Even the outfit I wore to court in Austin to plead no contest was scrutinized via a telephoto lens. The breathless reporting stated: “For her court appearance, she wore a black tank top, pink capri pants, sandals, and a toe ring.” (Note to younger readers: Toe rings aren’t the best courtroom accessory!) My supposed “tank top” was in fact a sweater borrowed from my roommate. Still, I’d like to tell my nineteen-year-old self to get herself to a mall and buy a dress.
But despite how awkward it was and how miserable it often felt to be overwhelmed with so much unwanted attention, Barbara and I were given a gift by our parents: There were no press secretaries and public relations agents spinning our stories. No stylists hovering over us, presenting us with what to wear, or media consultants coaching us on what to say. For those couple of weeks, we were the scandal du jour, and no real-life Olivia Pope was dispatched to make it all go away. But we learned that we could be imperfect and our lives would go on. I hope that if anyone ever does write a rule book for presidential children, they’ll make that the first line.
Every day with my girls, Mila and Poppy, I am silently thankful to my parents for teaching me how to be a parent without the pressure of having to create perfect kids. And also to their own parents, who taught them that lesson first.
E-mail to my granddaughters Jenna, Barbara and Lauren
Subject: Nervous grandfather
March 9, 2003
It is Sunday morning. I am at my duty station in the office. I am worrying about three of my older granddaughters. Spring Break causes the worry. I wonder—are all three off somewhere trying to get on the Wild College Women TV show? Are they having a good time? Are they sticking near their three campuses so they can do what, well, what I used to do during spring break back in the good old days, circa 1946-47-48. Namely, stick near the Library. I found it was almost free of noise and people during spring break. Maybe you three have discovered the same thing. I am here all week in Houston in case you need adult leadership. In spite of these worries, maybe because of these worries, I love all three of you “guys” (who says the Gampster can’t be “with it”?)
Devotedly,
Gampy
Celebrity Sightings
JENNA
Let’s be clear: Hollywood and Republicans don’t always mix, but that didn’t mean Barbara and I didn’t have hope. Not that it wasn’t fun to hang out with the Oak Ridge Boys, but as teenagers we wished that maybe just once Justin Timberlake would make a surprise visit to the White House.
Up until that point, our biggest celebrity encounter was when we watched Linda Ronstadt sing at Gampy’s first inauguration (we couldn’t take our eyes off her awesomely long hair), and, later that afternoon, we met Shirley Temple when she stood in front of us in line for the bathroom. I was thrilled when she offered me a stick of Trident. By age seven, Barbara and I had watched some of her movies, and a Shirley Temple was our favorite drink. But we couldn’t quite process that the blond, giggly Shirley Temple we knew from film was now a tall, dark-haired woman. I did have the presence of mind to ask her for her autograph.
My dad’s own inauguration featured Beyoncé, except that she was nineteen, the same age as us, and not quite Queen Bey yet. She was one of three singers in Destiny’s Child, a musical group from Texas. Before she took the stage, she gave Barbara and me three-way pagers, where you could send messages to a group. Then Beyoncé spoke to us the magical words “Please keep in touch.” Unfortunately, neither Barbara nor I could figure out how to work the pagers. But I’ve since wondered, if we found them again, could I page Beyoncé and set up a playdate for Mila and Blue Ivy?
I did get a private message once from Katie Holmes. I was a huge fan of hers on Dawson’s Creek—my friends and I used to watch the series almost every week. And as I was watching her on television during the show’s final season, she left me a message on my old Nokia flip phone. She wanted to come and shadow me to prepare for her role in First Daughter, a movie where the president’s daughter falls in love with her Secret Service agent, who is pretending to be her college residential adviser. Katie was playing the first daughter. (For the record, the original concept for the movie was developed in 1999, when Chelsea Clinton was the official first daughter. And although some of my agents were really handsome, I never fell in love with them. I’m also quite sure that none of them ever fell for me; I was twenty and my photos made regular appearances in the National Enquirer. But one of my friends did kiss a particularly handsome agent after we graduated college. And my mom’s personal assistant in the White House, Lindsey, fell in love with and married a Secret Service agent.)
