When we went to sleep at four A.M. on November 8, 2000, I didn’t think Charlie had won the election, and I was both sorry for him and relieved for us, for our family. I hadn’t wanted him to run for governor of Wisconsin in 1994, and I hadn’t wanted him to run for president. What we’d mostly lost already—the option of shopping at the grocery store, quietly eating dinner at a restaurant, going for a walk alone or with a friend, or just spending a Saturday reading and cleaning the house, without obligations—I knew we’d lose completely if Charlie became president. I did not want the exposure, the forfeiture of our privacy and our last ties to ordinary life.
When the election wasn’t decided for over a month, we laid low in the governor’s mansion in Madison; I read, went to friends’ houses for lunch, and attended a few gatherings for groups I’d become involved with as first lady of Wisconsin, while Charlie and Hank Ucker and various advisers and lawyers and relatives held urgent, secretive meetings and avoided the media. When, on December 12, after recounts and lawsuits, Charlie was declared president, I thought, We will ride it out. There would be risks, but we’d ride out the presidency as we’d ride out a tornado watch: Keep your head down, cross your arms over the crown of your skull. Not literally, of course—literally, what I’d do would be to comply with all that was public and obligatory, to show up when I was expected to show up—but that was how I’d think of it. For at least four years and likely for eight, I’d hold my breath, waiting for it to pass, and eventually, it would. A tornado is disruptive, but it never lasts.
But I hadn’t considered—how could I not have?—the circumstances under which Charlie and I had gotten engaged. In the middle of a storm, he had left his apartment and climbed into his car and driven through the lightning and hail, he had swooped down the basement steps of the house I lived in and proposed marriage. He’d defied the tornado that day, not run from it. And look—it had worked. Here we were, still happily married all these years later.
What I had projected onto Charlie at the beginning of his presidency was my own wish not to cause a stir, not to attract undue attention or assert myself, when Charlie enjoyed asserting himself. I know there are those who suggest he, or some shadow entity of his administration, planned the terrorist attacks, and I consider such an idea ludicrous, unworthy of discussion. But it is indisputable that he responded; he took on the challenge. Did he conflate the terrorist attacks with the separate and lesser threats coming from the country we invaded in March 2003, when the attacks and the threats were then unconnected, and did he encourage the public to conflate them as well? Was the invasion only for oil, Charlie’s vows to spread democracy mere lip service? Was he quicker to enter a war than he would have been if he’d had military experience himself instead of having spent the late sixties and early seventies working as a ski instructor? These are accusations his opponents level at him, and while they are fair questions, what I dislike most about the political conversation is its pretense that a correct answer exists for anything, that it’s not all murkiness and subjectivity. I didn’t know in the days leading up to the March 2003 invasion whether I thought invading was right or wrong, I didn’t know if I agreed with the hawks or the protestors holding candlelight vigils. As in college, when I had neither supported nor condemned the Vietnam War, my inactivity stemmed from uncertainty rather than indifference. But not knowing what I thought, I did not try to influence my husband. There were plenty of people advising him, men and women (though mostly men) who’d spent decades as foreign policy experts, who in earlier times had traveled to this very country, met with this very dictator.
Now over four years have passed since the invasion. That a war once supported by 70 percent of Americans has become divisive and unpopular has served only to make Charlie more resolute; in the circular fashion of such things, it is about being resolute that he is most resolute of all. The average American doesn’t have access to the intelligence Charlie does, he points out; the average American has become coddled and forgetful, unaccustomed to bloodshed or sacrifice. Think of the Revolutionary War, Charlie says, think of the Civil War, think of World War II. There is a price we must pay for democracy, and it has always been so. Nine months ago, in September 2006, Charlie said at a press conference, “To withdraw right now would be to surrender, and I wouldn’t surrender even if Alice and Snowflake were the only ones left supporting me.” (Snowflake is, of course, our cat; he was also my “co-author” on First Pet: What I’ve Seen from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, an indignity either increased or lessened, I’ve never been sure which, by the fact that though we shared credit and all proceeds went to a national literacy program, I wrote no more of the book than Snowflake did.)
