Not Afraid of Life (17 page)

Chapter Nine

Sinking In

W
hen we got back home to Wasilla, we were away from the glitz of the convention, the constant pressure to look great, and the television reporters . . . but you can’t ever
really
be away from the reporters.

I was sitting on Mom’s bed watching Fox News when I heard my name. The host said something like “. . . Governor Sarah Palin confirmed that her seventeen-year-old daughter, Bristol, is five months pregnant and that the child will marry the father.”

I’d avoided all of the press when I was with my parents at the convention. Since I was pregnant, I didn’t want to cause myself unnecessary stress. But there I was, alone in my parents’ bedroom, and I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the screen.

They played a clip of then Senator Obama saying candidates’ children should be off-limits.

I couldn’t believe my pregnancy was being discussed on national television with the other candidates. The screen went back to a “talking head,” a political adviser who believed I’d shown courage as my drama sadly played out in such a public glare.

I (a seventeen-year-old kid!) had become a talking point. You may have thought this would’ve dawned on me sooner, like during the convention when it all became public and cameras recorded our every expression. Though I knew everyone paying attention to American politics was
aware
of my pregnancy, I didn’t realize how
important
everyone thought it was. Before the convention, I’d been consumed with trying to figure out what kind of trade I could learn so I could afford to take care of my baby. During the convention, I was so caught up in all the excitement of Mom’s speech that it didn’t dawn on me how many people were chattering about me. Only when I returned home did it really sink in. And it felt less like a gradual realization and more like a stab.

This was the only time I heard anyone talking about me on television during the election, so I immediately called my mom. After she did her best to comfort me, I sadly hung up the phone and was left sitting in the house alone. That’s when I did what any typical teenage girl would do—I called my friends. The only problem was that I was no longer the “typical teenage girl,” at least according to the Secret Service that surrounded me constantly.

Our house in Wasilla, which you may have seen on TLC’s
Sarah Palin’s Alaska,
is right on Lake Lucille. That meant not only were the Secret Service at our front gate and door, they were also sitting in boats all day (and night) on the lake. Plus, they followed us everywhere we went. Once, I was getting my hair done, and my stylist asked in a low, suspicious tone, “Are those people stalking you?” She nodded to two men outside the salon. “They’ve been out there for a long time.”

Because it was Alaska, the Secret Service didn’t look like the ones on TV, with dark suits, sunglasses, and sleeves that hid communication devices. Our Secret Service agents wore boots, hats, and parkas to protect them from the weather. This made it even weirder, because it wasn’t obvious why they were following us. They did have earpieces, but you’d have to look closely to see them. So it basically looked like we were traveling with our own posse of big burly men. I was somewhat used to having a security detail. When Mom was governor she had security, but not like these guys. The Secret Service followed me everywhere—to school, to the grocery store, and even to Levi’s house. Once, I went to Valdez, where he was working—a seven-hour drive—and the entire way I saw their vehicles in my rearview mirror. I bet Mom wished she had that kind of surveillance when I was younger!

Eventually, I’d be glad to have them there. Weird cars crept up our driveway, and reporters tried to sneak in through our bushes. But on that day, as I sat on the bed in tears, the Secret Service had held my friends up at the gate, and I just felt that much more alone.

After a few texts and several conversations convincing security that these girls were actually friends, I had my first big cry of the campaign.

“What am I going to do?” I said, with a tear-streaked face. Of course, they had no idea, and neither did I. Our lives prior to this consisted of snowmachines and trying to get out of math homework, not dealing with the pundits discussing your sex life on national television. There’s no guidebook for what to do when thrust into that situation, so we just tried to figure it out as we went along.

And the campaign had barely even started.

Thankfully, I did figure out a short-term plan for life. Since Mom and Dad were off campaigning, they needed someone to watch the house and take care of the kids while they were gone. I was the perfect girl for the job! This allowed me to live in the house and have a job at the same time. One of Mom’s friends also stayed with us.

