When we did actually speak, the senator talked anxiously about the scandal-related press calls coming into the campaign but also kept telling me how grateful he was for my help. He went out of his way to make me feel important, as if I were saving him and therefore the country from a catastrophe. He said he was worried about calls the campaign had had from a reporter for The New York Times who said he had evidence that I had undergone a vasectomy after our last child was born with heart problems. He claimed that Rielle’s child couldn’t be mine. This wasn’t true, of course. I hadn’t had a vasectomy
In this conversation, the senator told me his wife was now calling supporters and saying derogatory things about me but that he would try to get her to stop. He acted as if we were partners now more than ever, and he reinforced this connection by sharing inside information. When Benazir Bhutto was assassinated in Pakistan, he told me about how Pervez Musharraf had called him directly to consult. Strangely, he made these observations on world and national affairs with less urgency than he brought to his comments about keeping Rielle happy and quiet. He was careful, though, to avoid using her actual name. Typical was this message:
I’m in Nashua, New Hampshire, about to get on a plane to go to Iowa . . . I’m sorry I couldn’t reach you, but we’re just, you know, I’ve got four CBS reporters on the plane with me so I’m standing out in eighteen degree temperatures to call you. And please tell her I said hello and I will call later tonight. Thanks.
Rielle required the senator’s constant attention, because now that she was playing “fugitive on an expense account,” she was even more demanding and, at times, less careful. Although her picture was displayed on the front page of the National Enquirer, which was on the rack in the lobby newsstand, she traipsed around the resort as if she owned the place. With Rielle indulging in this risky behavior, and Cheri and me anxious to reunite with our kids for the holiday, Fred Baron arranged for us to get out of Florida on Christmas Eve aboard another private jet. At checkout, I noticed that we had racked up a bill totaling more than eight thousand dollars in seven nights. The clerk also gave me a FedEx envelope from Fred. It held one thousand dollars’ cash and a note that said, “Old Chinese proverb: Use cash, not credit cards.”
The plan called for us to travel to southern Illinois to pick up the kids and then to Aspen, Colorado, where we would stay in Fred Baron’s vacation home. Aspen was going to be our temporary haven until we found a place where we could live together in seclusion until Rielle gave birth. The only hitch in the plan, other than the fact that we were giving up our normal lives, involved a friend—a trial lawyer from Georgia—whom Fred had invited to use the house from December 27 to January 2. During this time, we would have to hide ourselves at a hotel in San Diego which Rielle chose. Complicated as these arrangements may sound, I was used to juggling campaign travel for the senator, who might take half a dozen flights in a single day, so this itinerary seemed easy to me.
As we left Florida, we phoned Cheri’s dad to ask him to bring the kids to the MidAmerica Airport, a little-used facility outside St. Louis where we would be unlikely to attract any attention. We asked him to come alone, because her mom wasn’t too crazy about me. (She had good reason to feel this way.) To his credit, he didn’t say anything even after he saw Rielle and her swollen belly and realized she was with us. Like everyone in my family, Cheri’s folks were aware of what was on the front page of the Enquirer and must have guessed what was going on, but her dad said nothing as he said good-bye to his grandchildren and they climbed aboard a private jet for some mysterious adventure.
Because we knew the kids would miss their regular Christmas celebration, Cheri and I had bought a tiny artificial tree with lights and installed it inside the plane, so as they climbed aboard it looked as if they were getting a ride on Santa’s private jet. We had never been separated from all three of them for so long, and they hugged us as though we had been lost in the jungle for a year. Rielle, whom they called “Jaya,” did her best to smile and be friendly during the flight, although she must have felt like an outsider at a family picnic. The kids ate candy, visited the pilots in the cockpit (where they helped “fly” the jet), and screamed with roller-coaster delight when we landed and the plane wobbled from side to side as the crew applied the brakes to bring us to a halt on the icy runway.
