The Hopefuls (14 page)

“What?” I asked, looking up from the menu.

“I got a job,” she said. “I'm a working girl now!”

“Congratulations,” Matt said. He held up his glass and clinked it against hers, and then Jimmy and I raised ours and did the same.

“That's great,” I finally said. “I didn't even know you were looking.” I was trying not to sound too surprised, but Ash had been in DC for over a year now and hadn't talked about working in months. Matt and I sometimes speculated about what she did all day and what her plans were (or I speculated, and Matt listened), but we'd just accepted that she was happy not working and that apparently she didn't have to.

“I wasn't looking exactly,” Ash said. “I mean, I had my eyes open in case the right thing came along. And then one of my old sorority sisters contacted me when she started working with this great company, thinking that I'd be a good fit.”

“What will you be doing?” Matt asked.

“Well, it's sort of an entrepreneurial opportunity. It's a fun accessories company—their stuff is supercute—and I'm going to be starting as a stylist, hosting and organizing some trunk shows and recruiting new people.”

My heart sank as I heard the description. “That sounds great,” I said. “What's the name of the company?”

“Stella and Dot,” she said, and I nodded. “I've heard of it,” I told her.

I'd seen the company name pop up all over Facebook in the past couple of years, mostly from my friends who'd had babies and were looking for part-time jobs. I'd even been invited to some of the trunk shows, which were really just new versions of Tupperware parties. And once I'd been contacted about “joining the team” by this girl Janie Jenkins, who grew up next door to me in Madison and babysat for me as a teenager. “You seem like the perfect fit,” she said to me. “I'm working on growing my team and I thought of you immediately. I'm so excited to be a part of the Stella and Dot family.”

Janie had been part of a cult for a few months after college, so I politely declined. I wasn't going to be convinced to join anything by a former cult member, thank you very much. (Apparently, the cult was quite peaceful and mostly just focused on organic farming, but I mean, still.)

At worst, this jewelry company seemed like a pyramid scheme and at best it was a reason to drink wine with a group of women and buy costume jewelry that you'd never wear. But if Ash had any idea that this was anything less than a great opportunity, she didn't show it. She was enthusiastic and excited as she talked about it. “It's flexible hours and it just really seems like the perfect thing for me,” she said. (What she needed flexible hours for, she didn't say.) She was smiling widely, and in that moment I felt very protective of her.

“It sounds great,” I told her, and she immediately asked if I'd host her first party for her.

“Of course,” I answered. Because really, what else could I say?

The morning of July 4, Matt got a phone call. It was the person he'd interviewed with at the Presidential Personnel Office, telling him that he'd gotten the liaison job, that he'd be receiving a formal offer on Tuesday.

“Why did they call you today?” I asked.

“He said he knew I was anxious to hear,” Matt said. “That he thought it would be nice for me to know so I could enjoy the Fourth. Now I don't have to worry about it, don't have to spend the day thinking about it.”

And talking about it, I thought. But I just gave him a huge hug and said, “That's so great.” Matt was beaming as he hugged me back and said, “I know.”

We got to the South Lawn around 4:00 and set up a large quilt that the Dillons had brought, and it wasn't long before we were surrounded by Matt and Jimmy's co-workers, spreading out their own blankets to claim a spot. The Fourth was a great event at the White House, my favorite event actually—they served wine and beer and cotton candy and popcorn, and kids got their faces painted and ran around with ice cream sandwiches, while everyone posed for selfies in front of the White House.

Ash and I walked around a little bit, then sat and shared a bag of popcorn. Matt and Jimmy stood at the end of the quilt, talking to everyone who walked by. The current White House liaison at DOE came over to say congratulations to Matt (while it was still unofficial, it seemed that everyone knew about his job), and I could hear Matt asking him a few questions. I noticed that Jimmy stood there proudly, truly happy for Matt, smiling like he was the one who'd gotten a new job, which made me feel silly for ever doubting the basis of their friendship.

