Death of a Political Plant (12 page)

“I help clean up, too, Louise, when you invite me to dinner,” he pointed out plaintively.

“I know, John. And I appreciate it.” She gave him an encouraging smile. He was at the top of his form, just where they all wanted him, ready for a good interview with the fish doctor. Marty, however, was much less good-natured. His dark bushy eyebrows were pulled down in a dark valley of a frown. His brown eyes were wary as he watched her approach. He stepped up to her and put a placating hand on her arm. “Louise, honey, I’ve been thinking things over. I even talked to the G.M. yesterday. This program on the environmental bill—we gotta tread carefully. The G.M. doesn’t like the idea of politicizing
Gardening with Nature.”

Damn. Why did Channel Five’s general manager have to get in on this? “But, Marty, the environment is at the very heart of our program—”

“Yeah, I know, you’ve said that before.” He gave her his most sympathetic look. “Louise, you know I love ya, and I love your work. Okay, G.M. be G-damned, I’ll go this far: We’ll get a script from our clever Rachel, one that doesn’t fawn all over the President. If we were to rerun this program later in the year, the G.M. doesn’t want us to look like fools if Fairchild loses and the Congress rolls back all these drastic new proposals they just passed.” He shook an avuncular finger in her face. “That’s the problem, my dear, in a nutshell. And it ain’t gonna go away too easily. It’s all up to what Rachel is able to do.”

“Okay. But if worse comes to worst, could we pull the program?”

His frown deepened. “We’d catch all sorts of flack about that. We don’t have that kind of money to waste.”

She sighed. The pitch of life was growing faster, and it wasn’t even ten
A.M.
The day had started quietly. Subdued guests sipping black coffee at the antique pine table, nibbling tidbits of sweet buns. With Louise driving Bill’s Camry, the trip to the Hilton also started out quietly, but by the time they reached the Memorial Bridge, the women’s motors had switched on; by the time they reached the hotel, they were revving. Nothing like a big convention to get one excited: seeing old friends and associates from all over the country, taking part in programs, getting up on stage and describing a new plant one has been hybridizing or propagating, “partying down,” as they termed it, at lunch and after the day’s events are over.

She knew one of the places they were partying down tonight was at
her
house. Barbara had prepared tray upon tray of snacks, encased them in plastic wrap, and shoved them in Louise’s refrigerator. Louise had no illusions about a quiet Wednesday evening.

But now she had to tread the long exhibition hall and talk about plants with dozens of different plant exhibitors. She went with the crew for a preliminary walk-through, and stood at the entrance for a moment. The space was enormous, filled with cubicles displaying hundreds of varieties of plants and plant materials, and smelling much better than the normal large hotel space. Earthy, fresh as a spring day.

It only took her five paces inside the hall to fall madly in love. It was a gray stone urn filled with an eye-stopping combination: Heuehera “Pewter Moon,”
Salvia argentea
, blue-flowered Russian sage, and tradescantia, with a pale pink-flowered, scented geranium tucked in the middle. She went over and
touched a heuchera leaf, which was a miracle of good design. The cameraman trailing her had caught up, and his eye, too, was caught by the splendid plants in the gray pot. She told him, “Let’s put this one on our dance card.”

After a feverish three hours of taping, they were at the last booth in the exhibition hall. With Marty satisfied, they were ready to call it a day. It was only then that she noticed a familiar figure standing in the wide corridor, watching her.

Her jaw dropped; it was Franklin Rawlings, his skeletal face stretched into his trademark smile. He gave her a courtly, faintly mocking bow. Of all the people she would have expected to see here, Goodrich’s campaign manager was the last.

He strolled over, as if he had all the time in the world. “Mrs. Eldridge. Why did I know you’d be here?”

“I don’t know, Mr. Rawlings. Why?”

“Because this is just what you should be doing: telling the uninformed public more about perennials.”

“Are you a gardener? Is that
why you ’re
here?”

“Surprised? Do you think I’ve gotten to where I am being a one-dimensional man?” He put out a long, thin hand and touched her arm. “But let’s not the two of us bicker. I was, uh, in the neighborhood. You won’t believe it but there was a political luncheon here today. Just decided to see if you were hanging around at this convention. As I said at that fund-raiser, I hope a major media outlet like Channel Five doesn’t yield to political pressure. The environment is sacred to Congressman Goodrich, just as much as it is to our flawed President. Don’t go out on a limb, young lady. The political winds are changing.”

With that he turned on his heel and strolled down the exhibition hall. She watched him. He stopped and touched
plants in various exhibits, chatted with exhibitors, accepted handfuls of freebies from the plant people, and looked for all the world like an ordinary garden enthusiast and not one of the big political shakers in Washington.

Louise, too, came home laden with sample perennial plants that the growers eagerly thrust into her hands. They occupied two flats that weighed at least twenty pounds each. She carried them separately up to the front porch and set them neatly near the edge, wondering if she would have time to put them in the ground before her guests returned. Tessie, Barbara, and Donna had stayed at the convention, telling her that they would get a ride out with Gil.

She brushed her hands together to wipe off traces of dirt, then looked at her watch. Suddenly, fatigue caught up with her; it had been a tiring day after a late night. In lieu of putting the perennials in the ground, she would go in and take a long nap, Otherwise, how would she ever keep up with these energetic plant people?

When she crawled into bed, she fell immediately to sleep and she dreamed. Strong, muscled women, her P.P.S. friends Tessie, Barbara, and Donna, decked out in military-looking uniforms and yellow hard hats, held chainsaws in their hands as if they were machine guns and ran around her beloved yard like soldiers with a cause, ready to buzz down her trees. “No, stop” she heard herself crying out loud, as she awakened with a jolt. It took her a few moments to come back to the real world. The bedside clock said it was seven o’clock. Time to get prepared: There was going to be a party here tonight.