At the FBO, which is a stone-and-timber building that looks like a ski chalet, the crew shut down the engines, opened the door, and lowered the steps. The kids ran outside and immediately grabbed some of the fresh snow to throw at one another. Two SUVs waited for us, and the driver of the one that carried our family narrated the journey through a development started by the singer John Denver: “That hundred-and-fifty-million-dollar house belongs to Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the former Saudi ambassador to the United States; this one belongs to Robert Wagner, the actor. . . .” When we drove up Fred Baron’s driveway, we discovered a stone-and-wood mansion secluded by evergreens and staffed by a house manager, a chef, and a masseuse, who were all on call.
Fred’s sprawling house was lavishly furnished. Pictures of his frequent guests Bill and Hillary Clinton were placed in conspicuous places, and the coffeepot in the kitchen was, we were told, the property of Lance Armstrong, who had lived in the place during training. I was impressed by the home gym, which was filled with equipment. The kids loved the racquet-ball court, which they called “the ballroom,” and the indoor pool/Jacuzzi/sauna complex, which was enclosed by a ceiling painted to look like the night sky, with twinkling lights to represent the stars.
Within an hour of our arrival, the kids were splashing and floating in the pool as Cheri, Rielle, and I watched them. For a moment, we forgot the craziness that had brought us to the place and allowed ourselves to enjoy it. Rielle got so relaxed that she again started talking about her sexual escapades with the senator, including specifics about where, when, and how they performed certain acts. We interrupted her with cries of, “Whoa! TMI!”—too much information—and she retreated from this subject. But the details about their affair would come up again and again in our time on the road.
After Cheri and I put the kids to bed and the quiet overcame us, we remembered that it was Christmas Eve and we were far from friends and family and unable to give our kids the holiday they usually enjoyed. On Christmas Day, we managed a small celebration with a tree Fred had arranged and the few presents we had brought from home. Cheri and I called our families and had some awkward conversations, and we had fun playing in the snow with the kids. Rielle was unhappy to be out of contact with the senator over the holiday and impatient to move on to California, where she hoped that Fred Baron would set us up in a house in either San Diego or Santa Barbara. The latter was her first choice because it was the home of her spiritual adviser—a guy called Bob—who was her most important source of “spiritual” support.
Anyone who spent any time around Rielle knew that Bob McGovern was the source of wisdom who guided many of her decisions. She called him “an intuitive,” which in her world meant that he possessed a sort of sixth sense that he could use to acquire special insight into any situation and to predict the future by reading the stars. Although I had never met him, I heard Rielle consult him on the phone many dozens of times. Often she would just leave a message describing her problem and requesting he intervene. A little while later, she would say she could “feel” the changes Bob was “creating” in the spirit realm. Because we paid her bills, I learned that Bob charged for his cell phone consultations—two hundred dollars was typical—and that Rielle relied on him for help with everything from the profound to the ridiculous.
The ridiculous was on display in Aspen on the one occasion when we all went out to eat together. With the kids in mind, we picked a burger-and-shakes place called Boogie’s Diner. With 1950s-style music and decorations, the place is as casual as you can get and still have sit-down service, so most people order something greasy and chomp away. Rielle left Bob two voice mails about her Reuben sandwich. To be precise, t
he issue was the Russian dressing, which she found lacking, and she wondered whether she should send her meal back to the kitchen. She did. Twice.
The impatient and self-indulgent attitude that led Rielle to make a double fuss over a Reuben sandwich would get worse as her due date grew closer. But as much as she appalled us, we also tried to empathize with her because she was alone, without emotional support from her baby’s father, and scared of everything, including giving birth. She also knew that a major effort was being made to control her and that my loyalties were with Cheri, the kids, and John Edwards, in that order.
