Rodham

by Curtis Sittenfeld

But Mr. Gurski’s remark was the sentiment’s clearest and most succinct expression in my life thus far and gave me, henceforth, a kind of shorthand understanding of the irritation and resentment I provoked in others. Not all others, of course—plenty of people admired that I was eager and responsible—but among those provoked were both men and women, adults and children.

filled me with a new yearning, a wish to share the sadness or loveliness of the world with this other person.

we once spent three hours debating all the ways the word good could be interpreted in John Wesley’s dictum “Do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, in all the places you can, at all the times you can, to all the people you can, as long as ever you can.”

The part of this that I’m struck by now, decades later, is that I felt so flush with Bill’s love, so ensconced in our relationship, so confident of its durability, that the note didn’t seem significant. Earlier that very semester, I had been uncertain I’d ever meet a man I could truly love and be loved by, and already Bill was such a fixture of my days that being showered with his affection was sweet but unremarkable. Did I imagine that my life would be full of such emotional extravagance? I must have, because to save the note did not occur to me.

The self I was with Bill felt both true and aspirational, the self I most wished to be: worldly and beloved. Whereas the self I was with my family was less mature and more contradictory, pulled between the tensions of my mother believing me capable of anything and my father expressing little support or interest.

Opening the menu at Vandy’s and seeing that the osso buco cost six dollars and the filet mignon eight dollars made me nervous; surely my stingy father wouldn’t let us enjoy such a meal without some form of punishment.

The most striking parts of my father’s performance were how apparently premeditated it was and how not funny it was. Taking the temperature of water in a restaurant wasn’t some sort of shtick with him, and I’d never seen him do it. But the general impulse to destabilize a group, to reclaim attention and make life mildly unpleasant for everyone—these were tendencies I knew well.

Our faces were at the same level, and he kissed my forehead then said, “I’m not surprised your dad gave me a hard time. I’m his daughter’s boyfriend, so it’s almost a requirement. But I couldn’t believe the way he treated you.” “How so?” “The relentlessness of his nasty comments. I don’t think I’ve ever heard a father talk to his daughter that way.” I was genuinely perplexed. “Like what?” He adjusted his voice to what I understood was an approximation of my father’s, though the mimicry wasn’t particularly adept. “ ‘That’s an impressive insight for someone of your limited intellect.’ ‘You look good since you’ve put on all that weight.’ ‘Maybe you’re not as awful as everyone says.’ ” “Oh.” I laughed. “He’s said those exact same things hundreds of times. They’re like his personal proverbs.” We still were making eye contact, and Bill said, “Hillary, that stuff is awful. He’s your father.” “He’s joking,” I said. “It’s not funny.” “Well, I agree with that. But it’s how he’s always been. I assume you noticed he did it to Tony, too, and he does it to Hughie. The thing he always says to Hughie is, ‘Does your face hurt? Because it’s killing me.’ It’s not personal, though.” “How on earth is it not personal? Does he say things like that to people other than his children?” “Presumably, he realizes he can’t get away with it.” “That illustrates my point. Daddy—my stepfather—was no prize. Once when I was four, he and Mother were arguing, and he pulled a gun on her and shot it into a wall....

The questions that had been spinning in my mind—I asked him none of them. I’d told Bill that I wouldn’t tolerate evasion, but it wasn’t true.

Sometimes in the night I awakened with a sense of dread, a nebulous apprehension, and it took a few seconds to pinpoint its source. And yet there was a less predictable emotion that at times accompanied my hurt and disappointment. It took until after we’d left Oakland, until our second day on the road, as we were turning in to a motel parking lot in Omaha, Nebraska, for me to admit to myself that it was relief—a strange, perverse, sincere relief. The reality was that I was a hardworking and not beautiful middle-class Midwestern girl with a mean father. I had never believed the world existed for my enjoyment. I’d believed instead that every situation was a trade-off, that there was always a catch. I didn’t yearn to be envied by others, and wasn’t a great love affair with Bill Clinton enviable? Hadn’t it been thrilling and also made me slightly uneasy? Now the catch had made itself known. Bill could be genuinely devoted and at the same time struggle to remain faithful. We had been a couple for five months, and he’d already cheated. Surely this meant that at best, I’d live with the fear that he’d cheat again, and at worst, that he would cheat. He wasn’t too good to be true. But discerning his flaw meant that if I could live with it, I could keep him.

