Rodham

by Curtis Sittenfeld

  He loves dogs!

  She can discuss economic policy with him (he co-founded an investment management firm)!

  He’s a widow and a dad!

  They met at a fundraiser last summer!

  Naturally, no one on my team had specified the amount Albert had paid to attend the fundraiser, though I assumed that, as with so many other tidbits I’d rather keep private, this one would also emerge in the fullness of time.

  I was waiting until 9:00 A.M., meaning after I’d arrived at the hotel amphitheater and half an hour before he was being picked up and taken to the airport to return to New York, to text Albert; I planned to thank him again for the date, reiterate what a good time I’d had, and ask if he’d seen the coverage and, if so, how he was feeling about it. But a text from him arrived at 8:20, while I was still en route to debate prep: Dear Hillary, please don’t answer this if you’re busy, which I’m sure you are, but I can’t stop myself from saying I had a wonderful time. —Albert

  Dear Hillary! And actual punctuation! And a sign-off! In a text! What a charming man he was.

  Dear Albert, I texted back immediately, I had a wonderful time, too. I can’t thank you enough. I hope all goes well with your travel. Let me know when you arrive east this afternoon? —H

  * * *

  —

  “I’m sorry to say I just heard Misty LaPointe can’t come to the debate,” Theresa told me when we broke for lunch. “She’s taken a turn for the worse. Diwata is working on finding a demographically similar Las Vegas person as your guest, but I know you like Misty.”

  “Thank you for letting me know.” I had just used the bathroom inside a greenroom off the amphitheater, and I decided to text Misty before getting food with the others. I sat on a couch through which I could feel the springs and wrote, Misty, I’m sorry to hear you can’t come to the debate, although of course I understand.

  Usually, she replied right away, but more than two hours passed before her text arrived: In hospital since Thurs. Not doing good.

  From me: I’m really sorry to hear that.

  From her: Drs found it in my ovaries. She added a crying emoji.

  From me: Gosh, that’s a lot to deal with. This development seemed to be incredibly bad news, and it occurred to me to ask when the most recent diagnosis had happened or how her daughters were, but I wasn’t sure that explaining such things to me was a good use of her energy. I wrote: I hope you feel that you’re in good hands with the doctors and nurses.

  She didn’t reply and I considered not telling her, but then I did; when I’d known other people who were very sick, their sickness had almost never precluded an interest in gossip. I wrote: When you have a moment, you might get a kick out of seeing that I went on a date last night! His name is Albert Boyd.

  From her: OMG

  Thirty seconds later: He is cuuuuute

  And: Nice job

  And: Go on with you’re bad self, followed by a winking emoji.

  I was standing next to the stage, and it was time to run through my opening statement once more, but before I took my place behind the lectern, I said to Theresa, “Will you send something from Las Vegas to Misty LaPointe? Or, no, call a florist and send her a cactus.”

  * * *

  —

  Our plane left Chicago at eleven o’clock on Monday morning and arrived, after the three-hour flight, at 12:20 local time in Las Vegas. Veronica and Suzy had done my hair and makeup as we’d flown west, and, before we deplaned, Suzy sprayed mineral water on my face, then on Theresa’s, then on Kenya’s, then on Greg’s. On the tarmac, my team and I climbed into three black SUVs. Unfathomably, we were headed to the Trump Las Vegas, where Donald Trump had called a press conference for two o’clock.

  Out the car windows, the sky was pale blue and vast, and the mountains behind the cityscape were dun colored. How exactly had I arrived at this moment? Was I being pragmatic or just deeply cynical?

  Built in 2008, the Trump Las Vegas was one of the tallest buildings in the city, its glass supposedly containing actual gold. Though the hotel didn’t feature a casino, its entrance couldn’t have been gaudier: Over glass and gold-plated doors, Trump’s name appeared in large gold letters against a gold panel. Even seen from the outside, the lobby was already visibly crowded, with a chaotic air, and news vans with satellite dishes waited in the parking lot. We bypassed the main entrance, riding around to the building’s rear, and entered through a loading dock.

