The Hopefuls (9 page)

Colleen was right about the crafting too. Ash wasn't a scrapbooker, but she was a stamper, something I didn't know existed before I met her. She had hundreds of stamps, which she kept in a small room in their apartment. She used them on letters, and made her own wrapping paper and cards. After that dinner party, she'd sent a card made on thick white paper, with
THANK
YOU
stamped out, each letter in a different color. There were a bunch of bumblebees on the card, little trails of dots behind them.

Ash and I were friends, but we were also so different. There were things she said that would have bothered me if she was anyone else, hobbies she had that I would normally find ridiculous. She was a grown woman who called her father Daddy. She was unlike any friend I'd ever had, and sometimes I couldn't believe we got along like we did. There were certain things that we just didn't talk about, because I think we both knew it would bring our differences to the surface, afraid that if we examined things too closely, we'd see that we weren't really meant to be such great friends after all.

But it didn't matter, really. For all the ways that we were different, it was our husbands who brought us together, who made us the same. We had them in common, and they were both chasing after something that neither of us totally understood. Only Ash knew how it felt to be bound to someone like that.

When I opened the envelope with Ash's thank-you note after that dinner party, my first urge was to laugh (which I did later when I showed it to Matt). I pictured Ash carefully picking out colors, biting her bottom lip as she concentrated on stamping out the words. I hung it on the refrigerator, because I didn't know what else to do with it—maybe because it was handmade, or maybe because I felt guilty for making fun of it, I could never bring myself to take it down. It stayed there for the rest of the time we lived in DC.

Washington, DC
2010

If you want a friend in Washington, get a dog.

—HARRY TRUMAN

B
ecause Jimmy was part of the advance team that staffed Obama, he and Ash spent Christmas and New Year's in Hawaii. They were there for almost three weeks, during which time Ash posted daily pictures on Facebook of her polished toes in the sand, of piña coladas in the middle of the day, of Coronas in front of the ocean. In the meantime, Matt and I spent Christmas in Wisconsin eating lasagna with my parents while we listened to my aunt Bit (who watched a lot of Fox News) go on and on about death panels until my mom insisted that we change the subject.

There had been a brief moment in November when Matt tried to convince me that we should also go to Hawaii, saying that Jimmy thought he could get Matt a spot on the advance team. “The DCOS owes him a favor and they still need someone to do airport.” (Matt pronounced this “Dee-kos,” and I stared at him for a second, wondering if he was speaking in a different language or if I was having a stroke.)

“The who?” I asked. “The what?”

“The deputy chief of staff. Billy. You've met him, right? That's what everyone calls him. The DCOS.”

“Oh, right,” I said, like this made any sense to me. “But you don't even do advance.”

Matt looked so hopeful as he said, “But I could.”

It wasn't that Hawaii didn't sound great (because obviously it did), but I couldn't bear the thought of canceling on my parents, of leaving them to celebrate alone. I already felt guilty enough that we had to alternate holidays with the Kellys—it seemed unfair because there were so many more of them and just the two of my parents. So we went to Wisconsin, which was nice and quiet as it always was. Matt didn't mention Hawaii again (he understood why I couldn't go), but I could tell that when we were sitting around the table talking with my parents about their cat, Snickers, or their bridge club he was thinking about it. My parents read a lot, watched several light mystery shows, and (if it was nice enough) went for daily walks—and so when we were with them, we did all of the same things, which I found sort of relaxing and was pretty sure that Matt found suffocating.

And Ash's pictures kept popping up: a plate of French toast with the ocean in the background and a caption, “Breakfast with a view at the Surfrider!”; a picture of turtles about to be released into the ocean; a tower of sushi at Morimoto. I couldn't mention them to Matt because I was the one who'd insisted we go to Wisconsin. And so I sat and shivered under a blanket in my parents' house and flipped through Ash's beach pictures, each one making me slightly crankier than the last.

We were back to DC for New Year's and went to a party with all of the White House people we always saw—minus Ash and Jimmy, who were still in Hawaii, which made the whole night pretty boring. I figured we could leave right after midnight and I counted down the minutes until then. But as the ball dropped on the TV, Matt kissed me and said, “Happy New Year's to my favorite wife,” and I thought how sweet he was, how he'd been in Wisconsin with me when he really wanted to be in Hawaii. So I smiled and stayed at the party with him until 3:00 a.m.

Ash called me the day they finally returned and I almost squealed on the phone when I heard her voice. “I feel like you guys have been gone forever,” I said.

