Dead to the Last Drop (43 page)

Now Mike was grinning, too. “So,” he said, “do you need a date?”

Before I could answer, he added—

“An even better question: Are you ready to set one?”

E
pilogue

T
HE sky over Washington was cloudless that day, the temperature kind. The only wet drops present were on the cheeks of the wedding guests at the sight of the retired young army sergeant in full dress uniform with a deep blue eye patch, awaiting his bride. Standing beside him was his best man, Gardner Evans, unable to suppress his grin.

Four hundred guests and two hundred staff were assembled in the West Wing’s garden that June, and (unbelievably) I was one of them.

Abby, no longer in black, walked down the aisle to her own solo organ arrangement of “Fix You.” And when the reverend pronounced them husband and wife, the Jazz Masterworks Orchestra struck up the joyous end to that song, now and forever their personal duet.

As for Bernie Moore, he was present to witness the happy union, but he almost wasn’t . . .

The First Lady had objected strongly to Abby’s real father attending the ceremony, but Abby countered with a strategic invitation to her good friend, former White House Curator, Helen Hargood Trainer, who brought Bernie as her “plus one.”

“Now, Mother, we can’t be ungracious . . .” she’d cooed when the First Lady discovered she’d been trumped.

Yes, it seemed after four years studying political science, Abigail Prudence was finally learning how to win the game of politics in her own family—ironically from her lessons in jazz.

“Swing is about letting go of fears and inhibitions, of prewritten scripts and limiting strictures,” she remembered Gardner telling her. “But it’s also
about balance and equilibrium in the face of very difficult rhythms . . . It’s about the elegant way you negotiate your way through . . .”

Of course, the President was a seasoned veteran of political swing, and as the nation watched, he looked suitably fatherly, escorting the young bride down the garden aisle; and, later, sharing a father-daughter waltz on the polished floor of the East Room.

But Abby had something special planned for Bernie, too.

Amid the crowd of couples, none but a handful of people knew why Abby had requested the band play, “Someone to Watch Over Me,” before tapping the music critic’s shoulder for a special dance.

Mr. and Mrs. Stanley McGuire shared their first dance of married life on that historic floor, as well, with the band playing a song Abby once again publicly dedicated to him: “Our Love Is Here to Stay.”

As for their life after wedlock, Stan and Abby had a plan for public service born of their love of music and their own healing experiences from it. They were starting an outreach program of music therapy for wounded veterans. Their musical tour of VA hospitals was scheduled to start right after their two-week New Orleans honeymoon.

At Abby’s insistence, Agent Sharon Cage would accompany them as the head of their traveling Secret Service detail.

My own contribution to the happy couple’s day was culinary. I’d handcrafted a Village Blend coffee especially for them, which would forever be called Over the Rainbow.

Two single-origin beans made up the blend: an earthy Sumatra and a transcendent Sulawesi. Like Stan, the Sumatra provided the grounding beat, a stable, solid-bodied platform for the fragrant, colorful notes of the rarer coffee.

It was in my roasting room that I’d learned the secrets of Sulawesi.

Unlike other beans, when the heat was on, it didn’t show a uniform color, which is why it was easy to look at the mottled little thing and misjudge it. As a result, this special and beautiful coffee was too often mishandled, over-roasted to ruin by those unfamiliar with its potential. But masters of the process learned how to see with more than eyes.

It all came down to a universal lesson:
Appearances can fool you. You must focus instead on what you get in the cup.

Which brings me to the likes of Katerina Lacey, an intelligent, capable
woman who’d stirred increasing spoonfuls of corruption into her work and life until it all became toxic, right down to the last drop.

No evidence was ever found that the President or his First Lady knew anything of Katerina’s criminal actions. Now that the public knew the truth, however, they would have to decide for themselves whether to hold the man accountable.

Would Benjamin Rittenhouse Parker be reelected come fall?

That was up to the American people.

Personally, I was looking forward to an election in the far future. President Stanley Malcolm McGuire had a nice ring to it; and, it seemed to me this country could use a First Couple whose favorite song was titled “Fix You.”

