Rodham

by Curtis Sittenfeld

  * * *

  —

  Aaron, my director of communications, had convinced me it was time to host an OTR—off-the-record—with the traveling press corps. Though Aaron usually worked out of the Chicago office, he’d flown down to Miami that Thursday morning. I was delivering a lunchtime speech to attendees of a national conference for people with developmental disabilities and their caregivers, visiting a brewery in the afternoon, and attending a $1,000-a-head evening reception on Belle Isle.

  At 9:00 P.M., following the reception, Aaron, Theresa, Clyde, two agents, and I left my suite on the tenth floor of our Miami hotel to join a dozen of the travelers on a patio outside the lobby restaurant. We were hopeful that the warm breezes of Biscayne Bay—in contrast to, say, an Applebee’s in Iowa—would soothe the travelers’ crankiness and perhaps even flatter their elitist pretensions. In their articles and on the air, political journalists loved including local color (meat on a stick at the state fair, polka bands, caucuses held in a gun shop or grain elevator) in inverse proportions to how much they’d disdain such spectacles in their actual lives, off the job. A reporter had once told me that if she was getting dinner on her own on the road, she would choose a restaurant by googling the zip code and kale salad.

  It really wasn’t that I loathed the press, as was often reported by members of the press; it was that I profoundly distrusted them. They were, for the most part, funny, observant, and intelligent—many had degrees from fancy universities—and I knew they were hardworking because, for much of the time, they literally kept the same schedule I did, attending the same rallies, driving between the same small towns in Iowa or New Hampshire, flying in and out on the same early-morning and late-night flights (though not literally on the same plane—at this point in the campaign, my team still flew on a relatively small Gulfstream, and it wouldn’t be until the general election that, God willing, the travelers would be invited onto my campaign’s 737).

  But most political journalists were so childish, so distracted by shiny objects in the forms of gaffes or scoops or arbitrary details they imbued with meaning that simply wasn’t there. The journalists’ desire not to be bored was palpable, but campaigning, like life, was often boring. Thus, in their hunger for novelty, they read shifting alliances and enmities into minor personnel changes, described mindsets they guessed at based on posture or body language, competed with each other for meaningless scraps that they could present as breaking news. They constructed elaborate narratives based on scant evidence. They also were self-righteous and self-congratulatory; they assumed that, in other fields, they could make salaries many times what they currently earned, but they believed that journalism was a noble calling. And yet, on a day-to-day basis, they were people who fought over electrical outlets, who were simultaneously obsessed with their—and my—campaign weight gains and with the availability of meals and snacks. They shamelessly critiqued my appearance while, in some cases (this was true of both men and women) visibly going days at a time without washing their hair or changing their clothes. Like children, the journalists wanted to say and write whatever they wanted about me and then for me to be glad to see them, for me to like them. Unlike children, the journalists drank a lot and sometimes had romances with each other.

  My entourage stepped off the elevator, crossed the lobby, and was led by the restaurant’s maître d’ to the back patio, beyond which was the glittering black water of the bay, bisected by the lights of two bridges. Four small round tables had been pushed together into a square, and all except two of the chairs around them were occupied. With forced cheer, I said, “Hi, guys. Is there room for me?” Clyde was the one who took the other open seat, while Aaron and Theresa stood at the edge of the patio, as did the security agents.

  Immediately, the journalists were talking to me over one another. After a few seconds, the others deferred to a woman named Elise from The Washington Post, who said, “Senator, have you had the chance to enjoy any spa treatments at the hotel?”

  “I haven’t,” I said. “Have any of you?”

  “No, but Caitlin and I took a Zumba class at the gym down the street,” said Helena. She worked for an online magazine for which she’d once written a fourteen-paragraph article about a coughing fit I had during a rally. “Have you ever done Zumba?”

  “I haven’t had the chance to try it.” I smiled. “I’ve been a bit busy.”

  “The chanting at Governor Clinton’s events,” said a New York Times reporter named David. “What do you think is up with that?”

  I raised my eyebrows noncommittally and said, “What do you think is up with it?”

  Only half-sheepishly, David said, “I asked you first?”

