Not Afraid of Life (11 page)

I
was proud of Levi for having a good job and trying to perform well. When he came home after his “three weeks on,” we had one of our typical evenings of watching television together. It suddenly became more memorable when he slipped a ring on my finger. Why do I describe it as “memorable” and not special? Because this is how it played out:

“This is pretty,” I said, holding the ring up to look at it as I tried to process what was going on. “It’s so beautiful.”

“Yep,” he said. “And it was expensive, too.”

Not exactly the conversation a screenwriter would create for a romantic proposal, but it would have to do. Everything—and I mean everything—Levi did was half-assed. Whether it was school, hockey, jobs, relationships, or even proposals. After he gave me the ring, we simply went back to watching television. I didn’t call anyone to tell them about it; I didn’t text anyone. What would I say? There was no “story,” or profession of love. There was nothing but a ring on my finger and a baby in my belly.

And the pressure of all these new developments was getting to Levi. For a guy who never attended high school regularly, it was a big adjustment for him to maintain a job, prepare for fatherhood, and get ready for a marriage, too. But I’d lost my patience with his slacker ways. So when he wanted to go sheep hunting, he tried to figure out a way to present the idea to me. It’s not that I’m against hunting—far from it! But I’d lost my patience with how much attention and money he gave to these outdoor endeavors, and had hoped that he’d settle down a bit in preparation for fatherhood.

“I want to go sheep hunting. If I get a tattoo of your name on my hand, would you not get mad at me for going hunting?”

“You want to get a tattoo of my name?”

“Yes.”

“On your hand?”

“Yep.”

“All right, but I want to go with you to make sure it looks right.”

Many people in Alaska have tattoos. Many get the outline of our state. Others get the Big Dipper and the North Star, as represented on our state flag. My brother Track has a tattoo of Alaska and the Statue of Liberty. But no one that I’ve ever met had a tattoo of the word
Bristol.

That’s how I ended up in a tattoo parlor, picking out the font for Levi’s tattoo.

It was a long way from the Governor’s Mansion, when the only font I had to pick out was for the seating arrangements.

Chapter Seven

Unconventional

T
o be honest, I wasn’t actively following the presidential race of 2008. Though I knew John McCain was the GOP nominee and Barack Obama was the Democratic one, I was so obsessed with my pregnancy, my future, and—oh yes—Levi that I didn’t care who should be McCain’s running mate.

One day, a Wednesday in late August, Dad came home from the Slope early and announced Mom had left for a business trip.

Though Mom must’ve been excited about her journey, she didn’t let on the night before she left. She simply said good-bye and walked out the door with her little bag like she’d done many times before. But this time, she was traveling not to Juneau or to Fairbanks. This time, she was heading to Sedona, Arizona, to John and Cindy McCain’s place. Apparently, Senator McCain wanted to talk to her to determine if he should select her to run with him as the vice presidential candidate. They swept her away on a Learjet, with only our family friend Kris Perry in tow. Track, Willow, Piper, four-month-old Trig, and I had no idea where Mom was going, though a business trip was hardly going to raise suspicion in our house. The McCain staff had kept us in the dark so no one in Alaska would notice the Palin kids had all disappeared together when we left later to join Mom.

On the way home from picking Piper up from school, I remember a conversation we had in the car.

Dad was driving when his phone rang. He was talking to Mom, and when we got to the end of our long gravel driveway, he held the phone away from his mouth and said, “What would you think if your mom was chosen to run for vice president?”

“Yeah, right,” I said. I probably was texting a friend or checking my e-mail. “That’d be cool though, Dad!”

I wasn’t even paying attention to the conversation. It was so far-fetched that everyone brushed it off. It was the kind of casual comment I’d never think of again, except that the next forty-eight hours would be some of the most unusual of my life.

On Thursday, at about four o’clock in the morning, Dad walked into our rooms and woke us up.

“We’re going to take a trip for something special. I want to take a trip to surprise Mom for our twentieth wedding anniversary.”

“Where are we going?” we groaned, through bleary eyes. Our first guess was Hawaii, a much more common destination for Alaskans than many Americans since it’s only a relatively short and inexpensive flight from here.

“It’s a surprise,” he said, though he looked like he was hiding something more than just the destination. “And by the way,” he added. “I’m taking your phones.”

Now, any parent knows that you simply cannot ask teens for their phones without getting some serious backlash. Plus, they never asked us for them unless we were on our phones too late at night, if we gave them attitude, or if we said a bad word. Not having a phone meant I had no way of telling Levi that I was leaving Alaska or even getting on a jet.

“Don’t ask questions,” my dad said. “If you don’t want to come along without causing problems, I’ll drop you off at Grandma’s on the way. Who’s coming with me?”