I was so struck to have a message from Katie Holmes. And then I thought about Katie accompanying me to class, studying with me for my psychology exam, or being my wingman at a party, where everyone would be falling all over themselves because it was Katie Holmes. I knew that my real life was going to be a complete disappointment compared to anything in a Hollywood script. So I never called her back. Fifteen years later, I met Katie Holmes in New York and I had to say, “Remember that message you left me once? I’m so sorry I never returned your call.”
The only genuine celebrity “friend” I had when my dad was in office wasn’t even mine—he was my dad’s. Bono, the lead singer of U2, became close with my dad through their work combatting HIV/AIDS and other health crises in Africa—recently, he helicoptered out to my parents’ ranch to have lunch. They have a great friendship, and as a side benefit, I occasionally got some special fan status. The first time I ever used it was when I went to a U2 concert right around the end of college. Gwen Stefani and No Doubt were the opening act, and something about the crowd, the heat, and the strobe lights caused me to faint and crash to the ground. One second I was stepping side to side to the music and the next I was blinking my eyes and wondering why everyone was staring down at me. I woke up, but the Secret Service was worried. I had a backstage pass, so they took me backstage, and I ended up in Bono’s dressing room. In the midst of all the music and moving parts, it was completely pristine. There was a white carpet on the floor and an artful display of crystals; everything was very Zen. I sat in Bono’s chair, sipping cold water and recovering from my humiliation.
I did go backstage other times and talk to Bono—but my most successful fan moment was probably that time when I sat in his chair, alone, because I didn’t have to say anything. All the other times, I would end up telling Bono about whatever U2 song I loved, which was probably the most boring conversation he’d had all evening. Fortunately, he always found a charming way to change to a more interesting subject.
By far, though, the best celebrity encounter either of us ever had belonged to Barbara. She met LeBron James at the Beijing Olympics, and after some joking around, he passed along his number. Henry and I had visions of a Bush–James basketball dynasty. We could see ourselves living comfortably in their guesthouse…But just like Justin Timberlake unplugged at the White House, it was not to be. Or, to quote U2, “I still haven’t found what I’m looking for.”
9/11
BARBARA
I went to college far away from Texas, on the East Coast, at Yale University. My dad had gone to Yale as well, but that particular tie was ephemeral at best. We weren’t one of those families who made nostalgic pilgrimages back for college class reunions or drank out of college seal coffee mugs. I was drawn to New Haven because of its proximity to glamorous New York, intrigued by the many Yale professors whose published books were on my parents’ bookshelf.
The campus itself looks like Hogwarts, intertwined with a mini-city, an industrial port whose heyday was in the 1950s. Urban buildings surround the soaring Gothic and Georgian buildings. Yale itself resembles a quilt of small New England town squares with grassy greens for lounging and congregating, guarded by towering locked wrought-iron gates upon which perch blue strobe panic lights. The contrast between the city and the university is sobering.
My sophomore year, I lived in Davenport College, in a dorm room with thr
ee other girls, all sharing two adjoining bedrooms.
On September 10, my roommate Laura and I fell asleep talking about her then crush (and now husband). Our radio alarm woke us up every morning to the daily newscast. As it went off, and we opened our eyes to bright sunshine, we heard something surprising: A plane had struck one of the Twin Towers in Manhattan. The radio announcer reported it as an accident. My cell phone rang. Steve, my Secret Service man, was on the other end. Everything was about to change.
Although I was too young to remember, I first met Steve when my grandfather was elected president. Steve had been assigned to protect our immediate family. Then the threat had been from Central and South American drug cartels. The cartels were fixated on my grandfather and his bloodlines, so my dad, as the president’s son, had an agent assigned to protect him, and Jenna and I, as the president’s granddaughters, had them as well. That was twelve years before 9/11, when Steve was a twenty-five-year-old agent who rotated through our Texas home.