  I said, “Obviously, it was peculiar to hear. But you know what I found inspiring is meeting people today with developmental disabilities at the ADN conference. I thought the question about self-advocacy from that ten-year-old boy was wonderful.”

  “Just to piggyback on what David was asking,” said Helena, “are you surprised by how much momentum Bill Clinton’s campaign has gained so quickly?”

  “You know, it’s standard for there to be a bounce when a candidate declares,” I said. “And especially with Bill, there’s a nostalgia. We’ll see how long that lasts.” A mojito appeared in front of me, presumably ordered by Theresa, and I nodded in thanks to the waitress before taking a sip. It was so delicious—and the setting was so lovely—that I wished I were drinking it with actual friends, or at least with just my own staff.

  “Will it be strange to be onstage with Bill Clinton at debates? Emotionally strange?” This came from Tiff, the preppy correspondent for ABC.

  “I’m focused on larger issues,” I said. “So much is at stake in this election in terms of the economy, education, climate change, that”—I made air quotes—“ ‘emotionally strange’ doesn’t really figure into it for me.” I scanned their faces. “I also loved visiting the Harriet Tubman Leadership Academy, and I look forward to the pieces you’ll be doing on my education platform. I’d be delighted to answer any follow-up questions.”

  A few of them chuckled, then a man named Roberto from a weekly newsmagazine said, “The coincidence of your having dated Governor Clinton—do you see it as evidence of elite law schools as political feeders? Does it reveal that the Democratic party needs fresh blood?” It was hard not to wonder if they’d coordinated this line of questioning before my arrival.

  I said, “Roberto, I don’t know if you had a chance to watch Beverly Today, but I really have said all I have to say on this topic.”

  “Seriously, guys,” Clyde said, “isn’t there anything else you want to talk about?”

  “Your host today at the Belle Isle reception,” Helena said, “is it troubling to you that in the late eighties, he was convicted of three counts of tax evasion?”

  “Helena, I think you can do better,” Clyde said.

  My communications director, Aaron, was standing about twelve feet away, but I couldn’t make eye contact with him because he was looking down and typing on his phone. I wondered if he still thought this OTR was wise, or whether it had already done more damage than good.

  “I need to respectfully disagree with you that the financial history of a major donor is irrelevant,” Helena said. “But okay—looking at Republican candidates, is there anyone you especially hope will or won’t jump into the race?”

  “I’m prepared to take on whomever the Republicans offer up,” I said. “I’m feeling really energized by the everyday Americans I’ve been talking to on the campaign trail. Aisha in Philadelphia knocked my socks off, and so did today’s small-business owners Leticia and Igor Arias with their brewery.” I noticed Helena and Caitlin exchange a glance that I could have sworn contained the cattiness of the worst kind of seventh-grade girls. Had I pronounced the Cuban names displeasingly to them? Had they just remembered my “on fleek” disaster?

  “If you
don’t mind,” a woman named Anna from the Tribune said, “I want to circle back to the chanting at Bill Clinton’s rallies. If that happens again—” But Theresa had already stepped forward and said, “Hey guys, we have a surprise tonight. David, we understand that tomorrow is a big day for you.” At that moment, the waitress from earlier walked onto the patio carrying a sheet cake topped with lit candles and we all began singing “Happy Birthday.”

  When the waitress set the cake in front of David, he breathed in just before blowing out the candles, and Caitlin, who was across the table from him on my right said, “Wait a sec—” She pulled off her wedding ring, leaned forward, and dropped it around one of the still-lit candles. Theresa had taught me the phrase wheels up, rings off; apparently, it could apply to journalists, security agents, or campaign staffers, though Theresa had assured me that it didn’t apply to her.

  David blew out the candles, and Tiff said, “Where does that come from, the ring thing?” and Helena said, “It’s to make your wishes come true,” and Elise said, “I thought just blowing out the candles made your wishes come true.”

  “Elise,” I said, “surely you know it’s hard work that makes wishes come true.” Gratifyingly, everyone laughed.

  As David cut the cake, Anna said, “Senator, where were you on your fortieth birthday?”

