Page 23 of Governor

She’s watching Carter, as if she senses he might laugh at her audacity. Instead, he meets her statement with a look of sober appraisal.

“I think that’s great,” he finally says. “You strike me as the kind of person who will do just that.”

“Plan is to get my law degree, go into practice for a couple of years, make some connections of my own, then run for state office.”

“House or Senate?”

“Haven’t decided yet. Depends on poll numbers at the time, who’s weakest. Whether I’ll need to move somewhere else first to establish residency in the district. The rep and senator in this district were both just elected, and they’re pretty strong contenders. Daddy’s district is further south of here. But they’ll both be term-limited out by the time I’m ready. So will Daddy. Who knows? Depends on their successors.”

Carter’s standing there, slowly nodding with his arms crossed over his chest. But his gaze is on the floor, like he’s turning something over in his mind as he’s listening.

“Two terms as governor, then I’m going national,” she continues, holding her elegant hand out flat before zooming it up toward the ceiling. “Straight to a US Senate race.”

“POTUS?”

“Probably not. I like having my freedom.” She playfully smiles. “Maybe a cabinet position, at some point. Depending on which one I’m offered. Regardless, I can score gigs as a talking head on some network. Pull in some major dough that way. Write a book, speaker tour, all of that. Become a respected GOP strategist.”

I speak up, feeling like I’m getting left behind, even though I don’t have anything close to the concrete plans she’s laid out trying to congeal in my brain yet. “I’m going for law, Carter’s majoring in politics, you’re majoring in communications. We’re like our own campaign team.”

Their gazes sweep my way, meet along the journey, briefly pausing on each other before landing on me.

I feel like I’ve goofed up or something. Like now they’re humoring me.

Like in that brief pause they shared, they’ve already nailed down a whole playbook’s worth of plans.

“What?” I ask, my cheeks heating.

Then Carter smilesthatsmile, the one that says everything’s okay. He pats me on the shoulder. “Let’s get cooking, buddy.”

* * * *

Despite her youth, Susa obviously knows her way around a kitchen. I’m torn between trying to pay attention to what Carter’s showing me, and what Susa’s doing.

“Where’d you learn to cook?” Carter asks her

“Nana taught me. She wasn’t really my grandmother, but she felt like one. She’d worked as a cook for Daddy’s family when he was growing up. She got married, raised her kids, then her husband died. She nearly lost her house because he didn’t have life insurance and she’d stayed at home to raise their kids. Daddy paid off her house and debts, moved her in with us—as family, not as an employee—and helped her sell her house so she’d have money to live off of. He always introduced her to people as his other mom. She adopted me as another grandchild. We had a cook on weekdays, but Nana took over for Sunday dinners and special occasions. Daddy used to fuss at her to relax and rest, but she loved to teach me about cooking.”

Her brow furrows, and she sniffles a little as her voice drops. “I loved her so much. She really was another grandmother to me. She died two years ago, and I still can’t believe she’s gone.”

Intellectually, I know people have close relationships with their family.

I amnotone of those people. I was raised feeling inferior, and I feel inferior to both Susa and Carter now for myriad reasons, but not of their doing. They’re not trying to make me feel like that.

Over the past year, I’ve read a lot of books and have started working on myself, on my outlook. I know the relationship I have with my mother isn’t healthy. Except self-improvement is also one of those “easier said than done” kinds of things, you know?

Carter has lived a lifetime already. Susa acts like she has. As we prepare dinner, I sort of fade to the background and listen to them talk, especially as Carter asks her political questions about his adopted home state. Susa is an amazing font of information.

I feel…useless. In more ways than one.

I mean, if someone wanted to ask me about Mumford & Sons, or Imagine Dragons, I could tell you all sorts of minutiae about them and other bands. I could wax melodic about the works of Neil Gaiman and Hugh Howey.

While I’d been hyper-focused in high school on passing my AP classes to jack up my GPA and make sure I aced my SATs to secure my scholarships, I’m a literal empty vessel when it comes to practical information of nearly any kind.

Hell, I can’t even change a damn car tire. I’m lucky I can put gas in the fucking thing.

Yet here stand these two people, discussing legislative issues that I couldn’t tell you anything about, even though I was raised in this fucking state.

Iliterallycannot tell you who our lieutenant governor is right now.