The Scarlet Pepper

by Dorothy St. James

  —GROVER CLEVELAND, THE 22ND PRESIDENT OF

  THE UNITED STATES

  NOT knowing who or what to expect to find at the gate or what Francesca was thinking, I emerged from the White House basement and onto a paved sunken courtyard adjacent to the North Portico. Although it was close to six o’clock that June evening, the oppressive heat wave made the warm summer air feel like an old damp dishrag. Even the breeze felt hot and wet.

  I crossed the courtyard and climbed a concrete stairway to the curving driveway that bisected the North Lawn.

  Not for the first time, I felt a surge of pride as I turned a full circle and took in the sight of the White House’s soaring columns. Every inch of the People’s House held a piece of every important man and woman who’d walked these grounds. Stone garlands of oak leaves, acorns, roses, and acanthus leaves had been expertly carved into the White House’s entranceway by stonemasons under the direction of President Thomas Jefferson. President Harry Truman had planted the boxwoods that lined the driveway.

  These were the types of things I hoped to not only protect but highlight as assistant gardener.

  Even though I served at the pleasure of the First Lady and President, I considered the entire nation my client. Not everyone who visited Washington, D.C., would have the opportunity to tour the inside of the White House. Those who did would only see a small portion of the rooms. But the grounds were on display for everyone to enjoy.

  As I took the same path many presidents had walked, I couldn’t help but think that I must have been born under a lucky star.

  I’d come from chaotic beginnings, traveling like a gypsy with my parents from city to city, country to country, often changing our names as we’d flee in the night. Whether my parents were criminals or con men, to this day I still don’t know. My father had abandoned my mother and me shortly after my sixth birthday. The next day, a man with a stubbly beard had murdered my mother while I’d watched. When she died, she took her secrets with her.

  It wasn’t something I liked to think about, but the memories refused to leave me alone lately. They buzzed my consciousness like a swarm of annoying gnats.

  Because I’d lived with a string of false identities for as long as I could remember, it took some time for my grandmother Faye to rescue me from a foster system that didn’t understand how to heal a child as broken and angry as I’d become.

  Treating me as cautiously as one would a wounded animal, Grandmother Faye spoke very little and demanded even less as she carried her tense, bitter grandchild back to Rosebrook, the centuries-old Calhoun family home located in the heart of historic Charleston, South Carolina.

  The four-story mansion was filled with long shadows perfect for hiding. The house became my sanctuary, my place to curl up and lick my wounds. I often hid up in the attic, where the past could be stored and forgotten. I lived in my own world, cut off from my grandmother and two aunts who desperately wanted to love me.

  Then one day as I gazed out an attic window, I fell under the spell of the enchanted walled garden that enveloped Rosebrook.

  Hugging my legs to my chest, I’d watch from that high window with fascination as my grandmother and my spinster aunts, Alba and Willow, worked, often on their hands and knees, tending the flowers, planting vegetable gardens, pruning back ancient hedges with fat, tree-sized trunks. The skirts of their knee-length flowered dresses swished like waves on a beach as the women moved from plant to plant. Their hands were always moving in a smooth rhythm that seemed to calm the fury and fear raging inside me.

  No matter the season or the weather, the three women worked in their garden with a consistency that had been foreign to me, a faithfulness I’d never realized existed and yet had yearned to find.

  One dreary winter morning I crawled down from my perch in the attic and joined the older women as they tended the flowerbeds. Grandmother Faye had smiled, bringing a new brightness to her cornflower blue eyes, and handed me a trowel. Together we planted a rosebush. With its bare roots and thorny, leafless branches, I despaired that the dead stick would ever grow.

  But my grandmother gently encouraged me, guiding my hands while teaching me how to care for the hopeless twig. Come spring, a miracle occurred. First the bright green leaves broke through, softening the bush’s sharp edges.

  Then the flowers arrived.

  Pink. Passionate. Beautiful.

  Seeing those flowers, my heart had started to beat again.

  The gardening lessons that my grandmother and aunts had lovingly taught me—lessons that had been handed down through generations of Calhouns—were what I carried with me all the way to the White House.