  “Oh, gosh,” I said. “I hardly remember back that far.” This was something I wouldn’t have said on the record, having been cautioned not to draw attention to my age. I said, “Well, I was a professor then. And let’s see, for the actual night, I had dinner with my family, and I’d spent the weekend before with some college friends in rural Virginia.” I looked around the table. “Who else here is forty?”

  Three of them raised their hands; of those three, it turned out all were still under forty-five, and one had been reporting from Tahrir Square in 2011 on her fortieth birthday.

  David’s cake was chocolate with chocolate frosting, and I ate two bites. If I consumed the whole piece and drank the mojito, I’d give myself a headache. But as I set down my fork, I thought that some of the earlier acrimony had lifted. Aaron had been right after all. “David,” I said, “thank you for being born.”

  * * *

  —

  But that question about the chanting that Anna had been prevented from asking in Miami—it may have been the only relevant question of the OTR. Because the chanting did happen again, a third time and a fourth, and then it was understood to be a standard feature of Bill’s events. Quickly, it went from a shocking aberration to a new norm.

  When asked about it, I’d shrug and say, “Running for president isn’t for the faint of heart.” I watched the chanting the third time—it was in Waterloo, Iowa, and included the same mix of mobbish bloodlust and mundanity as before—and didn’t watch it again. But I confess that even as I found the phenomenon disturbing, a part of me felt vindicated. Generally speaking, complaints about sexism were perceived as sour grapes. Proof was elusive, situations subject to interpretation. Yet was this not the starkest proof?

  Bill was asked about it, too. During a sit-down interview with CNN, he said, “You know, I’d rather be gentlemanly. I’m more than comfortable fighting Hillary on the merits of our candidacies.”

  For the interview, Bill had worn a slate-gray shirt with an iridescent sheen, and it was unbuttoned one more button than might have been considered standard, though I don’t think I’d have noticed if not for what happened afterward, or really during, which was that social media, especially Twitter, became obsessed with how attractive Bill looked in the shirt: Memes and hashtags were spawned, and tweeters of every age and gender declared their crushes. Within the hour, online articles featured headlines such as “18 Times Bill Clinton Made Me Thirsty” and “I Want Bill Clinton As My Sugar Zaddy.” Naturally, I needed to have Diwata define zaddy and, in this context, thirsty. But the most jaw-dropping part was when a female columnist whose work I’d enjoyed in the past tweeted Sexually harass ME, Bill! Only slightly less egregious was a tweet from an actress on a reality show (I had not enjoyed her work in the past) who wrote Cuddle puddle curious and my DMs are open.

  “So it’s not that they don’t know about his history with women,” I said to Clyde. We were on the plane again, flying to Cincinnati for an evening fundraiser and a Planned Parenthood breakfast the next morning. “It’s that they don’t care.”

  * * *

  —

  The voicemail was from Meredith, Maureen’s daughter. In an unconvincing but enthusiastic English accent that I knew well, she said, “Hello, Darth Vader. It is the queen of England, and I am calling with some veddy, veddy exciting news. Call me when you have a chance.”

  From my hotel room in Cincinnati, I called her immediately, and when she answered, I said, “It’s Darth Vader. What’s going on?”

  “I’m pregnant,” she said, and I said, “Oh my goodness, this is so exciting! How far along are you?”

  “Ten weeks, so we’re not telling most people, but I’ve already gained seven pounds. Which I think might be because of, like, Dove bars and not the pregnancy. My due date is January second.”

  “How are you feeling?”

  “Super tired. I’ve been going to bed by eight o’clock every night, but I haven’t puked or anything.”

  “How’s Ben?” This was Meredith’s husband. He worked for an investment advising firm, and she was a real estate agent, and they lived two blocks from the house in Skokie where she’d grown up.

  “He’s nervous and very excited. Did you know that a euphemism for ‘pregnant’ used to be ‘stung by a serpent’? Which is actually so much grosser than just saying ‘pregnant,’ when you really think about it.”

  I laughed. “I’ve heard ‘with child’ and ‘in the family way,’ but I’ve never heard ‘stung by a serpent.’ It’s funny because in a yarn shop in Iowa a few weeks ago, I bought a little knit bear, and I didn’t know who it was for. I just thought it was cute. But now I know.”

