Impersonation

by Heidi Pitlor

  “Really?” I half-expected her to laugh heartily, admit that she had been joking, and ask if I brought my checkbook.

  But she only went for her phone.

  “It’s okay. I believe you,” I said. “Thank you.”

  “And in terms of working for the campaign, Shirley wants to wait and see what the fallout is after today—but if everything goes as planned and nothing major happens, she agreed to a one-month trial. She said, ‘If anyone knows your voice, and how you think and talk, it’s Allison.’ ”

  Even now—even after finishing her book and having known her for a year—I was uncertain of the veracity of this statement. Of course the idea of becoming a speechwriter rather than an underemployed substitute teacher/landscaper was appealing.

  “We need to keep this agreement quiet, at least for now.”

  “All right. I won’t even tell my mother,” I joked, but Lana just twitched. “I should probably ask you—and you were the one who helped me see the need to ask for this sort of thing! Do you know what I might get paid for this trial for my becoming a speechwriter?” As soon as I had said it, I knew that I had pressed the button under my seat too soon.

  “I’m sure we can give you what you need. You’ll have to figure that out.” She rose. Before she left, she said, “Oh, I almost forgot! Here’s your speech for today. Don’t worry. It’s short, and when you’re done, just turn over any questions to Shirley.” Lana handed me a page with two paragraphs, double-spaced.

  It was the first time another person had written my words for me. Seeing them could not have been stranger, like being handed a wildly inaccurate mask of my face. They had me saying a version of what had been discussed in our meeting; I had grown desperate for Lana to win the election, especially in order to help women like me. I had worried that readers might negatively judge her for relying on a nanny—“Women are still, even now, punished for their work-life choices”—and at the last minute, I had stuffed the book full of anecdotes from my own life. I must have thought that these moments needed witness, I would say. After all, the struggles of a person like me were just as important as the struggles of a person like Lana—a belief that she herself had long espoused. “Still, I was wrong. I apologize with all of my heart and take full responsibility for hijacking this project. Without a single reservation, I support Lana Breban, the candidate we need during this challenging time.”

  It was a lot to digest: this speech, but also Lana’s unexpected kindness, a sudden career change, this pivot from the most private form of writing to the most public, that is if everything worked out. I considered what it might be like to write speeches instead of books, to hear Lana say my words in front of crowds of people.

  Outside the room, Colin asked me if I needed anything before we began, and I said, “A restroom?”

  “You got it.”

  Behind a tall door was a fawn-colored tiled bathroom. I made sure that I was alone before I faced the mirror, applied some lip gloss, and whispered to myself, “You are a warrior. You are a superhero.” It sounded inane, so I tried again. But I felt no better inside, no stronger or abler to handle what was about to occur.

  I was, in fact, no warrior. And I was, of course, mortal. How the hell would I get through this? I shuddered at the thought of being seen and judged by so many people, being made so nakedly available like that. So I took a pen from my bag and crossed out each mention of “people like me.” I thought it would be enough to admit my desperation for Lana to help women in general. This made me feel better, a little less vulnerable.

  The word “after” came to mind. After this conference, after I spoke, after the cameras were turned off, after things settled down and other news inevitably broke and washed over this moment, at that point I might get to write about the importance of family leave and strong nondiscrimination and antiharassment laws. If things worked out with this job, I would no longer have to write about the estate tax or a supermodel’s diet and skincare regimen or fend off the creepy questions of a long-ago heartthrob. Even better, I would no longer have to wait anxiously for Colin’s next call.

  “You’ll be okay,” I told myself in the mirror. “Everything will be all right. Now, go.”

  It was like jumping off a sky-high cliff into water. I did not die on impact. My bathing suit did not fall off in front of everyone who was watching. In some strange way, it was exhilarating. I read the words that had been given to me and told the dozen or so reporters that Lana had been nothing but gracious and supportive of me, and that she’d had no knowledge whatsoever of my altering her story. There came a heady rush with speaking in front of those dozen people, and admittedly a sense of power in withholding a truth, even if the specifics of the untruth had been generated by someone else. When I had finished, I folded up the paper and said, “Thank you.”

