American Wife

  “After your son dies this way, you look for a reason his death meant something. You hope he made a sacrifice he believed in, and that’s why it’s tempting to accept”—Edgar Franklin hesitates—“the rhetoric of war, is I guess how to put it. If I thought Nate’s death was a waste, wouldn’t that be disloyal to my son and my country? It would mean I wasn’t patriotic, is what I thought at first, but I’ve come to see it that bringing our troops home would be the patriotic thing. A lot of families just now going through what I experienced two years ago, just starting to grieve, maybe they’re not thinking about the political side yet.”

  “What do you make of the outpouring of support you’ve received since your arrival in Washington last Wednesday?”

  “The tide has turned. Americans know it’s time for an honest conversation.”

  “Colonel Edgar Franklin, thank you for speaking with me.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “You’re listening to member-supported WBEZ,” a female voice says as our police-escorted Town Car is waved through the gates leading to the private section of the airport. We cross the tarmac, and in the overcast heat of the Midwest, a glare bounces off the Gulfstream parked two hundred feet away; the steps are already pulled down, awaiting us.

  CHARLIE USED TO have a line he’d tease me with before dinners on the rubber-chicken circuit; he’d say, “Don’t forget that fund-raiser starts with fun.” He said this because he knew I loathed them—the repetition, the forced greetings and stilted conversations, the endless photo ops, and above all, the uncomfortably transactional feeling that people were literally buying us. I’ve always found the thousand-dollar dinners more unsettling than the twenty-five-thousand-dollar ones—if someone pays the Republican National Committee twenty-five thousand dollars (or, more likely, fifty per couple) to breathe the same air as Charlie for an hour or two, then it’s clear the person has money to spare. What breaks my heart is when it’s apparent through their accent or attire that a person isn’t well off but has scrimped to attend an event with us. We’re not worth it! I want to say. You should have paid off your credit-card bill, invested in your grandchild’s college fund, taken a vacation to the Ozarks. Instead, in a few weeks, they receive in the mail a photo with one or both of us, signed by an autopen, which they can frame so that we might grin out into their living room for years to come.

  But there was one fund-raiser that, to my own surprise, I did find fun. This was a million-dollar dinner held at a former plantation in Mobile, Alabama, in July 2000. Charlie and I always ate at separate tables, and that night I was assigned to be with the wife of the chairman of the Alabama Republican Party, two well-dressed middle-aged couples who looked like variations of the people we knew in Maronee, and a father-and-son duo. Before an event, an aide provides a paragraph or two describing each of the bigwigs who will be in attendance, and that evening, the original plan had been that I’d be sitting between a man named Beau Phillips, who owned a regional chain of fast-food restaurants, and a man named Leon Tasket, who was the CFO of the largest producer of industrial machinery in Alabama. As it turned out, Leon Tasket’s wife had come down with the flu, and in her stead—it’s hard to imagine this last-minute switch happening now or at any point after Charlie became president—Mr. Tasket had brought his adult son Dale, a tall, heavy, mentally disabled fellow. Though I suspect Dale had the intellectual aptitude of a nine-or ten-year-old, I wouldn’t have guessed this if I’d been observing him from any distance—his features weren’t irregular, except perhaps that he looked friendlier than most other guests. When it was time to sit for dinner, the men at the table remained standing while I and the other wives found our places, and Dale, to whom I had been briefly introduced a minute before, plopped next to me in the seat that had a place card for his father; Mrs. Tasket’s place card was one more over. “Oh, no, you don’t,” Leon Tasket said immediately. Mr. Tasket was shorter and wirier than his son, with a well-trimmed white beard and mustache and a three-piece suit. “Boy, if Miss Alice Blackwell saw the way you ate, she’d be scared half to death.”

  I smiled, shaking my head. “It’s fine with me if he stays there—if it’s all right with you, that is.”

  “That’s an awful brave lady who doesn’t mind sitting in the vicinity of a black bear, isn’t it, Dale? You think we should call her bluff?”

  On the stage just above our heads, a man in a flag tie was tapping the microphone, saying, “If you’ll all take your seats . . . ” At another table, Charlie sat between the governor and the state’s Republican Party chair.

