Rodham

by Curtis Sittenfeld

  There’s a lot we’ve never known about Hillary’s private life.

  Rodham, who has been single for her entire adult life…

  Her intimate longtime friend Beverly Collins…

  At the hotel where debate prep was occurring, as we all stood around drinking coffee before Clarissa called us to order, I said to Greg, “Do people know Beverly is married?”

  “A minor detail,” Greg said. “Because it’s a weirdly linear story when you think about it. You and Bill date for a few years, but you break up because you’re gay. That’s why he goes on to marry and reproduce, and you never really date again.”

  “Ouch.”

  Greg laughed. “If the foo shits.”

  I said, “Anyway, isn’t my lesbianism at odds with my having murdered my married boyfriend?”

  Though he’d never met my Northwestern colleague James, Greg was one of very few people who knew the real version of what had happened between us. And though I thought I’d been joking, enacting my thick-skinned resilience, I was taken aback when Greg said, “Remind me—did you do that with a gun or a knife or what?”

  Did he think I didn’t have a heart, or did he not have one? Again, I was struck by the absence of an apology for his involvement in the incident with Jill Perkins. We looked at each other—we had known each other a long time, at good and bad junctures—and it occurred to me that I might cry. That would be highly inconvenient, with my entire debate-prep team milling around.

  Either by coincidence or necessity, my own brain rescued me. “Wait,” I said. “I have an idea.”

  * * *

  —

  The idea involved making a phone call. But before I could do this, certain vetting had to occur, and while it occurred, a linguist I’d worked with over the years was giving feedback. Nan Abelson was a professor and author who’d flown in from Seattle to observe the mock debate the previous day and offer advice on not just the words I used but which ones I emphasized, how I modulated volume, even the way I breathed. I’d originally sought out Nan after mentions in the ’04 race of my voice as shrill, strident, nasal, and screechy.

  On this morning, she made a forty-minute PowerPoint presentation, which boiled down to the recommendation that I tell more stories about both myself and voters. “Even in your opening statement, Senator Rodham, I’d love for you to talk about your parents or your grandparents. Really make it personal from the outset.”

  In an only half-joking tone, Clarissa said, “Who’s your poorest ancestor?”

  Nan said, “I’d also like you to explicitly invoke the historic nature of your campaign in your opener. Not at length, but just a sentence or two where you pay respect to the people for whom that’s important.”

  The first time Nan and I had ever spoken by phone, a decade before, I’d said, “The problem is that when I don’t project my voice, the feedback is that I don’t seem sufficiently tough. But when I do project it, the feedback is that I’m angry.”

  “I have a diagnosis,” Nan had said. “You’re female. In all seriousness, the important thing to understand is that people believe they’re making specific observations about you, but they’re just unaccustomed to hearing the voice of a woman running for president. Have you ever seen someone with a facial tattoo?”

  “Maybe once or twice.” It had seemed strange she was asking.

  “Think of it this way,” she’d said. “People who attend your events are self-selecting and largely predisposed to like you. But whenever you’re on TV, imagine you have a huge tattoo across your face. You’re discussing healthcare, and people can hardly listen because they’re so busy thinking, Why did she get that tattoo? That’s how unfamiliar voters are with a woman running for president.”

  In the amphitheater, Nan was saying, “Senator, as always, don’t speak too quickly, and don’t be afraid to interrupt the men.”

  I said, “Didn’t we decide yesterday that I’m not supposed to interrupt because it’s aggressive and off-putting?”

  “Interrupt calmly,” Nan said.

  Aaron, my communications director, said, “The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.”

  “Except backwards,” said the consultant, Rebecca. “And in high heels.”

  * * *

  —

  Razorgate lesbo scandal is much adieu about nothing! Donald Trump tweeted at 12:33 P.M. Sorry it’s not PC but all jr employees work there way up with tasks that are No Fun.

  Theresa said, “Autocorrect can happen to anyone, but I seriously don’t understand what goes on between him and his phone.”