  The reporters were hungry birds, eager for any bits that Shirley would give them now. “What about Gloria?” someone shouted. “What’s going to happen to her? Is Lana going to talk?”

  I noticed at the back of the room stood a frazzled woman probably in her mid-thirties, her hair thrown into a bun that was held up by a pencil, an expression of skepticism on her face. She kept her eyes on me.

  Shirley announced that she would not take any questions, and thanked them all for coming. I watched the frazzled woman turn and whisper something to another woman. They both craned to get a better look at me. I had the urge to walk over to them and tell them not to pity me. Yes, being outed and publicly ridiculed was nothing I recommended, but I was hardly coming away empty-handed from this mess. I did not feel exploited. Far from it.

  Shirley guided me out into the hallway. “Nice job, Allie.” She patted the side of my arm. “Listen, I’ll be in touch about the speechwriting thing. Lana always wants to help everyone. That’s what will make her an incredible senator, right?” She looked at me anew. “Hey, I have a question. What’s your network like? Do you know people in New York? Do you have any single-mom friends here?”

  I could see her mind working, conjuring other financially challenged, college-educated liberal women who might be recruited.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Despite our best efforts to contain bad publicity, Lana’s opponents continued to seize on the debacle. She was dubbed “World’s Best Mom” with no subtle irony, and she—and I—amassed other epithets that spread throughout Twitter: “Vlana the Impaler,” with a nod to Romania; “Rescue Bullshitter,” with a nod to Amber from Lifetime TV. Someone had photoshopped me and Gloria onto the cover of All That Matters, and within a day or so, the image became a meme: one picture showed a staff of maids squeezed between Lana and Norton; another a butler serving them tea; a third had Louisa May Alcott hovering behind them, a quill at the ready.

  The Democratic National Committee put out a short statement claiming that the incident was a “blip, a mistake, and more importantly a distraction from real issues like healthcare and the economy.” Gradually, a backlash to the backlash materialized. People railed against this harassment of a successful immigrant woman, and to a far lesser extent, the harassment of me and Gloria, too. A new sentiment was taking root online. Patty Copeland herself retweeted it best: “No human being can be a full-time mother and save the world at the same time. Our expectations of women are, as always, absurd.”

  Still, Remy Calhoun’s campaign held on to what they called Lana’s “false feminism,” and they painted him as the more trustworthy, predictable candidate. He was a golf-playing father of two and grandfather of many, a stately veteran whose positions ran far more to the center than Lana’s. In his speech announcing his campaign, he had already obfuscated on everything from healthcare to gun laws. His campaign released an ad that showed him in jeans and a sky blue button-down shirt, its sleeves rolled up, strolling around in his sprawling back yard, his wife and adult daughter seated in lawn chairs on a patio behind him. Each of them held the leash of a Cavalier King Charles spaniel seated at attention. “I’m a pretty simple and straightforward guy,”
he said. “In high school, I knew I wanted to fight for my country, so I volunteered to go to Vietnam. When I got back, I knew I wanted to try my hand at running a business, so I started a little water company. Eventually it turned into a bigger water company.” His wife had short, copper-red hair and was trim. She wore a cardigan with a tailored white skirt. Their daughter came from a different mold, though, in her oversized black hoodie and multicolored animal-print leggings. I thought she had a shaved head, but it was difficult to be sure; the camera whizzed past her and settled on one of the dogs.

  Since the press conference, I had been walking around in a state of high alert, never knowing who had kept up with what news and who might spring their thoughts on me at any given moment. Jimmy began to call me “World’s Best Mom.” A woman I knew at the nursery where I got my landscaping supplies became gruff with me, and soon admitted that she was “no fan of people like Lana,” whatever that meant. When I went in for an overdue dental exam and cleaning, Aaron said, “You have this whole secret life I never knew about! Have you worked with a lot of famous people? I bet you have some stories. What’s Lana Breban really like? I bet she’s kind of a tyrant to work for.” I simply gestured for the saliva pump.

