, but I’m frightened half to death of snow and ice.”

“Good grief, what do you want, a police escort?” Roger snapped.

Cooper kept her eyes on her secretary. “I think that’s a healthy attitude, Grace. Wait a few more minutes and you can ride with me. Mr. Barclay doesn’t strike me as the kind of fellow who’s scared a bit by snow and ice.”

Roger started to protest. “Governor—”

Cooper turned to him and pointed to her office door. “In here,” she said.

Roger followed her and stood while she took off her coat and settled behind her bare-topped desk. She turned and looked out the window. Snow was falling ever more thickly now. The avenue was a parking lot. Flashing red and blue lights. More wrecks, people in a panic. The capital had no equipment to handle snow, and obviously no plan.

“Could be several inches,” she said. “I heard it on the radio. I also heard on the radio about state employees being sent home.” She turned to Roger.