The Hopefuls (5 page)

And then, he'd joined the campaign and I'd lost my job. We moved to DC and Matt was making less than half what he did before. I was still unemployed, and we were renting a place with a twenty-year-old refrigerator and water marks on the ceiling. All of a sudden, everything felt uncertain.

“You'll be happier once you find a job,” Colleen said.

“I'm sure you're right,” I said.

She sat back, looking pleased. “Of course I am,” she said.

After our nails were done, we walked back to my apartment—carefully, with our hands held in front of us so that we wouldn't smudge the polish. It was only a couple blocks away, but we were both sweating by the time we got there, thankful for the blast of air-conditioning that hit us as we opened the door.

“How is it so hot out?” I asked. I kicked off my flip-flops.

“This is nothing,” Colleen said, removing her own sandals. “It's only June. Just wait until August.”

“I can't believe you haven't been here yet,” I said. “I'll give you the grand tour.” We walked barefoot through the apartment, poking our heads into the kitchen, then went up the stairs to the bedroom.

“This place is nice,” Colleen said. “How much are you paying?” She sat down on the bed and leaned back against the pillows, kicking her legs up, which made me smile. Only my college friends would lie down on my bed, uninvited, and ask how much my rent was. There was something refreshing about being around someone who wouldn't hesitate to open my cabinets and help herself to anything in the refrigerator.

We spent the next two hours chatting. Colleen had become obsessed with politics since moving to DC and rarely talked about anything else, except when she was discussing actual people in DC who worked in media or were otherwise important.

The refreshing thing—because honestly I don't know if we would have stayed friends if she only talked about politics—was that Colleen remained a devoted watcher of
The Real Housewives
and
Keeping Up with the Kardashians.
I only tuned in by accident, but she taped them all. She was the only person I knew who seemed genuinely concerned about Kim Kardashian's future. She had just said to me, “I just don't think she's choosing the right guys,” when we heard the front door open.

“Hello?” Matt called.

“We're up here,” I said.

Matt was already loosening his tie and getting ready to pull it off when he walked into the bedroom, but he stopped when he saw Colleen.

“Oh, well hello,” Matt said. “Look who's here.”

“Hey, Dogpants,” Colleen said. (She still, almost exclusively, called him Dogpants. Once in a while, I heard her call him Matt and it just sounded wrong.)

Normally, Matt would've kissed Colleen on the cheek, but I could tell he was a little uncomfortable that she was lying on our bed, so he just waved from across the room and said, “So, what have you two been up to?”

“Got our nails done, caught up, tried to find Beth a job and convince her this isn't the worst place in America to live. You know, the usual.”

Matt laughed. “Oh yeah? Any luck?”

“Yeah,” I said. “I'm now fully employed and I love it here.”

They both laughed, even though my joke wasn't particularly funny. Matt perched on the bench at the end of our bed, and he and Colleen started talking about how Colleen's husband, Bruce, wanted to take Matt golfing soon. Bruce was seventeen years older than Colleen, which somehow still surprised me. The first time I met him, the four of us went to get drinks at a dark hotel bar that served snacks in white ceramic dishes and had egg whites in most of the cocktails. It was noisy, and Bruce kept leaning forward and cupping his ear toward whoever was talking, which was the same thing my dad did in crowded restaurants.

We all figured they'd break up eventually, that the age difference would be too much—he had two daughters, who were nine and eleven, and I thought at least that would change Colleen's mind. But they stayed together and got married on Long Island in the church where Colleen grew up. It was by far the strangest wedding I've ever been to. All the girls from college were bridesmaids and Bruce's daughters were junior bridesmaids. We had to walk down the aisle with Bruce's nearly middle-aged friends, who were just as uncomfortable with the situation as we were.

Matt always took on a nonjudgmental attitude when we talked about Colleen and Bruce. He didn't like to gossip or talk behind people's backs, which I know is a good trait, but could be very frustrating, especially when I was dying to dissect a scandalous situation. Sometimes I pressed him, trying to get him to admit that it was a weird coupling. “You can't help who you fall in love with,” he said more than once. (Which I've always thought was a ridiculous saying, because of course you can help it—you just don't do it. You remove yourself from the situation.) But at Colleen's wedding, when Bruce danced with Colleen's mom, Matt (who was a little drunk) leaned over and whispered to me, “Well, now, they make a nice couple.”

