Rodham

by Curtis Sittenfeld

  There was a sadness I felt in this moment, an amalgamated sadness. I felt sad that I didn’t have a true partner, with whom to share a bed and discuss daily indignities and inside jokes. I felt sad that most marriages didn’t, beyond the first few years, seem very happy. I felt sad that, in the background of my life, the man I’d once been wildly excited about had become a person it would have been simpler never to have met. And I felt sad that, in the foreground of my life, the man I most wanted to kiss was another woman’s husband.

  It was for all these reasons that I reached out and took James’s hand. I didn’t intend for the gesture to be flirtatious or provocative; I meant for it to be rueful. But I suppose that, even as it seemed we were agreeing that nothing romantic would happen, I wanted some small intimacy as consolation.

  It was immediately apparent that James saw what I’d done as overture rather than lamentation. He rubbed the back of my hand with his thumb, then clasped his other hand on top of mine. Were we, after all, about to kiss?

  But we simply sat there holding hands for several minutes, for long enough that the physical contact went from shocking and exciting to confusing to the tiniest bit boring. Also, didn’t he have a long commute to Naperville? Finally, I squeezed his hand and said, “I know we both need to go home. Let’s not try to resolve this right now.” I extricated my hand and stood. “I’ll get my things and we can walk out together.”

  We made small talk as we took the elevator downstairs and left Levy Mayer Hall. After ten on a Friday night in October, the law school campus was quiet and dark. I knew he was headed to the parking garage, and I gestured and said, “I’m going along Lake Shore Drive.”

  “You’re not walking at this hour, are you? Please let me give you a ride.”

  “It’s safe,” I said. “It really is.”

  We stood there for a few seconds, and again, I wondered if we’d kiss, though we were right outside the building where we both worked. I stepped forward and hugged him, and it wasn’t a brief hug. But I felt a relief when I was by myself again, the vast glittering darkness of Lake Michigan to my left. The day had been filled with multiple kinds of tension, and I was exhausted.

  * * *

  —

  “Wait a second,” Maureen said when I called her from my apartment. “Your co-worker hit on you during Anita Hill’s testimony? I wasn’t an English major, but isn’t that the definition of irony?”

  “I sort of hit on him, too,” I said. “And technically, Anita Hill was finished. Are you appalled?”

  “Well, I don’t think it implies anything good about his marriage.”

  I adored Maureen. But I was struck, not for the first time, by how casually and authoritatively dismissive of marriage married women were, except when they weren’t.

  * * *

  —

  I went for a run on Saturday morning, and when I returned, I had two phone messages.

  From Greg: “You know that rage you felt boiling inside you as you listened to Anita Hill? A lot of other women felt it, too.”

  And from my brother Tony: “Who has put pubic hair on my Coke?”

  * * *

  —

  The reopened hearing had lasted through the weekend, concluding in the wee hours of Monday morning. Walking to school Monday, I thought that all the turmoil would provide a cover for or distraction from what had happened between James and me on Friday evening. But a few minutes after I arrived at my office, James appeared in the doorway. “Do you have a minute?” he asked.

  “Of course,” I said.

  He stepped inside, closed the door, and said, “I thought about you all weekend.” As usual, he wore a suit and tie; his tie on this day was maroon with navy stripes.

  I was sitting at my desk, and I smiled. “I thought about you, too.”

  “You look very pretty today,” he said.

  “I was just thinking how handsome you look.”

  “Would it be all right if I hug you now?”

  I laughed, then I held the back of my hand in front of my mouth. “I’m not laughing at you,” I said. “It’s just—you’re very sweet.”

  As he approached me, I stood, and when he wrapped his arms around me, I could feel him inhaling the smell of my hair. There was a blurriness of sensations I lost myself inside—how his physicality was both unfamiliar and comforting. That we would kiss this time seemed inevitable, even if it was eight-twenty on a Monday morning and we were in my office. It seemed inevitable until he squeezed me once more before stepping back. “I need to go meet with the provost,” he said. “I can’t wait to see you later.”

  * * *

  —

  On October 15, Clarence Thomas was confirmed fifty-two to forty-eight. It was the narrowest margin in the history of Supreme Court nominations, and, in a roll-call vote, Alan Dixon was one of eleven Democrats who voted yea. This happened a little after 5:00 P.M. central time, when normally I’d still have been at the office, but James was teaching, and I’d wanted to watch with someone, so Greg and I had both left work early and met at his apartment.

  In Greg’s living room, when the vote was official, I felt two distinct feelings: deep dismay that Clarence Thomas would ascend to the Supreme Court and deep curiosity about whether this fact would change my own destiny. I turned to Greg. “Can you give me forty-eight hours to decide?” Conveniently, we were having dinner at Szechuan Wok two nights hence.

  “As long as you know there’s only one right answer.”

  “Do those fifty-two senators not believe Anita Hill or do they not care?”

  Greg shook his head unhappily. “Republicans are ruthless fuckers, and it’s the only thing I admire about them.”

  * * *

  —

  The next morning, James appeared in my doorway and said, “Please tell me you’re not running for Senate.”

