“I know,” I told him. As a kid, I had memorized every single U.S. president, and could recite them in chronological or alphabetical order. I could do it right now, if I wanted to. “But none of them were born in Tennessee.”
“Is that right?” Madison said. “Is that right, Jasper?”
Jasper’s face got a little red. “Well, I mean . . . technically that’s correct—” he said, but I cut in, “And Johnson was impeached. And Jackson, c’mon, he was kind of a monster.”
“That’s not entirely—” Jasper sputtered.
“Dolly Parton,” I said, now looking at Bessie, waiting until she looked right at me, “she is way better than Andrew Jackson.” Bessie smiled, her crooked teeth showing, and I smiled back, like we’d played a practical joke on her idiot dad.
Jasper looked like he was dying. He was holding his fork like he wanted to stab me with it. And I knew, right at this moment, that Jasper would find a way to remove me from this house, when it was prudent, when I’d done what he needed me to do. Jasper, like most men I’d ever known, did not like to be gently corrected in public. And I should have been more careful, but I wasn’t savvy. I didn’t see the point.
“Could we go to Dollywood?” Bessie asked, and Jasper was now stone-cold dead. It was beautiful.
As if conjured by a spell, a charm created to intervene whenever the senator had been utterly humiliated, Carl appeared in the dining room.
“Sir?” he said to Jasper. “I’m sorry to interrupt this family dinner, but you have a phone call.”
“Well,” Jasper said, trying to return to his usual nature, “can it wait until after dessert?”
“It’s rather urgent, sir,” Carl replied. “And I believe that perhaps Mrs. Roberts might also want to be privy to the information.”
Madison locked eyes with Jasper, and it was interesting to watch them work, the way they seemed to be two halves of a singular unit, the way they both stood at the same time. Madison kissed Timothy, who acted like maybe his parents were called away for urgent business all the time, and then followed her husband out of the room.
“What’s going on?” I asked Carl, but he shook his head and walked behind the two of them.
“That was weird,” Roland said.
“Do we have to wait for them to eat dessert?” Bessie asked.
I got up and went into the kitchen, where Mary was already plating four slices of chocolate cake. “I’m coming,” she said. “You didn’t need to get up, of course.”
“Looks good,” I said, and she nodded.
“I know,” she replied.
I went back into the dining room with the kids, like I was the most embarrassing guest at a wedding. I tried to think of something to say, but then Mary was putting the cake in front of us, and that seemed to remove the need for conversation. We ate, and then, when we were finished, the four of us just sat there. “Can we go?” Bessie asked.
“I don’t think so,” I said, like I was a child and needed an adult to excuse me from the table. “We can’t just leave Timothy here.”
“We can bring him to the guesthouse,” Roland offered.
“Do you want to see the guesthouse?” I asked Timothy, who merely shrugged, like a puppeteer had a slight tremor and the strings connecting him to Timothy had moved ever so slightly.
And I liked the idea of taking Timothy hostage, of forcing Madison or Jasper to come get him.
“Let’s go,” I said, and I helped Timothy out of his seat and we all walked across the manicured lawn to our house, all lit up and happy and deranged.
“What do you want to look at?” Roland asked Timothy, who again just shrugged. Bessie ignored the boy and pulled a book off the shelf and pretended to read it. I knew she didn’t want the boy in our house, since he already had so much.
Roland showed Timothy an Etch A Sketch, and they each handled one of the knobs, working together to make a mess on the screen.
I sat next to Bessie and watched the boys play fine enough, though they didn’t really talk. Every once in a while Roland would grab the toy and shake the shit out of it, which seemed to both frighten and delight Timothy in equal measure. And then they went back to it, Roland watching Timothy more than the screen.
“So, that wasn’t so bad, right?” I asked Bessie.
“I guess,” she said.
“I like this dress,” I told her.
“You don’t wear dresses,” she said. I just had on my jeans and a nice enough top.
“No,” I said, “not really.”
“Do you think Madison likes us?” she asked. I knew how she was feeling, the need to have Madison look at you, direct that sunlight your way.
“Oh, yes,” I said. “She’s stoked to have you guys here.”
“I liked the food,” she offered.
“Mary is the best.”
“She’s scary,” Bessie said.
“Cool people are scary sometimes,” I told her.
“You’re not scary,” she said, and I didn’t know what to say to that.
And then Timothy and Roland tired of the toy and came over to the sofa. Timothy was looking at Bessie, trying to make sense of her. When Bessie finally couldn’t ignore him any longer, she looked at him, glaring. “What?” she asked.
“You catch on fire?” he asked, curious.
Bessie looked at me, and I shrugged. I wasn’t sure what we were or weren’t supposed to tell Timothy. But I guess he knew. Or had overheard. Or could simply sense it; the kid was that spooky that I’d believe this possibility.
“Yeah,” Bessie said, and Roland nodded.
“Can I see?” Timothy asked.
“It doesn’t work like that,” Bessie said.
Timothy touched Bessie’s hand like he thought it might be hot. Bessie let him.
And then someone was knocking on the door, and Madison and Carl appeared in the doorway. Timothy pulled his hand away from Bessie and immediately started walking toward the door. Madison came in. “Look at this!” she said. “Are you having fun?” she asked Timothy, who actually nodded, or what for him was a nod.
“Well,” she said, “we’d better get back to the house.”
“Where’s Dad?” Roland asked.
“Well, he’s been called away on some important business,” she said, as much to me as to the kids. “Very important. But he’ll see you again soon.”
Madison took Timothy’s hand and they stepped outside, but Carl hovered in the doorway, which I took as a sign for me to come talk to him.
“What’s going on?” I asked. “Is it about the kids?”
“The secretary of state just died,” he whispered to me. “Just dropped dead in his kitchen.”
“Wasn’t he dying?” I asked.
“Well, he was dying, but he was a powerful man. He was going to die very slowly. This was unexpected.”
“So what now?”
“So Senator Roberts has been offered the post.”
“Oh, shit,” I said. “Really?”
“There’s a process that starts in earnest now,” Carl replied, “but they’ve already been doing a lot of preparation. It looks promising.”