  In the almost four months since Donald had appointed himself my surrogate, he’d routinely made jaw-dropping statements about both Bill and me, statements that the media then discussed ad nauseam, with barely concealed glee. On the morning talk show where he’d first declared his support for me, he had said, “Hillary’s no beauty. She’s no beauty. But she’s smart, and that’s what we need for president.” He had said, “If Hillary was younger, I’d worry about her going crazy once a month. You know what I mean. Everyone knows! But she’s old, she’s past all that.” At all hours of the day and night, he’d issue tweets that weren’t just unfathomably crude but brazenly hypocritical.

  At 3:12 A.M. on July 17, 2015: Everyone knows Cheatin’ Bill lied about his marriages, why would we Believe anything he says about the election?

  At 1:01 P.M. on August 10, 2015: Sleazy Bill Clinton should drop out of the race, unless you want Blowjobs in the oval office!

  At 11:43 P.M. on September 4, 2015: Hardball Hillary is a great leader that wants to put our economy first. Do not vote for Cheatin’ Bill!

  Initially, I and my team had been inundated with questions about my relationship with Donald. As with making statements about having dated Bill, my strategy was to offer one comment and from that point on to say, with an exasperation that I didn’t need to feign, “I’ve addressed this question in the past and I’d refer you back to what I said before.” The thing I’d said about Donald—on camera, to an ABC correspondent, while leaving a town hall in Mason City, Iowa—was “I’m glad to have the support of anyone who recognizes that I’m the candidate best equipped to take on the challenges facing our country today.” That evening, at an event at a Lutheran church in Charles City, Iowa, two women stood outside with homemade signs: One featured Trump’s face, with the words SHAME ON YOU, HILLARY underneath it, and the other sign read THE ENEMY OF MY ENEMY IS NOT MY FRIEND.

  As some in the media began referring to my improved polling numbers in Iowa and New Hampshire as the Trump effect, I’d realized that Donald wanted to flaunt our closeness in public but seemed not to wish for direct contact with me. Greg communicated on occasion with a media executive who knew Donald well, but Donald and I had never spoken on the phone and my team had never tried to influence his remarks because of how likely the effort was to backfire. At some point, I suspected he’d say something so incendiary that I would need to publicly disavow it, at which point I might well draw his wrath—perhaps he’d even defect and become a supporter of Bill’s—but I’d cross that bridge when I came to it.

  In the amphitheater, Greg had pulled out his phone and was looking at Donald’s latest tweet. “That should be the title of a French prostitute’s posthumously published memoir,” Greg said. “Much Adieu About Nothing.”

  * * *

  —

  In the last several hours, Theresa had, from someone on my finance team, tracked down the email address of Albert Boyd, the man from the Cape Cod fundraiser in June, and sent him a message asking if he’d be available to talk to me. In the meantime, Gigi had found that he had no criminal record, massive debts, or damning social media posts. Most reassuringly, she’d spoken to my Wellesley friend Nancy, who’d vouched for his character.

 
; When I called from an empty conference room at the debate-prep hotel, he answered after the first ring by saying, “This is Albert.”

  “Hello, Albert,” I said. “It’s Hillary Rodham. I believe my aide Theresa mentioned you’d hear from me.”

  “I’m delighted.” This was gracious given that he probably thought I was about to ask for a campaign donation, on top of what he’d paid to have dinner with me—obviously, anyone with $250,000 to spare had more where that came from.

  I said, “I’m getting in touch for a somewhat silly reason.” In the minute before pressing the green phone icon, I had rehearsed what I’d say, but even so, I hesitated for a few seconds. “You may have heard some rumors swirling around my campaign. My team and I talked about it, and we feel—this is a bit awkward—but we thought it would be good for me to go on a few dates with a man who could be a plausible romantic partner. And I thought of you.” On its own, against my volition, my mind summoned from its depths the letter I’d written to Bruce Stappenbeck in 1960: If you ask me to be your girlfriend, I will say yes. I wondered if in contacting Albert Boyd I was doing something extraordinarily stupid—if I should have asked this favor of someone for whom I had no sincere feelings. It was both mortifying and mildly interesting to observe the extent to which, after fifty-five years, I remained romantically incompetent.

