What Really Happened (11 page)

We also talked about Africa during dinner. I mentioned that I had received an email from the IRC guys about one of the kids from Africa, the one I called, “Uganda’s Bob Marley,” and was looking for fifteen hundred dollars to make a record. Fred immediately said, “I’ll give it to him. Just tell me who to write the check to and where to send it.” Done.

That’s the kind of man Fred was. He was a fixer and a helper. He had so much money and such a big heart that when he heard about someone having some kind of trouble that he could fix with his checkbook, he didn’t think twice. Some kid he didn’t know halfway around the world needed help to make a record? He was happy to help, no questions asked.

Andrew called me a couple of times while I was in Texas. Josh was now gone and he didn’t trust John Davis so I take it I was the only one to call about his big problem—Elizabeth. She was harassing him nonstop and he wanted me to talk to Johnny about this. I did, and Johnny told Elizabeth to stop, but she clearly ignored him. Much to Andrew’s anguish, she steadily continued her harassment campaign to get Andrew out of their lives.

I remember we flew Southwest a lot for the California leg of the book tour. On one of the flights Johnny had headphones on and was jamming out as John Davis and I chatted and laughed a lot. What I admired about John, which was refreshing for someone so young in politics, was that instead of making me feel wrong or bad because I was different from him, he actually liked people who were unique.

We had a glass of wine before the event in Pasadena, which had a good influence on Johnny’s performance. He was great. He was a much better speaker after one glass of wine. Another one of my dear friends came to this event with her stepdaughter to meet Johnny and was blown away by his charisma.

Later, after the affair story broke, she said to me, “Honey, you didn’t stand a chance. Whatever woman that man wanted, he would get.”

We took the signed poster from the event, the book cover of
Home
, and went to dinner at one of my favorite restaurants in Pasadena for spaghetti and meatballs. Then we stayed at the Beverly Hilton, again. Believe me, by 2008 I knew the lay of the land at the Beverly Hilton.

Johnny said something very sweet to me that night, something any woman would appreciate. Most of the time, men don’t really understand or acknowledge how much women give emotionally in a relationship. It’s different for men than it is for women, and the way our culture sets it up, men can take a lot for granted.

Johnny said, “I’ve been thinking about you and Kip a lot tonight, given you lived so close to this area when you were married. And I feel bad for Kip. He really lost when he lost you.”

Okay, that melted me.

I was married to Alexander “Kip” Munro Hunter III for nine years; we were together for twelve. Kip is a lawyer, shockingly enough, just like my father and the father of my child. He is also the funniest, most quick-witted man I have ever met in my life. We parted as friends and remain friends to this day.

Somewhere around this time, when I was back in New Jersey, Johnny and I decided that we needed to get rid of the intimate tape we’d made in Africa. I think Johnny was seriously considering running for president at that point, and wanted to get rid of any physical evidence of us that could be used against him. He warned me how dirty and awful people in politics are. I thought he was exaggerating a bit, that maybe he thought he was a little more important than he actually was. I mean, really, who would come after me or my stuff? I just couldn’t even fathom any of that.

Even though I thought he was being a bit melodramatic, I destroyed the tape, I pulled it out of its casing and cut it. Somewhere in the back of my head, I must have remembered the possibility of someone going through my garbage, so I buried it in the bottom of my hatbox, where I stored my other small, personal mementos.

After I discovered that the tape had been stolen and put back together, I obviously wished that I’d just burned it. I just didn’t take it seriously enough. I mean really, who would ever rifle through all my stuff (to find this you really would have to dig), find a random tape, and actually put it back together? I did understand at that time that there are very deeply disturbed people in the world; I just didn’t understand that some of their numbers were, in fact, actually stored in my own cell phone. Thankfully I got my tape back (and most of my other belongings that were wrongfully taken), and it is now completely destroyed.

Sometime soon after I thought I had destroyed the tape, Johnny went out to the beach by himself to make a decision about running for president. He was really struggling with it. So many people’s livelihoods were dependent upon him; there was a lot of pressure being applied to him from all sides. Elizabeth also really wanted him to run. From what he told me, she was not at all patient about his decision-making process. She even went so far as to guilt trip him.

I should have known right then that he was going to do what Elizabeth wanted him to do. I just didn’t understand yet the extent of her “it’s my way or no way” attitude.

He really believed his life was a life of service but he was still in deep conflict about how he was supposed to go about doing that. He wasn’t comfortable being a politician. It just never suited him the way being a trial lawyer did, but then again, the opportunity to become president is hard to resist. He’d made all the right moves and positioned himself perfectly. Why would he go through all that if he weren’t going to run for president?

He asked me what I thought. I thought it was a bad idea. Obviously, he had his “personal” issues to think about. When I brought it up, he would say, “Yes, but I have also already been vetted for VP.”

“Yes,” I said, “but that was 2004. What about since then?” I thought there were many ticking time bombs on the girlfriend front that could explode at any given time.

In my last attempt at keeping him safe, I told him if he really thought it was something he wanted to do, he should at least wait until April.

After all his contemplation, Elizabeth got her way; John Edwards decided to go for it.

I flew to New Orleans the day after Christmas. I was checking in at the hotel’s front desk, talking to the Internet guy, when Johnny (in his brown leather jacket) and his entourage were coming into the building. I said, “Hey there!” He turned when he heard my voice and, as usual, he lit up when he saw me. Every time he does this, my heart just melts.