  “Really,” I said. “It’s fine.”

  As waiters brought our salads, Beau Phillips, the fast-food honcho on my right, said, “Your husband is on a sure path to victory,” and simultaneously, on my left, Dale said, “My favorite actress is Drew Barrymore, do you know who Drew Barrymore is?” Both men had endearingly thick southern accents, though only one of them—Dale—was talking with his mouth full; he had torn into his salad with gusto. To Mr. Phillips, I said, “Thank you,” and then I turned toward Dale. “I do know who she is.”

  “The liberal elite has lost touch with real American values,” Mr. Phillips said. ”We need someone to stand up to those activist judges pushing for the homosexual agenda. That lifestyle might cut it in the Northeast, but I’ll tell you what, it sure doesn’t fly down here.”

  Mildly, I said, “I know Charlie likes to focus on what we as Americans have in common.”

  “Did you see her in The Wedding Singer?” Dale was asking.

  I turned back. “I didn’t, but I’ve heard of it.”

  “She’s the most pretty and talented actress there is,” Dale said, and his father, who’d been talking to the chairman’s wife on his other side, chuckled and said, “If I were a bettin’ man, I’d say we must be discussin’ Drew Barrymore.”

  “I saw her when she was a little girl in E.T.,” I said. “Oh, and you know what, Dale—my daughter and I recently watched a movie she was in called Never Been Kissed. Have you seen that?”

  It was Mr. Tasket who said, “Have we seen Never Been Kissed? Only three times a week do we see Never Been Kissed at our house. I’ve watched that little movie more times than I’ve watched the evenin’ news.”

  “Mr. Coulson thinks Josie’s a student, but when he finds out she works for the newspaper, they can fall in love,” Dale said.

  “I remember that part,” I said.

  “Drew’s birthday is February twenty-second, 1975,” Dale said. “That means she’s twenty-five and seven months and three days, and she’s a Pisces, and I’m a Gemini, but I’m older than her because I’m forty.”

  Dale’s father had faded again from the conversation, but on my right, Mr. Phillips said, “This election will be a real comeuppance for the Democrats. You mark my words, we’ll have payback after eight years of them running roughshod.”

  “Charlie and I are as curious about what will happen as you are,” I said. To Dale, I said, “If you’re a Gemini, that must mean you were born in May or June.”

  “I was born on June third, 1960. What are your hobbies?” Dale had a dab of salad dressing on the outer corner of his lips. “Mine are Nintendo, stamps, and the zoo.”

  I couldn’t resist. I said, “It sounds like Drew Barrymore is a hobby of yours, too.”

  Dale smiled slyly and said, “A girl can’t be a hobby!” Then he said, “When you come to our house, I’ll show you my Classic American Aircraft stamps. I have all of them, but the best is the Northrop YB-49 Flying Wing.”

  “Mrs. Blackwell, are you and your husband in the area for long?” This came from a wife across the table, but Dale preempted my response by saying, “And the Thunderbolt is real cool, too.”

  I said to the woman (I already couldn’t remember her name), “Unfortunately, we fly out tonight, and I’m sorry, because it would be fun to explore. I was just reading about the Bellingrath Gardens.”

  “When you’re next here, you ought to go over to the Eastern Shore. We all h
ave places there”—she gestured to the other couples at the table—“and it’s a wonderful place to relax, very quiet. Campaigning must be tiring.”

  They were polite, all of them, and they also were clearly irritated that Dale was monopolizing my attention, and that his father and I were allowing it. And I was fully complicit—what could have been more delightful than to sit beside someone brimming with his own interests and enthusiasms, none of which was political, a person who neither knew nor cared who I was beyond the fact that I’d heard of Drew Barrymore and was willing to talk about her? No one else at the table could compete with Dale’s volubility, his lusty and fearless ingestion of the food on his plate, his ingenuous questions and announcements; I was enchanted. The others at the table soon gave up on me, and several times after I’d been left to conspire with Dale, I noticed his father glancing with amusement at us, and I wondered if he hadn’t brought his son as a sort of joke, an antidote to the stuffiness rampant at these fund-raisers. There was something fearless about Mr. Tasket, too; despite his earlier demurrals when Dale had sat by me, he seemed unapologetic about having brought his mentally disabled adult son to a fancy dinner.

