The Governor's Lady (5 page)

“I know that, honey. It’s okay. You don’t ever have to live here again if you don’t want to.”

“I don’t.”

Allison was quiet, shy, inward, intensely private. From the time they moved in eight years ago, when Allison was fifteen, she had recoiled from the noise and bustle of living in the state’s most public home. She was suspicious to the point of paranoia. Was the house staff poking in her closet? Why was the door of the medicine cabinet in her bathroom ajar? What were all the strange noises? Cooper did what she could to shield her but knew she often failed. Allison had a perpetually wounded look and hunkered inside it, trying to keep the world at bay, just as she hunkered over whatever sketch pad or easel she was working on, hunkered over her food at the table. “Sit up, Allison,” Pickett would say at the rare meals when he was home. “I
am
sitting up,” Allison would reply, and slump her shoulders even more.

“I’m glad you came,” Cooper said after a moment. Pickett had wanted to send a state plane to pick her up in Atlanta, but Allison insisted on driving. Cooper glanced again at her watch. They would have to leave for the Capitol in fifteen minutes.

Allison looked up, saw the glance. “Don’t worry, I won’t make you late. And don’t worry about me misbehaving and screwing things up.”

Cooper stood, went to the closet, opened it. It was full—dresses, coats, shoes. Allison had left the nice stuff at home when she went off to Atlanta. “People at school who dress like freaks usually don’t have much talent,” she had said. “They think if you look like an artist, that’ll get you by. People who have talent don’t bother.” And Allison had talent. She was stunningly good with a brush or pencil—quick, keenly observant, creative, eager to try anything. Honors in college. Now at one of the best art schools in the country.

“Do you want to get dressed now?”

“I’m not wearing a dress. I know Dad’ll be pissed, but I’m wearing slacks.” She had a shy inwardness but also a stiff backbone. She could be maddeningly stubborn.

“Slacks will be fine,” Cooper said. “Don’t worry about Dad. It’s my day, not his.”

Allison didn’t move. There was something wistful in her face. “I’m sorry, Mom. I know it’s your big day. But it’s the same old thing all over again—being on display, people watching everything you do, pulling and tugging.”

“That’s hard on you.”

“Yes, it is.”

“And you thought it was behind us.”

Allison rose finally, went to the closet, began rummaging. She pulled out a white blouse and a pair of gray slacks. She might be an artist, but she wasn’t much for color in her clothes.
Maybe
, Cooper had often thought,
she’s trying not to draw attention to herself
.

She held the two garments up. “Okay?”

“Sure.”

Allison shucked off jeans and hoodie, tossed them on the bed. “Yeah, Mom, I thought it was behind us. You kept saying, ‘When it’s over, when Dad’s term is up, we’ll get out of this place. We’ll do this, we’ll do that, we’ll be normal people. We’ll have our own house, we’ll be able to go to a movie without the security spooks following us.’ I thought you really meant it.”

Cooper felt a rush of despair. “You know, honey, it’s a little late for that. Before I agreed to run, we talked, or at least I tried to. You just gave me this pained look and walked off.”

“But what if I had said, ‘No, Mom, you can’t do it’? Would that have made a difference?”

“I don’t know. I honestly don’t. But you didn’t say that. Why didn’t you?”

“I never thought you had a chance. I thought you’d lose and maybe it would be a little humiliating, but that would be okay because finally it
would
be over. But it’s not, and I’m beginning to think it never will be.”

“So it didn’t turn out the way you thought—or hoped. I understand you’re hurt and disappointed, and I’m sorry. But Allison, today is today. Regardless of what accident or fate or black magic or whatever else got me here, I’m here.”

Allison sighed. “Okay, Mom. Whatever. I won’t embarrass you or Dad. I’ll smile and wave, just like I’ve been taught. And then I’ll get in my car and go back to Atlanta and try to be invisible.”

“That’s fine, honey. I’m just glad you came. Thank you.”

“Carter said Grandmother’s here. In the hospital.”

“Yes.”

“You didn’t invite her, did you?”

“No.”

“You know she loves that stuff.”