Though I had taken care of babies my whole life, I was getting useful practice learning how to manage a household. I took Piper to dance classes, made sure I went to all my doctor’s appointments, and checked to make sure everyone was doing their homework.

In one eventful moment while Mom and Dad were away, kids at school started making fun of Willow.

“Your brother’s retarded!” one kid said to her, laughing.

One of Willow’s guy friends beat him up, and he never dared make fun of our precious little brother again. (Other, mean-spirited adults would, but at least this kid didn’t.)

Otherwise, my time was spent paying bills and making sandwiches for the girls’ school lunches. It wasn’t glamorous, but it was a great situation for an unwed mother-to-be trying to figure out a future.

One night, about eleven o’clock, however, my phone started ringing. I knew it wasn’t Levi calling from the Slope because we’d already talked that evening.

The number was blocked, which I thought meant it was Mom or Dad.

“Hello?” I asked. My voice was tired, and I didn’t try to hide it. Now that they were traveling, it was hard for everyone to remember that we’re four hours earlier than the East Coast. I got calls at all times, especially early in the morning.

“Hey slut,” the caller said.

“Who’s this?”

“Go to hell,” he responded, before hanging up the phone.

Now that’ll wake you up.

Literally about thirty seconds later, my phone rang again.

More hesitantly, I answered. “Hello?”

“There’s no way your mom is going to win this election, so tell her to . . .”

This time, I hung up the phone.

It rang again.

“Skank!” was the first word that came out of that interaction. The weird thing is that they were all different people with different accents. What was happening? I immediately called my mother.

“Mom,” I said frantically. “Something’s very wrong. I think someone hacked into my e-mail!”

“No, they hacked into mine.”

Apparently, someone had gotten into my mom’s e-mail account and taken a screen shot of its contents. Then he posted all kinds of personal information on the Internet: private e-mails, photos (including one where Willow was being silly, crossing her eyes and holding Trig), contact information, and phone numbers for all of our friends and family. Though this was illegal, the large media outlets published all of this stolen information. That meant my phone number was broadcast on “legitimate” news stations and blogs all across the nation. (And not only mine, all of our family and almost everyone we had contact with.)

The calls kept coming. All night, every two minutes, someone would call with threats or insults. Track sometimes picked up the phone, furious at the invasion of privacy, and would tell them in very colorful terms to back off his family.

They quickly realized who the culprit was—the son of a Democrat Tennessee lawmaker who said Mom was only upset about the hacking because she was trying to hide something. He later admitted the truth: he was trying to find out something damaging about the family. Something that could hurt the campaign.

Though he found nothing, he created such complications for everyone. It made everything on the campaign trail much more difficult, but it also made everything at home almost unbearable. Immediately, the FBI came and confiscated our phones. To make matters worse, I was under eighteen, so I couldn’t legally sign a contract to get a new phone. Someone finally gave me a prepaid phone, but until then I couldn’t communicate with Mom and Dad, arrange school pickups, or even give Mom and Dad updates as Track prepared to go to Iraq.

It was so depressing. Levi wasn’t even around to help out during this time because he was away most of the time on the Slope. However, we developed a good way to communicate. I gave him a spiral notebook, which he wrote in every night, then when he’d come home, he’d give me a whole lot of letters. They were filled with details of his days, which included twelve-to-fourteen-hour workdays, caribou and fox sightings, as well as little notes to Bentley. It was at least one way to keep connected, though he was very far away from my normal life.

And in the midst of all of this, Track got his orders to deploy to Iraq. After he’d joined the army, he was stationed at Fort Benning, Georgia, and then in Fairbanks at Fort Wainwright as part of the thirty-five-hundred-soldier Stryker Brigade. Mom was the speaker at the deployment ceremony, which she’d committed to in her role as governor long before she realized her own son would be one of the thirty-five hundred.

As Mom spoke, my brother stood at attention amid all of the other soldiers, wearing desert fatigues and black berets, facing the crowd. He completely blended into his unit, nicknamed the “Grey Wolves,” and Mom didn’t mention him by name. He never wants to be singled out!

