Rodham

by Curtis Sittenfeld

  What had just happened? But a part of me understood in a way I wouldn’t have when I was younger, when I’d have perceived such an encounter as insulting. What had happened, I was almost certain, was that on the day when James and I had watched Thurgood Marshall’s press conference, spending time together had been too enjoyable—not egregiously enjoyable, but still excessively so. Something that wasn’t precisely flirting but was a kind of recognition of each other, and that also wasn’t the total absence of flirting, had occurred, and now we both were backing away from it.

  This shouldn’t, I thought, be a great loss—the compressed flare-up and extinguishment of a surprising compatibility with formal, soft-spoken James. I needed to keep working.

  * * *

  —

  At Szechuan Wok, Greg and I ordered mai tais and, to share, shrimp dumplings, moo shu pork, and beef and broccoli. As soon as the waitress walked away, I said, “I’ve been giving a lot of thought to the Senate idea,” and, at the same time, Greg said, “Have you heard that Bill Clinton might be running for president?” Greg laughed. “Good Lord, we have so much to discuss.”

  “How much money do you think I’d need to raise?”

  “Three million for the general and half that for the primary.” Greg spoke as calmly as if he were telling me the cost of a gallon of milk. I’m sure I made a face, because he added, “You definitely need the support of one or two massively rich donors. You’re tight with Bitsy Sedgeman Corker, aren’t you?”

  “I’m not sure I’d say tight, but we’re friends. And I know Pete Duvel. He’s very involved with Northwestern as an alum.” Pete Duvel was a plaintiff’s lawyer who’d won several major class action suits and, in addition to donating to the law school, regularly hosted fundraisers for Democratic candidates in Chicago.

  “You have the League of Women Voters in your back pocket,” Greg said. “And you know Ivo Burgmund. Do you know anyone with the Rainbow Coalition?” Ivo Burgmund was the state party chair for the Democrats, and the Rainbow Coalition was Jesse Jackson’s organization.

  I said, “I know Kevin and Martine at the Coalition.”

  “And then we’d need a labor union leader. Maybe Hal Scott. Oh, and what flavor of Christian are you, again?”

  “Methodist, but should I convert to Catholicism? Just kidding. If Thomas’s hearings will probably wrap up in late September and the filing deadline is March second, when would I announce?”

  “Taking into consideration how the hearings play out, I’d think early to mid-November.”

  “I don’t want Dixon to vote to confirm Thomas,” I said. “But you’re scarily persuasive.”

  Greg laughed—he had feathery blond hair and large, very white front teeth and was the first person I knew who used teeth whitener—and said, “Are we pretending that you need to be persuaded? Sure, I’ll go along.” Our mai tais arrived then, and Greg held his up. “To Senator Rodham.”

  I laughed and clinked my glass against his. I said, “To long shots.” Then I said, “Yes, I’ve heard that Bill Clinton is running. He called me last week to ask if I’d sing his praises to reporters.”

  “That’s fun, right?”

  I thought of contradicting him but didn’t. After the ’88 Democratic Convention, where Greg had heard Bill’s speech from inside the Omni Coliseum, I’d told Greg that he was my law school boyfriend but I’d never explained why Bill and I had broken up. I said, “Do you think Bill could beat Bush?”

  Greg sighed dramatically. “Not unless Americans realize that the Gulf War is nothing but an oil grab.”

  * * *

  —

  On Sunday afternoon, before driving to my parents’ house for dinner, I called my Wellesley friend Phyllis. After finishing medical school and a residency in oncology, Phyllis had joined a practice in New York. In the early eighties, she’d been married and divorced within three years, without having children, and she and I often confided on matters of being single. Shortly after breaking up with Pranath, when I’d asked Phyllis a little sheepishly if she owned a vibrator, she’d said, “Did I never tell you to buy one? My God, that’s friendship malpractice.”

  On this August day, we’d been on the phone for fifteen minutes, catching up, when I said, “I have a question for you. Have you ever slept with a married man?”