When it finally started to get dark, Matt and Jimmy sat down on the blanket with us. I could feel Matt's good mood radiating from him, and I leaned back against him as the Killers started to play on a stage to the right of us. I felt all at once lucky to be there and surprised to feel that way. It was possible that Ash was rubbing off on me. There wasn't one thing about the day that I would have changed. It was perfect. The Killers played their final song just as the fireworks started, and Matt leaned forward and whispered into my ear, “You have to admit, this is pretty great.”

“Yeah,” I said. “It's not bad at all.”

Washington, DC
2012

What Washington needs is adult supervision.

—BARACK OBAMA

T
he first time I dreamt about Mitt Romney was in June, not long after he'd clinched the nomination. It wasn't a particularly scary dream—he was riding a bike around me in circles, demanding that I help him make spaghetti for dinner—but I woke up with a start and, in the process, woke up Matt too.

“Are you okay?” he said groggily. My right arm had hit the mattress next to him as I shot up.

“Yeah, I think so,” I said. My heart was racing and I waited a moment for my mind to wake up before telling him about my dream.

“No more falling asleep to MSNBC,” he said, patting my arm, his eyes already closing.

“Deal,” I said. He fell back to sleep immediately, but I lay there for a while in the dark, thinking about my dream, shivering at how shiny Mitt's hair had been as he circled around me.

The next morning, Matt was already dressed in his suit and eating cereal at the table when I finally managed to come downstairs, still in my pajamas. I poured myself a cup of coffee and sat across from him while he gave me a sympathetic look.

“Did you get any sleep?” he asked.

“I think an hour or two,” I said, yawning, as if just talking about it made it worse. After the Mitt-on-a-bike dream, I'd tossed and turned, falling asleep to more creepy Romney dreams that were equally bizarre.

“Oh, Buzz,” Matt said.

“I know. It's stupid. It's not like I think he's even going to win. It's just—what if he does? Can you imagine?”

“No.” Matt's voice sounded certain, but I knew he was worried. We'd spent the whole night before, in fact, discussing what would happen if Obama lost—not just how disappointing it would be, but also how strange. Matt would lose his job (along with everyone else we knew who worked in the administration), DC would empty out, all of our friends would go back to where they were from—Chicago or Texas or Iowa. And maybe the strangest part of all was to think that Matt and I would most likely stay. Maybe we'd move to Maryland right away, live on the same block as Matt's brothers, start playing tennis with Babs. Who knew?

I hadn't expected to feel this way, to be so invested in the election. In some ways, it felt bigger to me than it had four years ago. I was always aware that our life in DC was temporary, that there was an expiration date—but now with all of the election coverage, I had a daily reminder that things might change overnight. Everything seemed so tenuous. We could pretend that this town was ours, but really it was just on loan.

I drank my first cup of coffee quickly and poured a second, holding it in my hands and willing the caffeine to kick in. Matt checked his BlackBerry, knowing without me having to tell him that I wasn't up for conversation just yet, and I watched him from across the table. He always did this thing when he ate breakfast, where he'd put his tie over his shoulder to keep it from getting dirty, like some old-fashioned businessman. It killed me. It must've been something that his father did, a habit he picked up along the way, and there was just something about it that I loved.

He looked up to see me watching him, smiled back, and stood to carry his bowl to the sink. I listened to him rinsing it out and putting it in the dishwasher. When he came out of the kitchen, he flipped his tie back to its proper place and smoothed it down with his palm.

“Look,” he finally said. “This is stressful. It's going to be a stressful few months. All we can do is try not to worry about it. And vote, obviously.”

“Obviously.”

“Are you going to fall asleep at the office?”

“Actually, I might work from home today,” I said, meaning that I would be heading back to bed for a couple of hours as soon as he left. I hoped Ellie wouldn't mind much. Or at least that she wouldn't notice.

“That sounds like a good idea,” Matt said, leaning down to kiss me good-bye. “And remember—we'll just stay positive, right? Positive thoughts?”

“Yes. Positive thoughts,” I said. And then when the door shut behind him, I said again, to no one, “Positive thoughts.”