I didn’t even get to go to the ceremony. By this time, I was so ashamed at what I’d done, I hated to go out in public and feel everyone’s eyes on my ever-growing baby bump. And so I was all alone at home, blinking back tears as my big brother headed out to war.

Now that Track was leaving, who’d teach my son what a real man was supposed to act like?

Of course, nothing could’ve been a better example of manhood than for my son to know that his uncle Track loved his country enough to fight for it. (This, of course, is a lot easier to write now that he’s already back from the war zone.)

At the time, it felt like my whole world was coming apart at the seams.

W
hile Mom was in Alaska for Track’s deployment, she came by the house with Charlie Gibson for an interview. The television producers came into our kitchen and made it into a set. The campaign sent Nicolle with Mom, so they went through Mom’s closets to select clothes that she could take on the campaign trail. It was one of those slightly awkward moments, when Nicolle scrunched up her face as she was going through each item and said, “No, no, no . . .”

It seemed, once again, that our clothes were not quite up to this vice presidential task.

When everyone left, and the kitchen became our regular old kitchen again, I waved good-bye at the door. Though I’d miss Mom, I was thankful that I wasn’t going back on the campaign trail with them.

O
n my fifteenth birthday, Mom declared she was running for governor, and on my sixteenth, she was still running for governor. However, my eighteenth birthday really made up for previous birthdays that were less than exciting! Willow, Trig, a sitter for Trig, and I packed up and went to New York City, where my mother was about to tape
Saturday Night Live.

I was seven months pregnant, and I hadn’t seen Mom in a few weeks. When she came into the hotel room with all of her entourage, it was so good to see her. She looked at my pregnant belly and exclaimed, “Oh my goodness, you’re getting so big!,” and I was so embarrassed.

Mom and Dad gave us cupcakes from Magnolia, a bakery in Rockefeller Center that makes everything from scratch in small batches all day so the food is so fresh. My cupcakes were pink and brown, and I’ve never had any more delicious! Also, the McCain campaign staff pitched in and gave me a $400 gift card to Target. This was much larger than any of my paychecks, so I was pumped. I dreamed about what kind of cool things I could get for the baby with such a large amount.

I got my hair and makeup done, and then got to go backstage to meet a lot of the
Saturday Night Live
crew. Amy Poehler, also pregnant at the time, compared notes with me about our pregnancies. I also met Alec Baldwin, who stars on
30 Rock.
When it was finally time to go to the taping, I sat in the audience and watched as my mother did the opening sketch.

It began with a mock press conference that had Tina Fey in her now famous role pretending to be Mom. On a different part of the stage, Mom was watching Tina’s performance on a television monitor with
Saturday Night Live
’s executive producer.

Mom said, “I just didn’t think it was a realistic depiction of the way my press conferences would have gone. Why couldn’t we have done the
30 Rock
sketch that I wrote?”

“Honestly, not enough people know that show,” Lorne Michaels responds.
30 Rock,
of course, is the popular show Tina Fey produces.

That’s when Alec Baldwin pretended to mistake my mom for Tina-dressed-as-Mom.

He tried to convince the producer not to let his friend appear on the show with her, saying “You want her, our Tina, to go out there and stand there with that horrible woman? What do you have to say for yourself?”

That’s when the producer pointed out that Mom was really Mom and not the look-alike Tina.

“Forgive me,” Alec said. “I must say this. You’re way hotter in person. I mean seriously. I mean, I can’t believe they let her play you.”

I never thought I’d see my own mother yell, “Live from New York, it’s Saturday Night!,” but she did. It seemed so surreal hearing those words coming out of her mouth . . . the same mouth that used to nag me about keeping my socks off the floor. The crowd seemed to love her being there, and the
SNL
staffers backstage were cracking up at some of the skits.

The most hilarious moment came later, during Weekend Update.

Seth Meyers introduced her by saying, “Here to clear up some misconceptions about her campaign is Sarah Palin.”