  When our entrées came, I wasn’t particularly hungry and ended up offering my sirloin to Dale, which he accepted with great pleasure. He said, “Are you sure?” He ate my dessert, too, a strawberry shortcake.

  It was about ten minutes into Charlie’s speech when Dale patted my arm and said, “Miss Alice, do you like tic-tac-toe?” He was speaking in a normal volume, not whispering, and at our table and the tables near ours, people looked at him. Leon Tasket, appearing not particularly perturbed, leaned in from Dale’s other side and murmured something to his son. Dale’s expression became big-eyed and chastened, and he sat back in his chair, crossing his arms over his substantial belly.

  I reached into my purse and found a paper napkin and a blue ball-point pen. I drew a crosshatch, placed an X in the upper-right square, and nudged the napkin toward Dale. His face lit up, and when it seemed he might speak again, I brought my finger to my lips. Onstage, Charlie was saying, “As I travel around this great land of ours, I hear a consistent refrain: Bring integrity back to the White House.” As always, on each word, he pounded the podium once, and as always, loud applause followed. Dale drew an O in the center square. “Bring integrity back to the White House,” Charlie repeated. “Now, everyone here knows what that means, but I’d like to illustrate the principle by telling y’all a story.” I drew an X in the lower-right square, and Dale blocked me by placing an O between my two X’s. “Not long ago, I visited a school in Ocala, Florida. A fifth-grade boy, a little guy named Timmy Murphy, raised his hand and said to me, ‘Governor Blackwell, isn’t the president of the United States supposed to be a hero? But my parents say the man currently occupying the Oval Office isn’t heroic at all.’ ” Again, sustained applause. I drew an X in the middle of the right column, and Dale made a frustrated exhalation; this time, I’d blocked him. I especially detested this part of Charlie’s stump speech both because of how self-aggrandizing it was and because it was so improbable that a fifth-grader would use the words currently or occupying. “Well, Timmy,” Charlie said, and Dale drew an O in the top box of the center column, “I’m not Superman, and I’m not Spider-Man, but if your mom and dad vote for me, I promise you that courage and morality will reign again in Washington, D.C.” Here, the applause was thunderous. Our game had ended in a stalemate, and Dale quickly drew another crosshatch. The next game also ended in a stalemate, as did the three after that—by this point, Charlie was deep into talking about being a tolerant traditionalist—and then Dale beat me, four more stalemates occurred, and I beat him; the paper napkin was by then more blue than white, and our crosshatches had shrunk with each round to fit in the limited space. Charlie was finished speaking, and the local party chair was emphasizing the importance of supporting all Republicans in this year’s tight races. A standing ovation concluded the speeches, and as it tapered off, Dale said, “You should give me your address, and I’ll write you letters.”

  “Miss Alice is a busy lady,” Leon Tasket protested, and I said, “I’d love it if you wrote to me.”

  I printed my first and last name and the address for the governor’s mansion in Madison on the back of one of Mr. Tasket’s business cards. Just before I was pulled away for photos, Dale hugged me. He said, “After you and your daughter rent The Wedding Singer, then you need to rent Poison Ivy. Drew is only seventeen in that, but it’s a real good one. You have pretty blue eyes, Miss Alice.”

  “Why, thank you,” I said.

  I did indeed receive a letter from Dale after two weeks, written on lined paper from a spiral notebook, the fringy edge still attached. Despite being punctuation-free and erratically capitalized, it was perfectly comprehensible: Only three Months until Charlie’s Angels Movie comes out are you Excited cause I am you should Come Back to Alabama you could go Alligator Hunting with Me and Dad . . . I wrote a reply by hand the next day, on the stationery that had my name embossed at the top; I mentioned that I had been traveling with my husband, that we had most recently visited Ohio and Pennsylvania, that I was reading a biography of former first lady Abigail Adams, and that although I hadn’t had an opportunity to rent The Wedding Singer, I was looking forward to seeing it. After returning from Mobile, I’d told my staff in Madison to watch for any correspondence from Dale and to make sure I personally saw it rather than it being answered with the standard letter and a black-and-white photo of Snowflake and me. Because I’d made a point of explaining to my aides who Dale was, when no follow-up letter from him arrived, I had to conclude that it was less likely it had been lost than that he’d never written it. I was disappointed, and I have since wondered several times how he’s doing; whenever I see that Drew Barrymore has a new movie out, I think of him.

