The Hopefuls(14)

We all figured they’d break up eventually, that the age difference would be too much—he had two daughters, who were nine and eleven, and I thought at least that would change Colleen’s mind. But they stayed together and got married on Long Island in the church where Colleen grew up. It was by far the strangest wedding I’ve ever been to. All the girls from college were bridesmaids and Bruce’s daughters were junior bridesmaids. We had to walk down the aisle with Bruce’s nearly middle-aged friends, who were just as uncomfortable with the situation as we were.

Matt always took on a nonjudgmental attitude when we talked about Colleen and Bruce. He didn’t like to gossip or talk behind people’s backs, which I know is a good trait, but could be very frustrating, especially when I was dying to dissect a scandalous situation. Sometimes I pressed him, trying to get him to admit that it was a weird coupling. “You can’t help who you fall in love with,” he said more than once. (Which I’ve always thought was a ridiculous saying, because of course you can help it—you just don’t do it. You remove yourself from the situation.) But at Colleen’s wedding, when Bruce danced with Colleen’s mom, Matt (who was a little drunk) leaned over and whispered to me, “Well, now, they make a nice couple.”

I closed my eyes on the bed and listened to Matt and Colleen talk. She suggested that the four of us get together for dinner that Sunday, and I said without opening my eyes, “We can’t. We have to go to the Kellys’.”

They continued talking, and I just lay there. I was thinking about something that Colleen had said when we were getting our nails done. She was telling me how smart it was that Matt took this job, what a good move it was for him.

“But what about for me?” I’d said.

“You don’t even have a job right now,” she’d said. “So what’s the difference?”

And just like that, it was like I stopped being part of the equation. Like nothing I did mattered anymore—it was all about Matt now.

—

At dinner the following Sunday, Babs brought out a picture of Matt in third grade, dressed as Ronald Reagan for Famous Person Day at school. “He brought the house down,” she said. I’d heard the story before—how Matt insisted on dressing up as the president, how he gave a speech to the class telling them how he loved Jelly Bellys and got to fly around in his own plane. He handed out little packets of jelly beans and yelled, “Vote for me!”

I glanced at Patrick as Babs told this story. If I’d heard it a dozen times, he’d no doubt heard it hundreds. I wondered if he ever felt like standing up and walking out during a family dinner. Babs said, “That’s when I knew! I just knew this little boy would grow up to be a politician, that one day he’d be the one running for office.” As Babs kept talking, it occurred to me that she wasn’t a good mother. She wasn’t a good mother at all.

Of course I had my own issues with her—how she still had a picture of Matt’s old girlfriend hanging in the house, or how she always managed to make me feel like my opinion didn’t matter—but that wasn’t all. Babs never seemed satisfied with her children, she pointed out their weaknesses whenever possible. She was always pushing them to be more successful, to do something fantastic, as if their accomplishments were nothing but a reflection on her.

Why did Matt want to run for office? Because it was something he really wanted to do, or because he knew it would make his mom proud? Was it because she’d whispered in his ear all through his childhood how special he was, how he was meant for something great? Was it because she brought out this stupid picture of him dressed as the president and told the same story over and over again?

I’m sure people would say that my feelings were normal, that of course I thought my parents were better parents than Matt’s, simply because they were mine. But I disagree. My parents thought that I was smart and talented—they believed it with all their hearts. They just didn’t need me to be the most special person out there. If I’d stayed in Wisconsin my whole life and become a kindergarten teacher and married another teacher, they would have thought that was great. They would’ve been proud of me. They would have reacted the same way they did when I brought them to my office at Vanity Fair, with wide eyes and smiles. They wanted me to be happy and healthy—wasn’t that enough? They weren’t selfish people, they didn’t want more than their fair share. No, they were practical, and knew that life could be hard sometimes, and thought that if you just wanted a little, if you hoped for a reasonable amount, you might just end up being satisfied.

I may not be right all the time, and maybe I’ve misjudged people in my life, but I do know this one thing for sure—my own mother would never compare me to a pancake.





Chapter 4


I’d known Matt only a few weeks when he first told me he wanted to run for office. We were lying in his bed on a Sunday afternoon (which is how we spent most of our time those days) and we’d just returned from getting omelets at the diner below his apartment. Our relationship was brand new, and we were so obsessed with each other we couldn’t see straight—all we did during that time was have sex and then talk until it was time to have sex again. He was telling me about his job that day, I think, my head on his chest, our hands playing with each other, intertwining our fingers over and over again. I’d never felt this way about another person before, like no matter how close I was to him, no matter how many parts of our bodies were touching, it wasn’t enough. I always wanted more of him.