Saving Graces (24 page)

It’s hard to explain, but we did not have a great sense of loss when we heard Lieberman’s name. We never really thought John would be picked. Our period of expectation was only the forty-eight hours or so after Bill Daly called, and I got a new wardrobe out of it. We heard the back story later—it drifts out, it always does—and it seemed that John was closer to being chosen than we had imagined. Once, months and months later, after the recount and the last concession speech, I saw Hadassah Lieberman at a Senate spouses’ event. She was nice, saying she had thought about me a lot and wished me well. I told her I had thought about her, too, only—after the recount and the election that would not end—I had thought,
There but for the grace of God go I.
I need to be a little more careful about what I say, I think.

All of this took place in a house we bought in Washington. We didn’t want to dismantle our home in Raleigh, couldn’t really, since we would be home for holidays. So we bought new furniture, or more accurately, I bought new furniture, for the D.C. house. To do that, I stepped into a world I had not known, of decorators and upholsterers, refinishers and showroom representatives. And they were fantastic. B.A. Farrell is an architect and designer who grew up in Troy, a town near where John is from. I accuse B.A. of designing a space and then having such allegiance to the space that he doesn’t want someone to ruin it, so he helps decorate it, too. He will take his collection of clients, mostly women, to High Point to buy furniture and fabric so the integrity of the space is retained. As odd as it sounds, this traveling group is its own community—“B.A.’s girls,” perhaps—women whose only connection is B.A. You travel with whomever B.A. collects for a day, women you don’t know, and you always have a great time. I went with a woman whose husband is an active Republican in the state. John came home and said, “Why is there a George Bush sticker on the car in our driveway?” “Well,” I told him, “she left her car here and we rode with B.A.” And I spent a day pulling out fabrics for this Republican woman’s bedroom, saying, “Would this look nice?” It was great fun.

We all know B.A. never feeds us, so we’ve learned to bring our own food. It was always good to go when Jane Henderson went, because she would bring her fabulous chocolate chip cookies. One time five of us went to Farmville, Virginia, to Green Front Furniture. It’s a good drive to Farmville, but worth it. They have furniture, but we were going for the carpeting and the rugs. We were each looking for carpet for ourselves, but as we moved through the huge rolls, we would call out to the others—“Is someone looking for a light blue?” We’d have to get Ricky, who worked there, to get carpet down for us, but even finding the rolls was hard work. After several hours, we stopped and ate the lunch we had brought. We just sat on one of the big carpet rolls and opened our thermos and bags. And we got Ricky to take a picture of us.

The women eating lunch on the carpet roll, the woman with the Bush sticker on her car—these are not women I knew before, but now, having traveled with them, having worked on something together with them, I knew I could trust them. And it was not just the women. It was also the people with whom we traded, with whom I still trade. Ricky at Green Front, Ginger at Market Square, Red at Latimer Alexander, Anthony and Pete and Doris—a whole world of friends disguised as business contacts. Like everything else I have ever done that would have been fun no matter what, it was miles more fun because I got to know the people from whom I was buying fabric or whatever it was.

B.A. and I were shopping with Ginger recently, asking about her daughter’s new house and the changes at her workplace, when another couple joined us, looking at furniture in the same showroom. They could not understand our relationship—who was the salesperson, who was I, why was a customer pulling out catalogs for them—because our relationship didn’t bear any resemblance to the model they expected. Somehow we have gotten to a place where we aren’t supposed to know the name of cashiers—although almost every one of them wears a name on their shirt. We don’t call by name the bag boy whose name is on his shirt or the waitress who told you her name when she handed you the menus. And I think we are worse for it.

Bobby used to serve the iced tea at the Belk’s cafeteria—“Sweetened or unsweetened?”—and his face would light up when he would see us, his friends, in line. And our faces would light up when we saw him. The last person to check me out in Target was Amy. The fellow framing our new house is Mac, and Steve is laying tile. So for our house in Washington I didn’t just buy furniture in High Point, I made a whole town of friends. And for the life of me, I cannot see why everyone doesn’t do the same thing. When I get on the phone to say the cable service is on the fritz, I listen for the name on the other end, and then I use it. I know that it may be a false name; when I call and reach someone named Harley in what is obviously India (which has happened), I am pretty sure it is a false name. But I use it nonetheless, because it is the way to treat people. Coincidentally, there is another benefit: unless I am mistaken, you actually get better service from people you have treated well. I spoke to a health care providers’ convention recently, and I told them to personalize their service. None of us wants to be “the patient in room 206.” Yet that is how so many otherwise good people think about the mailman and the maintenance man and the bag boy, as if they were all nameless. But the mailman is Edward, and the maintenance man at the children’s school is Drew, and the bag boy at Harris Teeter is Sam, and my life is better because my children and I can expect to be greeted with a smile by Edward and Drew and Sam.