  To honor my family and show them in deeds what words could not, I needed to prove myself worthy to tend the President’s gardens. The next test of my mettle was coming up in less than a week with the First Lady’s first vegetable harvest. In this, I would not fail.

  Not even Seth Donahue or Griffon Parker could trip me up.

  With pride and passion for my work fueling my step, I headed down the semicircular North Drive toward the northwest visitors’ gate.

  “This way, Ms. Calhoun.” A well-built member of the Secret Service’s Emergency Response Team, dressed in black military fatigues and lugging a futuristic-looking P90 submachine gun, came up from behind me.

  “Is something wrong?” I had to jog to keep up with his long stride.

  The number of uniformed division Secret Service agents manning the gate had nearly doubled.

  “Potentially, ma’am,” he said. “You need to provide us with advance notice before bringing high-profile guests to the gate.”

  “High profile? I didn’t—” I started to explain, but stopped myself. Shifting the blame wouldn’t change anything. I dug my teeth into my lower lip and pressed on, determined to deal with whoever Francesca had brought and quickly move them to another location.

  “Good evening, Fredrick,” I said as I spotted my favorite guard at the whitewashed clapboard gatehouse. His bright red hair and flushed, round cheeks gave the bulky Secret Service agent a boyish look.

  He smiled as he greeted me. “Your guests are over there,” he said with a tilt of his head toward the front of the gatehouse.

  I saw Francesca Dearing first. I envied her effortless sense of grace. About twenty years older than my almost forty, she reminded me of a glamorous movie starlet from the golden age of Hollywood. She had a timeless taste in clothes, stylishly coiffed brown hair with just a touch of gray, and an apparent knack for always knowing the right thing to say. As a result people wanted to know her and be around her. Including me.

  Dressed in a fashionable pink pantsuit, she hugged the arm of the man standing beside her. His square jaw complemented the muscles bulging in his bare arms. Wavy black hair hung wild about his face. His brown eyes shimmered with laughter. His expression held an arrogant smugness that suggested he thought he was God’s gift to women.

  And, as I’d been told, he was wearing a brightly colored flowered skirt…er…kilt with a black T-shirt. Below his knobby knees he wore a pair of black combat boots very similar to the standard-issue boots used by the military branches of the Secret Service.

  The uniformed division agents manning the gate kept their professional demeanor firmly in place. They were highly trained and prepared for anything. But mischief danced in their eyes as I passed.

  I suspected I’d hear about this again.

  “Casey,” Francesca said, “you don’t have to worry about anything. You said you needed my help with the harvest preparations and here I am. I’m going to make the First Lady’s harvest an unqualified success. Starting with him.”

  A uniformed division agent behind me snickered.

  I turned around to glare and noticed that even the sharpshooters on the White House roof had their binoculars trained in my direction. Unwilling to be intimidated, I gave a wave.

  I whirled back around as Francesca began the introductions. Not that they were needed.

  “You’re G
illis, Gillis Farquhar,” I said, interrupting Francesca, and thrust out my hand. I doubt I would have recognized Gillis if he hadn’t been wearing that outrageous outfit, the same outfit he wore on his weekly gardening show. Take away his colorful kilt, muscular arms, and strong, naked calves, and he’d look rather ordinary.

  “Crikey! Aren’t you a bonny lass to know me?” His Scottish brogue rolled across his tongue. “You’ve seen my show?”

  “Who hasn’t?” I said.

  Gillis Farquhar was the Gordon Ramsay of the gardening world. He hosted two weekly gardening television shows and a daily radio call-in show, and he’d published nearly a dozen how-to books. His latest, Gardening the Farquhar Way: Organic!, was working its way up the bestseller lists.

  Clearly I wasn’t the only one to recognize him. A small crowd of tourists, mainly women, gathered outside the iron fence, cameras snapping away.

  “Gillis! Gillis!” several of the women called in near hysterics.