  My ears popped as we rode the elevator to the penthouse condo where I’d meet Donald before our public appearance. And then eight of my staffers and I, counting my security detail, were in a living room with a view of the Strip, including the Eiffel Tower replica. The décor of the living room was upscale but generic: lots of beige furniture and a fuchsia-and-white orchid on a glass coffee table. We’d been ushered in by a short man wearing a white-and-gold uniform, and Greg asked him, “Is Ashley here?” Apparently, Ashley was Donald’s assistant.

  The uniformed man went to find her, and we took seats on the sofa and chairs, all of us pulling out our phones. We’d been offered neither drinks nor food, not even water. Sixty-four stories above the earth, the condo was quiet. Where was Donald’s staff?

  Minutes passed. My team joked that I should use the time to call donors, and Kenya offered me a PowerBar, and other people were debating ordering from room service. Greg had texted Ashley repeatedly and finally received a response that she’d arrive momentarily. As more minutes ticked by, dread gripped me.

  At last, Ashley entered through the same entrance door of the condo we had. She looked to be in her early twenties and was as stunning as a model—tall, slim, with long lustrous auburn hair—and she thanked us for coming and asked if we needed anything. In a snippy tone, Greg said, “Some waters would be great.”

  “Sure.” She counted our heads then disappeared down a corridor and reappeared carrying Styrofoam cups, ice free; she brought these out two by two, as unapologetically as if my team were a suburban family who’d locked ourselves out of our house and she was the next-door neighbor letting us wait in her kitchen. Diwata approached Ashley and spoke in a hushed but urgent tone, and a few seconds later, I heard Ashley say, “What’s a run of show?”

  Donald entered the condo at 1:55, massively tall, preternaturally blond, his face a powdered orangeish tan. He wore a navy suit, white shirt, and red tie, and he was accompanied by just one other person, a younger man.

  “Hillary Rodham,” Donald said in a booming voice. “You like my beautiful hotel? It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” He strode toward me, vigorously shook my hand, and said, “Are we gonna do this? We’re gonna do this. We’re gonna get you elected, and after that, the sky’s the limit.”

  A shift in the physics of time occurred, wherein Donald’s presence made the seconds and minutes spin forward. Abruptly, we were riding back down the elevator, toward the lobby. The elevator doors opened onto pandemonium: a crowd that surely exceeded the fire code, with many people holding up their phones to record the moment; the song “Rockin’ in the Free World” blasting over a sound system; a row of American flags with a podium in front of them. I followed Donald toward it, my agents flanking me. When we stood side by side in front of the podium, as hundreds of media camera flashes popped, I noticed the sparkliness of the lobby—the chandeliers, the many marbled and mirrored surfaces, the gold and white and gold and white. The crowd was roaring. Instinctively, I was smiling and waving, and in my peripheral vision, I could see Donald holding out both hands in thumbs-up gestures. Then he reached for the microphone and said into it, “Wow. Whoa. That is some group of people. Thousands.

  “It’s great to be at Trump Las Vegas. It’s great to be in a wonderful city. And it’s an honor to have everybody here. This is beyond anybody’s expectations. There’s been no crowd like this.

  “Our country is in serious trouble. We don’t have vi
ctories anymore. We used to have victories, but we don’t have them. When was the last time anybody saw us beating, let’s say, China in a trade deal? They kill us. I beat China all the time. All the time.

  “When do we beat Mexico at the border? They’re laughing at us, at our stupidity. And now they are beating us economically. The U.S. has become a dumping ground for everybody else’s problems. When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re sending people that have lots of problems. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.

  “Islamic terrorism is eating up large portions of the Middle East. They just built a hotel in Syria. Can you believe this? When I build a hotel, I pay interest. They don’t have to pay interest, because they took the oil that, when we left Iraq, I said we should’ve taken. Our enemies are getting stronger and stronger, and we as a country are getting weaker. Even our nuclear arsenal doesn’t work.