In late 2000, Steve received a call while serving on President Clinton’s detail. The Secret Service wanted to know if he was interested in overseeing my detail. He was told that seven other agents had put in their names. His response was “Sure, add mine.” The next day, he received a second call, telling him he had gotten the job. “What?” he remembers asking. “No interview? What about the seven other guys?” The voice at the other end was confused. “What seven other people? You were the only one who volunteered.” It’s safe to say his assignment was not all that coveted. Before Steve left to meet me in Texas, his boss sat him down and told him bluntly that he was being “set up to fail.” As he put it, you’ll be following around a feisty eighteen-year-old girl who doesn’t want security. I had made that sentiment clear when I met with Steve’s boss. I was an extremely private teenager, looking forward to the freedom of college.
Steve tried harder than I did at the start. He made sure “his guys” stayed way in the background. They always respectfully stayed out of my dorm. Everyone on the detail was young, in their early twenties and thirties and dressed like college kids, except that in their backpacks, rather than books and a CD or MP3 player, they were packing heat. I’m grateful for the extreme lengths they went to to blend in—it wasn’t easy. “Spot the Agent” became a game to other kids on campus. I’d notice unknown students would look at me, maybe take a second look, and then immediately start searching, trying to figure out who my Secret Service guys were. Sometimes they would walk up to an agent, saying, “Hey, I know who you are,” letting the agents know they couldn’t be fooled, that this student was in on the secret too. But other times, they would mistakenly call out a football player or another athlete who happened to be crossing the quad at the same time. Turns out “Spot the Agent” wasn’t so easy. Steve was once devastated when I cut through a little campus convenience store, Durfee’s, and as he followed me, he held the door for another student. She looked at him and said, “Thanks, sir.” He was crushed. It was a reminder that though he was trying his best to blend in as just another college kid, he was closing in on thirty-seven.
On a trip to New Orleans with my best friend Matthew, we convinced Steve to join us in taking an online quiz—a forerunner to the endless BuzzFeed quizzes that tell you which 90210 character you’d be or which animal is your spirit animal—to reveal his Wu-Tang Clan name. If Steve had been in Wu-Tang, he would have been dubbed “Bastard Bastard Harbor Master.” I found this hilarious—proper Steve as “Bastard Bastard Harbor Master”—and teased him about it relentlessly.
I grew to respect and like Steve, but I could never forget why he was there, or why I had his number programmed into the speed dial on my phone. Whenever he called, I was worried.
Steve knew we didn’t have a television in our room, so his call was just a simple heads-up, a “Hey, I just want to let you know—if you’re not listening to the radio, the second Twin Tower has been hit in New York and it’s unclear what’s happened, so we need to be on you more today.” This was shocking—how could two planes have accidentally hit the Twin Towers?
Around 9:30, as I was gathering my books to rush out for class, somebody knocked and asked for me. Emily, one of my roommates, thought it was a random classmate. I heard a guy’s voice, and Emily asking, “How do you know Barbara?” She was protecting me, pretending I had already gone for the morning. I hung back, uncertain, as he kept saying, “I need to talk to Barbara,” finally adding, “Tell her I’m with Steve the Bastard.” It was a code. Emily stepped aside once she heard the name, and I rushed out of the room. Tony, the agent, said, “You’ve got to come with me, and we’ve got to get out of here right now.” I knew then that something far worse had happened with those planes, but exactly what, I was unsure. I was nervous and scared but comforted by Tony’s presence, by his plan. We raced down the stairs and away from the elegant brick facade of Davenport College, across the stone walkways and the grassy green, to a waiting SUV, the engine running. I took nothing, not my backpack, not my contacts, I didn’t even take a jacket as the day had started out so beautiful, all blue sky.
We didn’t go far, just to the Secret Service office in downtown New Haven. It was a completely sterile office with what looked like rented furniture. Nothing on the tables, nothing on the walls, nothing to look at except a window or the television. So we turned on the television.