  “Of course.” She sounded amused. “Have you not?”

  “Are you kidding or are you serious?”

  “I’ve turned down more invitations than I’ve accepted, but come on. I’m sure you’ve also been propositioned a million times.”

  “Not really. You know that I’ve never given off a”—I tried to think of a way to phrase it that didn’t implicate her—“a sexy energy,” I said. “Has it been relationships or one-night stands for you?”

  “Some of both.”

  “Am I incredibly naïve? Am I operating by one set of rules while everyone else operates by another?”

  “Well, you’ve certainly read the Bible more thoroughly than I have. But it’s not as if people are all one thing or the other, sexually or maritally.”

  I thought of the conversation Barbara Overholt and I had had years before in Walker Park. I said, “Have you felt guilty?”

  “I don’t consider anyone else’s wife to be my responsibility.”

  “I guess Bill’s behavior way back when made me assume I’d never have an affair.”

  “Fair enough, but you must have friends who’ve had them.”

  Rumors had circulated about two political science professors I knew, a man and woman who’d recently divorced. “Maybe,” I said.

  “No, definitely. Trust me. It’s not everyone, but it’s a lot of people. What married man are you thinking of sleeping with?”

  I laughed. “I didn’t say I was.”

  “Right,” Phyllis said. “You didn’t need to.”

  * * *

  —

  By the Friday before Labor Day weekend, Bill still hadn’t publicly announced that he was running for president, and I remained undecided about how I’d respond if a reporter called me. What, I wondered, did I owe him? Beyond that, what was my obligation as a voter and citizen? Could my words really affect the election in some small way? Certainly I was no fan of George Bush’s warmongering or flip-flopping on abortion.

  I spent much of Saturday and Sunday finishing my syllabi for the upcoming semester. The Rymarcsuks’ cookout at which I’d meet Steve’s colleague started at four on Monday. I called Maureen to ask what I could bring, which turned into a half-hour conversation about various topics, and at some point I said, “Did you ever find out from Steve whether he thinks this Chuck person and I have anything in common?”

  Without changing her tone, Maureen said, “Steve, what made you want to set up Hillary and Chuck?” Realizing they must have been in the same room, perhaps for the entire conversation, I felt the tiny betrayal by the married friend who often criticizes her husband but also enacts standard domestic closeness with him. Maureen said, “Steve says Chuck isn’t as smart as you, but he’s great at crossword puzzles.”

  Driving to their house for the party, I looked down and realized I had, once again, failed to shave my legs. I was wearing a straw hat, a pink linen short-sleeved shirt, turquoise linen culottes, and sandals, and it was the bristly stretch between the end of my culottes and my ankles that was the problem.

  At the Rymarcsuks’, I found Maureen in the kitchen, pulling plastic wrap off a platter of deviled eggs. I set down the six-pack of beer I’d brought, and we hugged. She felt the sleeve of my shirt with her thumb and forefinger. “So pretty.”

  “But look.” I extended one leg.

  “What?”

  “My hairy legs.”

  “If that’s your idea of hairy legs, then I’m a baboon.”

  I lowered my voice. “What if my stubble keeps Chuck from falling in love wi
th me?” Although I felt some feminist ambivalence about this, I’d already decided that if I found Chuck cute, I wouldn’t swim. On the whole, I thought I looked pretty good. I jogged three days a week—along the lake on weekends in the summer, on a treadmill in a gym in the basement of my building otherwise—and if I felt my weight creeping up I’d go on the fourteen-day version of the Scarsdale diet. But I still did not yearn to expose my pale and lumpy thighs to a man on our first meeting.

  “Do you want to go upstairs and shave really quick in my bathroom?” Maureen asked.

  “Is Chuck worth the effort?”

  Maureen’s expression turned pensive.

  “Great,” I said. “In that case, I won’t bother.”