  Then Albert said, “I would absolutely love to go on a few dates with you.”

  “Really?” I said.

  “Well, who wouldn’t?” he said, and I laughed.

  “I can think of a few people.”

  “I don’t mean to be impertinent, but this bears more than a passing resemblance to the plot of a movie my daughter, Carson, used to watch over and over when she was about twelve. It featured two high schoolers who pretend they’re dating.”

  “Should I ask how things turn out for them?”

  “How about if I tell you on our date?”

  “It’s a deal. In the interest of full disclosure, if I say Razorgate, do you know what that refers to?”

  “I do, and it sounds like nonsense.”

  I winced, above all because it wasn’t complete nonsense. I said, “Another component of this, to make sure you understand—I’m thrilled you’re game, but to make sure—if we walk down the street together, photos of you, of us, will appear in publications all over the world. I’m not being hyperbolic. And you’ll hear from your friends who aren’t crazy about me, both Republicans and Democrats.”

  “Please know I’m much too old to be bothered by that sort of thing.” Thanks to Gigi’s research, I knew his date of birth—April 26, 1947, meaning he was six months older than I was to the day—but I refrained from revealing this fact.

  I said, “I have one more ask. I don’t know what your schedule is like, but the goal is for us to go out as soon as possible, ideally this weekend.” It was Friday afternoon as I spoke. “Is there any chance you can fly to Chicago tomorrow? My team will arrange your flights and accommodations.”

  “I was supposed to attend a very dull-sounding cocktail party tomorrow, and this gives me an outstanding excuse to skip it.”

  Had he been grown in a lab just for me? Or was he secretly a Republican operative plotting my exposure and humiliation?

  I said, “Theresa will follow up, but I’ll give you my number, too. I believe it showed up for you as unlisted.” After I’d recited the digits, I said, “I can’t thank you enough. I really look forward to this, and I also really appreciate it.”

  “I’m honored. It sounds like a great lark.”

  There was an argument, certainly, that if I genuinely liked him, the last thing I should subject him to was the scrutiny he’d get for being associated with me. The counterargument was that I had devised not just an ideal way to see him but perhaps the only way.

  * * *

  —

  Among my emails that evening were one from Beverly Collins and one from my Wellesley friend Nancy.

  From Beverly: Hillary, no offense but you were never my type.

  From Nancy: Now I’m confused—is intel on Albert Boyd being gathered for him to be your boyfriend or your VP??

  * * *

  —

  The goal was to engineer a viral moment in the debate, and toward this end, in the amphitheater, my team had been trying to generate zingers for me to use against Bill. I stood behind my lectern—though we’d have one more mock debate, my ersatz opponents had been given Saturday morning off—and it was Greg who was acting as Bill while no one acted as Jim Webb or Martin O’Malley.

  Someone had suggested that when Bill spoke about his sympathy for, say, laid-off coal workers, I’d chuckle and declare, “Coming from a person in the one percent, all I can say is…that’s rich!”

  I delivered the line a few ways—with amusement, with sarcasm, with reproach—and they all fell flat. “It’s too contrived,” I said.

  We’d already rejected “Shut me up? How about shutting down the Keystone XL pipeline?”

  From the amphitheater’s front row, Dave, a debate specialist popular among Democrats, said, “Senator, I agree that none of these is perfect, but don’t forget that you also have soft power. Even more than what you say, your reactions really matter, and a disapproving expression when the men are battling it out, or when Clinton says something ludicrous, could become a sensation. It’d be like, Mom’s pissed and she’s not taking any more of this shit.” To demonstrate, Dave raised his eyebrows and pursed his lips.

  Skeptically, from behind my lectern, I repeated, “Mom’s pissed and she’s not taking any more of this shit?”

  “Pardon the gender stereotypes, obviously.”