As for Mike Quinn, Katerina wasn’t wrong about his Washington career. Oh, sure, when the story broke about her crimes, the attorney general himself shook Mike’s hand for the cameras. But the man’s smile was plastic and when the cameras stopped rolling, it melted off.

As a whistle-blower in a political town, Mike knew his career in DC was over. But he didn’t care. Over the next few months he wrapped things up at the Kennedy Building and I officially hired the new food and beverage director for the Village Blend, DC—my daughter, Joy, who was excited about the new challenge. Happily, her longtime boyfriend, Sergeant Franco of the NYPD, was more than willing to commute to DC for visits—and thrilled she’d given up all plans to return to Paris. Joy was back in America to stay.

My ex-husband, on the other hand, was restless to get away, ready to go back to his global hunt for new coffees. As for me, I was looking forward to returning to my cozy, cluttered duplex above my beloved landmark coffeehouse in Greenwich Village.

While Washington offered prestige and glamor, breathless trips to the White House, and a sumptuous home in a historic mansion, leaving it all would not be difficult.

The reason came down to a moment Mike and I shared at Abby and Stan’s wedding.

As the reception wound down, the newly minted husband and wife played a farewell duet for their guests, a song that told of a place they’d arrived at last—“Somewhere Over the Rainbow.”

“I have a question for you,” Mike said, his arms around me as the
couple’s sweet performance came to a lyrical end. “What
was
that secret code you texted to Agent Cage?”

“A profound little phrase,” I replied, “one you can’t help thinking when you’re standing in the American Stories room of the Smithsonian, gazing at Dorothy’s red shoes.”

Mike got it. Pulling me closer, he whispered words that were more than a solution to a mystery. They were a promise for our future.

“There’s no place like home.”

No matter how dreary and gray our homes are, we people of flesh and blood would rather live there than in any other country, be it ever so beautiful. There is no place like home.

—L. FRANK BAUM,
THE WONDERFUL WIZARD OF OZ

COFFEE AND THE PRESIDENCY

A Country Made by Coffee

Only the United States of America can cite a dispute over a hot beverage as the reason for its founding. When the Sons of Liberty tossed imported tea into the harbor during the Boston Tea Party of December 1773, the harsh British response led to the American Revolution, and ultimately, to American independence.

John Adams—Changing Habits

After the Boston Tea Party, coffee became the patriotic drink, while tea was spurned as a “Tory’s brew.” John Adams, the nation’s second President, was taught a lesson in patriotism when he asked a Maine innkeeper to bring him “a Dish of Tea provided it has been honestly smuggled.” He was informed—harshly—that they served only coffee. In a 1774 letter to wife, Abigail, Adams wrote that the incident forced him to change his habits. “I have drank Coffee every Afternoon since, and have borne it very well. Tea must be universally renounced. I must be weaned, and the sooner, the better.”

George Washington—Coffee Importer

The first President of the United States enjoyed coffee before it was fashionable among patriots. Washington was importing coffee for personal consumption as early as 1770. In his final years, he became something
of a gourmet. In 1799 our Founding Father was searching for coffee beans from the “port of Mocha,” then considered the finest beans in the world.

Thomas Jefferson—The Coffee Urn

Thomas Jefferson’s love of coffee was legendary. He called it “the favorite drink of the civilized world.” Like Washington, Jefferson was an importer, preferring beans from the East and West Indies. He gifted silver coffee urns made in Paris to close friends and political allies. One of those historic urns is on permanent display at Jefferson’s home at Monticello. This exquisite example of Parisian silversmithing was purchased by Thomas Jefferson in 1789.

Andrew Jackson—Hooked on Caffeine

“Old Hickory” was the nation’s seventh President, a tough former military leader who won the love and admiration of his troops. Jackson was also the first Chief Executive to cop to an addiction to coffee, as well as another all-American product. “Doctor,” he told his physician, “I can do anything you think proper, except give up coffee and tobacco.”