Since Charlie’s inauguration, I have made endless calculations: We are 10 percent finished with his time in office. We have 394 weeks left. We have five and a half years. From the beginning, I assumed his reelection not because I wanted it but the opposite. It is what we most desire that we’re afraid to count on; it’s always so much easier to believe in an eventuality you’d rather avoid.
The speeches Charlie gives, and my own as well, the fund-raisers and the funerals, the state visits and the balls, the ribbon cuttings and the receiving lines and the hundreds of letters that I write and receive every week—I am always checking them off a great list, counting down. It’s not that I don’t enjoy any of the responsibilities I bear as first lady. I do, and I feel grateful. I’ve met legends of art and literature, kings and queens and chieftains and an emperor, I’ve visited sixty-four countries, sampled beluga blinis on a ship on the Neva River, ridden a camel at the pyramids of Giza, waded in the waters of Pangkor Laut (I didn’t swim, because I didn’t wish to appear in a bathing suit before the cameras). At the airport in Asmara, Eritrea, where I had traveled without Charlie, local women threw popcorn at me as a welcoming gesture; at an orphanage in Bangalore, I donned a sari and read The Giving Tree to the children, accompanied by a Kannada translator; and in Helsinki, after a marvelous evening of conversation and a feast of crayfish, reindeer meat, and cloudberry layer cake, I committed a faux pas I could blame only on jet lag by saying, in a public toast to Finland’s president, that I would always remember the kindness of the Swedish people. I have had the surreal experience of holding the Bible upon which my husband was sworn in as president (I was very moved, and at the same time, inappropriately, the line from the old folk song “Froggie Went A-Courtin’,” which Ella had learned as a child, kept replaying in my head: “Without my Uncle Rat’s consent, I wouldn’t marry the president . . . ”), and I have had the equally surreal experience of returning to Theodora Liess Elementary School, where I’d worked in Madison, for the school’s rededication as the Alice Blackwell School. (I hoped that Theodora, the nineteenth-century daughter of a director of the Milwaukee and Mississippi Railroad and herself an outspoken advocate of educating Ojibwe girls, would forgive me; to decline the school’s honor seemed impolite.)
I have often felt a pang at not being able to share the more colorful of my experiences with my grandmother; what a hoot she would find my life, how she’d relish the gossipy details. But Charlie and I have included many of our relatives and longtime friends in the pleasures of our unexpected circumstances: For the eightieth birthday of my Madison friend Rita Alwin, I flew her to Washington and had her stay in the Lincoln Bedroom (on the plane out, she wore my mother’s garnet brooch, which touched me). One Christmas Day, Charlie, Ella, my mother, Jadey, Arthur, their two grown children, and I spent a delightfully raucous afternoon in the White House bowling alley (we don’t travel for the actual holiday to Wisconsin because we don’t want our Secret Service agents to be away from their families). And, among other political appointees, Charlie made our friend Cliff Hicken—a steadfast campaign fund-raiser—ambassador of France, so I’ve ended up having several wonderful visits in Paris with Kathleen, the two of us jaunting around to restaurants and museums and fashionable shops.
If the life Charlie and I share is prescribed and demanding, it is also
privileged and fascinating. We are now and will always be members of a tiny club. And really, my own pleasure in or aversion to our status is irrelevant; it exists and cannot be unmade. We are famous, and when Charlie leaves office, we’ll be famous emeritus.
Today will, no doubt, be a day of drama and obligations, but it will be a day like any other; all our days now are days of drama and obligations. Three miles away, Edgar Franklin waits—futilely, I fear—to talk to Charlie; also nearby, Ingrid Sanchez prepares to visit senators; aboard Air Force One, en route to Columbus, Charlie might be vetoing a bill, deciding to increase or decrease spending or taxes by billions of dollars, conferring on the phone with the prime minister of the U.K. Later this morning, at the breast-cancer panel in a hotel ballroom in Arlington, Virginia, I’ll wear a red linen suit and encourage women to quit smoking, exercise regularly, and schedule yearly mammograms after the age of forty. This afternoon, I will visit with my daughter and give a tour of the White House to a group of forty third-graders who in turn will perform “God Bless America” at tonight’s gala in my honor. I wasn’t born to stand before crowds, to dispense advice or exhort, and after much coaching, I’d say I am only slightly better than adequate as a public speaker. Nevertheless, I attempt to rise to the occasion—I am the wife of the president of the United States, and I try to be a good one.