We started to pack, and Willow—reeling from the thought of having no phone for who-knows-how-long—sneaked and grabbed Dad’s phone for any evidence of where we were going. Sadly, she couldn’t find any e-mails or texts that gave clues about what was up.

“Pack nice clothes,” he yelled from downstairs. “We’re going to go out for a fancy dinner.”

Of course, I didn’t have many nice clothes that still fit. I was five months pregnant and hadn’t told anyone but my immediate family, Lauden, and Sammy. I certainly didn’t have cute maternity clothes that could replace my jeans and baggy sweatshirts. Though I loved my parents and wanted to honor their anniversary, this was a packing drama I didn’t appreciate.

Willow and I packed Trig’s diaper bag, then we loaded up, drove to Kris’s house, and waited. I guess we had to go to her house first so no one would see Todd Palin’s vehicle driving into a private airport in Anchorage.

“What’s going on, Dad?” we asked.

He smiled and only said, “It’s a surprise.”

We looked at him blankly in exasperation.

“Dad, you’re so phony. Tell us!” But he didn’t blink.

“If you ask me again,” he began, before issuing some sort of mild threat. I can’t remember what he said at the time, but I do remember realizing we’d have to waterboard him to find out where we were going. (And knowing that Iron Dog champ, that probably wouldn’t even work.)

Soon, a fifteen-passenger van arrived at Kris’s house, already with a car seat for Trig installed. We drove to Anchorage in complete confusion, which only increased when we arrived at a private airport in Anchorage and got on a G5 airplane that was a lot bigger than the governor’s small airplane. (Mom had put the governor’s jet on eBay to save our taxpayers money!)

“Hello, Mr. Palin,” the stewardess said. “Is this the first time you’ve ever ridden in a Gulf Stream 5?”

He acted like he did it all the time.

“This is the same private jet Britney Spears used a few weeks ago,” she continued.

The force of taking off from the runway pushed us back into our seats. The pilot turned off the lights in the cabin, but there was no way we were going to sleep. There was a television mounted in the cabin so passengers could see where they were going . . . we watched it all day for clues to our ultimate destination.

“Have you taken out a second mortgage, Dad?” we asked. I knew he didn’t play the lottery, so that was out. However, we couldn’t figure out why the same parents who economized by clipping coupons for diapers and shopping for clothes at consignment shops would suddenly spring for a jet. It just didn’t make sense.

Of course, we weren’t the only ones in the dark. I later found out what all Americans now know. I was in the middle of what has been described as the best-kept political secret in the history of American politics. Once it became clear that John McCain and Barack Obama would be their parties’ nominees, reporters scurried around trying to find out whom they’d pick for running mates. The names swirling around the Internet were the Democratic options like Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden and the Republican options like Rudy Giuliani, Tim Pawlenty, Mitt Romney, and Joe Lieberman. (Of course, Lieberman wasn’t a Republican, but Senator McCain was a maverick, and no one ever knew what he was going to do!) Reporters slept outside their homes, watching for any indication that they might be in covert conversations with the nominees. News leaked that reporters were watching Joe Biden’s mom’s house, that the Secret Service had visited the home of Mitt Romney’s sister, that the podium in Dayton where Senator McCain was going to unveil his choice was set at the height for a candidate who was approximately six feet tall, and that Tim Pawlenty had mysteriously cleared his schedule.

No reporters, however, were looking for clues in Wasilla.

I’d later realize that our departure that day would forever change our lives. As we sat in that awesome jet, our eyes glued to the GPS screen, we watched as one city would come and go. Another would come and go. Then, we were slightly shocked that we finally landed in . . . Ohio?

About an hour before midnight, we landed in Cincinnati and drove about forty minutes to a place called Middleton. We pulled into the parking lot of a redbrick hotel. The raggedy old hotel had dated furniture, small rooms, ugly pink walls, and an abundant supply of cockroaches.

I’d never even seen a cockroach before. Reporters might not think Wasilla is the prettiest town in the world, but at least we don’t have roaches.

“Dad, this has gone on long enough,” we said. “It’s time to come clean.”

We walked by some guys on the campaign who were dressed down and wearing construction hats. They had disguised themselves as a way of getting a large number of rooms without raising eyebrows. When we walked into a so-called suite, we saw Mom, wearing a pencil skirt and a blazer. Though we knew something very strange was going on, I wasn’t prepared when a woman named Nicolle Wallace—dirty blond hair, dressed like a newscaster—stood before us and broke the news.

“Do you guys know why you’re here?” she asked. “Senator McCain asked your mother to be the Republican candidate for vice president.”

“What?” I said. I thought maybe I’d misunderstood. Even though Dad had playfully asked us about this at the end of the driveway, it had never entered our minds as a possibility.

“That’s so cool!” Piper yelled. I couldn’t believe it.