“I know it,” she said. “It's good to be back.”

We made plans to meet for dinner at La Tomate, an Italian place at the top of Dupont, and when we walked into the restaurant, Ash and Jimmy were already there, both so absurdly tan that it made me dizzy to look at them straight on. They stood to greet us, all of us embracing like we'd been apart for years. When we finally sat down, I turned to them and said, “So, clearly you spent some time in the sun. How was it?”

Jimmy got a serious look on his face and said, “You know, this was a different kind of trip. Normally we're advancing the President for meetings with officials, for speeches, for official visits. But this was advancing him for a vacation—figuring out where he's going to eat dinner and play golf. And usually, we didn't know what he was going to do until the night before. You know, sometimes he'd want to play golf and then would decide at the last second to do a beach day with the family.”

“Wow,” I said. I was already regretting asking about the trip because Matt was so jealous he was practically shaking.

“I know,” Jimmy said. “It was a whole new spin on what we do on regular trips.”

“That's crazy,” Matt said. “It must have been hard to adjust to that.”

“It was,” Jimmy said, looking so intense that I wanted to roll my eyes. “I mean, look, don't get me wrong—we were in paradise, so I'm not complaining. It was just a different kind of job to advance the gym for him each morning. Can you believe he works out every single morning on vacation? His discipline is amazing.”

“Totally,” Matt said, and Ash made a sound of agreement.

“And the Secret Service has a tough job there too,” he went on. “Basically everything is an OTR stop.” (At this point, Matt turned to me and whispered, “Off the record,” so that I could understand the conversation, but Jimmy didn't even pause.) “He walks down the street to get shave ice and people just go crazy. We tell a restaurant about twenty minutes before he's going to get there—the reservation is under a different name—and then they have to get in there and start magging people—you know, checking them with the handheld metal detectors. There's so much work that goes into just one outing.”

The two of them started talking about how the team managed to get reservations for so many people at such great restaurants, and then Ash turned to me. “Have you ever had shave ice?” she asked. “It's so delicious.”

“It's like a sno-cone, right?” I asked.

“Yes, but so much better,” she said.

“I'll have to try it sometime.”

“Oh you do! You two have got to go to Hawaii. It really is just the most beautiful place I've ever been.”

“So what did you do all day while Jimmy was working?” I asked. It wasn't that I wanted to keep talking about the trip, but I sensed that there was no getting away from it, so I just gave in.

“Oh, sometimes I lounged around the hotel—the press pool stayed there too, so there were other spouses and family around and we all just got to be so friendly with each other. And then sometimes I'd tag along with Jimmy if the first family was doing something fun, like the beach or something. I'd just tuck myself to the side and enjoy it.”

“That sounds great,” I said.

“You know”—Ash looked thoughtful—“I just really admire Obama so much. He's very real. Do you know what I mean? He was always aware of how hard everyone was working for him, always thanking everyone. And when we would all be on the beach—and I mean, the staff wouldn't be right next to the family, because my goodness, they need their space and privacy—but he'd always walk down to say hi to us, always take the time to ask us how we were enjoying Hawaii.”

All I could think when Ash told this story was how annoying it must be for Obama to have to always be on—to make sure he remembered to thank everyone, to take the time to say hi to the families of his staff, when he'd probably rather just sit and relax with his own family on the beach. I mean, yes, he's the President and that's part of the job and he got to spend an amazing time in Hawaii, so it's not like I felt bad for him. Except I kind of did. It must be exhausting to always be that pleasant, to always be watched. I couldn't help but wonder who would want that kind of life, and then I looked over at Jimmy, his eyes gleaming as he talked about the trip, and I had my answer.

The stories went on and on for the rest of the night: The President made fun of Jimmy's golf shirt! He wore flip-flops the whole time! (This really seemed to excite everyone, but I guess it is rare to say you saw the President's toes.) They went snorkeling at Hanauma Bay! Everyone bought surfboards to take home! Obama gave the shaka sign to locals!

The waiter came over to ask if we wanted anything else and I shook my head no, started to say we were probably just ready for the check, but before I could get the words out, everyone else said dessert sounded great. (So it seemed I was the only one who wanted to end our dinner early.) Ash ordered ice cream and Jimmy and Matt both got tiramisu and I ordered nothing because I thought it would seem weird after I'd already said I didn't want anything.

Jimmy was still talking as the waiter brought over the desserts. “His best friend there is the greatest guy,” he said. “I mean all of his friends that came with were great—like a family really. And you can just tell what a solid person he is that he has this amazing group of friends, and that he's had them for years.”

