Rodham

by Curtis Sittenfeld

  “Hello, fellow Ralph Waldo Emerson Junior High students,” I said into the microphone. “In the words of Winston Churchill, a good speech should be like a woman’s skirt—long enough to cover the subject but short enough to create interest.”

  Most students looked at me blankly. A few teachers tittered, and a few more exchanged perturbed glances. I won the election with eighty-two votes.

  The next fall, student council meetings occurred every Monday, in Mr. Heape’s classroom, during lunch period. I and a boy named Bruce, who was the student council treasurer, were always the first to arrive because we packed our lunches rather than buying them. In the ten minutes that we waited for everyone else, Bruce and I discussed upcoming math tests or his family’s springer spaniel, Buster, or who had been on The Ed Sullivan Show the night before. During these conversations, I sat in a chair desk I’d moved to the front of the classroom, with the chalkboard behind me, and Bruce sat in the front row of chair desks, facing me. In October, we made a bet about whether “Save the Last Dance for Me” would remain a Billboard number-one single for more than a week. He thought it wouldn’t, and I thought it would, and in a way we both were right, because it was bumped the next week from the top slot then returned for two weeks. When I got a haircut, he said as soon as he entered the classroom, “You look different with bangs.” Bruce himself had a blond crew cut, hazel eyes, and a collection of authentic Indian arrowheads he once brought in to show me, acquired on a trip to Ohio with his family.

  When Mr. Heape and the other students arrived, bearing cafeteria trays of meatloaf and cottage cheese and peach slices in syrup, I would open the manila folder where I kept student council notes and call the meeting to order; I had used my mother’s typewriter to make a label for the folder that read, STUDENT COUNCIL PRESIDENCY 1960–61.

  On Thanksgiving morning of 1960, I woke up from a dream of kissing Bruce. The dream shocked me and then, as I lay beneath the covers, made an abrupt sense; after all, wasn’t the ten minutes Bruce and I spent alone together in the classroom my favorite part of each week? But realizing this, admitting it to myself, was both troubling and exciting. I had never in real life kissed anyone. As I helped my mother squeeze lemons for the cranberry relish and roll the pie dough, I wondered if she’d sense that now I wished to. For all of Thanksgiving break, as I skated with my brothers at Hinkley Park, as we trimmed our Christmas tree, as I watched a movie at the Pickwick Theater with my friend Maureen, the idea of Bruce accompanied me, my jittery and valuable secret. Certain weather and certain times of day—the sun setting early, or snow—filled me with a new yearning, a wish to share the sadness or loveliness of the world with this other person.

  The following Monday, Mr. Heape’s classroom was empty when I entered it, which threw me off. In my imagination, Bruce had already been there when I arrived for our post-Thanksgiving reunion. As I moved a chair desk around to face out, my own body felt unwieldy, and when I sat, I couldn’t remember how I usually positioned my legs or what expression my face ought to settle into. I was probably in the classroom for all of a minute by myself, when Bruce entered and casually said, as if in my mind we had not spent the last five days kissing each other, “It smells like spoiled milk in the hall.”

  He was so cute! His blond crew cut and his hazel eyes and the maroon sweater vest he was wearing. At first, I had to pretend to act normal, but soon enough the rhythm of the conversation absorbed me and I was wondering with only a part of my brain, rather than with all of it, if he thought I was cute, too. At the student council meeting that day, a boy named Gregory said, “It’s dumb to sell Valentine’s Day dance tickets before Christmas,” and I said, “Some people like to plan ahead,” and Bruce said, “I agree with Hillary.” Before the meeting the next week, when we were discussing Bruce’s neighbor’s dachshund, who’d died of old age over the weekend, I said, “I love dachshunds,” and he said, “I thought cocker spaniels were your favorite.” Which I’d told him back in September, and he’d remembered.