The room was full of excitement and so much joy.

Nicolle smiled and uttered one of the biggest understatements I’d ever hear, “Tomorrow your lives are going to change forever.”

It was hard to sleep that night . . . and not only because I was worried the roaches might scurry over us. The next morning, the McCain staff decided they needed to get us out of the hotel before we were spotted. Of course, no one in Ohio would be able to pick the Palins out of a lineup. (And anyone in their right mind wouldn’t assume that the next GOP vice presidential candidate would be staying in a hotel like that!) We got dressed from the limited options we’d hurriedly packed, and the campaign escorted us down the staircase in the back corner of the hotel. Then we piled into two white vans in a parking lot down the road. A black SUV with tinted windows was following us, and when we pulled into a parking lot behind a building, they came in behind us. Apparently, the Secret Service was about to meet the woman they’d have to protect.

Mom and Dad said their good-byes to us and jumped in the car with the agents, and we didn’t see her until she was standing backstage.

The nation, and our family, was about to be shocked.

I
t was John McCain’s seventy-second birthday, Mom and Dad’s twentieth wedding anniversary, and a day after then-senator Barack Obama gave his charismatic speech accepting the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination. We were preparing for my mom’s big “reveal” but were still being hidden in the green room at the Ervin J. Nutter Center in Dayton, where fifteen thousand people were gathered to hear Senator McCain speak. All kinds of people were coming in and out, and the Secret Service was buzzing around. We were standing there with all kinds of people, including Senator McCain’s daughter Meghan.

She ignored us during the entire visit, until an aide came in and said, “Meghan, did you meet Sarah Palin’s kids?”

Only then did she brighten up, extend her hand to us, and smile. “It’s such an honor to meet you. I’m a big fan of your mother’s, and we’re about to go on a fun journey together.”

She seemed really nice, so I shook her hand and tucked away the sneaking suspicion that I might need to watch my back.

The green room was bustling with so much activity that I didn’t have to spend much time with her anyway. Journalists kept coming up to us and introducing themselves and the papers they represented. It was a beehive of excitement and activity. Then, right before it was time to hit the stage, Mom whispered, “Say a prayer!”

Senator McCain walked out onstage, while we were still hidden from sight, to a podium that had a blue-and-gold Country First sign hanging on it. In the audience, there were a few signs that had only McCain on them. They were about to become outdated.

“My friends,” he said. “I’ve spent the last few months looking—looking for a running mate who can best help me shake up Washington and make it start working again for the people that are counting on us. As I’m sure you know, I had many good people to choose from . . .”

I could hardly believe what I was hearing. Only a handful of people knew what this “maverick” was about to say . . . but I was one of the lucky few. I probably would’ve been more comfortable had I not been trying to hide my pregnant belly. Plus, it would’ve been nice to have at least a little more of a heads-up, so I could’ve gotten a nice outfit instead of the $10 dress I stuffed in the suitcase at four in the morning the day before. I realized I’d dressed Trig in Carhartt overalls and I regretted that he was making his national debut in them. I kicked myself for not packing better, but even though these weren’t ideal circumstances, I listened and appreciated all that was happening.

“I found someone with an outstanding reputation for standing up to special interests and entrenched bureaucracies,” Senator McCain said, “someone who has fought against corruption and the failed policies of the past; someone who stopped government from wasting taxpayers’ money on things they don’t want or need. . . .”

I noticed he didn’t use the word
she
or
woman.
To do so would be to instantly eliminate most if not all of the other candidates who were talked up as options.

I thought about my grandpa and grandma, and how I wished they could be there with us. I wondered if they had any idea that they were being talked about in a speech in Ohio by the Republican nominee for president! (I’d later find out that the family back home had been alerted around 5:30 in the morning, Alaska time, to turn on their television sets. They were completely shocked!)

“. . . They taught their children to care about others, to work hard and to stand up with courage for the things you believe in.”

It was a surreal experience to be talked about from the lips of Senator McCain. Though Mom was governor of Alaska, I never felt like the eyes of the state were on us. We were just locals like everybody else. But this? This was hard to process. Especially when you have a little morning sickness. Plus, I was worried I wouldn’t be able to respond to Levi’s texts!

“The person I’m about to introduce to you understands the problems, the hopes, and the values of working people; knows what it’s like to worry about mortgage payments and health care, the cost of gasoline and groceries. And, I am especially proud to say in the week we celebrate the anniversary of women’s suffrage, a devoted wife and a mother of five.”

When he said “women’s suffrage” and “mother of five,” the crowd interrupted him and started cheering. American flags waved.

“My friends and fellow Americans, I am very pleased and very privileged to introduce to you the next vice president of the United States—Governor Sarah Palin of the great state of Alaska.”