I closed my eyes on the bed and listened to Matt and Colleen talk. She suggested that the four of us get together for dinner that Sunday, and I said without opening my eyes, “We can't. We have to go to the Kellys'.”

They continued talking, and I just lay there. I was thinking about something that Colleen had said when we were getting our nails done. She was telling me how smart it was that Matt took this job, what a good move it was for him.

“But what about for me?” I'd said.

“You don't even have a job right now,” she'd said. “So what's the difference?”

And just like that, it was like I stopped being part of the equation. Like nothing I did mattered anymore—it was all about Matt now.

At dinner the following Sunday, Babs brought out a picture of Matt in third grade, dressed as Ronald Reagan for Famous Person Day at school. “He brought the house down,” she said. I'd heard the story before—how Matt insisted on dressing up as the president, how he gave a speech to the class telling them how he loved Jelly Bellys and got to fly around in his own plane. He handed out little packets of jelly beans and yelled, “Vote for me!”

I glanced at Patrick as Babs told this story. If I'd heard it a dozen times, he'd no doubt heard it hundreds. I wondered if he ever felt like standing up and walking out during a family dinner. Babs said, “That's when I knew! I just knew this little boy would grow up to be a politician, that one day he'd be the one running for office.” As Babs kept talking, it occurred to me that she wasn't a good mother. She wasn't a good mother at all.

Of course I had my own issues with her—how she still had a picture of Matt's old girlfriend hanging in the house, or how she always managed to make me feel like my opinion didn't matter—but that wasn't all. Babs never seemed satisfied with her children, she pointed out their weaknesses whenever possible. She was always pushing them to be more successful, to do something fantastic, as if their accomplishments were nothing but a reflection on her.

Why did Matt want to run for office? Because it was something he really wanted to do, or because he knew it would make his mom proud? Was it because she'd whispered in his ear all through his childhood how special he was, how he was meant for something great? Was it because she brought out this stupid picture of him dressed as the president and told the same story over and over again?

I'm sure people would say that my feelings were normal, that of course I thought my parents were better parents than Matt's, simply because they were mine. But I disagree. My parents thought that I was smart and talented—they believed it with all their hearts. They just didn't need me to be the most special person out there. If I'd stayed in Wisconsin my whole life and become a kindergarten teacher and married another teacher, they would have thought that was great. They would've been proud of me. They would have reacted the same way they did when I brought them to my office at
Vanity Fair,
with wide eyes and smiles. They wanted me to be happy and healthy—wasn't that enough? They weren't selfish people, they didn't want more than their fair share. No, they were practical, and knew that life could be hard sometimes, and thought that if you just wanted a little, if you hoped for a reasonable amount, you might just end up being satisfied.

I may not be right all the time, and maybe I've misjudged people in my life, but I do know this one thing for sure—my own mother would never compare me to a pancake.

I
'd known Matt only a few weeks when he first told me he wanted to run for office. We were lying in his bed on a Sunday afternoon (which is how we spent most of our time those days) and we'd just returned from getting omelets at the diner below his apartment. Our relationship was brand new, and we were so obsessed with each other we couldn't see straight—all we did during that time was have sex and then talk until it was time to have sex again. He was telling me about his job that day, I think, my head on his chest, our hands playing with each other, intertwining our fingers over and over again. I'd never felt this way about another person before, like no matter how close I was to him, no matter how many parts of our bodies were touching, it wasn't enough. I always wanted more of him.

“I like being a lawyer,” he said to me. “But my real passion is politics. What I've always wanted to do is run for office one day.”

I propped myself up on my elbow and looked at him, feeling giddy. “Really?” I asked. Everything about him was proving to be so different, so much more interesting than anyone I'd ever been with and this was one more thing to add to my list of Amazing Things About Matt. (Of course, to be fair, everything about him delighted me at that point—he could've told me he wanted to be a clown and I would've found it charming.)

“What office?” I asked him.

“It depends. Maybe I'd run for Congress, or a state senate seat, and then who knows? It's something I've always wanted. I just feel like it's what I'm supposed to do.”

“That's amazing,” I said. “I think you'd be so great at that.”