  A few weeks passed thusly: I still raised my hand in social studies class and math, read propped up on two pillows in my bed at home, helped my mother set the table and wash the dishes, played pinochle with my brothers, and all the while, my body thrummed, my heart clutched, with thoughts of Bruce.

  On the last day of school before Christmas break, I gave him a note I had written in pencil on a piece of lined paper and folded twice:

  Dear Bruce,

  If you ask me to be your girlfriend, I will say yes.

  Sincerely,

  Hillary

  I’d thought giving him two weeks to formulate a response was wise; the erroneousness of this logic was apparent by the time I arrived home after school and was too keyed up to eat my usual snack of peanut butter and saltines. Had he read the note yet? Had he shown the note to anyone else? What was his answer? These questions were the drumbeat of Christmas 1960, and what was usually my favorite holiday was contaminated by doubt and anxiety. And what if I ran into him during the winter break? Would that be better or worse? I considered calling him and telling him the letter was null and void—I located his number in the white pages that we kept on its own white-pages-sized shelf under the telephone nook in the front hall, at the bottom of the staircase (his father’s name was William D. Stappenbeck, and their address was 4633 Weleba Avenue)—but what if one of my family members overheard?

  By New Year’s Day, my agitation had started to wane; it flooded back as soon as I awakened on the morning school resumed, and the very halls of Ralph Waldo Emerson Junior High seemed to pulsate with the shame of my forwardness. When I’d written the letter, I hadn’t expected that Bruce would respond over break, but if he did like me, wouldn’t he have wished to convey it as quickly as possible?

  Finally it was lunchtime. When I entered Mr. Heape’s classroom, Bruce was the only one there, seated in a chair desk in the front row. He said, “Hi, Hillary.”

  “Hi,” I said.

  There was a pause, then he said, “For Christmas, I got a pogo stick and a new Monopoly set because my brother left our other one out in the rain.”

  “Oh,” I said. “I got a cowgirl vest.”

  Soon enough, the rest of the student council members were arriving, and neither Bruce nor I had mentioned my note. By the following Monday, a part of me was convinced I ought to pretend I’d never written it, as Bruce seemed to be doing. (Or could he have dropped it before reading it? And if so, where? Please, please, I thought, not at school.) But I also wanted clarity and resolution; there was something about pretending that seemed silly. What if, before he’d read it, the note had fallen out of his pocket in his bedroom, then his mother had thrown it away, also without reading it? And what if he’d have been thrilled to be my boyfriend but had no idea I wanted it? (In the years since, on the occasions when I’ve been accused of being a pessimist, I’ve yearned to hold up this counterexample.)

  On the third Monday in January, which was a few days before John F. Kennedy’s inauguration, Bruce said as he removed his sack lunch from his book bag, “My cousin told me that the mafia got Kennedy elected.”

  From my desk, facing Bruce, I asked, “Did you read the note I gave you before Christmas?”

  Bruce didn’t seem nervous as he said, “Janet Umpke is the girl I like.”

  A tidal wave of disappointment crashed inside me, while calmly (this was my first experience of needing to act like I wasn’t devastated when I was) I said, “Okay.”

  Bruce pulled an apple from the brown bag and set it on his desk, then pulled out his baloney sandwich. He didn’t say anything else. Many seconds passed.

  “Have you ever talked to Janet?” I asked.

  “Once,” he said.

  “Do you have any classes with her?”

  “Social studies.” The room was quiet again, then he added, “She has pierced ears.” I knew this about Janet; I had mentioned it to my own parent
s at dinner one night, and my father had said, “Pierced ears are for Gypsies.”

  Bruce’s revelation about Janet would have made more sense if she were unusually pretty, but weren’t we about the same? I considered myself medium-pretty: not beautiful like Emily Geisinger, who had the blond ringlets of a fairy-tale princess, but certainly in the same general category as Janet.

  Bruce took a bite of his sandwich. He said, “You’re more like a boy than a girl.”

  This was another tidal wave, which is to say another opportunity to practice composure. I said, “How?”