So Washington, where people are treated as various levels of royalty, where a magazine publishes the A-List of the most desirable dinner guests for the upcoming year, was probably not a perfect match for me. But as long as I didn’t fall into that trap, I would be fine. I admit that I was pleased to sit at lunch with the wife of the ambassador from India—she is a genuinely lovely woman. And it was a great pleasure, an honor really, to go to the British embassy. The people were interesting and friendly, and I enjoyed every minute. But I also enjoyed Evelyn and Mr. Clare in the book room of the Goodwill retail store and Jimmy and Shakira, elevator operators in the Capitol. I still start up conversations with the person behind me in line at Home Depot.

My less-than-perfect fit with Washington was nowhere more evident than at an event the Senate spouses had for the First Lady. Every year, we had a luncheon for the First Lady, and every year she would return the favor. This particular year was Laura Bush’s first year, and the theme of our luncheon for her was, predictably, libraries. We had oversize bookshelf displays for photographs, and we had lots of table decorations, including piles of books that would later be donated to needy libraries for children. I was working with Liz Jeffords, the terrific wife of the Vermont senator, on a portion of the planning, but everyone on the committee, regardless of their assignment, was asked to come for a “workday” to set the room up the day before the luncheon. I had done this dozens of times—not First Lady luncheons, of course, but PTA book exchanges and middle-school silent auctions. Since everyone had been asked to come, it must be a lot of work, I figured, so I came dressed for work—in overalls. Apparently that is not what was meant by “workdays” for, except for Fran DeWine from Ohio, who was at least wearing slacks, every other spouse was wearing a suit, a very nice suit. There was even one suit with sequined lapels. And there were heels and stockings. And then there was me, in overalls and sneakers. Even the Senate building staff—who were, it turned out, the real workers doing the setup—were dressed better than I. At least I was a hit with the Capitol Police at the entrance nearest John’s office; I don’t believe they had seen a spouse in overalls before.

CHAPTER 10

AMERICA, THE PRIMARIES

The Windup

T
HE EVENING OF
December 29, 2002, when John called the people closest to him and told them that he was going to run for the Democratic nomination for president in 2004, was, in one sense, the end of a process that had been going on for more than a year. Of course, in another sense, it was the beginning of an even more excruciating process, and in the ensuing whirlwind, it was impossible to sort out just the moment when he had first stepped onto this path. I remember talking in 2000 to a reporter for the
Washington Post,
Rich Leiby, who asked a question John had been asked a dozen times before: when did John decide to run for the Senate? The answer I gave applies here. “Are you married?” I asked. Yes, he was. “Then you courted your wife and loved her and maybe marriage was on your mind and maybe it was not, and then one day you realized that perhaps that day or the day before or the day before that you had fixed in your mind that you wanted her to be your bride. It didn’t happen in an instant; it was a collection that finally, invisibly, reached the tipping point.”

It is easier to date John’s definite decision to run, although even that is in important parts a collection of little pieces from which the decision finally came when, at the end of 2002, he put the puzzle pieces together. After the 2000 election a number of people who had worked in the Gore campaign and had supported John as the vice presidential choice were looking ahead to 2004. It was what they did. And this time they came to John. Now, frankly, these same people might have gone to others as well, urging them to run, but I do not know that. I only know they came to John, and came, and came. They said the right things: he was authentic, he came from a working-class background, he spoke plainly and passionately. He brushed off the first compliments and the first few suggestions, but he finally agreed to talk about the notion of running. The people promoting the idea—some of them members of his staff—set up a two-day meeting to talk about the possibility and what to do if John said yes. I mention members of his own staff because there is a joke in Washington that every senator gets up in the morning, looks in the mirror, and sees a potential president. It may be true, but it is also true that every staff member looks at their boss and sees a potential president…and, I suspect, imagines their own West Wing office. We are always positive that our staff is different, that our staff is suggesting he run because of their belief in him and loyalty to him, but the truth is probably somewhere in between.