The thing is, as I said that to him, I didn't really think it would ever happen. Even when he told me later that he'd never smoked pot (Never! Not once!) because he didn't want it to be something that could come back to hurt him or that he'd bought the domain names for MatthewKelly.com and MattforMaryland.com, I still didn't fully believe it was something he intended to do.

And it wasn't because I didn't think Matt was smart or talented enough, because I absolutely did. But that same day, I told Matt how I wanted to write novels, big, thick books that swept you away, the kind that made people miss their stop on the subway. And I assumed that our dreams were the same—something fun to imagine, fantasies to pass the time.

I don't mean to be a pessimist—it's just, how often do you hear people say, “I'd love to write” or “I think I'd be happiest teaching high school history”? People say all kinds of things—they want to work in the Peace Corps or write Hallmark cards for a living. It doesn't mean anything. Or that's what I thought, anyway.

Then, in the fall of 2007, Matt started talking about how unfulfilled he was at work, how he'd talked to his friend Kevin, from college, who'd joined the Obama campaign and couldn't stop thinking about it. “I feel like I'm wasting my time at the firm,” he said, “when I could be doing something so much more important.” Originally, I chalked it up to a bad few months at work—Matt was close to becoming a senior associate and working crazy hours. But then I noticed that he was spending a lot of time looking at Kevin's Facebook page, clicking through the pictures of Obama's events, studying each one closely. He began making phone calls to everyone he knew working in politics, scheduling lunches and drinks with friends, acquaintances, family connections, anyone he thought might be able to help him.

His eagerness reminded me of the way my girlfriends would act at the end of an especially slothful weekend, when we'd eaten cheeseburgers and chips and drunk ourselves silly. We'd all be disgusted with ourselves, swearing to change our ways, scrubbing the apartment, eating salads, and signing up for classes at the gym. That's how Matt acted, his eyes bright and frantic, like he'd just gotten out of prison. “I've wasted so much time,” he kept saying. “I should've done this years ago.”

A friend of a friend introduced Matt to the New York finance director for Obama's campaign, and he was offered a job. “I told her I'd do anything,” he said. “I don't care if I'm answering phones.”

“Is that what you're going to be doing?” I asked, trying to keep my voice even.

“Maybe.” He shrugged. “She said she'd train me, that I could learn on the job. I got lucky—they really need people. Most of the experienced people are with Hillary and Edwards, but they're willing to let me learn.”

“Wow,” I said.

“If I really want to run for office,” he said, “I need to see how it works. Get some experience. See a campaign like this up close.”

Matt's pay cut was pretty severe, but he said he wasn't worried about money, and so I tried not to be either. We'd have to dip into a little of our savings, and his parents had already offered to help out if needed. “They know this is a once in a lifetime opportunity,” he said. “I feel so lucky.”

“That's great,” I said. And I meant it. Of course I did. I wanted him to be happy. What kind of wife would I have been otherwise?

I don't know what would've happened if Obama had never run, if Matt hadn't joined that specific campaign. Would he have found his way into politics eventually? Maybe. Probably. But maybe not. There was something different about Obama, something almost magical about that campaign. Each day, Matt went to work in a small office with just a few co-workers. Sometimes he called people and asked for money, which he called “dialing for dollars.” Sometimes he worked on spreadsheets all day, entering names of the people who were donating or attending an event. He started helping hosts put together fund-raisers, gaining more confidence with each one. I waited for him to complain—even just a little—about the menial parts of his job, but he never did. He was working long hours, going to events at night, and still he was energized, came home talking about his job, telling me every last detail as we lay in bed, pulsing with excitement, filled with hope.

He wasn't the only one, obviously. At that point, it felt like everyone in New York (in the whole country, really) was swept up in this campaign—there was a fervor, a rising, a sense of urgency. We all felt that something big was happening, that a change was just around the corner.

I've never been all that interested in politics. I vote, of course. I'm informed about the presidential candidates. (Admittedly, much more since meeting Matt.) But when Matt told me about volunteering for Senate campaigns in college and joining the Young Democrats, I couldn't relate. None of my friends in college were political. Sure, Colleen (and a few other girls) dressed up as Monica Lewinsky for Halloween freshman year, wore blue dresses and carried plastic cigars around, but we never had serious conversations about impeachment, or anything else beyond Colleen's acute and often repeated observation about the whole situation, where she'd shake her head and ask, “Wouldn't you just die if your parents knew you gave the president a blow job?”