  “Which gender stereotypes are you referring to? You’re invoking so many at once that it’s hard to tell.”

  No one said anything.

  I deepened my voice, projecting it out into the amphitheater where perhaps twenty staffers sat, in most cases with a seat or two between them. “It’s a shame that Hillary Rodham is so unlikable, isn’t it? I’d love to vote for a woman for president, but I just can’t see voting for her. She’s so ambitious and power hungry. What kind of woman would rather have a career in politics than a family? Couldn’t she find a husband? And the vibe she gives off—she’s cold and she’s not funny at all. She’s uptight, like my high school principal. Except at least my high school principal was honest, and I don’t trust Hillary. How did she really make that money she claims was from futures in the eighties? What’s she not telling us? How does a woman who went to fancy schools and lives in Streeterville know anything about the struggles of ordinary Americans? I respect it when men are rich, but when a woman has money, it just feels wrong.”

  My staff was watching me with alarm; they didn’t know what would happen next, though truly, neither did I. Still in the deep, fake voice, I said, “Can I tell you anything about Hillary’s voting record? No. Can I tell you what subcommittees she’s served on? No. Have I ever listened to one of her speeches in its entirety? Well, they’re not televised, but even if they were, her voice—it’s so hard on my ears. Really, when I think about Hillary, what I think is—” I looked around the amphitheater, took a deep breath, and said, “Shut her up! Shut her up! Shut her up!”

  There were stairs on either side of the stage; Theresa ascended the ones on the right and Denise ascended the ones on the left, and they reached me at the same time. They acted as if I were drunk. Denise bent the microphone away from me—I didn’t fight her—and Theresa stood beside me and put her arm around my shoulder.

  Speaking into the mic, Denise said, “There are sandwiches in conference room A. Let’s all meet back here at one o’clock.”

  * * *

  —

  No fewer than seventy emails had been exchanged in twenty-four hours by eight members of my staff about what Albert and I should do for our date on Saturday night: The ballet, the symphon
y, and a sushi restaurant were all deemed too elitist; a bluegrass show was deemed too risky securitywise because of the layout of the venue; Mexican food was deemed too blatantly pandering just prior to my arrival in Nevada. I also rejected bowling as pandering, and even if it wasn’t, I’d have refused on the grounds that I didn’t wish to publicly stick my rump in the air. Also vetoed were upscale hamburger or fried chicken restaurants, which could backfire when articles pointed out that I’d eaten a $17 grass-fed cheeseburger rather than a $3.79 Quarter Pounder with cheese from the McDonald’s two blocks away.

  At last, a reservation was made at an American bistro in Lincoln Park at which I’d order grilled chicken thighs ($15) and a glass of the house cabernet ($8). After discussion, my staff decided it was okay to leave it up to Albert what he’d order.

  * * *

  —

  Donald sent the tweet at 4:02 P.M. central time, as I was riding back from the amphitheater to my apartment to get ready to meet Albert: Hardball Hillary is staying at Trump Las Vegas for debate and that’s not all. Major announcement coming soon!

  Theresa and Kenya were in the SUV with me, and I said to Theresa, “Is he coming to the debate? Could someone at the DNC have given him tickets?”

  “I’ll find out.” Theresa was already typing on her phone. “Don’t worry, you’re staying at Caesars Palace.”

  “Would he know a person needs tickets?” Kenya asked.

  “True,” I said, and my phone buzzed with an incoming call from Aaron.

  “Apparently, Trump’s been telling people you want his daughter Ivanka in your cabinet, so that could be the so-called announcement,” Aaron said. “Greg’s calling his Trump contact now.”

  “Wow,” I said. “Is he crazy or a pathological liar?”

  Aaron chuckled. “With Trump, you get a twofer.”

  Albert Boyd was supposed to arrive at my apartment at seven for a glass of wine; at seven-thirty, we’d be driven to the restaurant; at nine o’clock, we’d leave the restaurant. I barely remembered what one did to get in the mood for a date, but certainly analyzing Donald Trump’s tweets wasn’t it.