After just four days in Aspen, we all packed our stuff and got back on the private jet to spend a week in San Diego. We landed there on December 27, crammed ourselves and our luggage into a rental car that was way too small, and drove to the Loews Coronado Bay hotel. After check-in, when another envelope full of cash was handed to me, we all got back in the car so we could hit an ice-cream shop for the kids and a drugstore so I could pick up a few necessities like toothbrushes and shaving supplies. While I was in the store and everyone waited outside, I spotted a new edition of the Enquirer on the news rack and was relieved to see we weren’t on the cover. I thumbed through a copy while at the register and still didn’t see anything about Rielle or the senator. When I brought the paper to the car, I said, “Hey, good news. We’re not in the National Enquirer.” Then I glanced down at the paper as it fell open to page six, where I saw a nice picture of Cheri next to a larger and very unflattering photo of Rielle with her mouth hanging open and her left hand extended, clawlike, making her look like a Tyrannosaurus rex in a maternity smock.
“Oh shit,” I said without thinking.
“What?” said Rielle and Cheri in unison.
Cheri took the paper out of my hand and got into the backseat of the car to look at it. As I drove, I could see she was studying it carefully. The article didn’t offer anything new about Edwards, Rielle, or the Young family but was instead a breathless report titled “Edwards Love-Child Bombshell Causes Nationwide Frenzy.” (The last two words, “Nationwide Frenzy,” were printed in red ink.) Since no new facts were offered, the only real new tidbit was the picture of Cheri, which she didn’t like but I thought was fine. Rielle, as you might expect, was unhappy with her photo.
D
uring our week at Coronado Bay, we ran up a $10,000 tab as Rielle used every service the hotel had to offer while Cheri and I took the kids to Legoland, SeaWorld, and the San Diego Zoo. I authorized our biggest single room service purchase on December 29 when I realized as we were leaving the hotel for the zoo that it was Cheri’s birthday. (I got a little help when Cheri said, “You don’t even know what day it is today, do you?”)
After apologizing, and apologizing, I spent the time at the zoo walking a step and a half behind Cheri and performing child care like the world’s best dad. When I was able to get a private moment, I used my cell phone to call Rielle and ask her to help me out. She called the concierge, who went to the hotel gift shop and bought a bunch of odd presents. The concierge also got Cheri balloons, flowers, and a birthday cake, and the kitchen sent a small banquet to our room. It was a celebration, but nothing like the all-stops-out birthdays I had arranged for Cheri in the past. The proof was in the pictures, which show my wife and supposed mistress seated together at a well-appointed table, forcing smiles.
Cheri’s birthday was just one moment in what was becoming an unnervingly surreal misadventure. Unable to tell anyone where we were, and barred from speaking honestly with colleagues and friends, I began to feel as if I were watching the world turning from a spot on the moon. The Internet became even more important to me, and I followed news sites closely for some hint that the bargain I had struck with John Edwards was going to help him win Iowa and grab the momentum to propel him to the nomination. Everywhere I looked, I saw that he was gaining on the front-runner, Obama. This success came from a new campaign strategy that stressed taking a tough approach to the election battle with Republicans. Edwards told his audiences, “You try and nice them to death, they’ll trample you.” This message worked with activist Democrats who had seen too many of their guys take the “high road” to defeat.
As Senator Edwards barnstormed across the state, the press took note of the fact that he was significantly tardy—an hour late wasn’t unusual—for every event. But no one knew that the delays were caused, in part, by the time he used on the phone listening to his angry wife, comforting his lonely mistress, and maintaining his relationship with me. In the ten years I had known him, John Edwards had never tried harder to strengthen our bond, by sharing information and expressing concern and gratitude. In one call, he said to me, laughing, “[Former president] Clinton’s been calling around trying to hire you. . . . He said he would still be president if he had you to cover for him.” On another call, he left a message noting he had just finished an interview on CNN with Larry King but wanted to make sure “you’re safe and in a place where you are good.”
By “place,” the senator meant state of mind, and I didn’t expect to be in a good place until we got our normal lives back. If he got the nomination and Mrs. Edwards survived, we would be hard-pressed to find a way out of our arrangement with Rielle before November. If he didn’t win the nomination but wanted to pursue either the vice presidential slot or a place in some future Democratic administration, we’d be in the same predicament. Barring a sudden surge of honesty, the only way we were going to get out of our commitment would be if Mrs. Edwards died. And we still loved her too much to hope for this terrible outcome.