  I was surprised and relieved to learn that I would be able to continue my work on Uncivilized. My client took the news about Lana in stride. “I don’t much care about your time before me,” he said. “If anything, you’ll be more discreet and devoted to me now, right?”

  “Absolutely,” I said, nervous that his old flirtations might return, but they did not.

  Polls began to show Remy Calhoun gaining ground, although he still trailed Lana somewhere between 6 and 8 percentage points.

  “Those dumb ads are working,” Reggie, whom I now knew as Lana’s communications director, complained to me one day over the phone. “Can you believe it? This old dude puts on blue jeans, walks around his yard, and shows off his dogs as if he’s the first candidate ever to do these things. I am starting to lose faith in voters. Maybe we should have put Lana’s dog on the cover of your book,” he said with a laugh. “It’s a shame we had to get it pulped; I think it might have helped her.”

  I had no response.

  “I don’t mean to make you feel worse about that whole thing.” Reggie was in fact calling to let me know that they would bring me on as a speechwriter. Ironically, I remained speechless for the moment.

  Then a few days later, two of Calhoun’s former employees came forward to say that he had sexually harassed them. I watched the press conference on my laptop. He had touched their breasts while reaching for a pen or a cup of coffee. One added that he had slipped his hand between her thighs, and the other described a similar incident at a Christmas party. “I didn’t say anything at the time, because I was so surprised,” the second woman said. “I mean, this was Remy Calhoun. I had no words.” Her conservative blue blouse had been buttoned almost all the way up, and her wire-rim reading glasses sat halfway down her nose. She had to look credible, after all.

  “Well then,” I said to no one in my kitchen and closed my computer. I wondered if he would drop out of the race.

  Reggie told me that everyone at Lana’s campaign office was ecstatic about this news. “Not about what happened to those two women, of course. Listen, could you write up a response statement from Lana? I’m going to need a somber tone of concern and disgust.”

  Shirley’s niece Victoria, who worked for a firm called character.org, was hired to finally drown out any remaining “Vlana the Impaler” chatter, which had yet to die out even after Calhoun’s employees came forward. Colin told me that reputation management firms like character.org were cropping up everywhere. “As a public or even private figure with no image control, you are enormously vulnerable.”

  “I guess it’s far better to construct an image than to be constructed,” I said.

  Victoria interviewed me about my interests and skills. She created Tumblr and Instagram accounts for me, “BerkshireMama” and “GardenGal.” I was instructed to provide her with photos of me raking my yard (actually, it was Jessica’s yard, which, Victoria gently pointed out, was “slightly more grown in” than mine), as well as photos of me gazing at a yellow-orange maple leaf and pushing Cass on a swing.

  Countenance finally agreed to a pay-back of only a portion of my advance, and Colin negotiated on my behalf to spread my repayment over two years. It could have been worse—but it could have been better. All this because my mother boasted about me to Patty Copeland? Because Lana had not been a hands-on mother to Norton? I vowed that I would never again take the fall for another person’s choices or mistakes, or worse.

  My mother and Ed came to visit, and I figured that it was time to introduce them to Kurt. That Saturday, Kurt, Cass, and I headed out to meet them at their hotel in Pittsfield. It had been at least ten years since I had introduced them to anyone I was seeing, and I grew frazzled in anticipation.

  My mother and Ed cooed over Cass at first. They handed him some citrus candies they had brought from Florida.

  “Ahem,” I said. “This is Kurt.”

  Kurt reached out a hand, and I was glad to see my mother take in his face and his height, and flash me an approving look.

  We made our way to the indoor pool, and I saw Ed wince when Kurt mentioned his former career on Wall Street. A son-in-law in finance had to be Ed’s dream. Overall though, Kurt meshed well with them; he had a lot of experience pleasing difficult people. He asked them all sorts of questions about Florida, their preferred subject. He laughed at Ed’s jokes, and kept quiet as Ed and I slipped into an argument about single-payer healthcare.

  Cass and Kurt went to splash around in the water while the three of us got caught up in the corner of the humid room.