The next Saturday, Ash insisted that I meet her for brunch. We hadn't gone out with the Dillons on Friday, because Jimmy was traveling, and I figured she just wanted to get together, but when I'd suggested that we cancel (mostly because I was tired from not sleeping all week and kind of just wanted to sit on my couch) she'd whined, “Noooo, I have to see you.” And right then I knew what she was going to tell me.

We met at Saint-Ex on Fourteenth Street, and when I got there, she was already at a table outside, waving at me like a little kid and smiling widely. I'd barely sat down before she said, “I'm pregnant,” and I tried my best to look both excited and surprised.

“Oh my God,” I said, “when did you find out?”

It turned out that Ash was barely pregnant, had basically peed on a stick and then decided to announce it to me. “Are you worried about telling people so early?” I asked.

“Oh, no. I probably won't tell anyone else, but I had to tell you or I was going to burst. You're my best friend! I almost called you right after I took the test, but then I wanted to see your face when I told you in person.”

When the waiter came to our table, Ash ordered a club soda with lime and then looked up at him pretending to be embarrassed. “I'm pregnant,” she said. I wanted to tell her that it was 1:00 in the afternoon and she didn't have to explain to the waiter why she wasn't drinking, that really he probably didn't even notice. But I just ordered a Bloody Mary for myself and kept smiling.

The next Tuesday, Colleen and I had planned to go for an early evening walk through Rock Creek Park (which was our way of pretending to exercise when really we just wanted to talk), but when she came to my door that night, she looked exhausted and said, “Do you mind if we just order dinner instead?”

“Sure,” I said. “Are you okay?”

“Not really. I'm pregnant. And so fucking tired.”

She told me they'd been trying for a few months. “I mean, I would've waited another year or two, but time is marching on. For Bruce I mean,” she said quickly. “He's already going to be an old dad, but I'd rather people don't think he's the baby's grandpa.”

I tried to figure out why I didn't take this news so well. I should've been thrilled, two of my best friends having babies. But I wasn't. I didn't want to talk to them about how they'd tracked their ovulation schedules or how often they had to go to the bathroom. I knew how awful I was being. Maybe it was all the pressure of the election, knowing that so many things might change. Maybe I just wanted things to stay the same for a little while longer. But mostly, I think, sometimes it's just really hard to be happy for other people.

When I talked to Matt about it, he said, “Are you jealous?” He looked hopeful, like I was going to get caught up in some pregnancy pact with Ash and Colleen, decide that we should have a baby immediately.

“No, it's not that. I just—I know what it will be like. This is all they're going to talk about.” Matt was silent, and then I said, “Just so you know, I realize how shitty I sound. I can't help it. I'm a bad friend, I guess.”

“You're not a bad friend,” he said. “But I think maybe you think this is worse than it is.”

“I mean, I'm happy for them,” I said. “I just wish it wasn't happening right now.”

“They're not going to stop being your friends just because they're having babies.”

“They won't be able to drink.”

“I'm sure you can work around that,” he said, all of a sudden speaking slowly, like I was a brain-damaged giraffe.

“You don't get it. It's different for guys.”

Matt looked at me, like he was trying to decide if he should continue this conversation. Lately, there had been a different tone when we talked about babies. It was a subtle shift, but I felt it. Now when Matt showed me pregnancy announcements on Facebook, I felt like he was really saying, What d'ya think? Are you ready? It was stressing me out. I started to blame Facebook and everyone's need to announce their impending babies in creative ways, like they were all involved in some giant Pinterest competition. If I saw one more tiny pumpkin with a date on it, one more Big Brother Promotion sign, one more picture of an actual bun in an oven, I thought I might lose it. Or vomit.

“I'm sure it is different,” Matt said. He cleared his throat. “But it's not like we're so far away from having a baby.”

“I just feel like we're not ready yet. Don't you?” I sounded desperate for Matt to agree with me.

He shrugged. “I feel ready,” he said. “But we both need to get there.”

Our conversation was awkward and I could tell that neither of us knew how to make it less so. Shockingly, we'd never talked about any of this, not in any sort of serious way. We were so young when we got married that we didn't have to discuss timing—we had all the time in the world! And now, all of a sudden, we didn't anymore.

“Yeah,” I said, trying to make a joke. “It is something we should both be involved in.”