  “Now, our country needs a truly great leader, and we need a truly great leader now. We need a leader that can bring back our jobs, can bring back our manufacturing, can bring back our military, can take care of our vets. Our vets have been abandoned. And we also need a cheerleader. We need somebody that can take the brand of the United States and make it great again. So, ladies and gentlemen—I am officially endorsing Hillary Rodham for president of the United States, and she is going to make our country great again.

  “We have to rebuild our infrastructure, our bridges, our roadways, our airports. You come into LaGuardia Airport, it’s like we’re in a third world country. You look at the patches and the forty-year-old floor. And I come in from China and I come in from Qatar and I come in from different places, and they have the most incredible airports in the world.

  “Sadly, the American dream is dead. But if Hillary gets elected president she will bring it back bigger and better and stronger than ever before, and she will make America great again.

  “Thank you. Thank you very much.”

  I was in a state of shock. I was in a state of shock, and I also understood I needed to speak. I leaned forward, and he didn’t move—he seemed barely aware of me next to him—and I bent the microphone down. “Wow,” I said. “Wow, that was truly unforgettable. Donald, you and I are such different people, but I’m glad we can agree on the promise of this great country. Now, from my perspective, and there’s a lot of data to support this, immigrants bolster the American economy and actually commit fewer crimes than people born in the United States. I firmly believe that diversity is a strength, and the idea that we have to pick either financial security or open borders—that’s a false choice. And other countries are our allies, not our enemies. My administration will build and maintain coalitions to tackle problems that affect all of us, like climate change. One of our core American values, and I absolutely plan to uphold this as president, is that every person, no matter who they are or where they were born, deserves to be treated with dignity.”

  Donald elbowed me and grabbed the microphone back. Laughing, he said, “Folks, she has to say that. When you’re a politician, you have to toe the line.” He smiled at the crowd. “When you’re a star, you can do anything you want.”

  Then he grabbed my hand and lifted my arm into the air next to his.

  * * *

  —

  My schedule on Tuesday had been kept clear before the debate, though Diwata, Theresa, Ellie, and I did visit the Caesars Palace laundry room, where I introduced myself to the housekeepers, thanked them, and encouraged them to register to vote immediately and to caucus in February. As it happened, of the five housekeepers, all were immigrants, and at least one did not know who I was. Ellie immediately posted the photo she took of all of us on social media.

  Otherwise I stayed in my suite, practicing my opening statement and studying my green binders. The debate started at 5:30 Pacific time, and for lunch I ate salad and a chicken breast; I had what I thought of as my ritual predebate diarrhea an hour later; I did a five-minute guided meditation on my iPad; I ate a handful of mixed nuts and drank a glass of water; I brushed my teeth; and by 2:00 P.M., Veronica and Suzy were at work on my hair and makeup. By three, my team and I were in our black SUVs headed north on Sammy Davis Jr. Drive.

  Sometimes on debate days in the past, I’d awakened with the feeling—the anticipation and preparation and loneliness, the sense that I was about to enact my own destiny—but the truth was that on this day I hadn’t. I did have a strange feeling entering the Wynn, but it was not the feeling; what I felt was the awareness that Bill might well be under this same roof, breathing this same air. That if he wasn’t already in one of the greenrooms, he would be soon.

  In my greenroom, I examined the papers I’d take onstage, and I took small sips of water; Veronica touched up my hair and Suzy touched up my makeup. And then I was being led through a maze of hallways to the wings of the stage, I was seconds from laying eyes on Bill (and also Martin O’Malley and also Jim Webb, though, really, I didn’t care about them), and suddenly there we all were, the candidates and our aides and a pop singer in leather pants who would be performing the national anthem. I could see the instant when Bill leaned down to kiss my cheek out of impulse or habit but caught himself. “Good to see you, Hillary,” he said, as casually as if we were former co-workers. “So you and Trump, huh? Politics really does make strange bedfellows.”

  I said, “Oh, I hardly think that’s the most surprising part of this race.”