T
he three of us watched the reports on the Iowa caucus results in Fred’s house in Aspen. (We had returned there once his friend from Georgia had vacated the place.) Barack Obama won handily, becoming the genuine front-runner for the nomination. John Edwards offered a raspy thank-you to the voters who had given him second place. Unfortunately for him, Edwards had gone “all in” in Iowa, and he finished with just 1 percent more of the vote than Hillary Clinton. And while Obama and Clinton had big organizations in the next battleground state, New Hampshire, Edwards had no real organization there, and was quickly running out of money.
“It’s not about me,” said Edwards in New Hampshire. “It’s about the families who deserve a real chance in this country.”
With Obama trumpeting “change” and Hillary turning on the emotion (her eyes welled with tears when a voter asked about the rigors of the campaign), Edwards continued with the basic themes he had used in Iowa, stressing that he would fight for the average American. But as he faced opponents with far more resources and depth of support, he was eventually reduced, in his last days of campaigning, to pleading that a vote cast for him would not be wasted.
On New Hampshire primary day, the senator actually took time to call me in Aspen. I was out playing in the snow with the kids, so he left a message. It said, in part, “Just wanted all [his emphasis] of you, including her, to know that I am thinking about you. I will be in South Carolina tomorrow, flying in there in the morning, and should be by myself tomorrow night, so I will talk to you then.”
Rielle, whose belly was approaching basketball size, was now living for the moments when she could talk to the senator at length. Uncomfortable and lonely, she consulted Bob on a regular basis, watched the TV news channels, and when there was no election news, searched for reruns of Law & Order. This show and her pink cell phone, which now displayed a photo of her lounging with the senator whenever it was on, were comfort objects for her. She used them to pass the long hours in the house because she was unable to go out because of the paparazzi. Aspen was crawling with them.
Rielle knew long before the polls closed that the results of the New Hampshire primary were going to be worse for Edwards than the Iowa caucuses. We watched the results in the library, which overlooked snowcovered mountains. He got clobbered, finishing a distant third behind the winner, Hillary Clinton, and the runner-up, Obama. Mrs. Clinton claimed the title of “Comeback Kid,�
� and Obama finished just three points behind her. This success, in a largely rural and almost entirely white state, would help propel his fund-raising toward a record-setting total. It also suggested that Democrats were ready for either a black candidate or a woman. Edwards gamely declared, “Two states down, forty-eight to go. I’m in this race to the convention, and I intend to be the nominee of my party.”
Realistically, the Democrats in New Hampshire had just made the contest for the presidential nomination a two-person affair, and if Edwards was running for anything, it was to be as candidate for vice president or for a spot in some future Democratic administration. After New Hampshire, even Fred Baron’s enthusiasm began to wane, but he remained interested because his friend might win the veep slot or be named attorney general. In either of these spots, Edwards could help protect the nation’s trial lawyers from Republican efforts to cut their business by imposing tort reform.
While some Democrats began calling for the senator to drop out, we turned our attention to finding a more permanent hideout where we could give our kids some semblance of a normal life. School was starting, and Cheri and I wanted to go home. But now Fred and the senator were insisting we stay away and keep Rielle under control until his part in the election was over or Mrs. Edwards died. Santa Barbara was now the only place Rielle was even willing to consider for her hideout. This decision had been made during a blowup that began with a suggestion from Fred Baron. He told us of a place in the Southwest “where they take care of situations like this” in utter privacy for wealthy clients. Rielle took this to mean that Fred wanted to send her to a clinic for late-term abortions. In fact, Fred was recommending a secluded retreat, with staff, where celebrities and other pregnant guests get the utmost privacy. But nothing anyone said could reassure Rielle, and the argument made her even more eager to live near Bob McGovern. On January 10, we took another private jet flight, this time from Aspen to Santa Barbara. While we were in the air, Fred left me a voice mail that confirmed how things might be changing now that the dream shared by John and Elizabeth Edwards (and the shared ambition that held them together) was breaking apart:
The Politician Page 28