  That evening in Mobile, in the van headed to the airport, Hank, who’d been sitting at the table adjacent to ours, said, “The retard took a real shine to you, huh, Alice?”

  “What retard?” Charlie asked.

  A few weeks later, Leon Tasket made a donation of eight hundred thousand dollars to the RNC, but rather than feeling triumphant about this development, I was a little sad—it was as if my delight in Mr. Tasket’s son had, like so much else in politics, merely been for show. That I had played tic-tac-toe with a fellow audience member during my husband’s stump speech was written up in Time magazine and has been repeated in many articles since, a little nugget about me that, in the absence of more substantive disclosures, is assumed to reveal something meaningful about my personality.

  “SO EXPLAIN TO me why it is you’re going to see your wacko former friend who you haven’t laid eyes on in thirty years when it turns out she had nothing to do with this shit,” Charlie says over the phone. In the Gulfstream, we are flying above the Illinois-Wisconsin border, and Charlie is en route to a remote park along the Potomac for an afternoon bike ride; in other words, three vehicles containing him, his mountain bike, assorted agents and their bikes, and even a physician are making their way south.

  I say, “It turns out Dena’s still dating Pete Imhof, so this is really about seeing both of them. I guess I just feel the need.” Belinda in my office confirmed to Jessica that Dena and Pete do live together, though Belinda said Dena was uncertain whether Pete would be present when I arrived.

  “I thought you and Ella were planning on a girls’ afternoon,” Charlie says.

  “Well, I’m excited to see her tonight, and I hope she’s not offended by my change of plans. I’ll be back an hour before the gala. Did you ask Ella if she wanted to bike with you?”

  “She said it’s too hot.”

  I hesitate, and then I say, “I’m worried about how she’ll react to this abortion story. Hank has gotten Dr. Wycomb to promise not to come forward before tomorrow—I think he must be pretending there’s still a chance I’ll speak out against Ingrid Sanchez—so I’m planning to tell Ella tonight in person. After I do, will you make sur
e you’re around? I have a feeling she’ll need someone to talk to, but she’ll be angry with me.”

  “Is that why you’re avoiding coming home?”

  “Honey, I’m not avoiding anything. Seeing Dena is a chance to tie up loose ends.”

  “Well, Ella’s a tough cookie,” Charlie says. “She’ll be fine.”

  “But from a religious standpoint—”

  “You think any Christian worth their salt can’t get their head around the idea of sinning? So you messed up forty years ago—that doesn’t mean you never walked with God again.”

  I knew he’d say this, even though surely he’s aware I don’t consider abortion a sin (unfortunate, yes, but immoral, no), just as he’s aware that I do not share his Christian convictions. Our unspoken deal regarding religion is similar to our deal about politics: I don’t object when he talks about God, and he doesn’t insist that I proclaim myself a believer. I have spoken of my agnosticism to as few people as I’ve spoken of my abortion, so I understand the widespread assumption, among both friends and strangers, of my faith.

  As for the Christian right, the traditional-values advocates—whatever name you call them by, they are the ones who believe Charlie is a Messianic figure. So untenable a hypothesis is this to me that I can only squelch in my mind any consideration of it. That Charlie, encouraged by his advisers, Hank foremost among them, has promoted this preposterous notion is an act of either such cynicism or such bottomless hubris that it would be impossible to say which is worse. My suspicion is that for Charlie, the vision of himself as messiah-like is sincere (how else to explain his rise from floundering alcoholic to president?), and for Hank, it is insincere, though I do not doubt the sincerity of Hank’s belief in Charlie. I might say that I don’t understand that belief, since Hank is clearly the more intellectual and ambitious of the two men, except that I do understand: Hank recognized early on that Charlie could be his charismatic proxy. And didn’t I, too, hitch my life to Charlie’s, allowing myself to be guided and defined by him? So why wouldn’t I understand the impulse in someone else?