Charlie will be in office for nineteen more months.
IT IS AT the end of the breast-cancer panel, during the part when the panelists and audience members have their picture taken with me—I greet the individual, we pose in front of a flag, the photographer’s flash goes off, and we’re on to the next person, all within a matter of seconds—that I see Hank Ucker leaning against the wall near the stage. I feel a flare-up of the fear that accompanies me everywhere, a fear whose omnipresence I recognize by the ease with which it sparks. Just once, in September 2001, was the fear truly justified, and even now I quickly realize that whatever is wrong, whatever has made Hank Ucker show up at a ballroom in Arlington, can’t be life-threatening to Charlie. If it were, I’d be whisked away immediately, shuttled to a bunker, outfitted in a bulletproof vest. (I’ve worn them more than once; above all, they are heavy.)
I glance at the line of people waiting to have their picture taken and try to count how many remain—more than forty—and I gesture to Ashley Obernauer, who is my personal aide. (Ashley is twenty-five and dazzlingly competent.) When she leans in, I say, “Ask Hank why he’s here.”
She soon returns. “He says he wants to chat—his word—with you on the ride back. He didn’t say about what.”
“Your husband is doing such a wonderful job,” a short woman in white polyester slacks, with wavy gray hair, says as we shake hands. “We pray for both of you every night.”
“Thank you.” I turn toward the camera, nudging her a bit as I do, so she’s facing forward, too.
“I’m so honored to—” she starts to say but is cut off by an advance person moving her along.
“Thank you for coming,” I call after her.
Another older woman is next (perhaps a nursing home was bused in?), and she says, “You tell President Blackwell that Mrs. Mabel Fulford says don’t back down one inch from the terrorists.”
“Will do,” I say, and the flash goes off, and I am on to the next person, a woman closer to my own age who says, “I skipped work to hear you today.”
“Your secret is safe with me,” I say. There can be a Potemkin feel to these events, the contrast between the enthusiasm and warmth of the people we meet and the overwhelmingly negative coverage from the media of anything having to do with Charlie’s administration. Many constituents also hold a negative view, of course, but they tend not to come to such events unless it’s to protest, and the precautions taken to keep them out are ever more elaborate. For safety reasons, I entered this hotel through the service entrance in the back, but as we drove in, I still glimpsed today’s protestors standing across the street, holding signs and chanting. Usually, they’re chanting antiwar slogans, but I believe that today there were also some placards opposing Ingrid Sanchez’s Supreme Court nomination.
The next woman says, “When is Ella going to marry that boyfriend of hers?”
I laugh. “I’ll let you know when I do.” Camera flash, camera flash, camera flash, and finally, we’re at the end of the line. The event organizers are thanking me profusely, bestowing on me a gift bag that Ashley accepts, and we all are headed out the back doors to the motorcade—Ashley; a deputy press secretary named Sandy; Bill Rawson, who is one of the official White House photographers; a woman named Zinia who is a health policy expert; and six Secret Service agents (more agents wait outside). As we walk, Ashley says, “Alice?” and I holdout my palms; she squirts Purell on them, and I rub my hands together.