During a later
20/20
Bob Woodruff interview with Andrew and Cheri Young, it was claimed that I was waiting for Johnny in the Presidential Suite of the Loews New Orleans and allegedly said, “I felt just like his First Lady.” Interestingly enough, I also discovered later that this little tidbit was lifted right out of the
National Enquirer
’s September 1
^st
, 2008, issue. Was Andrew the original source for the
National Enquirer
story or did he plagiarize it for filler in his book? I really wonder, but, whatever the case may be, my point is: of all the cheesy lines I’m supposed to have said, that one really makes me laugh. There was no Presidential Suite for Johnny, or me; we both had standard regular rooms. To me, waking up before dawn to dress in jeans, a down vest, and a ski hat, and then lug around my camera and all my gear, trying to get a shot of Johnny in the car in the dark on the phone with Matt Lauer—doesn’t really conjure up feelings of any First Lady, let alone his.

While we were in New Orleans, Elizabeth finally watched the webisodes. They had been up for a while, and I was getting great feedback on the ground from people in New Orleans. A new employee told me that Johnny’s people had sought her out to hire her. She went online to check out Johnny and his politics and when she watched the webisodes, she thought, “Okay, I could work for this guy.”

Of course, that wasn’t Elizabeth’s reaction at all. She made comments to Johnny like, “You’d better not be in that filmmaker’s room.” Johnny told me his reaction to her comments was to defend me.

A long, grueling trip ensued: four states in three days with very little sleep. New Orleans to Iowa, then back to New Hampshire, where we stayed for the night. New Hampshire to Reno, then our plane broke. Fred came to the rescue with a private plane to North Carolina.

When we landed in North Carolina, Andrew was there to greet his senator. I remember him making a comment to me because I had on a Carolina sweatshirt (that Johnny had given me). Andrew is a
huge
Carolina fan. One of the things about Andrew that was so deceptive, something that blinded me to the real shadow behavior, was how thoroughly he doted on Johnny. Johnny didn’t ever have to ask for anything because Andrew had it waiting for him, from having the cooler filled with all his favorite snacks or drinks to having any positive media report on hand for him to read. It’s actually quite nice to be treated that way.

A staffer drove me to my hotel while Andrew drove his senator home. Johnny and Elizabeth were going to do ABC’s
This Week
, anchored
by George Stephanopoulos, before we flew to South Carolina and then back to North Carolina for his hometown ending!

While they was doing
This Week
, and before we got on the plane to South Carolina, I received a new rental wireless microphone package (Johnny was constantly pulling on the wire, frequently breaking it) and I was dealing with audio problems, on top of being exhausted.

It was late afternoon when we returned, and I think we may all have had a glass of wine and a sandwich on the plane. We were in the home stretch of the announcement tour and when we landed, there was a lot of laughter inside the plane upon sighting Johnny’s chariot: as usual, there was Andrew waiting for his senator. Truly, the only thing missing were the rose petals.

I rode in Andrew’s SUV with Johnny and John Davis. This is when I discovered Andrew’s brilliant idea of putting Sauvignon Blanc in water bottles. I couldn’t believe I had never seen that before. Andrew seemed very pleased by my approval of his “thinking of everything” in order to keep his senator happy.

As usual, we were late. This may be fine if you’re the candidate, but not so good if you are filming the candidate and are supposed to be capturing the behind-the-scenes action, as well as the speech. I was a bit frazzled. I needed to mic Johnny and then get out to the event immediately in order to set up a tripod somewhere in the sea of media. And I had no idea where I was going. I followed everyone into the campaign offices and went into a room in order to get my camera out of its bag. I noticed on the way in that Elizabeth was standing in an adjacent room talking to people. Emma Claire and Jay, Elizabeth’s brother, came into the room where I was just to say hello. I wondered for a second, “Do I introduce myself?” Elizabeth was outside talking to people. Awkward situation, yes, but there wasn’t a lot of time to fret about it. I needed to mic Johnny and get outside, and in order to do that, I had to find Johnny, who had disappeared. In order to find him, I would have to go through the room Elizabeth was in. So I did. I walked over and introduced myself. Elizabeth did not look me in the eye. In fact, she appeared to be frightened. I have seen this reaction before and I knew in that moment that most of the bullying behavior I had heard about her was true. I really felt bad for her.

I said that I needed to mic Johnny. Elizabeth volunteered to locate him, so Emma Claire and I followed Elizabeth down the hall. He was in the bathroom, so we all walked back to where the offices were. I was finally able to mic Johnny, and thankfully, a guy from New Hampshire helped me navigate where I could stand to shoot the entrance of Johnny and his family coming onto the stage.

When I was shooting at the rope line, while Elizabeth and Johnny were shaking everyone’s hands, Johnny turned to me and said, “Isn’t this fun?” I looked at him as if to say, are you out of your mind? But all I said was “Fun
?
”

He smiled and said, “Well, minus a few issues.”

And I said “A few
big
issues.”

And he was right: the work was fun. I was doing what I loved to do, with the man I loved.

He and Elizabeth and the kids finally got into the car with Andrew and they all drove off. After they left, I felt free—and satisfied. It had been a long tough job, but I had done it well and it was finished. My contract was up.

What wasn’t finished was my loving and supporting him because no matter who pushed him into it or how bad a move I thought it was, the man that I loved had just embarked on what I would call, The Path of Hell: John Edwards’s second bid for the White House.

NINE

One Night Only

“Life doesn’t imitate art, it imitates bad television.”

—
W
OODY
A
LLEN

O
N DECEMBER 31
ST
, 2006 at 9:33
A.M.
, my cell rang, I looked at the caller ID, saw Johnny’s number, and answered as I often did when he called, saying, “Hey, baby.”

Instead of a response, the line went dead. I knew immediately that it wasn’t Johnny calling me. It was Elizabeth.