  He was silent, seeming to consider the question. When he spoke at last, he spoke decisively. He said, “The way you act and the way you talk.”

  * * *

  —

  Around dusk, Bill and I ended up back outside, in the courtyard. As the door to the museum shut behind us, he said, “Where do you live?”

  “On Orange Street. I have a roommate named Katherine who’s getting a doctorate in history.”

  “Is she the lousy kind of roommate or the good kind?”

  “She’s the cousin of someone I went to Wellesley with, and we’re not close friends, but we get along well enough. I’m really only home at night, and she has a fiancé in New York so she’s there at least half the week.”

  “Do you know Keith Darrow or Jimmy Malinowski or Kirby Hadey?” Bill asked. “I live with those guys out on Long Island Sound, in Milford. It’s an authentic beach house, which is more romantic in theory than in practice. Or at least warmer in the winter in theory than in practice. But I’d love to have you down for a sandy picnic.”

  “Is Kirby the nephew of Senator Hadey or is that just a rumor?” Already, I regretted not responding flirtatiously to the mention of a picnic—regretted responding to the concrete question he’d asked rather than to the open-ended statement—but it seemed too late to fix my mistake.

  “No, it’s true,” Bill was saying. “Kirby never brings it up, but it is true. The funny thing is that his family is so rich, it seems like being related to a senator is the least of it. I went home with him over Thanksgiving, to his parents’ penthouse on Park Avenue in New York. It was about the size of the Taj Mahal, with their own private elevator from the lobby. We arrived on Wednesday night, and his parents invited us to join them for drinks in the living room with some guests, but Kirby wanted to go meet his prep school friends at a bar. Before we leave, we stop by the living room to say goodbye, and it turns out one of his parents’ guests is William Styron, another is an editor from The New York Times, and yet another is undersecretary of the treasury. Their wives were there, too, all of them just chatting like mere mortals. I was practically salivating.”

  I laughed. “Was the prep school bar fun?”

  “It was all right.” Bill grinned. “But I hope you don’t think I missed the opportunity to get Styron’s phone number for next time I’m in New York.”

  “Did you really?”

  “I told him what a fan I am of Nat Turner and Lie Down in Darkness. I got the editor’s number, too.”

  “How long were you in the living room? Two minutes?”

  “More like ten. I have a notebook where I write down the name and, if I get it, the number or address of everyone I meet. I started in high school. If it’s someone influential like Styron, I send a follow-up note saying I enjoyed meeting them and when I’m next in their neck of the woods, how about if I say hello? The worst they can say is no.”

  “This is all in preparation for when you run for office?”

  “Yes, but if I got to have lunch with William Styron in New York City, that in itself would be an experience.”

  “And you think someone like him will take an interest in a congressional race in Arkansas?”

  Bill looked impish. “Maybe I have bigger goals.”

  “Like what? Senator?”

  He held up a thumb and jabbed it skyward.

  A little incredulously, I said, “President?”

  “Apparently I’m not supposed to say that I’m prepared to serve in just about any capacity because that would sound phony. But you know how you can tell if someone is truly thinking of running for president? He’ll never admit it until he publicly announces. Anyone who goes around noodling over the idea is a lot less likely to do it than the fellow who holds his cards close to the vest.”

  “Does that mean you will or won’t?”

  In a faux-ingenuous tone, Bill said, “Running for president—what an interesting thought, Hillary! That’s never occurred to me.” More seriously, he added, “There’s something about you that makes me want to tell you everything. Do you think that’s a good or bad idea?” He was looking at me again with an expression that no one had ever looked at me with; it was intensely attentive, and it also was as if his words were simultaneously a joke and not a joke at all.

  “I think it’s worth trying to find out,” I said. And really, in spite of the many crushes I’d had, there was a feeling Bill Clinton gave me that I’d never previously experienced: There was so much—an infinite amount—for us to discuss, there were so many topics I’d like to talk about with him, so many questions I had and things I wanted to tell him about myself. Telling personal anecdotes sometimes seemed tedious to me, or pointless, but I felt a powerful desire for us to know each other extremely well.