Hank has materialized beside me. He says, “America does love its first lady.” My dislike of the term first lady is well established (though I use it sometimes myself for lack of an alternative, I find it fussy and antiquated), and everyone within the White House calls me simply Alice or Mrs. Blackwell. I give Hank a tight smile. Outside, the June heat assaults us even on the ten-foot walk from the service entrance to the motorcade; a Secret Service agent named Cal holds open the rear door in the third SUV for me. (I avoid motorcades when possible, preferring a few Town Cars, but the breast-cancer summit was a highly publicized event. Before September 2001, I used three cars and six agents for public events; now, in addition to the police escorts, I use five cars and nine agents, an extravagance that no longer seems bizarre. Also after September 2001, my motorcade was granted “intersection control” in Washington, meaning we need not stop at lights.) Hank climbs in after me, and Ashley is about to follow him when Hank says to her, “Ride behind us, will you, Ash? We’ll all powwow back in the East Wing.”
Ashley glances at me, and I think of objecting, but something in Hank’s tone stops me. Fastening my seat belt, I say, “Hank, I thought you’d gone to Ohio.”
“Change of plans.”
“I assume Charlie’s all right?”
“The president’s fine.” Visibly, Hank roots with the tip of his tongue in a molar; above all, he likes to appear unruffled, so his studied casualness in this moment means that something must be wrong. Sure enough, he says, “I got a call this morning. Does the name Norene Davis ring a bell?”
I shuffle through my memory, though the problem is that I no longer know everyone I know. I often feel that I do nothing except meet people; it is fully possible I spoke to someone for fifteen minutes at an event, that I even sat next to him or her for the duration of a meal and we had a pleasant conversation, and that I have no recollection of it. At functions, a person might say, “I treasure the picture I had taken with you at our annual banquet last spring” or “My wife and I often talk about meeting you at the Republican Convention in ’96,” and I nod in a friendly fashion. Sometimes these hints prod my brain—I have seen this person before—but I never would have made the realization on my own, and I could sooner levitate right there on the spot than tell you his or her name. I say, “I don’t remember a Norene Davis, but it’s possible.”
Hank clears his throat. “She’s alleging you had an abortion in October of ’63.”
I gasp; I hear the intake of breath before I realize it was mine. Expect the unexpected is an apt if clichéd guideline for life in the White House, but I did not expect this. I half expected it once, back when Charlie first ran for governor, and then again when he ran for president, and I worried about the damage it would do to Charlie’s candidacy more than the violation of my own privacy, though I would not have relished either. But what could have happened didn’t, and it seemed that the revelation’s potency could only dwindle. If I was going to be exposed—if Dena Janaszewski, or whatever name she went by now, was going to sell me out—it would have happened already. Thus I shelved this particular worry; there are always more than enough to choose from.
“Can you think of any reason Ms. Davis would make that
claim?” Hank asks, and his tone is deliberately empty. No one else in the car reacts, not Cal, who sits in the front passenger seat, nor the other Secret Service agent, Walter, who’s driving. (Cal, who is currently my lead agent, played football at ASU; Walter is the father of twins—because they know far too much about us, both Charlie and I have made an effort to get to know our agents, and Charlie has personally shown the Oval Office to many of their family members.) I can see only the back of Walter’s head and some of Cal’s profile, but I’m confident both that they’re listening and that they’ll say nothing during this car ride, nothing when we’re back at the White House; they almost never speak first unless it’s an issue of safety. In crowds, I sometimes hear one beside me, having floated up without my noticing, murmuring, “Veer left,” or “Hold up, ma’am.” For men generally weighing over two hundred and fifty pounds, they are remarkably graceful.
To Hank, I say, “Are you sure this woman’s name is Norene Davis?”
Hank removes a BlackBerry from the inner pocket of his blazer and reads from the screen. “Age thirty-six, current address 5147 Manchester Street in Cicero, Illinois, although we have reason to believe she’s no longer living there. Divorced, no kids, employed as a home health aide by a rinky-dink-sounding organization called Glenview Health Service.”
“Is it possible she used to go by a different name?”
“Anything’s possible. My impression is she’s fronting for someone, but the question is who. While our tireless investigators figure that out, I wanted to check with you. Now, here’s where the plot thickens: This gal isn’t interested in blackmail, at least not in the conventional sense. Instead, she’s threatening to go public unless you speak out against Ingrid Sanchez as a Supreme Court nominee.”