I
T WAS ONE OF THE MOST AMIA
ble parties Louise could remember. Almost twenty Perennial Plant Society members gathered in the rooms of her house and flowed out onto the patio and into the bamboo garden. Like her trio of houseguests, they seemed to feel at home immediately with Louise. Many had met her during the day as she and the Channel Five crew went through the big exhibition hall taping the show. She gave tours of
the yard and gardens, illuminated now with just a few outside lights so any imperfections fell into the shadows.

Inside, music was playing; a few danced. Others sat around with drinks and talked shop: new automation systems for nurseries, new methods for hybridizing plants, arguments over the use of native plants, new ideas brought up by speakers at the opening day of the convention.

Gil Whitson, Louise noticed, was well-respected by all, as both a leading garden designer and an author of and contributor to garden books. He moved easily from group to group, like a host. Tessie ran the bar, and Barbara and Donna distributed refreshments. In fact, Louise needn’t have been there at all, except to give yard tours and bask in the glory of being next year’s Plant Person of the Year.

Gil finally made his way to where she was sitting talking to a grower. Taking the seat next to her, he said, “I liked that John Batchelder. He did a great job with the interview. By the way, you said your neighbors have a koi pond. Any chance I can go look at it?”

“Yes. It’s straight across the street, and it’s a fairly well-lighted yard, but you’ll still need a flashlight. Come, I’ll get one and go with you; a friend’s staying over there.” She led the way to the kitchen and got the light.

“You don’t need to come. Just point me in the right direction. I always like to see a new pond and be sure the situation is good for the fish.”

“Mary Mougey, whose pond this is, told me to keep an eye out to see that the raccoons don’t eat them.”

“She must have been joking. You would have to sit up all night to guard them from that predator. Anyway, if the pool is deep enough, raccoons won’t jump in and swim after koi.
They will, however, stand on those underwater plant ledges, and with their feet firmly planted, take a swipe at a fish.”

She oriented him toward the house across the cul-de-sac, which had its usual yard lights on, as well as a light in a front window of die Mougey house. Jay was probably buried in his work, for he’d wanted to finish that story before Friday, which was only two days away. Remembering how jumpy Jay had been, she returned to the house and rang up the Mougeys to warn him that Gil would be coming. There was no answer. Oh, well, Gil seemed like an unobtrusive man, who probably wouldn’t disturb her busy writer friend.

She went back to the party and selected a compact disc filled with Tony Bennett songs; Bill’s mother had brought it as a gift when she came to visit earlier in the summer. Then, for a change of pace, she brought out a Charlie Mingus CD to play next. Bennett’s fourth song was playing when Gil returned. She remembered, because she thought he was taking a long time to look at a fishpond in the semidarkness. The first thing she heard was the front screen door slamming shut. She turned, and there he was, looking disheveled and angry, the flashlight hanging in one hand like a club, the other hand jammed in his jacket pocket. His jacket collar was flipped up, and thin wisps of faded blond hair over the top of his head were out of place. The man’s catlike eyes were narrowed with rage in his reddened face.

She got up from her chair and walked quickly over to him.

“Gil, what’s the matter?”

Tessie approached, too, sensing trouble.

“Plenty,” he barked, throwing his hands out to either side in an extravagant gesture. He paced in a little circle near the piano, where a P.P.S. member, bored with Bennett, had been softly competing with “Tea for Two.” He quit when Gil
started his harangue. “I’ve had a tiff. I damned well hate to have such a thing happen.” His loud tone began to fray the edges of the congenial group. Conversations halted.

Louise had a sinking feeling he had run into Jay McCormick. “Did you, uh, run into my friend there? Are—the fish still all right?”

“Good questions, both of them,” Gil answered, in acid tones. “Yes, I met someone, and I gather it was your friend. Louise, he was a
boor
. He knew nothing about fish.”

That sounded like Jay, in his present mood.

“What, uh, exactly, was he doing?”

Gil plucked a cigarette out of a pack, and Louise could see he was dying for a hit of nicotine, but forbore since no one was smoking inside. “I went straight to the back of the house where you said I’d find the fishpond. He was there, crouched down next to the pool. Louise, I think he was loaded. Said something about how it was time to celebrate. But what infuriated me was what he was doing to those fish.”

“What did he do to them?” she asked, catching her breath. She had visions of hundreds—no, perhaps thousands—of dollars’ worth of koi floating on top of the water, dead.

Gil got a handkerchief out of his pocket and mopped his brow, keeping the other in his jacket pocket. “He was crouched down near this crazy crane statue next to the pool, and then he got up and he had this plastic container in his hand filled with remnants of fast food: cheeseburger, pickles, greasy fried potatoes, apple pie! Next thing I know, he had thrown the whole mess into the pond for the fish to eat!”

“Oh, no.” She didn’t know exactly what fish ate. The only words that crowded into her brain were off the wall: “Do not feed the fish,” a line from a Dr. Seuss book she used to read to her little girls that always sent them into attacks of giggles.

This was not funny. “Um, is that food going to hurt Mary’s fish?”

“Look, fish will eat anything you give them, but it’s not necessarily good for them. It was just the principle of the thing. What would he have fed them next? That guy should not be allowed anywhere near marine animals, especially ones as valuable as koi. And those were a particularly fine group of fish. Who was this jerk, anyway?”

“Actually, he’s a visitor who’s staying there because he got bumped out of this house.” She put a placating hand on Gil’s arm. “I’ll go over there tomorrow and tell him not to feed the fish.”

By this time, others had gathered round, attracted by Gil’s angry tone.

“Come on and have something to drink,” offered Tessie.

“I don’t need a drink,” he growled, and Tessie backed up, almost as if she feared Gil would strike her.