The Hopefuls(26)

And Ash’s pictures kept popping up: a plate of French toast with the ocean in the background and a caption, “Breakfast with a view at the Surfrider!”; a picture of turtles about to be released into the ocean; a tower of sushi at Morimoto. I couldn’t mention them to Matt because I was the one who’d insisted we go to Wisconsin. And so I sat and shivered under a blanket in my parents’ house and flipped through Ash’s beach pictures, each one making me slightly crankier than the last.

—

We were back to DC for New Year’s and went to a party with all of the White House people we always saw—minus Ash and Jimmy, who were still in Hawaii, which made the whole night pretty boring. I figured we could leave right after midnight and I counted down the minutes until then. But as the ball dropped on the TV, Matt kissed me and said, “Happy New Year’s to my favorite wife,” and I thought how sweet he was, how he’d been in Wisconsin with me when he really wanted to be in Hawaii. So I smiled and stayed at the party with him until 3:00 a.m.

Ash called me the day they finally returned and I almost squealed on the phone when I heard her voice. “I feel like you guys have been gone forever,” I said.

“I know it,” she said. “It’s good to be back.”

We made plans to meet for dinner at La Tomate, an Italian place at the top of Dupont, and when we walked into the restaurant, Ash and Jimmy were already there, both so absurdly tan that it made me dizzy to look at them straight on. They stood to greet us, all of us embracing like we’d been apart for years. When we finally sat down, I turned to them and said, “So, clearly you spent some time in the sun. How was it?”

Jimmy got a serious look on his face and said, “You know, this was a different kind of trip. Normally we’re advancing the President for meetings with officials, for speeches, for official visits. But this was advancing him for a vacation—figuring out where he’s going to eat dinner and play golf. And usually, we didn’t know what he was going to do until the night before. You know, sometimes he’d want to play golf and then would decide at the last second to do a beach day with the family.”

“Wow,” I said. I was already regretting asking about the trip because Matt was so jealous he was practically shaking.

“I know,” Jimmy said. “It was a whole new spin on what we do on regular trips.”

“That’s crazy,” Matt said. “It must have been hard to adjust to that.”

“It was,” Jimmy said, looking so intense that I wanted to roll my eyes. “I mean, look, don’t get me wrong—we were in paradise, so I’m not complaining. It was just a different kind of job to advance the gym for him each morning. Can you believe he works out every single morning on vacation? His discipline is amazing.”

“Totally,” Matt said, and Ash made a sound of agreement.

“And the Secret Service has a tough job there too,” he went on. “Basically everything is an OTR stop.” (At this point, Matt turned to me and whispered, “Off the record,” so that I could understand the conversation, but Jimmy didn’t even pause.) “He walks down the street to get shave ice and people just go crazy. We tell a restaurant about twenty minutes before he’s going to get there—the reservation is under a different name—and then they have to get in there and start magging people—you know, checking them with the handheld metal detectors. There’s so much work that goes into just one outing.”

The two of them started talking about how the team managed to get reservations for so many people at such great restaurants, and then Ash turned to me. “Have you ever had shave ice?” she asked. “It’s so delicious.”

“It’s like a sno-cone, right?” I asked.

“Yes, but so much better,” she said.

“I’ll have to try it sometime.”

“Oh you do! You two have got to go to Hawaii. It really is just the most beautiful place I’ve ever been.”

“So what did you do all day while Jimmy was working?” I asked. It wasn’t that I wanted to keep talking about the trip, but I sensed that there was no getting away from it, so I just gave in.

“Oh, sometimes I lounged around the hotel—the press pool stayed there too, so there were other spouses and family around and we all just got to be so friendly with each other. And then sometimes I’d tag along with Jimmy if the first family was doing something fun, like the beach or something. I’d just tuck myself to the side and enjoy it.”

“That sounds great,” I said.

“You know”—Ash looked thoughtful—“I just really admire Obama so much. He’s very real. Do you know what I mean? He was always aware of how hard everyone was working for him, always thanking everyone. And when we would all be on the beach—and I mean, the staff wouldn’t be right next to the family, because my goodness, they need their space and privacy—but he’d always walk down to say hi to us, always take the time to ask us how we were enjoying Hawaii.”

All I could think when Ash told this story was how annoying it must be for Obama to have to always be on—to make sure he remembered to thank everyone, to take the time to say hi to the families of his staff, when he’d probably rather just sit and relax with his own family on the beach. I mean, yes, he’s the President and that’s part of the job and he got to spend an amazing time in Hawaii, so it’s not like I felt bad for him. Except I kind of did. It must be exhausting to always be that pleasant, to always be watched. I couldn’t help but wonder who would want that kind of life, and then I looked over at Jimmy, his eyes gleaming as he talked about the trip, and I had my answer.