But in 2008, politics was all we talked about. At bars, we had heated discussions and spent hours imagining the horror if McCain won. My mild-mannered mother called Sarah Palin a dimwit, which was so out of character and shocking that she may as well have called her a cunt. Something had shifted in the country, and Matt was in the middle of it—not just an observer, but a part of this great big movement. At some point over the year, he began referring to the campaign as “We,” and it stung whenever he said it, like he was purposely trying to separate himself from me, pointing out that he was a part of something I wasn't.

I got laid off four days before the election—it was Halloween and Matt was already in Chicago. The fund-raising was done in mid-October—there was a lag time between when the money was raised and when it was finally ready to be spent—so Matt didn't have anything else to do in New York and he'd gone to Chicago to help out there. (Which was good, because he would've gone crazy at home.) When I finally reached him that day, to tell him I'd lost my job, he was at campaign headquarters and it was so loud that it sounded like he was at a sporting event. He said everything right and was sympathetic and calming. But still, what I really wanted was for him to be there with me.

“I'm supposed to go out with the girls tonight,” I told him. “We were planning to dress up as Starbucks workers. Colleen got the costumes and everything.”

“I remember,” he said. “You should go out. Have a good night. Have some fun.”

“No, don't you get it? I can't dress up as a Starbucks worker on the day I got fired. I'll probably be working there for real in a couple of weeks.”

“Beth, that won't happen. I promise.”

“Well, I'm not dressing up.”

“I think that's fair,” Matt said. “I'm sure none of the other girls will either.” But he was wrong. When I showed up at the bar, I was the only one in regular clothes. I spent my night getting drunk with three Starbucks workers and woke up the next morning on the couch, sharing a pillow with a half-eaten piece of pizza.

On election day, I flew to Chicago to be with Matt. Grant Park was swarmed that night—waves of people just kept coming. The weather was unseasonably warm (we didn't even need jackets), which somehow made it all feel a little eerie, a little surreal.

Matt was working at a cocktail party for the major donors, and he snuck me into the tent. I stood with a vodka and soda in a corner and watched everyone around me. I tried to concentrate on what I was experiencing—this is history, I kept thinking, this is important. But I was also feeling slightly sorry for my unemployed self, sipping my drink, wondering what I was going to do next.

When the election was called, all of the donors were rushed out of the tent to a roped-off area right in front of the stage to watch the speech. I was right in front, so close to the next president that it was disconcerting. But I was also aware that Oprah was standing a couple of rows behind me, and part of me wanted to move and wave her forward to take my spot, because it was clearly a huge mistake for me to be closer to the stage than she was.

During the speech, Matt and I both cried—everyone did. “This is it, Beth,” Matt said. “This is it.” I wanted to ask him what was it, but instead just held his hand. Back in the finance tent, all of the workers started drinking, tossing back vodkas and beer, and hugging, hard, throwing their arms around each other and burying their faces in necks. “We did it, man,” Matt said, whenever he hugged anyone. He kept gripping my shoulders and squeezing them like he couldn't contain himself.

Obama came back to the tent to thank the donors for their help, and also took the time to thank all of the workers. He shook Matt's hand and called him by name, which impressed me and made Matt start crying again. “Thank you, sir,” he said, about five times.

We went with a huge group of campaign staff to a bar, then another, and then another. I kept waiting for everyone to calm down, but if anything they got more energy as the night went on. Everyone was still screaming and crying and hugging and laughing when we finally left. At some point in the night, Matt turned to me. “I know you're upset about your job,” he said. “But maybe this is for the best. Imagine I got a job in the administration—we could move to DC, start a whole new adventure.”

I didn't get a chance to answer him because he was swept into a new conversation, a new round of hugs with other campaign people, and I stood there as they celebrated, just slightly off to the side. I had the feeling that you get when you find yourself at home after a day at work, but have no memory of the commute, no real idea how you arrived there.

When we stumbled back to our hotel room sometime in the early morning, I was too drunk and tired to be offended when I heard Matt say as he fell into bed, “This is the best night of my life.”

So, yeah, Matt told me about his aspirations right after we met. But my high school boyfriend wanted to be a rapper, and turned out to be an accountant, so I don't think I can be blamed for not taking it all too seriously.