  He tossed his long hair while waving at the crowd and blowing kisses, which only encouraged his fans to yell louder. More tourists came over to the gate, craning their necks to see what was happening.

  “I was going to suggest we sit in Lafayette Square and talk, but we’d be mobbed.”

  “Oy, canna we go inside, lass, so I can shake hands with your Mr. President man?” He blinked his brown eyes and smiled.

  I so wanted to accommodate Gillis. Gardening celebrities turn up at the White House about once a…never. But without prior clearance, there was nothing I could do.

  “I’m sorry, but we’ll have to—”

  “Ms. Calhoun, you can’t hold a meeting here. Didn’t the training session teach you to stay out of trouble?” Mike Thatch, the special agent in charge of the CAT, trotted toward us. He snarled as his gaze took in the growing crowd pressing against the fencing. “You need to get your guest away from the gate. Now.” The White House Police had already started to herd the crowd of women away. But Gillis kept waving at them, attracting them back.

  “What should I do?” I whispered to Thatch.

  “Plan ahead next time. Give us some advance notice,” he snapped and returned to directing his agents on crowd control.

  Fredrick, bless his kind heart, directed us to step inside the whitewashed guardhouse. He spoke quietly on the phone for a few minutes before producing two visitor’s badges, which he handed to Gillis and Francesca. “You have permission to use a conference room in the EEOB. I’ll serve as your escort.”

  “Dog’s baws!” Gillis exclaimed.

  “I beg your pardon?” I asked.

  “Just my way of saying it’s excellent, lass. We get to go inside after all. Lead on.”

  “It’s not inside the White House,” I cautioned.

  “Then where are we going, lass?”

  I pointed to the Eisenhower Executive Office Building.

  “Cor blimey, that rickety old place?”

  Fredrick rolled his eyes. I rather liked the French Second Empire design of the building. With its steeply sloped mansard roof, the five-story, block-long structure looked as if it belonged in a quaint Paris neighborhood or a doily-draped living room crowded with figurines and knickknacks.

  “Does your girlfriend have a favorite flower?” I asked Fredrick as he hurried us through the metal detector inside the guardhouse and away from Gillis’s screaming fans. Several news reporters came over from the West Wing press room to see what the fuss was about.

  As we crossed the lawn toward the Eisenhower building, every few steps Gillis would stop to wave. I glanced back at the crowd and saw that the journalists had converged on SAIC Mike Thatch. His expression grew all the more grim as he answered each of their questions.

  Tomorrow his name would likely appear in several newspapers. Thatch would not thank me for thrusting him into the spotlight. Nor would he let me forget it.

  “Violets,” Fredrick replied, barely moving his lips. “My Lily likes violets.”

  “Really? Not lilies?” I asked.

  “Go figure.” He shrugged.

  “Monday morning I’ll bring a potted arrangement filled with violets for you to give her.” I touched his sleeve. “Thank you.”

  We entered the Eisenhower Executive Office Building located beside the West Wing. The EEOB, built in the 1880s, like the Treasury building on the other side of the White House, was connected to the White House through a tunnel. The large building housed medical offices, a bank, and offices for most of the White House staff. We followed Fredrick up a flight of bronze baluster stairs to a small conference room on the second floor.

  Once we’d settled in around the oak conference table, I tried to reach Seth Donahue, the First Lady’s social secretary, to include him in the meeting, but he’d already left for the day. I made a mental note to call him over the weekend to brief him on whatever plans we made.

  Over the next hour, Gillis provided several ideas of how he could assist with the harvest. He volunteered to teach gardening lessons to the schoolchildren scheduled to attend. Francesca focused on how his presence would attract additional media attention.

  I frantically jotted down notes while wondering how I could make all these changes before Wednesday. However, while it would mean more work, his suggestions had merit. It’d be a mistake to dismiss them.

  The day had faded into twilight by the time the meeting ended and Fredrick escorted us back to Pennsylvania Avenue. Deep shades of orange and red streaked across the evening sky.

  “We can continue our planning session tomorrow morning at the public garden. You are still coming?” Francesca asked.