  A strange effect of having interacted with Donald such a short time ago was that Bill’s presence seemed comparatively refined and intellectual. Where Donald was physically beastly, Bill was handsome. But I was not attracted to him. Once we had been so close, so rapturously close, and that closeness had been poisoned. But if it was irretrievable, its irretrievability did not strike me, as it had during earlier times, as tragic. It had taken most of my life, but I finally found it harder to believe that Bill and I had ever been a couple than that we hadn’t stayed together.

  And then I was shaking hands with other people, Martin O’Malley, his chief of staff, the pop singer. This singer wasn’t the one I’d seen interviewed all those years ago—though that other singer was older now, she’d always been perceived of as controversial in a way that made it unlikely she’d be invited to perform the national anthem before a debate—but I fleetingly thought, Top-of-game alone. Would the goal I had set for myself watching TV with Meredith in 1997 come to pass? Either way, hadn’t I tried, wasn’t I trying, as hard as I knew how?

  We walked onstage just as I’d practiced, and it was impossible to see the audience because of the bright lights directed at us. The Wynn auditorium held 1,400 people, a mass of shadowy bodies. When all four of us had emerged—the applause for me was of a different magnitude than for Jim or Martin, and the applause for Bill was of a different magnitude than for me—the singer followed. An enormous screen at stage left showed a billowing American flag, and we all faced it, our hands over our hearts, as she sang.

  After we’d taken our places behind the podiums, Anderson Cooper established the debate’s rules—a minute to answer the questions, thirty seconds for follow-ups or rebuttals—then we made our opening statements. Jim Webb was in full PE teacher mode. Martin O’Malley was more endearing but somehow hollow or generic, like a movie version of a president. Plus, he did sound elfin. They both invoked their children, of which Jim had six and Martin four. Bill went third, and the difference between him and the other men was striking, his comfort and confidence and eloquence as he declared that the American dream had always been about innovation.

  And then it was my turn. I introduced myself as the granddaughter of a factory worker. I spoke about children fulfilling their potential, about making America fairer for families by closing tax loopholes and creating paid leave. I concluded by saying that in electing me, fathers would be able to say to their daughters, You, too, can be presid
ent.

  Often the first question in a debate was related to a current event and put to everyone, but instead Anderson asked each of us individual questions tailored to our candidacies, which had a cut-to-the-chase quality. He started with Bill, pointing out that the top 1 percent of American households owned 40 percent of the country’s wealth and asking whether a billionaire could understand the plight of voters struggling to pay for groceries. Bill described his humble childhood, how he’d lived with his grandparents in Hope while his mother got her nursing degree in New Orleans so that she could support him as a single mother. Raising the minimum wage was important, he said, but he didn’t want Americans to just get by; he wanted them to thrive. As he was wrapping up his response, he added, “Now, if any of you don’t know this, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that Hope, Arkansas, grows the world’s sweetest watermelons. Since my boyhood, nothing’s ever tasted better to me.” The audience chuckled.

  “Senator Rodham, just over twenty-four hours ago, you stood next to Donald Trump, receiving his endorsement,” Anderson said. “In the same remarks, he denigrated immigrants, which follows on what some find to be offensive tweets he’s written about President Obama and about women. Are you willing to publicly condemn these statements by Donald Trump, and if so, how can you accept his support?”

  “Let me be crystal clear,” I said. “To suggest that Barack Obama was born outside the United States, and thereby to question the legitimacy of his presidency, is deplorable. Xenophobia and racism in all forms are deplorable. Sexism is deplorable. That said, when anyone’s views evolve and become more enlightened, it’s to be celebrated. We’re all products of particular circumstances, of times and places and ways of thinking, but our minds and hearts can be opened. If Donald Trump wants to embrace feminism, I welcome his evolution. I don’t believe in permanently writing someone off because of things they’ve said or done in the past.” I felt okay with my answer, but there was no time to dwell on it; Anderson was putting questions to Jim and then Martin, and I needed to remain attentive to every word.