  “Sometimes that’s what bright women who are interesting to talk to do.” I’d been joking, but he looked displeased, and I added, “I’m still thinking it over.”

  He closed my office door, walked to where I sat at my desk, extended his hand, and pulled me toward him when I took it. Then he hugged me tightly, and this was the moment I understood that he would never do anything that I hadn’t done first. That I had taken his hand and that I had hugged him meant he would take my hand and hug me. But he would not go further. Was this impasse due to marital guilt? A fear I’d think he was being forward? Did he want or not want me to initiate more? Did he believe these were rules we had agreed upon?

  On the one hand, the comparative chasteness felt absurd. We were in our forties. I hadn’t had sex in three years, and he was an attractive man. And if he feared hurting or angering his wife, I couldn’t imagine she wouldn’t be hurt or angered by what we were already doing.

  On the other hand, there was in this restraint an enticing plausible deniability. If, say, a newspaper reporter were to find evidence of everything we’d ever said or done with each other, would it count as an affair? I didn’t think it would.

  * * *

  —

  At Szechuan Wok, the minute Greg sat down, I blurted out, “I’m in.”

  “I have good and bad news. Carol Moseley Braun is running.”

  “Wow. Oh. Gosh. I mean—well, that would certainly be poetic justice.” Carol was the Cook County recorder of deeds, a former assistant majority leader in the Illinois House, and she was black, meaning if elected she’d be the first black woman senator. I said, “I can’t run now. Can I?”

  “It does change the landscape.”

  “Do you think she can win?”

  “She’ll be an underdog, and in a different way than you would. But she has the magic. Everyone who meets her loves her, as I assume you’ve seen.”

  “I’ve heard her speak a few times at the IDA dinner.” This was an annual event hosted by the Illinois Democrats A
ssociation.

  “Then you know what I mean,” Greg said.

  “Let’s not dance around this. You think she’ll connect better with voters than I would?”

  “Your serious-professor vibe is a strength running against men, but I fear it’d come off as pretentious or elitist contrasted with her.”

  “It’s a shame when so few women run for national office. I shudder to think of the catfight headlines.”

  “Ha,” Greg said. “Those would be the fun part.”

  I sighed. “If she has an electoral record and I don’t, and if her election would represent this milestone—for me to try to stop her would give off a bad smell.”

  “I wish I disagreed,” Greg said, and he didn’t seem quite as regretful on my behalf as I might have imagined. “Hey, did you read Clinton’s interview in the new Time? He’s a funny dude.”

  “I missed it,” I said. If I’m not running for Senate, I thought, I’m definitely sleeping with James.

  * * *

  —

  But over the next few weeks, I didn’t sleep with James. Was it because I was respecting his marriage? Though I knew the claim might seem risible, to some degree, yes. Was it because, while the Methodist church I attended on Sundays was progressive, it certainly wasn’t that progressive? Yes. Was it because I worried that if we had sex I might fall in love with him or he might fall in love with me but the falling might happen unequally, and so instead I chose to enjoy this sweet purgatory? Also yes.

  It often occurred to me that if either of us had a sofa in our office, sex would have been inevitable. And at times, the discomfort of the chairs notwithstanding, it was difficult to refrain from climbing onto his lap, or just from inviting him to my apartment. If he’d kissed me passionately, or reached inside my bra, I’d have been delighted and responded in kind. And on some days his restraint was, frankly, a turnoff. But on other days it was enough—it was wonderful—to hold hands with this gentle, intelligent, kind man. As the weather turned cold, that yearning I’d had since girlhood was muted by the tenderness and reassurance, perhaps especially when we weren’t together, of carrying James in my heart and knowing he was carrying me in his. This was true during both mundane tasks, such as taking a trash bag down the hall to the chute in my apartment building, and during moments when I’d once have felt a heightened loneliness, such as before bed or when I could smell fall leaves burning.

  Once when I left to go teach Conflict of Laws, James stood, too, and as we embraced—we had never kissed and didn’t on this day—he began to cry.

  “James,” I said softly and, my body still pressed against him, I rubbed his back with my palm. “Sweetheart.”

  He reached for a tissue. As he wiped his eyes, he said, “I’m sorry that I’m being ridiculous.”

  “You’re not ridiculous.”

  “I wish so much that things could be different.”

  “I do, too,” I said.

  On another day, when we were sitting side by side in his office in the late afternoon, he said, “For the whole first year here, I was intimidated by you.” I laughed, and he added, “You’re so cool and confident in faculty meetings. The way you stood up to the dean about changing the first-year requirements—do you remember that?”

  Having been reminded, I did remember.

  “And I’d heard you talking to Sheila about a trip to Paris with your Wellesley friends,” he was saying. “I imagined you having this exciting single person’s life, jet-setting to European cities.”

  “If by jet-setting you mean flying coach to Europe every three or four years, then maybe.”

  “I was so happy when you wanted to watch Thurgood Marshall’s press conference in my office.”

  Jokingly, I said, “Did you have a crush on me?”

