The Hopefuls(19)

The waitress came over then and Jimmy ordered a bottle of wine and a few of the dishes. “You don’t mind, do you?” he asked, although the waitress was already gone. “It’s all small plates, so we can share. We can order more, I just wanted to get some food this way, quickly.”

“Sounds good to me,” Matt said.

Jimmy turned to me. “Beth, did your husband tell you how we met on the campaign?” I shook my head.

“We are not,” Ash said, “spending the whole night talking about the campaign. I’ll give you five minutes and then we’re talking about something else,” which made me like her even more.

“What else is there?” Jimmy asked, and Ash just shook her head.

We spent much longer than five minutes talking about the campaign, mostly because Jimmy just kept talking. But he was a great storyteller—funny and irreverent—and we all listened closely, even Ash, who must have heard them all before.

The way Jimmy and Matt met, I learned, was that Matt was helping with a fund-raising dinner in the town house of a donor in New York. He walked in a few hours before it was supposed to start and found Jimmy sleeping on a bench in the front hall.

“I woke up to him shaking me,” Jimmy said. “He was so polite. ‘Excuse me, sir? Sir? Can I get you something?’ He had no idea who I was or he would’ve been hitting me across the head and yelling at me to get up.”

Matt laughed. “For all I knew, you were the son of the host or maybe some drunk donor that showed up early.”

“I hadn’t slept in two days,” Jimmy said. “I was exhausted.”

The waitress came then with our bottle of wine and Jimmy tasted it and nodded and shortly after that, our food started arriving. It was funny how Jimmy had taken control of our table and how happy we were to let him—he ordered a few more dishes and none of us suggested anything else.

It was hard to explain what it was about Jimmy that was so appealing. He wasn’t the loudest person in the room—he certainly wasn’t quiet, but he didn’t have that obnoxious slapstick personality that some attention seekers have, when they’re desperate to have all the eyes in the room on them. He did talk the most that night, but it didn’t feel like he was dominating the conversation, or at least not in a way that was annoying. There was a pull about him, and I remember thinking that first night that he was magnetic, which wasn’t a word I’d ever used to describe someone before. When Matt told me later that Jimmy (like him) wanted to run for office someday, I wasn’t the least bit surprised. It seemed almost obvious, really.

Jimmy had done advance for the most recent campaign and for Kerry in 2004 and Gore in 2000. “Let me tell you,” he said, “you think you know what depressing is, but there’s nothing like working on a campaign that ends like that.” I didn’t know what advance was, and Jimmy explained that he traveled ahead of the President, made sure that everything was set up in the venue, from the lighting to the stage. “Down to the location of the flag,” he said. “I’m basically a traveling wedding planner.” He said this in a self-deprecating way that I knew was an act, but after months of listening to people brag about their jobs, I found it refreshing.

“Did you always know you wanted to do this?” I asked.

“I fell into it by accident,” he said. “I met some advance people right after college, some people my dad knew, and I thought it sounded fun. And once I started, I didn’t want to stop. I was supposed to start law school in the fall of ’07. I was enrolled at UT, all set to go. My dad told me that enough was enough, that it was time to stop jumping on campaigns and settle into something more serious. But then I did a couple trips that summer for the Obama campaign, and I knew right away this was different. I knew as soon as I met him that I wasn’t going to go to law school. My dad was so pissed.”

“But now you’re working at the White House,” Matt said. “He must be pretty happy about that.”

Jimmy shrugged, and then said lightly, “Actually, I think he’d rather have me be a lawyer.”

I didn’t know at the time who Jimmy’s dad was, and you wouldn’t have known he was anyone special from the way Jimmy talked about him. Matt told me later that Jimmy’s dad was one of the most well-known lawyers in Texas. “Probably the most well known. Famous, really,” Matt said. He was also a huge Democratic supporter, and hosted lots of fund-raisers. When Jimmy talked about the advance people his dad knew, it was campaign staff who had been at his house during fund-raisers in 2000.

When we left the restaurant, we were already making plans for the four of us to go out to dinner the next week. Ash took my number and told me she was going to call me the next day. “I mean it,” she said. “Don’t be surprised when I call you first thing tomorrow. I am in desperate need of some girl time.”

Walking home from Fourteenth Street that night, I felt hopeful. It was warm, but not sticky, and there was a nice breeze. It felt good to walk off all the drinks we’d had, and Matt and I were silent for the first few blocks. “I like them,” I finally said. And I remember so clearly, how he put his arm around my shoulders, pulled me toward him, and kissed the side of my head. I could feel him smiling as he said, “I’m so glad there’s something in this city that you like.”