  About twenty people sat or stood on the patio, with a handful of children swimming in the pool. I greeted the Rymarcsuks’ next-door neighbors, then Maureen’s mother, then Maureen set a hand on my back, and said, “Hillary, this is Chuck. He works with Steve.” Steve and the man in question stood by the grill, both holding cans of Budweiser. Chuck was neither particularly attractive nor unattractive—he had salt-and-pepper hair and dark eyebrows, and he was a few inches taller than I was.

  “Good to meet you,” he said stiffly, and I smiled and said, “Likewise.”

  “What do you do at LaSalle?” I asked, and the short answer was that he was an executive vice president in the retail banking division. The longer answer, delivered over the next eighteen minutes, was that he had some complaints about his commute and also about the low quality of the pens provided in the office—the pens were retractable but so cheaply made that the barrel and tip often detached—and he’d expressed his concerns to the office manager, who appeared completely indifferent, which he assumed was attributable partly to her having had her fourth child recently and, not that he was sexist, but it was hard for him to see how a woman could have four children and still manage an office with any degree of competence. It took me several seconds to understand he wasn’t joking about the pens. I had a strong suspicion he wasn’t going to ask me anything, but, just to be sure, I paused and let a silence arise. He said, “Nice pool, huh?”

  “You know what?” I said. “I’m going to go for a swim. Now, actually. Hey, Meredith.” Maureen’s daughter was playing on the side closest to us, her head bobbing, her hair slicked back like that of a mermaid. I said, “Is there room in there for me?”

  In an American seven-year-old’s fearless attempt at a British accent, she said, “My butler has prepared a teapot for us.”

  “Oh, good,” I said. “Because I’m very thirsty.”

  “I am the queen of England and you are Darth Vader.”

  “Excellent,” I said. “Just give me a minute to put on my suit.” I found it where I’d hung it in the mudroom the previous weekend, and I changed in the bathroom next to the kitchen. But I didn’t bother with the cover-up. I left my clothes, shoes, and straw hat in a tidy pile on a kitchen chair and walked out the back door, my pale forty-three-year-old thighs jiggling with abandon, my stubbly calves exposed to the world, or at least to a couple dozen cookout guests in Skokie, Illinois. There were steps leading into the pool at the shallow end, and I descended them, until I was waist-deep in the water, then held out both arms and dove forward. The immersion, the contrast of the warm air with the cool water, felt glorious.

  Abruptly, while I was still submerged, Bill Clinton crossed my mind, and I thought, I’m not talking to reporters on your behalf. How can I when you could be publicly accused of rape at any time? And when it could be true? From time to time over the years, I had thought about the woman in Chouteau’s parking lot, and I had never resolved what I believed. This was the first time that, even in my own head, I’d used the word rape.

  * * *

  —

  I taught a family law seminar on Thursday afternoons, and it was at the conclusion of the first class that a student asked if he could speak with me. He looked to be in his midtwenties and wore khaki pants and a light-blue polo shirt. I knew because I’d memorized all their names that his was Rob Newcomb.

  “I noticed that your syllabus is really focused on women’s problems,” he said.

  It wasn’t the first time I’d received this feedback from a student, and I said, “Gender plays an important role in family law.”

  “But there’s a difference between, like, feminist consciousness-raising and constructive legal discussion,” he said.

  “Yes,” I said. “There is.”

  “I noticed that there are four separate readings on abortion,” he said.

  “Reproductive privacy is a complex issue.”

  “I’m not paying twelve thousand dollars a year to listen to straight-up male-bashing.”

  “Let’s agree to disagree,” I said. “I have a meeting momentarily, but I look forward to a semester of spirited debate.”

  “Not everything in law is related to the subjugation of women,” he said. “And don’t roll your eyes at me.”

  I was so surprised that I laughed.

  “I’m serious,” he said. “You just rolled your eyes.”

  “I need to get to my meeting,” I said. “I’ll see you next week.”