  “Oh, I love that,” Meredith said. “You had a premonition. You know what’s crazy? It’s crazy that an embryo can form, turn into a baby, gestate, and be born, and there’ll still be ten months left before the election.”

  “Tell me about it,” I said.

  * * *

  —

  In the morning, in Cincinnati, I had the TV on as I got dressed, and it happened that Donald Trump was a guest on the morning news show. I hadn’t spoken to him since our meeting at the magazine gala in 2005, though in 2011, we’d both been at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, where he’d been mocked from the stage by both President Obama and the host comedian for his birther claims.

  The news-show hosts were a man and woman, sometimes joined by other panelists and guests; I myself had appeared as a guest a handful of times. On this morning, at 6:15 A.M. eastern time, they chatted with Donald about whether he was going to continue his reality show, then about a Twitter feud he was embroiled in with a sitcom actress, and then the man said, in a preemptively amused tone, “Do we have a possible Trump presidency to look forward to? I know you’ve considered it for years, and I’m wondering if you’d like to take this moment, among friends, to announce anything to the American people.”

  Donald smiled a sneering smile. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” he said. “Good for your ratings, right?”

  “I can’t lie,” the man said. “If you run for president, it’ll be one hell of a ride for all of us.”

  “Everyone’s asking,” Donald said. “All the press, all my guys on Wall Street, they say, ‘We need you, we want you, can you run?’ And I’m thinking about it. But I’ve got a lot of big stuff coming up, a lot of deals, China wants us to build thirty, forty hotels. There’s my TV show. So I don’t know.”

  “If you did run,” the female host said, “you’d be an Independent? Or a Republican? Would you consider running as a Democrat along
with Hillary Rodham and Bill Clinton?”

  Donald held his hands in front of him, fingers toward the camera, palms facing each other. “They’re all bad,” he said. “The Democrats, they’re weak, they’re soft. I shouldn’t say it, but I’m gonna say it. They’re stupid. This country is in trouble, and we need real leadership, not stupidity.”

  The man asked, “Do you know either of them, Clinton or Hillary Rodham?”

  “He’s a real ladies’ man.” Donald raised his eyebrows and pursed his lips insinuatingly. “I know him, he’s always wanted to join my clubs, but you know what? Sometimes you have to wait in line. Sorry, Bill! Her—Hillary—I’ve never met her. She lives out there, wherever it is, out there in the middle of the country. She’s not a New York kind of person.”

  It was actually less surprising to me that Donald did not, apparently, recall meeting me than that he seemed critical of Bill. At the magazine gala, Donald had been the one pleading with Bill to come play golf.

  “It’s true,” the female host said. “Bill Clinton’s a smart guy, he’s made a ton of money, and I know a lot of people think he’s a silver fox, but you mention his name to any woman my age and what does our mind go to?”

  “I assume you’re referring to the 60 Minutes interview,” the male host said.

  “The 60 Minutes interview!” the woman repeated. “It was a legit train wreck. And back in the day, maybe you could bury that kind of thing, but now anyone who missed it the first time around can call it up in three seconds on YouTube.”

  Cheerfully, Donald said, “Bill Clinton, he’s made some bad choices, but the women stuff—is that such a crime? If that’s a crime, I tell you what, a hell of a lot of us are criminals.”

  All three of them laughed, including the woman. And then, as I sat on the edge of the bed and pulled on the nylon footies I wore with heels, I thought, What if Donald really did run for president? It was impossible to take him seriously as a candidate, with his bloviating and his preposterous hair, but what if he made a vanity run and he and Bill duked it out for the media attention and male ardor while I stood above the fray? Was it possible they could mitigate each other? Could some unholy alchemy of testosterone occur, a destabilizing blaze that incinerated Bill but left my own campaign intact? Because, really, weren’t they two sides of the same coin, wasn’t Donald simply a far less palatable version of Bill? Rich and narcissistic and verbose, charismatic, and transfixing? Bill was far smarter, but was he really less sleazy?