What Really Happened (4 page)

This was the man I thought was so unique? Not bloody likely. That little pattern connects him to almost every heterosexual man on the planet.

I couldn’t understand how this man could be so unaware or how I could be so in love with him. Of course, those thoughts separate me from almost no woman on the planet.

And what’s up with that anyway? You get rid of two women, and an old one comes back? What kind nightmare is this?

When he called me the next day, he was himself again. And he was really appreciative of how great I was for him. He seemed to be happy to have dodged an old girlfriend bullet. And I was somewhat satisfied that at the very least we were moving in the right direction.

Being down at the beach seemed to inspire a desire in him to have me join him there. He really wanted me to see his world—to share it with me. On the afternoon of March 25
^th
, I flew to Wilmington, North Carolina, and he picked me up at the airport. As I was waiting to pick up my huge Prada duffel bag, I saw him circling. I had packed way too many clothes; I was also nervous but very excited. Would we be walking on the beach? Would we even be in public?

He had called the night before while he was driving out to the beach. We spoke during most of his entire drive out. He told me he almost had to cancel because Elizabeth, who was busy finishing her book
Saving Graces
, had informed him that she was going to come to the beach. He said she would typically change her mind if he didn’t oppose her in any way, and that’s exactly what she did. This is the first time I remember any real mention of Elizabeth as a potential factor in our relationship, though we had discussed his marriage in more abstract terms many times before. Because there wasn’t any physical or emotional intimacy between Johnny and Elizabeth, I had absolutely no jealous feelings about her or their relationship. It was his other outside relationships that were the problems for me.

Don’t get me wrong—the idea that he had a wife and two small children at home really bothered me, but the “wife as innocent victim” did not match the reality of their marriage. They had big, big problems, which were created by both of them. You don’t go through two-plus decades of extramarital relationships unless both parties are responsible.

It’s a very strange way of thinking (to me, at least), but there are plenty of people in this world who think that marriage is some kind of ownership, and that if they are not having sex with their partner—for years—then their partner is not having sex with anyone else because they belong to them. My thinking is if you aren’t having sex with your partner, the chances are high that someone else is.

When he mentioned Elizabeth, and how our beach plans would not be interrupted, I had a thought: your spouse does whatever she wants and you (carefully) maneuver accordingly. At the time, I didn’t really give the thought that much attention. When you are in love, you don’t want to examine things that would diminish your extra dose of euphoria. And that euphoria was so intoxicating, so magnetic, and so forceful that I didn’t stand a chance against it.

He drove me to my hotel, a Holiday Inn in Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina. He parked his car while I checked in, and then I went back down to the garage and gave him a key. He came up by himself later.

Once he was in the room, he went out on the balcony. I said, “What are you doing? Get in here and away from the window.”

“Oh, I didn’t think about that.”

What?
For a celebrity politician with relationships outside of his marriage, he sure wasn’t cautious at all. Did he want to get caught or was he just that unconscious?

As usual, we had the greatest time. We laughed together so much, the kind of laughter that you can’t stop and makes your eyes tear up. Our senses of humor matched perfectly. We had room service for dinner; Johnny hid in the bathroom while the guy set up the table. The food was fantastic. I had chicken pasta; he had salmon.

The next day Johnny called to tell me he really wanted me to meet his kids. He asked me to meet them at Mayfair, an outdoor shopping mall, where they could just run into me as a shopper and hang out a little. I used the free shuttle service from the hotel and headed over. Johnny had on a light blue Ralph Lauren cashmere sweater and jeans. He looked so beautiful and he was so happy to see me. I was nervous to be with him in public, but he was completely relaxed. He told me his kids were in the kid section, just to go over there. I did. Jack was playing with the “Thomas the Train” display, and I started to play with it and he immediately engaged me in conversation. Totally charming.

Emma walked over and apologized for Jack. “Sorry if he’s bugging you.”

I said, “It’s okay, he’s not bugging me.”

Emma then said, “Do you know my dad is John Edwards? He ran for president.” She broke my heart. My instinct was to hug her and say, “That doesn’t matter, you are important because you are you.”

In two seconds it was clear to me that Jack got a lot of attention as a small child and that Emma had a harder road. I could see why everyone loves Jack; he was charming like his father. But I really loved Emma Claire instantly.

We hung out in the store for a little while and as we walked out of the store to say goodbye, both kids asked, “Can’t she come too?”

He asked me, “Want to?”

So we all walked over to Cold Stone Creamery. I stopped and got a green tea and then joined them and we sat together as the kids ate ice cream.

Jack did this little thing with both his hands—pretending they were puppets and he was making a joke about Johnny and me, indicating that our talking was more than talking. Kids, they don’t miss a thing.

Later Johnny told me that Emma had asked, “Do you think I will ever see my friend from the bookstore today again?”

Johnny said, “Maybe.”

And Emma said, “I hope so.”

When Johnny came to my hotel for dinner that night, he brought a newly purchased CD and a framed picture of Wade, his son who had passed away in a car accident many years before. This really touched me. It was clear to me that he was now in love with me, almost a month to the day after I had fallen in love with him. He also brought me some cash in the neighborhood of a thousand dollars, to pay for my hotel and airline ticket down there. He told me when he was getting the cash that his money person asked him, “Do you want me to get you an ATM card?” Johnny was all excited about it.

“What? You don’t have an ATM card?” I couldn’t believe it.

“No.”

“How can that be?”

“I don’t ever need cash.”