  He said, “I’m planning to run for president as soon as 1984 and I hope no later than 1992. I really have been laying the groundwork since I was in high school. You ever heard of Boys Nation? I was big into that, and I went to Washington the summer I was sixteen and met Kennedy. I know this probably sounds crazy, but I realized then, it has to be someone, so why not me? I love people, I’m passionate about improving the world, and I’m willing to work like hell.”

  “Wow. I think of myself as a planner, but—”

  When I didn’t say anything else, he said, “Am I scaring you?”

  “No,” I said. “You’re impressing me. A lot of people underestimate their ability to change the status quo or they’re too lazy to try.” We had wandered over to the large bronze sculpture, and we stood next to it, facing each other. “You know what I was just thinking?”

  Bill cocked his head to one side expectantly.

  I said, “I was thinking that a sandy picnic with you sounds really, really nice.”

  * * *

  —

  Unlike Mr. Gurski’s observation that I was opinionated for a girl, Bruce’s statement that I was boy-like had not been easy for me to dismiss; if anything, that it had been delivered without apparent animus made it more distressing. Even so, the lesson he offered proved to be one I needed to learn more than once. The lesson was this: You will encounter boys and men with whom you think you enjoy chemistry. A boy or man will find you funny and interesting and smart, just as you find him funny and interesting and smart. The pleasure you take in each other’s company will be obvious, but, crucially, while this pleasure will make you feel as if you’re in love with him, it will not make him feel as if he’s in love with you. He might remark on how much he likes talking to you, but there will be girls he wants to kiss, and you will not be one of them.

  In high school and again in college, there were more Bruces, Bruce stand-ins. After hours or weeks or months of robust conversation, when I finally said or did something I considered overtly flirtatious—declared how handsome they were or how lucky a girl would be to date them, or when I stood or sat close enough to kiss, tilting up my face—these boys seemed surprised and uncomfortable. This happened in high school with a boy named Norman, and it happened my sophomore year at Wellesley with an MIT senior named Phil, and it happened again my senior year at Wellesley with a Harvard graduate student named Daniel.

  In the meantime, in eleventh grade, I had my first kiss; I attended prom with a date; I seriously dated a different MIT student named Roy, to whom I lost my virgin
ity. (Premarital sex held no stigma for me, though getting pregnant would have, and I’d started taking the pill in advance of our first time.) I had discovered that the key to opening the door of dating was to agree to go out with boys and men to whom I was not physically attracted. This trick, if such a defeatist stance could be considered a trick, involved a passivity I brought to no other area of my life. But choosing the guy, liking the other person first, never worked for me; dating worked only when I let them choose me. Was it because, around boys and men I wasn’t attracted to, I was freed of some heaviness of expectations I couldn’t otherwise conceal? Was it because, in the hierarchy of appearance, I liked guys who were more good-looking than I was entitled to like? (But really, they didn’t need to be extraordinarily handsome—there were so many kinds of men I could fall for, such different physical types and mannerisms and personalities, just as long as they weren’t boring or meek.) Or was I pretty enough but, per Mr. Gurski, spoke with an off-putting sharpness or surety of tone?

  Roy, to whom I lost my virginity, was boring, meek, and arrogant. On our first date after we’d met at a Wellesley-MIT mixer, I steered the entire conversation, which was tiring—I inquired about his upbringing, his Judaism, and his academic studies—but before we parted, he asked if next time I’d like to go out for dinner. In the seven months we were a couple, he rarely made conversation and rarely complimented me yet seemed to take for granted my wish to be involved with him. Did he, in a way he was unable to articulate, actually like my strong will? Or did he mistake me for a typical woman, was he game to be my boyfriend not because I was Hillary and distinctly myself but because I possessed the standard feminine qualities that a college-educated man in the late 1960s might wish for? Did he not understand that I was special?