Matt attempted a smile. “But we should start thinking about it,” he said. And then he was the one trying to make his voice jokey. “It's not like we're spring chickens.”

All I could manage was to say, “Ha,” like a low-budget laugh track. His comment stayed with me, sat funny in my chest. Even though he was older than I was, it felt like my ovaries were being insulted, like he was trying to shame them into action.

Jimmy was busy that summer, traveling with the President everywhere, which now included campaign stops, and we rarely saw them for Friday dinners. (Most of the administration couldn't take any part in the campaign, because of something called the Hatch Act, but there were exemptions and Jimmy was one of them, which he pretended bothered him but I knew made him feel important.) Sometimes we went out with just Ash, but it felt a little strange, like we had a sister-wife situation going on. This was mostly because Matt insisted on paying for Ash and treating her like she was handicapped instead of just pregnant, pulling out her chair for her and making sure she had enough water. Once, he asked the waiter if the cheese on her salad was pasteurized. “I just wanted to make sure,” he said, after the waiter left our table. “Oh, you are the sweetest,” Ash said.

Honestly, that night I hated them both just a little.

When Jimmy was in town, we talked only of the campaign. In July, during one of the rare Fridays that he was there, the four of us went to Mintwood Place, a restaurant in between our places that had opened that winter but that we still hadn't tried. I'd been looking forward to it, had been feeling nostalgic for our Friday dinners, but as we sat there and talked about Romney and fund-raising and polls, I got agitated. “Remember when we were the only couples in DC who had real dinner conversation?” I asked. No one answered me, although Ash did make a face like she was annoyed too, but didn't do anything to stop it.

Jimmy was describing a campaign event in Las Vegas when Matt said, “God, sometimes I wish I'd jumped on the campaign.”

“You do?” I asked. He didn't seem to realize that this was surprising and also a little hurtful. Did that mean he wished he was in Chicago? Or that he was traveling? Either way, he'd be away from me.

“Absolutely,” he said. “All the time.”

“You know,” Jimmy said. “They always need volunteers on trips. A lot of people are taking vacation days and jumping on. Just to feel like they're doing something.”

“Volunteer?” I asked. But no one really answered me. Matt just turned and said, “Yeah, Hatch. You know.”

“It's something to think about,” Jimmy said to Matt, who was already nodding in agreement.

There was no doubt in my mind that Matt would arrange to go on a trip. Never mind that he'd be using all of his vacation days and we wouldn't be able to go anywhere, or that he'd never really done advance in the first place. “They know I can figure it out,” he said, when I brought it up. “I did enough events in finance to know what goes on. Plus, I'll probably just be a P2.”

“A what?”

He sighed. “Assistant to the press lead,” he said.

“Right,” I said.

But the thing was, I didn't totally blame him. We both felt powerless, and despite his promise to stop watching MSNBC at night, that was all we did. I could hear Rachel Maddow in my head, always. Within a week of that dinner, Matt was scheduled on a trip and I was left to watch twenty-four-hour campaign coverage all by myself.

I wish I could say that I got over my initial reaction to Colleen and Ash and was a good friend to them that summer. But I didn't. Even though it was lonely with Matt traveling, I sometimes made up excuses not to see them. It was a pity party of the greatest kind.

Ash had always been a big fan of Facebook. She posted everything—oversharing and updating her status about things no one could possibly care about, like “Just got my butt kicked at Bar Method!” “Time for a pedicure to reward myself!” But her pregnancy posts took it to a whole new level. She made her sonogram her profile picture, gave weekly measurements of the baby, updated everyone on her food cravings and aversions. There were times I'd start to feel bad that I was avoiding her, and then I'd go on Facebook and see “Feeling sick. Threw up three times today. Baby Dillon sure knows how to let her mama know she doesn't like Mexican food.” Or “Feeling HUGE! My maternity jeans no longer fit. I'm a whale.
L
”

Was she going to live-tweet her birth? Why did she feel the need to share everything? And of course the comments on her posts were even worse, most of them from her girlfriends she'd grown up with in Texas. “Stop it! You are looking beautiful, Mama!”