“What is your job like?” Bessie finally asked her father, and you could see how happy it made him that she had tried, and yet it also seemed to confuse him because he wasn’t exactly sure how to respond.
“Well,” he began, genuinely considering how to answer, “everyone in the state of Tennessee entrusts me with looking after their interests. For instance, I work with other senators to make sure that the things our citizens need are taken care of. I make sure that jobs come to this state, so people can work and support their families. And I make sure that the country, the whole country, is moving toward a better future.”
“You take care of people,” Bessie said.
“Sort of,” he replied. “I try to.”
“Okay,” she said.
“Your family,” Jasper said to her, “for generations and generations, have made their home in Tennessee. It’s a wonderful state. And I make sure that it stays that way, or when it needs help, I try to get that help so it can stay great.”
“Pop-Pop said that politics is mostly moving money around and making sure that some of it sticks to you,” Roland said.
“That does sound like Richard,” Jasper replied. “But that’s not the way that I’ve tried to do my job.”
“’Cause you don’t need more money,” Bessie said.
“No,” Jasper said, “I don’t.”
“We’re studying Tennessee with Lillian,” Roland told the table.
“Is that right?” Jasper said, smiling.
“We’re doing biographies on great Tennesseans,” I told him, like I was still interviewing for the job, or maybe like I was hoping for a letter of recommendation later.
“Like who?” Madison asked.
“Sergeant York,” Roland said. “Oh, man, he killed like twenty-five Germans.”
“He was a great man,” Jasper replied. “A good Democrat, a lifelong Democrat. He said, ‘I’m a Democrat first, last, and all the time.’ There’s a statue of him at the state capitol. Wonderful statue. Maybe Lillian can take you there sometime to see it.”
“Okay,” I said.
“What about you, Bessie?” Madison asked.
“Dolly Parton,” she announced.
“Hmm,” Jasper said, considering the name. “She’s an entertainer, though, isn’t she?”
Bessie looked confused and turned to me. “She’s an artist,” I said.
“Well, I suppose,” Jasper said. “I can think of several real Tennessee icons that might make for a better report.”
“It’s not really a report,” I admitted. “We’re just researching our interests.” I reached over to Bessie and touched her arm, feeling for her temperature, but the gel made it hard to accurately gauge.
“And Dolly Parton is a humanitarian, Jasper,” Madison added. “She’s done a lot for the state and for the children of the state.”
“She’s an actress,” he said, like this was evidence of something. He was smiling, maybe playing, but Bessie seemed embarrassed now, like she’d made a mistake, and I got angry.
“She’s the greatest Tennessean in the state’s entire history,” I said flatly, definitively.
“Oh, Lillian,” Jasper said, chuckling.
“She wrote ‘I Will Always Love You,’” I said, dumbfounded that this didn’t end the debate.
“Lillian,” Jasper said, his charm turning serious, so haughty, “do you know that there have been three Tennesseans who have served as the president of the United States?”
“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.