  “Very much so. I never planned to act on it, but how could I not?” There was something so guileless in James’s affection, so boyishly sincere, and this guilelessness in a polite law professor—I found it touching.

  I said, “Well, this is all very flattering, but it’s not how anyone besides you sees me. I’m actually an honorary man.”

  He looked bewildered. “What does that mean?”

  “It’s my trade-off for getting to join the boys’ club. Things have changed since I started as a professor, and I’m sure they’ll continue to.” His expression was still so dismayed that I added, “I’m not trying to get you to tell me I’m pretty or anything like that. I’m just describing certain realities.”

  “Pretty?” he repeated. “You’re beautiful.”

  I smiled. “I hope you’re still intimidated by me.”

  He squeezed my hand. “Completely.”

  And once, on a Friday afternoon, he said, “I know this isn’t fair, but if you told me you were going on a date this weekend, I’d be devastated.”

  I said, “I’m not going on a date this weekend.”

  * * *

  —

  In fact, I was having dinner at Maureen’s that night. Steve and the boys had gotten tickets to a Bulls game, and Maureen and I ate pizza with Meredith. When she went to watch The Little Mermaid in the den, we stayed in the kitchen.

  Maureen said, “Are you in love with him?”

  Automatically, I said, “No.” It occurred to me that James would be hurt by this reflexive disavowal, and I added, “There’s no room, given the circumstances.”

  “I’m not asking if being in love with him is a good idea.”

  “If he were single, I’d want to date him. But there’s no point wondering if I would marry him or anything along those lines.”

  “How’s the sex?”

  “No, no,” I said. “We haven’t done more than hold hands.”

  “You can’t be serious.”

  “We haven’t even kissed.”

  “What? Have you, you know—” She waved a hand in the air. “Heavy petting or whatever?”

  “We hug each other for a long time, but nothing beyond that.”

  She looked like she was having trouble keeping a straight face. “Does he get an erection?”

  “Sometimes, but then he pulls away.” Again, I wondered whether sharing this information was a betrayal of James. “I promise it’s shockingly innocent. It’s like we’re in grade school.”

  “Is that really what you think?” Maureen’s expression had become skeptical.

  “I’m telling you the absolute truth. Barely anything has happened.”

  “Hillary, this version is worse than if you were sleeping together. I’m on your team, but from the perspective of a wife—this deep, meeting-of-the-minds friendship where he’s also smitten with you is more threatening.”

  “Do you think I should cut it off?”

  “Can you? It seems like the situation has taken on a life of its own.”

  “I could try.”

  “I assume either you’ll meet someone else, which will make it awkward that your offices are next to each other, or else you’ll eventually have sex. I just don’t see two adults who’ve confessed their attraction sitting there and holding hands indefinitely.”

  “He’s different from a lot of other men. He’s—” I searched for the right word. “Honorable. Not in a self-righteous way. He’s just a really good, decent person. He’s also really cute.”

  She laughed, but sympathetically rather than mockingly. She said, “Good thing you’re not in love with him.”

  * * *

  —

  A week and a half before Thanksgiving, Carol Moseley Braun announced her candidacy from a private terminal at Midway Airport. The location struck me as strange—apparently, the logic was that she’d proceed to fly around the state introducing herself to voters—but she seemed poised and warm. She said, “I am running for the Democratic nomination to the United States Senate because I—along with everyone else—saw
my senator stand on the floor of the Senate and say that it didn’t matter to him what I thought. I watched him side with the people who have ruled us so badly, as he has again, and again, and again.”

  It would have been a lie to say I didn’t feel envy and regret, certainly more than I’d ever felt watching Bill on the campaign trail. My own ambivalence about running—it was both deflating and inspiring to watch her show by example how it was self-imposed. I wondered if in the future I’d run for something, or if the stars would never quite align. The reality was that I still didn’t really want to do my time in Springfield. As it happened, just a day before Carol had entered the race, another Democrat had preceded her, a wealthy personal-injury lawyer named Albert Hofeld who’d never held elected office.

  After deciding against running, I’d called to tell Gwen, and the night of Carol’s announcement, Gwen called from Washington. She said, “I respect the choice you made. I want you to know that.”

  The next morning, I mailed a check for a hundred dollars to Carol’s campaign headquarters.

  * * *

  —

  On Thanksgiving, I took pumpkin pie and pecan pie to my parents’ house, and as I passed off the bakery boxes to my mother, my father said, “Thank God you didn’t make them or we’d need to call poison control.”

  We were joined by my brothers and sister-in-law, and around noon the Bears played the Detroit Lions; the Bears lost, which didn’t improve my father’s mood. We ate early, and after the meal, while my father and I were playing Scrabble, he idly said, “I wish Carol Moseley Braun was my daughter.”

  “I do, too,” I said.

  I’d told my mother weeks ago, by phone, that I wasn’t running for Senate because Carol was, and calmly, my mother had said, “That makes sense, honey.” Thus I was almost sure that she’d never mentioned the subject to my father; he’d just found another prominent woman with whom to compare me unfavorably.