On a trip to Italy in 2006, to accompany American athletes to the Olympic Winter Games, my mother and I had a private lunch with Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian prime minister. Almost immediately, Berlusconi, who had a reputation as a ladies’ man, began calling me “Bella” and musing over my blue eyes. He told me that I should have children with his son, right after telling me, “If I was younger, I’d have children with you.” A few sentences after that, the female translator stopped translating.