Among the other projects I’d worked on for Gwen was researching private schools that had been created to avoid complying with Brown v. Board of Education yet managed to maintain tax-exempt status. When I’d driven alone to rural Tennessee and pretended that I was moving to town and wanted to find a segregated school for my child, I had felt like a private investigator. Other times under Gwen’s tutelage, I felt like a journalist, and still other times, I felt like a social worker.

After meeting her a few years earlier, I’d said to Bill that it wasn’t that I didn’t like Virginia Dwire, or, more specifically, Virginia Cassidy Dell Blythe Clinton Dwire; it was that we had nothing in common except him. But the truth was that I also didn’t like her. I found her manipulative and petty, theatrical and needy. Conveniently, given that it behooved all of us to conceal the natural animosity between Virginia and me, it also was true we had nothing in common except Bill.

“There are two kinds of marriages,” Barbara said. “The ones where you’re privy to how messy they are, and the ones where you’re not.”

Because we had talked about everything, everything reminded me of him: Linda Ronstadt’s new album and my roommate’s recipe for savory crêpes and the colleague who told me family law was a second-rate area of study and President Ford’s decision to posthumously restore Robert E. Lee’s citizenship. Even in his absence, Bill remained the most interesting person with whom to discuss any book or breaking news or small moment of absurd behavior on the part of a friend, acquaintance, family member, or stranger.

Had the announcement been available online, I’m sure I’d have watched it in its entirety, and perhaps have rewatched it, but I was spared such impulses toward thoroughness or masochism by the media and technology of the time.

As the weather turned cold, that yearning I’d had since girlhood was muted by the tenderness and reassurance, perhaps especially when we weren’t together, of carrying James in my heart and knowing he was carrying me in his. This was true during both mundane tasks, such as taking a trash bag down the hall to the chute in my apartment building, and during moments when I’d once have felt a heightened loneliness, such as before bed or when I could smell fall leaves burning.

As a rule, I didn’t like socializing during the day with nonworking women. Even though my schedule was flexible, their relationship to time was different from—less urgent than—mine.

Listening to this news on NPR, I didn’t feel glee, or even vindication. I felt sad, and I felt uneasy. Was this because, for the first time in my life, I understood not only how organically an affair could happen but also how special and sweet—how not sordid—it could seem to the two people involved?

“Jesus Christ,” I said. “Did they not give her media training?” She was so—there was no other word for it—weak. Bill needed an equal who’d act like even if he’d had affairs, so what? Because they both were sophisticated and tough and the only person he was answerable to was her and if she’d dealt with it, it was no one else’s business; hell, maybe she’d had affairs, too. The American public would not, of course, like such a woman, but that didn’t matter. He was the one running for office, and the reality was that a wife like that would probably win him sympathy votes.

Though I certainly mourned my father’s passing, it was hard to know what I could have done differently with him. I was both grateful for the lessons he’d imparted and sorry they’d been shared with so much antagonism.

I’d already changed into my pajamas, though I kept on a bra—there were certain realities of gravity and time to which I felt it was simply cruel to subject my twenty- and thirtysomething staffers—and also donned a fleece jacket.

“But, like, post-Obama? He’s just, you know—” She trailed off, and I raised my eyebrows. “Pale, male, and stale?”

Of course I thought he’d left it behind, but I knew from Silicon Valley fundraisers that there was little a tech billionaire found more pleasing than the pretense that his innovations made life more equitable and meaningful.

Everyone always thinks not wanting kids is a temporary phase, which is so condescending. I don’t dislike them, but I don’t want my own.”

I typed, This season does seem promising, but I’m trying not to get my hopes up. Then, because I’d learned from giving speeches that ending with the negative half of a mixed sentiment made the whole thing seem pessimistic, I deleted what I’d written and typed instead, I’m trying not to get my hopes up, but this season does seem promising.

an oceanfront vacation house worth $10 million, was a thirty-eight-year-old hedge fund manager named Harris Fulkerson. I’d met him before, in New York, and for this visit, he’d invited me to spend the night in a private wing of his home, but, citing a scheduling conflict, I’d declined. I knew Bill relished such opportunities, establishing the bonds that arose when you shared scrambled eggs in your pajamas, but the thought of sharing scrambled eggs in my pajamas with an extremely rich person that I was only pretending to be friends with exhausted me.

Aaron, my communications director, said, “The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.”

My days are so hectic and stimulating and interactive, so relentless, that if I didn’t have this private evening peace, I suspect I’d become a kind of automaton, a figurehead, to the exclusion of being a person. The time alone gives me the tranquility to recollect not just my emotions but also my experiences.