Cooper made a wry face. “Maybe that’s why I didn’t invite her.” She reached for the doorknob, then turned back. “Allison, I hope you can be invisible in Atlanta, and I’ll do everything in my power to help keep it that way. But I’m going to be anything
but
invisible. And do you know the God’s truth? I like it.”

Pickett had wanted a convertible. “It looks better,” he said. “It says you’re open, accessible. It looks good for the cameras.”

“No,” she replied, “it makes you look like an idiot. People will see it and say, ‘What are those idiots doing up there, going blue in the face and getting frostbite? Don’t they have any sense?’ No, Pickett, I’m not riding in a convertible. I’m not going to look like an idiot, and I’m not going to arrive at the Capitol with my mouth not working because it’s frozen.”

So here they were in a plain blue Ford, easing along the parade route behind a high-school band that did look close to frostbite. Plain blue Fords were all Pickett had allowed in the small fleet of automobiles
that bore him and his entourage about. The two governors before him had used black Lincolns, big boats with darkly tinted windows, which Pickett banished along with the swallow-tailed coats.
Pickett Lanier, motorist of the common man
, Cooper thought.

“I may get me a limousine,” she said. “Does Jaguar make one?”

Pickett glanced at her and rolled his eyes. He lowered his window and leaned out, beaming and waving. On her side of the backseat, Cooper waved from behind glass. Ahead and behind were National Guard units, Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts, a frenzied troupe of Shriners on tiny motorcycles, decorated flatbed trailers carrying everything from business and labor groups to a delegation from the Knights of Columbus—groups that had backed Pickett in years past and had, however reluctantly, let him convince them to work for Cooper.

She was surprised at the size of the crowd on the sidewalks as the parade inched along the wide avenue toward the Capitol at the far end. Young, old, parents holding children on their shoulders, everybody bundled like mummies. A steady barrage of flashes from cameras and cell phones. A sea of placards: COOPER FOR GOVERNOR. And a few touting a different goal: LANIER FOR PRESIDENT.

Cooper said, “I didn’t expect so many people, not on a day like this.”

“We bused ’em in from all over the state.”

She understood again how much all of this was about Pickett, at least in his own mind. Over time, he had become the most self-obsessed person she had ever known, and that included Mickey. Maybe she had asked to run for governor, but Pickett had absolute veto power over the idea, had in fact vetoed it at first before he changed his mind. Pickett made things possible. As much as Cooper spoke her own mind, sometimes to the point of infuriating him, she never got over the feeling of being an appendage.
Well, maybe now …

She glanced back at the other plain blue Ford following them. Carter had his window down, waving, a big grin on his face. Allison was barely
visible beside him in the backseat, window up. They had been close as small children, Allison three years older, protective of her brother. But through the years, as Allison realized their great differences—Carter’s enthusiasm for a public kind of life, her shrinking from it—she pulled back. He seemed to understand and accept it. It was what it was.

They were at the Capitol now, the dome glistening in the weak sun, the broad marble steps cascading in tiers from the portico to the street. The reviewing stand, set up at street level, was already packed with dignitaries. Security men descended on the car, indistinguishable from each other in their dark suits and sunglasses, cords from their radio earbuds disappearing behind their jacket collars. Carter and Allison’s car pulled up behind. Carter bounded out, shaking hands. He knew all the security people. Cooper remembered his sheer delight, eight years ago during Pickett’s first inauguration, at discovering that the trunk of the security detail’s car contained automatic weapons. Carter talked incessantly about it, imagining battles with terrorists, until she made him shut up and told the security detail to keep their guns to themselves.

They were almost at the wooden steps at the side of the platform when Plato stopped them to whisper in Pickett’s ear, glancing at her.

Pickett made a face, spoke quietly to Plato, and then turned to her. “Mickey’s causing a ruckus at the hospital, trying to get ’em to bring her down here.”

She had a brief flash—ambulance pulling up in front of the inaugural stand, Mickey being lifted out and brought on a stretcher up to the platform to recline regally beside her daughter, basking in a moment she had little to do with but was perfectly willing to take credit for.