  But as I left McCormick Hall and crossed the path between McCormick and Levy Mayer Hall, I felt unsettled. I’d encountered truculent male students before, but the fact that this had occurred so early in the semester was a bad sign. I hoped he wouldn’t poison the atmosphere of the class.

  As I got off the elevator on the fourth floor, I almost collided with James. “Pardon me, Hillary,” he said, and I said, “No, that was my fault.” Then I blurted out, “One of my students just told me not to roll my eyes at him.”

  James looked horrified. “What do you mean?”

  “He came up after class to tell me my syllabus is too feminist.”

  “What an arrogant little jerk. I’ll bet he’d never tell a male professor not to roll his eyes.”

  “Clearly.” Slowly, I added, “I’m not completely sure I didn’t roll my eyes. I don’t think I did, but he was testing my patience.”

  “Who cares? He’s the student and you’re the professor, and you were doing him the courtesy of listening to him. The only thing he should have said was thank you.”

  It was notably unusual for one of my male colleagues to recognize the gender dynamics that often made their way into the classroom, let alone to be outraged by them. And because James was so polite, I might have expected him to be even likelier than most to tell me to calm down or take the high road.

  “Are you going to the faculty meeting now?” I asked.

  “I am.”

  “If you wait thirty seconds for me to drop off my briefcase, I’ll walk with you.”

  * * *

  —

  That Saturday evening, my mother and I planned to see a production of Così fan tutte, but at 8:00 A.M. she called and said, “Honey, I hate to do this, but Dad is under the weather, and I need to stay home. I hope the tickets weren’t expensive.”

  I said, “Do you want to see how he feels as the day progresses?”

  “I just don’t think it’ll work,” she said. “He’s coughing quite a bit.”

  “Then how about if I come out there, pick you up, we go to Taco Casa for lunch, and I’ll have you home in an hour?”

  By 12:15, we were sitting at a table across from each other eating enchiladas. “This is delicious,” my mother said. “They do such a good job here.”

  “Mom, would it sound crazy to you if I ran for Senate?”

  “Well, you’ve always been a leader.”

  “Not State Senate. U.S. Senate.”

  “That’s what I thought you meant.”

  “My friend Greg heard that Alan Dixon might vote to confirm Clarence Thomas, so it would only be if that happens. But it doesn’t seem like—I don’t know—hubris on my part?
To run for a national office when I haven’t previously been elected to anything?”

  She was calm and sincere, not sarcastic, as she said, “Men do that.”

  I laughed. “Yes, but they’re men. Mom, I’m sorry if— I hope—” Saying this was spontaneous, which was why I was stumbling over my words. “I’m sorry I didn’t give you grandchildren,” I said. “I hope Hughie or Tony will, because you’d be a wonderful grandmother.” At the time of this conversation, Hughie was forty-one and Tony was thirty-seven.

  “If you wanted children, it’s a shame you didn’t get to have them.” My mother’s gaze was direct. “But your life is bigger than mine ever was, being a law professor and your Election Day work and your friends all over the country. If you go to Washington, you can be a voice for all the people who don’t have one.” She took a bite of food and added, “I don’t wish that anything about you was different.”

  * * *

  —

  Less than sixty seconds after I arrived in my office following my family law seminar, James appeared in the doorway and said, “How was the little jerk?”

  “You mean the student who told me not to roll my eyes?”

  “Did he weigh in today on your tone of voice? Or maybe your hairstyle?”

  “Thankfully, no. It did occur to me that he was smirking, but there was nothing overt. Did you teach today?”

  “I taught Contracts and it was uneventful. I’ll let you get back to work, but I’m glad that punk is showing more respect.”

  We smiled warmly at each other, and as James returned to his office, I wondered if we’d just pulled off a deft and mutual form of sublimation or if the awkwardness between us, the tamped-down flicker of attraction, had only ever been in my head.

  * * *

  —

  I called Greg at his office—it was on the forty-fourth floor of a building on Dearborn Street—and said, “Hypothetically, if I ran, where would I announce?”