Many members of my detail were based out of the Secret Service’s New York field office, and those offices were in—of all places—7 World Trade Center. It was not one of the Twin Towers, but a separate building in the complex. When the North Tower collapsed, flaming debris hit Tower 7. All morning, we watched the footage. And all morning I cried. For them, this was where they went to work when they were not with me; this was the city where their families lived. This was home. Their job at that moment was to protect me. But I could hear them each whispering into their phones, calling their families, calling their colleagues and friends. Their usually stoic, emotionless faces were ashen. Because my own parents were rushed to secure locations—my mother in a safe building in DC, my father circling in the air above the United States aboard Air Force One—I had no direct number to use to reach them.
We were all scared and alone together, and I look back now and realize that we became a family that afternoon.
The Secret Service put Jenna and me in touch. I wonder now if they knew the only true way they could comfort me was to dial my sister. Maybe they saw the longing on my face when they spoke to their loved ones. It was a relief to hear her voice, but I was anxious to talk to my mom and my dad.
My mother did call later that morning from her secure location. She was calm, the way she always is, and was calling to check on me and assure me she was safe. She told me to turn off the television, but it was too hypnotic. The only thing worse than watching was the unknown of not watching.
The afternoon wore on and the streets turned silent; the pedestrians had gone home. The skies were empty, every plane grounded. The enveloping silence outside seemed to make the TV even louder and the office windows more exposed. The Secret Service knew that for safety reasons—with so many unknown potential threats—we needed to find a place where no one could easily find us. That meant a hotel where we could pay cash, making us untraceable. There were plenty of hotels in New Haven, but those would be too obvious. We piled into the Expedition and headed for a Holiday Inn off the highway in North Haven. It was a squat brown building with balcony walkways and an exposed parking lot in front. The perfect stopping-off point for truckers or tourists or lovers, for whom $59 a night seemed like a bargain. The perfect place to take cover.
I was there when my dad called. I was scared and needed him. Despite the Secret Service suggesting he and my mom sleep in a bunker for the night, he calmly shared that they would be sleeping together at the White House; that normality, or as close to normality as possible, was necessary. While that, of course, seemed risky to me, I knew he was right. He let me know he was okay, but he, like our nation, was
hurting. I could hear the pain in his voice, but also the resiliency. He had a job to do, a country to attend to, so the call was short. He hung up with his usual “I love you, baby,” an ending that is indelibly written on my heart. Minutes later, he walked up to the podium to address the nation.
We watched as much of his speech as we could, but the hotel TV reception was grainy and fading in and out. The Holiday Inn was even lonelier and emptier than the office building. Not another soul was staying there. Our meals were from vending machines—chips and candy and orange-cheese-filled crackers. The rooms smelled unused, two double beds with slippery bedspreads, a scratchy carpet, a wood veneer chest, a telephone book, and a television. We tried to hunt down books or magazines in the lobby for a respite from repeated images of the Twin Towers on TV. Steve’s wife and five-year-old daughter drove up from New York to stay with him—he wanted them out of the city—and his daughter jumped on the bed with abandon, overjoyed to have a hotel slumber party with her parents. It was so stark, the juxtaposition of her joy with every image flickering on the television screen.
I spent the next day largely by myself in my room. I had always loved solitude and being alone with my thoughts. But now the hours dragged and my mind wandered. I was scared—scared of the unknown, scared of what the attack meant for our country, for the world. I wondered if my parents were safe and if they would remain so. That night, my agents brought my roommates to join me—an incredibly sweet gesture. When they arrived, I was embarrassed that one of my roommates saw an earnest note I had written on the hotel pad and placed by my bed—“The sun still rises”—inspired by my shock upon waking to a beautiful day on September 12. The weather did not match the somber, foreboding feeling. By then the vending machines were empty, so we rallied the agents and headed to Taco Bell in the tinted-window Expedition. It was vaguely exotic because none of us had cars in college, so drive-thru food was a luxury. There was no wait, because there were almost no cars on the road and we were the only ones in the drive-thru lane.
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