  The next day, we all drove out to a corn maze at a farm. A song about a sexy tractor and a basket of chicken played at a high volume on loop. Someone had the idea to split up and see who could finish first. I told Cass that he and I would be a team, but he disappeared from me in less than a minute, so I called out for him again and again. I waited five or ten minutes for him to return, but picturing the worst, I broke into a jog. I went for my phone, but of course there was no reception here in this massive pilgrim-shaped maze that had been mowed into a field of dried corn. Twenty minutes passed. I pushed through a wall of cornhusks, and assailed a family with a picture of Cass, but they were no help. Finally I found my mother back at the beginning, chatting with a woman she used to know. We began yelling at each other, but then managed to enlist the help of a high school boy dressed as a scarecrow. At long last, we found Cass sitting, sobbing at the top of the pilgrim’s hat. We comforted him, and ourselves, and reunited with Ed by the candy apple stand.

  Back in the car, I considered the symbolism: the five of us had endured such difficulties coming together today. Life itself was its own kind of corn maze. It was not poetry, but it did have its own truth and felt helpful in the moment. To put words to something amorphous always was. Subtext could be found anywhere if you watched for it, even at Cotter’s Family Fun Farm.

  A message appeared on my phone the next day: Dude. I read about you in the Daily News! Welcome to the land of the fucked. You hanging in there, ‘Rescue Bullshitter’?

  The sight of his name on my phone shook me. Wasn’t he in jail? I had heard nothing from him since his book was canceled.

  It came back to me, that phone call from Colin, all the terrible news, but also the good: his extravagant gifts to me and Cass, his reassurances that I was doing a good job as a single mom and that, anyway, no mom, no parent was perfect. I wanted to reply, Isn’t this crazy? Fuck the land of the fucked; I want to go home now.

  I blinked down at his text.

  And then a long-ago moment returned to me, a moment from just before I had left New York. A few of my colleagues in the equity firm and I were at the pub, and I’d had a drink or two, no more, although I wish that I could blame my following actions on alcohol. The guys were trying to guess the bra
size of my new summer intern, a recent college graduate named Chloe, who was pretty and poised and athletic, far more so on each count than I. One guy said, “I’m going with a D cup. And you know they’re real even though she’s so thin everywhere else. She’s her friends’ worst nightmare.” Another said, “Get this: she’s a Knicks fan. She’s seen the Boss live six times.” “Bruce?” “No, your boss. Yes, Bruce.” “Fuck me. She’s perfect,” the first guy said. I remembered a flame of panic about something rare slipping away from me as they went on. “Your gay-dar needs tuning up,” I said. “No!” someone groaned. I nodded. “Chloe has a longtime girlfriend. She’s firmly on the other team. She called you guys ‘overgrown frat boys’ the other day,” I lied. Three faces froze, confused. One said, “I mean, I was in a frat at Florida State.” Another said, “Hey, ask her to bring her girlfriend by some day. I’m not opposed to some threesome action.” Someone punched his arm and the subject changed, and there was no more talk of my intern. “Hey, Little Tiger,” one of them said to me. “You’re on a desert island and you have to choose between me and him. Which is it?” He gestured to the junior analyst beside him. “What makes you think I’d go anywhere with you two losers?” I flirted. “But if Chloe were there? No question, I’d pick her.” “Ooooooh! Nice!” they howled happily, just as I knew they would.

  The next morning on my way to work, I bought Chloe a cup of coffee and when I got to the office, asked her to help me with some market research. She was in such a good mood, so full of gratitude for that small deli coffee, so full of cheer and willingness to help me file my reports that I grew claustrophobic. I wanted out not just of my role as her manager (she deserved so much better), but out of writing dull newsletters about equity upsides and flexible capital solutions. Out of this person I became when I was with the guys. Fate took the reins in the form of a phone call from my mother. Ed had just been rushed to the hospital. The decision was easy: I quit, giving no notice, and suggested to my boss that he hire Chloe to replace me. I told everyone I had to move back home, and never spoke to any of them again.