I had to look away as Jimmy said this, because it was hard to sit there and listen to Jimmy dissect the President's character, like his opinion was important. The man had won the presidency, for Christ's sake. He didn't need the approval of some random guy in his advance office.

“But this guy, his friend that still lives in Hawaii,” Jimmy continued, “he has this amazing place on the North Shore and he threw this luau and invited the whole staff and we just, like, hung out. We played volleyball against the President and his friends, and after I made a great save, he started chanting my name.” Jimmy paused to smile here and tried his best to look embarrassed, but didn't even come close.

Ash joined in then, telling me about Michelle's swimsuit and how lovely she was. This maybe bothered me more than anything because it was the one thing that made me jealous. I'd always had the feeling that Michelle and I would've gotten along. I secretly thought of her like a pretend celebrity friend, which may have been a little pathetic, but still—she would definitely like me more than she liked Ash. We had way more in common.

This was the first time we'd hung out with the Dillons when I couldn't wait for the night to end. I could see Matt thinking about how he'd spent Christmas listening to my crazy aunt Bit and popping Benadryl because he was extremely allergic to Snickers, while Jimmy and Ash had been holding hands with Obama and all running into the ocean together to bodysurf as a happy group. (Or at least that's what they were making it sound like.)

“He was so relaxed there,” Jimmy said. “Which was just really great to see.” He sighed like he was one of Obama's besties and had been worried deeply about his stress levels.

Finally (finally!) we paid the check and left the restaurant. As soon as Jimmy and Ash jumped in a cab and we were alone on the sidewalk, I said to Matt, “You know, Jimmy makes it sound like they were all just hanging out in Hawaii together, like they were on a group vacation instead of being there to work.”

“It did sound pretty fun,” Matt said. He looked miserable. We started walking the few blocks back to our apartment, not talking much. I was worried that Jimmy was turning into Alan, that he was soon going to be incapable of having a discussion that didn't revolve around the President. And if that was the case, it was going to be a long winter.

It wasn't a coincidence that right after our dinner with the Dillons, Matt decided his New Year's resolution would be to start looking for a new job. The counsel's office wasn't what he'd thought it would be and he told me he was mostly worried that he wasn't visible enough. “What does that mean?” I asked.

“I just don't think this is setting me up for any sort of run. It feels like I could still be working for the firm in New York, just sitting in a room and doing busywork.”

“Well, what do you think you want to do?” I asked. I felt for Matt in these moments. He was so clearly frustrated at how slowly things were moving in his career and I wanted him to succeed—not because I especially cared about it, but because I knew that's what would make him happy.

“I don't really know,” he said. “It's not just about my résumé. I mean, part of it is. I just don't feel like I'm getting the right experience. But that's not all. Jimmy meets so many people, he gets face time with the President and the senior staff. Everyone knows him, everyone likes him. When he decides to run for office, he's going to have that support, people to ask for advice to help him out. No one even knows who I am.”

“That's not true,” I said, but my heart hurt just a little because I could tell he believed what he said.

In February, Snowmageddon (or Snowpocalypse, if you preferred) hit the East Coast. DC was in a panic and you couldn't turn on the news without hearing the weather people screaming about the snow that was coming. I was pretty sure everyone was overreacting (even Obama had publicly mocked DC for its wimpy attitude toward snow after it shut down schools for a light flurry earlier that winter), but I also thought it was better to be safe than sorry, so I went to gather some supplies the day before the storm. Of course, I went to the Soviet Safeway and found that the shelves were empty and people were waiting ten deep at the registers with overflowing carts. I walked up and down the aisles, just to make sure I wasn't missing anything, and finally grabbed the last bag of cheddar Goldfish and a package of Oreos that were haphazardly shoved on a shelf with paper towels and figured we'd have to make do.

“People are really freaking out,” I said that night. Everyone had been sent home early from work and school so that they could hunker down and wait for the snow, which was what we were doing too.

“It sounds like it might be really bad,” Matt said.

“DC is so weird about snow,” I said. “This storm probably won't even happen. All this worry will be for nothing.”

But when we woke up the next morning, it wasn't nothing. It was actually a pretty sizable amount of snow and it continued to come down through the weekend. Sunday night, Matt got an e-mail that the government would be closed, and immediately after, I got the same e-mail from DCLOVE. (That was how DC worked—once the government made a call about the weather, everyone followed.)