For two days, a Sunday and Monday, we met in a large room on the first floor of our Washington house. As with every meeting John ever had at the house or elsewhere, there were no assigned seats. To normal people, this will not sound strange, but in the political world, with pecking orders and limited chairs at the table, it was, we were assured, unusual. And there was no assumption that John would get the best seat; it was first-come-first-served seating, and as John usually came in last, he usually got the worst seat. Tom Donilon, who had worked with Warren Christopher and who had a diplomat’s acumen as well as a diplomat’s caution, came to every meeting pressed and fresh; he had a particularly comfortable seat on the couch for his one day. He could not be there on Monday, and his seat was snagged the next day by David Ginsberg, who had worked for John in the Senate campaign and had, in the course of those months, become family to us. David came equipped with the latest laptop computer, a BlackBerry on one hip, a cell phone on the other, and he became, by virtue of his appliances, the scribe. Erskine Bowles from North Carolina, more recently Bill Clinton’s chief of staff, didn’t need a chair. He stood for the whole meeting—his back was bothering him—and from his position, leaning against a post, he said he believed in John and wanted to devote himself to making him president, which was of course heartening to hear.

The media consultants Bob Shrum and his partners at the time, Tad Devine and Mike Donilon, were there. They were the veterans. Bob and John had become close when Bob did the commercials for John’s Senate campaign, and I hope their warm personal relationship will survive the stories I will tell about him here. Bob, who came to no meetings pressed, spoke a great deal, as he had the most experience, and when he wasn’t speaking he was popping gum into his mouth so he wouldn’t smoke. Mike, who is Tom’s brother, sat, as he always did, on the edge of the chair, leaning into the conversation, and although his might have been the most reliable voice there, he just leaned in, didn’t talk much, but he did stop John afterward and said he wanted to be a part of this if it happened. I will skip ahead to say that Bob and Tad and Mike wound up working for John Kerry. The decision, known in the press as the Shrum Primary, was one that made us sad and relieved at the same time. These are experienced, brilliant men, but one of their skills—appearing as surrogates for the candidate on television—was a skill that could undo some of what John brought to the campaign as a new face, as an outsider. They were the consummate insiders, and therefore their skills could not be exercised if they worked for John, which would mean that neither John nor they would get the full benefit of the relationship. John and I had that difficult conversation with Bob before the decision was made. But before that decision—and after it, I believe—Bob was a friend and a champion, albeit a quieted champion during the primaries.

Harrison Hickman, John’s brilliant, funny, committed, and—he wants to rid himself of this adjective—sometimes prickly pollster was there. He and John are the same age, although Harrison has the distinguished gray hair that the press and I always complain John doesn’t have. Miles Lackey, John’s legislative director at the time and a former White House staffer himself, and Jeff Lane, John’s chief of staff, were there. Soon Jeff would move to a law practice and Miles would move into his job. Rebecca Walldorf came, energetic and more connected than her pretty, ageless face would suggest, as did Ed Turlington, who was a member of our church in North Carolina but, more importantly, was one of Bill Bradley’s most trusted advisors, so he brought even more experience into the room. Julianna Smoot, who had managed the fund-raising in the Senate campaign, and Tom Girardi from California, who would be important in fund-raising if John ran, came, Tom with his distractingly beautiful wife, Erika—who brought flowers.

The room was full, and full of purpose. The one difference in this meeting over the less formal ones that preceded it is that there was a firm agenda. Now, political consultants and pollsters cannot help themselves, and there will always be the anecdotes about the last campaign or the one before—Bob, who worked for Gore, would tease Ed, who had worked for Bradley—but there was a lot to cover and people held, or mostly held, to the outline in the binders each had been given. For two days we all sat there—going through all the issues, setting the table, though we didn’t know it, for a conversation that would last another fifteen months. One thing we did conclude: if John was even thinking about saying yes, it was not too early to start laying the groundwork. Everyone left with their assignments for the next months.

The meeting took place on September 9th and September 10th, 2001.

And then there was September 11th. In some respects, it was not unlike Wade’s death. September 11th wiped everything else off the calendar, off the map, out of the conversation. For us, for everyone. Erskine decided he needed to do more than help with a race, and he decided that day to run for the Senate himself. We thought more of him for that decision. For now we were all, like the country, focused on that terrible morning, focused on our families and our larger national family, and it is not too much to say that John was focused on the new challenges the Senate would face.