“Ever? What if you got stranded somewhere that didn’t take Amex or you needed to tip someone?” This was completely baffling to me.

“I always have people around me to take care of things.”

Wow. He really did live in a different world.

We had room service again, and again the food was outstanding. We were both blown away by it. How do you know when you are really in love? Holiday Inn room service tastes like Mario Batali cooked your meal himself. Johnny stayed for a few hours but not the whole night. He was at the beach with the nanny and the kids. He called the second he got back to his beach house and we talked until neither of us could keep our eyes open.

The next day he called on his way over to my hotel. Apparently, the woman from Chicago had been calling his cell phone nonstop, and he felt like he needed to return the phone call. He said he needed to “manage the situation.” He planned to end his Chicago thing when he was there in person on April 7
^th
. This made me
mad
. I was in love with him and didn’t understand why he wouldn’t just end that relationship now.

By the time he got to the hotel, he was all messed up.

I put on my teacher hat for a while, sitting and talking with him until he returned back to himself. And once he did, we had the
best
time.

THREE

Falling in Love

“When one is in love, one always begins by deceiving one’s self, and one always ends by deceiving others. That is what the world calls a romance.”

—
O
SCAR
W
ILDE

J
OHNNY CAME BACK to New York at the beginning of April 2006, and then I took the train to DC to spend the night at his Georgetown townhouse. It was my first time in Union Station and it took my breath away; I wasn’t expecting its beauty. I also absolutely loved all the old townhouses in Georgetown.

He gave me a tour of his big yellow house, which the family no longer lived in. However, it still had plenty of furniture. I was not completely comfortable in his house—it did not have a homey welcoming feel to me. I believe it was on the market; it felt more like a house that had been staged to sell. He then gave me his credit card and I went out and got take-out food at Paolo’s. I wondered for a second if the guy behind the bar would have any reaction to me using John Edwards’s credit card. He didn’t. We spent the night together in Johnny’s house but we didn’t stay in the master bedroom. I thought that would be way too weird. He agreed.

The next day he headed to Chicago and I went back to New Jersey. He had told me sometime back that his Chicago girlfriend was the one who had bought him his extra cell phone.

I was not remotely happy about the night ahead of me. He called after he got to Chicago, saying she had picked him up at the airport and that he was going to have dinner with her in order to end it and that nothing was going to happen between them. Her picking him up and them having dinner together? The thought alone pissed me off. I then heard knocking on the door. He said he needed to go; he couldn’t just leave her out there knocking. I knew this needed to happen but I was furious. I wasn’t finished talking, and he was hanging up to go have dinner with someone he said was in love with him and didn’t want to let him go? He hung up and did what he wanted. I called a few times later and he didn’t pick up. I don’t think I had ever been that angry in my life. I turned my phone off.

The next morning, when I had turned the phone back on, he called almost immediately. He was so mad at me for turning my phone off! He told me that the Chicago relationship was over but that she said she was going to fight for him. He told me that she cried and slapped him when he told her that I made him happy. I asked how this was all going to work out with the phone. (Remember, he said she paid for it.) He believed she was still going to pay the bill because she was that in love with him.

WHAT? The whole thing seemed so nuts to me! I was very uncomfortable about a third party monitoring how much we spoke on the phone and having phone records of it and I told him so. He seemed to think that this woman was never going to do anything to hurt him. That just seemed ridiculous to me.

My biggest problem was I was unable to hold on to any discomfort about anything. I don’t know if it was just from the “waking up” or if it was because we were so in love. Or both. Any and all negativity that was triggered by him diminished completely, especially when we were together, or even just talking on the phone. Our connection was the strangest thing I had ever experienced. And I couldn’t turn away from it.

On April 20
^th
I flew to Manchester, New Hampshire, for two days, obviously just to see him. After all, it’s not like there is a whole lot anything other than politics going on in Manchester. I arrived at the hotel before he did and had dinner in the restaurant. By closing time, he still hadn’t called. I sat in the lobby way off to the side, hidden from view. I was certainly excited to see him but not at all enjoying this sitting in the shadows, waiting. And believe me, the irony did not escape me. He finally called. I made a mental note: waiting is definitely one of the least interesting parts of being a mistress.

When I got up to his room and saw him, the rest of the world faded in the background. All of my annoyance at waiting, and any hesitation I had about being with him just disappeared.

The next morning, I went out to explore Manchester while he went to speak around New Hampshire about how bad off our country was under President George W. Bush, and how great he would be at changing and fixing all the problems.

Johnny had given me his brand-new ATM card to take out money for my plane fare, which had been way too pricey because of the last-minute booking. As I was taking the money out, my heart was racing because I thought some bank teller was going to come over, grab the card, and arrest me for withdrawing funds from my boyfriend’s bank account.

Nothing of the sort happened. I withdrew around a thousand dollars and got out of the bank as quickly as I could. Once safely outside, I thought my reaction was somewhat hilarious. Secret agent girl I am not.

I returned to the hotel for a few hours, hung out in the room reading, and then went out for dinner. Johnny had called to give me periodic updates as to whether the coast was clear or not.

He returned to the hotel while I was out to dinner and then called to tell me when it was safe to return.

That night, as usual, he told me about being hit on by a woman. However, what was unusual this time was that while he was telling me everything she had said, I started repeating it to him so he could actually
hear
it. Most people listen to others in order to get confirmation of what they already know or to confirm what they want to believe is true. Rare is the person who listens in order to discover something
new
.