Abraham Lincoln—The Last Cup

The President who preserved the union in the nation’s most tragic time was indifferent to well-prepared food and drink, which could be attributed to his frontier upbringing. A man of simple tastes, Lincoln was said to prefer “apples and hot coffee” to everything else. His well-known quote about his favorite beverage may be apocryphal: When served an unsatisfactory brew, Lincoln remarked, “If this is coffee, please bring me some tea; but if this is tea, please bring me some coffee.” A solemn symbol of Lincoln’s love of coffee is a gold embossed White House china cup from which he took his final sip. On Good Friday, April 14, 1865, as Lincoln was dressing for an evening at Ford’s Theatre, he left that cup on a windowsill. Hours later the sixteenth President was fatally shot, and a servant preserved the cup as a relic of that tragic night. The cup was passed on to
Lincoln’s eldest son, and preserved as a family heirloom. In 1952 it was gifted to the Smithsonian.

Rutherford B. Hayes—Absence Makes a President Fonder

The nineteenth President of the United States learned to love coffee during the American Civil War, when the Ohio native fought for the Union and was wounded five times. At one particularly low point during the conflict, Colonel Rutherford B. Hayes and his troops had only bad water to drink, and no food at all. Finally a supply sergeant delivered hot coffee and a warm meal to his troops. From that day forward, America’s nineteenth President always cherished and appreciated his daily brew.

Theodore Roosevelt—“Good to the Last Drop”

America’s twenty-sixth President was served Maxwell House coffee at The Hermitage, home of Andrew Jackson, in Nashville, and was said to declare the brew “good to the last drop,” a pithy phrase that has remained the product’s tagline to this day. For a short time, Roosevelt’s face even decorated the can. And why not? Teddy Roosevelt loved coffee and drank up to a gallon a day. His cup was “more in the nature of a bathtub” according to his sons, and he put up to seven lumps of sugar in each cup. Theodore Roosevelt’s affection for coffee was passed on to his sons Kermit, Ted, and Archie, and his daughter Ethel. Together these siblings brought fresh-roasted beans and European coffeehouse culture to America, through a chain of coffeehouses all over New York City—more than half a century before anyone heard the name “Starbucks.”

Franklin Delano Roosevelt—Do It Yourself

FDR was particularly fussy about his coffee. The White House kitchen actually roasted fresh beans for the President, and a coffeemaker was placed on the President’s breakfast tray “so he could regulate the brewing to his satisfaction.” During World War II, when coffee was rationed, Franklin Delano Roosevelt tried to stretch his allotment by reusing the grinds. The results were so unsatisfactory that the thirty-second President gave up coffee altogether.

Dwight D. Eisenhower—D-Day and Beyond

On June 6, 1944, during the D-Day invasion of Nazi-occupied Europe, General Dwight D. Eisenhower spent the day “drinking endless cups of coffee” while waiting for battlefield reports. The burden of leadership was heavy. A casualty rate of 75 percent was predicted, and Winston Churchill was convinced the invasion would fail. To cope with the stress, Eisenhower drank fifteen to twenty cups of coffee and smoked four packs of cigarettes each day. Despite high blood pressure, insomnia, and migraines, Eisenhower continued his caffeine and nicotine habit after he became the nation’s thirty-fourth President. In 1954, alarmed by a spike in coffee prices, President Eisenhower ordered a Federal Trade Commission probe.

John F. Kennedy—Coffee with a Kennedy

During his U.S. Senate campaign, John F. Kennedy’s mother, Rose, started “Coffee with the Kennedys,” a chance to meet and greet the future President. The handsome young politician targeted women voters, and with the help of the prominent women in his family, coffee klatches were staged across Massachusetts. As a junior senator living in Georgetown, those same coffee klatches, now orchestrated by Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy, raised JFK’s profile inside the Beltway, which ultimately led to his election as the nation’s thirty-fifth President. After she became First Lady, Mrs. Kennedy revolutionized the way men and women socialized at the White House. Before Jackie, men retired to one room for their coffee while women were sent to another—which cut women off from important discussions of the day. Mrs. Kennedy put an end to that coffee service segregation forever.

Lyndon Baines Johnson—One Finger on the Button

Famously, Lyndon Baines Johnson had four buttons installed on his desk in the Oval Office. The buttons were marked
Coffee
,
Tea
,
Coke
, and
Fresca
. Historians agree that he pressed the button marked
Fresca
more than any other. Finally, a soda dispenser was installed in the Oval Office to satisfy the thirty-sixth President’s cravings.