Alicia ended the look around the White House with Kalinda by a stroll in Michelle Obama's vegetable garden.
"You do like your tomatoes, huh?" Kalinda smiled as they walked along rows of cherry tomatoes, yellow tomatoes, green tomatoes, beefsteak tomatoes and plum tomatoes.
"There was way too much lettuce in here before," Alicia smiled back. "I also had zucchini, bell peppers and celery sowed instead of all the spinach and broccoli. Nobody in the White House has complained about that change."
Michelle Obama, the former First Lady, had created that large vegetable garden so that her daughters would have a healthier diet, and each member of the family was supposed to contribute to it. The surplus was donated to charities. Alicia was not particularly fond of gardening herself and her children were gone, but she liked letting people at official dinners know that the vegetables were home grown – and organic – so she had the garden tended to, after adapting it to her and Peter's tastes.
Alicia particularly liked the herb garden. She crumpled a leave between two fingers every few steps to sniff the various perfumes of thyme, rosemary, sage, marjoram and basil, passing fragrant bits of foliage to Kalinda and commenting on the various dishes the White House chef used them for. Kalinda, falling back automatically into bodyguard mode, was watching intently their surroundings. As far as Alicia could tell, there was nothing or nobody unusual in sight.
Suddenly, Kalinda stopped short and showed her something fluttering in a nearby thyme bush. Grinning enthusiastically, she gestured Alicia to come closer. In her jeans, flat tennis shoes and ponytail, she looked like a teenager.
"Look! A Spring Azure." Perched on a thyme branch was a small butterfly. The inside of its wings was light blue with rows of dark spots around the edges, and the outside light grey.
"Really?" Alicia asked, surprised. It was the first time in her life she had ever known the specific name of a butterfly. She was aware that they did have names of course, but had never considered it something worth learning.
"Yes," Kalinda answered fondly as the butterfly opened and closed its wings, resting in the sun, "This one is a male. It's easy to tell because females have partly black forewings."
The butterfly shimmered in the sun for a few moments then took off in a blue flash and quickly flew out of sight, carried away by a gust of breeze.
"Seriously Kalinda," Alicia enquired, "are you going to tell me that you know the names of all the common butterflies?"
"Most of them," Kalinda admitted. "Most animals and plants, actually." She pointed at a few random trees and bugs and named them effortlessly (and correctly, as far as Alicia could tell).
"I wouldn't have taken you for the farm girl type," Alicia confessed.
"I'm not," Kalinda smiled. "City born and raised. It's just… I like being able to name things accurately. A Spring Azure is not just any butterfly, and lemon thyme is not just thyme, see?"
Alicia had never seriously considered that point. If anyone had asked her one minute ago, she would have insisted that some things were just not worth the effort as they proved completely pointless in a political career. Yet Kalinda's stance reminded her that there was more to life than being stuck in sitting rooms and offices and courting voters and supporters all year round. Weren't there other important things that she had somehow forgotten along the way?
Alicia was suddenly distracted by some bug buzzing around her head, and jumped awkwardly sideways on the lawn in her heels, swinging her arms to make it go away. She remembered now why she preferred Nature tended to by someone else and safely far away from her.
"Don't," Kalinda said quietly, putting her hand on Alicia's forearm. "It's just a bee from your hives. It won't harm you unless you frighten it."
"Right," Alicia said, freezing the moment Kalinda touched her. Kalinda's hand was warm and soft on her arm and she resisted the urge to cover it with her own.
The bee dutifully made its way to the nearest flower bed, leaving Alicia unscathed, if annoyed with herself for behaving like a fool in front of Kalinda. How come she always seemed so strong, even when she was the one injured?
Trying to make up for her foolishness, Alicia asked, "About that, have you tasted the White House Honey Ale?" It was the home brewed beer created by Barack Obama with the honey from these very bees, and that Peter kept brewing for the White House guests.
"No, but I'd love to," Kalinda smiled.
"I have to go back now. Tomorrow at six in the East sitting hall?"
"Sure," Kalinda nodded.
"It's a date!"
Alicia turned around and went back to the First Lady's office in the East Wing, a bit confused by what she had just said and done. She had a date with Kalinda.