  “Of course I am. I’m bringing the petunias,” I said, relieved that Francesca had found something other than murder plots to occupy her mind.

  “Wonderful. And if you have any upcoming meetings with the First Lady, please include me. I want to make sure she knows—”

  “Mrs. Bradley’s schedule is always full,” I interrupted, wondering why I hadn’t realized it sooner. Francesca hadn’t been interested in helping me. It wasn’t friendship that had inspired her to invite Gillis to the White House. She was using the vegetable harvest as a way to bolster her husband’s faltering career. She wasn’t the first wife anxious to forge a close relationship with the First Lady. “I’m sorry, Francesca. Mrs. Bradley doesn’t have time to sit in on meetings such as these, especially not with twins on the way. She receives briefings on our progress, of course.”

  “You’ll make sure she knows I’m working on the plans, though, and that I was the one who brought in Gillis, won’t you?”

  “I’ll send an update to her office first thing in the morning,” I promised and then thanked Gillis for volunteering to help out with the local schoolchildren.

  “She’d said I’d like it here.” His gaze darkened as he stared intently at the White House behind me. The gleam in his eyes was one I’d seen in many of the politicians around here. Ambitious. And power hungry. “She was right. I do like it here. I can’t wait to use my organic gardening method in these gardens.”

  I HAD TO MANUALLY CLOSE MY GAPING MOUTH as I watched Gillis swagger through a throng of adoring fans before ducking into a sleek black town car waiting at the curb.

  “Bruce won’t be done for at least another hour. Annie gave us tickets to a late-night jazz concert at Ford’s Theater. It doesn’t start for hours,” Francesca said. She stood next to me as she hugged herself and gazed out over the tall iron fence that encircled the White House northwest gate. Now that Gillis was gone, she looked as lost and uncertain as an abandoned puppy. The corners of her eyes crinkled as she implored me to take her back to my office.

  “I don’t want to go home alone and face the answering machine. Please, Casey, I could help you hammer out the details for the harvest.”

  “I don’t know.” Until an hour ago, all the details had already been hammered out. Francesca and Gillis had changed several activities. If I spent more time with her, what other changes would she make?

 
“Please, Casey.” She gripped my wrist with crushing strength. Unnerved, I tried to pull away, but she held on with brute force.

  “You’re hurting me,” I said, wincing.

  “Sorry.” She released my wrist. I doubted she realized she’d grabbed me in the first place. “Let me help you so I can feel as if I’m doing something productive instead of sitting around and worrying about what that journalist might do.”

  “Sure, come on,” I said with a sigh.

  Back at the grounds office Francesca chatted happily about nothing really. I only half listened. I was too busy worrying about what Gillis had meant when he’d said he couldn’t wait to get his hands on the White House gardens.

  The First Lady didn’t need anyone to develop an organic gardening plan. One was already being implemented. Mine.

  I glanced over at Francesca as she happily carried on a conversation without any help on my part. Gillis had taken time out of his busy schedule to come down from New York to Washington. What would he want with my job? By the time Francesca and I had tamed the towering piles of official forms on my desk, I’d concluded that I’d misunderstood what Gillis had been talking about. He didn’t want or need my job. And it was late.

  The windows across the hallway from the basement office were draped in darkness. The arched concrete hallway, which tended to carry the slightest sound along its length, had fallen silent. Not a clank or a whirl of whisks could be heard from the busy chocolate shop down the hall. Only a hint of rich, dark chocolate aroma lingered in the air.

  I closed my eyes and breathed in the sweet scent. Attached to that scent was a faint memory that fluttered in the deep shadows of my mind. Something had happened in a quiet, chocolate-scented room once a long, long time ago. I couldn’t quite remember what.

  I didn’t want to remember. Memories were dangerous.

  I jumped to my feet, stuffed my belongings into my backpack, and slung it over my shoulder. “I’m calling it a night,” I announced.

  A few minutes later Francesca and I crossed the North Lawn. While Francesca gossiped about West Wing staffers, my thoughts strayed. I wanted to get home and into a cool shower.