“I took care of it,” Pickett said. “Come on, we’re backing up traffic.”

The security detail crowded at their backs, moving them up the steps. On the platform, she and Pickett made quick work of shaking outstretched hands as they moved to the front of the four rows of chairs. Cooper paused for a moment with the ancient chief justice of the State
Supreme Court—defiantly clad in swallow-tailed coat, striped pants, and cravat, as he had always been for inaugurations. Old enough and ornery enough to stand dodderingly for tradition. She shook his hand, leaned close, and spoke into his good ear: “I like your suit.” He pulled back slightly in surprise, and she winked at him and moved on.

And then came Woodrow. They regarded each other for a moment, and then he stuck out his hand and turned on a smile that seemed genuine enough. “Congratulations, Governor.”

She held his hand for a moment, then released it. “And you, Lieutenant Governor. I look forward to working with you.”

“We’ll see what we can do,” he said.

It sounded formal, as it should—not just because of who they were here today, but what they had been to each other eons ago, in those days when she might have been Woodrow Bannister’s first lady. Woodrow was alone today. His wife hadn’t been seen in public since back in February, when he announced he was backing out of the race for governor because of her unspecified illness, leaving the field open.

Cooper moved on, knowing Pickett and Woodrow would be exchanging polite banalities now. She didn’t want to see or hear that.

They greeted the other elected officials and their families—the incoming attorney general, secretary of state, treasurer, auditor, secretaries of agriculture and education, all to be sworn in and given brief moments to speak. They all looked distressed—pinched cheeks, red noses, watery eyes. She hoped the cold would keep their speeches short. She had already warned Pickett when he asked if she minded his saying a few words: “All right, but if you try to make a campaign speech, I’ll start groaning. Loudly. Mine is two pages. See if you can do half that.”

And he did. When the other swearing-ins were over, he rose to the applause swelling from the crowd. They were packed together for warmth—people from the sidewalks, the band members, others from the parade. Cooper glanced at the television camera mounted on its
own platform to the side, part of the live broadcast, saw that it was sweeping the crowd. It must look impressive, as Pickett wanted. Keeping his remarks short and familiar, he trod well-worn, comfortable territory. More than sixteen years ago, running for lieutenant governor, he had appeared in a TV ad, standing in front of the Capitol and wearing a look of righteous indignation: “This is
ours
, not
theirs
!” That had become his mantra, and still was. Pickett Lanier, champion of the little guy. She listened and in her mind silently spoke the words with him. Had he collapsed, she could have given the speech herself.

“You have given my wife the great honor of leading and serving.” He was finishing up. “I am incredibly proud of her, and confident that she will lead and serve with grace, dignity, and commitment. She will do so with my love and support and gratitude.”

He stepped back from the podium and motioned to her.

She reached first for her children, taking each one’s hand, holding it tightly for a moment.

Carter’s eyes glistened, his face wreathed in something far deeper than a smile. “Go get ’em, Mom,” he whispered.

Allison took a deep breath. “It’s okay,” she said.

Cooper released their hands, and they stood together and started toward the podium.

The chief justice joined them. Pickett held the Bible that had been handed down from the first days of statehood. Her left hand rested on it while she raised her right and repeated the words, “I, Cooper Lanier, do solemnly swear …”

When it was finished, Pickett kissed her cheek and then leaned to the microphone: “Ladies and gentlemen, friends and citizens … Governor Cooper Lanier.”

Warm applause swept over her, a mixture, she thought, of many things: a sense of the significance of this moment in the state’s history, a bit of wonder and even puzzlement that it had come to pass, an
expression of hopeful goodwill leavened with a healthy dose of skeptical expectation. She and Pickett and Carter and Allison stood together, arms linked, while the applause went on. Then she released them, they went back to their seats, and she took the pages of her speech from the folder and placed them in front of her, smoothing them at the edges where they had become wrinkled from much handling. She looked out across the throng and thought for a moment of the inaugurations she had witnessed from this platform. Always, she had felt a sense of being on the cusp of things possible.