Although our family was scattered when the planes hit the Trade Center and the Pentagon and crashed in a Pennsylvania field—I was shopping, John was on his way to the Senate, Jack, almost sixteen months, and Emma Claire, three, were taking a walk with Jennifer Madison, who helped us care for them—we quickly gathered in our house in Washington. Phone lines were jammed, so neither Jennifer nor I could reach our North Carolina and Florida families or Cate in Princeton. The Senate was evacuated, and John came home. The sounds of planes and helicopters, which were usually constant at our home near the vice presidential residence, were gone. There wasn’t much traffic. The world went quiet except for the sound of the television set. Within a few hours, the Capitol Police came to the door to pick up John to take him to a secure location. Was the Senate meeting there? No. Was he required to go? They would like him to go. No, he said, he would stay here with his family. We did what America did that day: we watched in disbelief and sadness, together, and we reached for one another.

The next morning we all drove to Princeton. We needed to see Cate, to touch her and hold her. The local paper, the
Princeton Packet,
started in those first days publishing the names of local residents who had been lost. I suppose everyone read those stories in the
Princeton Packet,
or the
New York Times,
or their own newspaper. But many of us read the names and the stories differently, envisioning the life that was lost, and by our careful reading doing the little we could to pay homage to those who had died. I knew that my alt.support.grief family was doing this, each in our way, silent and separate, honoring lives that should not have had to be reduced to a paragraph. Those who remained couldn’t know we had done it, but doing it was right and fine, and so many of those people who died that day and those that remained to mourn them, people we never knew—mothers and sisters, sons and fathers—have stayed with me. One who has stayed with me is not one who died but one who survived: a woman with a son whose husband died on September 11th. She could not talk to the
Princeton Packet
reporter who called. She could not give her name or his. She could not talk at all. Not wouldn’t. Couldn’t. Her paralyzing grief, which I well understood, was heartbreaking.

In those days and for many weeks afterward, as John devoted himself to his duties and I devoted myself to the children, there was no mention of the two-day meeting. But our lives, like the lives of so many others, finally started to regain a rhythm. By January 2002 the discussion of a possible presidential run started up again, and John’s scheduler, Will Austin, whom we adore, called to set up a trip to New Hampshire. A senator’s schedule is not his own. He is controlled by votes and committee meetings, by constituent responsibilities and party caucus obligations. These—and any possible campaigning—are juggled and contorted by a magician called a scheduler. Everyone in John’s life with an interest in his schedule gets on a weekly conference call and argues for John’s time, and it is in these calls that I play the nasty witch of the west. Since no one else on the call had children, and even if they had, they didn’t have our children, my job on the calls was to make certain his children knew John’s face. Other than on television.

The children did see a lot of John on television. During the day, C-SPAN2, which covers the Senate, was always on in the hope we might catch him speaking or at least voting. My children looked at men (and a few women) in suits all day. At night, I would turn on the arts channel, and they would be lulled to sleep by an elegantly dressed woman singing an aria or a man in a tuxedo playing a piano concerto. We hadn’t realized what a skewed view of the world they were getting until John, leaving one night for a black-tie dinner, reached down to kiss Emma Claire good night, and she, looking at him quizzically, asked, “You play the piano?”

It was my job to make sure they knew a little more about their father, and I had a two-nights-away rule. He had to sleep in our house every third night, no matter what. We kept that rule—until we didn’t keep it. But in these early days, certainly on this first campaign trip, we were keeping the rule. In February 2002, with an icy rain blanketing southern New England, John and I visited New Hampshire.

There is something comforting about the election rituals in New Hampshire and Iowa, even for a neophyte. I hadn’t campaigned in the Senate race to any significant degree, and I wasn’t actually campaigning now. I was along for the ride, and the ride was taking me to Manchester. We stayed at the Holiday Inn, where politicians thinking about the New Hampshire primary have always stayed. A friendly journalist warned me that the cleaning staff could be bribed for a tidbit about the secrets of the rooms of politicians, so even though I couldn’t imagine we had anything to hide, I carried our trash, in the ice bag, to the lobby trash can each day. I wasn’t very good at being secretive, however. On this visit or the next, one of the reporters for a North Carolina paper forgot his shaving cream. I saw him forlorn in the small hotel store being told they didn’t have any. So I took him up to our room and, while John was getting in a morning run, he shaved using John’s bargain shaving cream over our sink surrounded by our toiletries. No secrets.