The Hopefuls(3)

And then one night, we went out with Alan Chu, one of Obama’s personal aides who sat just outside the Oval Office all day. Alan was slim and always perfectly dressed, although there was something fussy about his look that suggested he spent twenty minutes picking out his tie and sock combinations in the morning. Alan and his boyfriend suggested we go to La Fourchette, a French restaurant on Eighteenth Street, and I had high hopes for the evening, until it became clear that every one of Alan’s stories started with “One time POTUS said” and “POTUS was in a great mood today.” I tried to steer the conversation away from work, asking Alan where he was from and where he went to college. Each time, he’d answer me quickly and then resume talking to Matt as if they were the only two there. Alan’s boyfriend, Brett, looked just as bored as I felt, and at one point he started playing with the little candle in front of him, tilting it back and forth, letting the wax drip onto the tablecloth.

On top of everything else, the service that night was terrible—there was a private party in the back room and the whole staff (our waiter included) kept rushing back there and ignoring the tables in the main dining room. As the waiters pushed the curtain aside to get back there, we caught a glimpse of Newt Gingrich’s round and red smiling face. “It’s his birthday,” our waiter whispered to us later. He was breathless with excitement. “Welcome to DC,” Matt said to me, and I gave a little laugh.

After we left dinner that night, I said to Matt, “When Alan talks about the President, he sounds like an infatuated boyfriend.”

“He’s not that bad,” Matt said.

“Sure,” I agreed. “In the same way that stalkers are just passionate.”

—

Trying to make new friends was like dating—meeting so many new people and feeling them out, trying to find common interests and topics of conversation. It was harder than I’d thought it would be. I tried to adjust, tried to remain positive. But the one thing I could never get used to when we were out with these people was the BlackBerries—oh, the BlackBerries that everyone kept close by, right next to their beers or their plates, just in case someone was trying to get ahold of them. If we were with a big group, chimes and dings and bike bells rang out constantly. The table buzzed and beeped, and each time there was a new chirp, everyone reached for their phone, certain that it was theirs, clicked away on the keyboard just to make sure they hadn’t missed anything, each of them believing themselves to be more important than the next.

—

Our unpacking process was slow. No matter how many boxes I got through each day, there were always more, almost like they were multiplying behind my back. Bubble Wrap was strewn everywhere—on the coffee table and the floor and couch. Matt came home one Thursday night, a couple of weeks after we moved in, to find me standing in a circle of boxes, unsure of where to put any of it.

“Hey,” I called, as he came up the stairs. I was trapped in the middle of everything and he came over to kiss me hello.

“How’s it going?” he asked.

“I don’t know how we have so much stuff. We’re just going to live out of boxes forever,” I said.

“Okay,” Matt said. “Fine by me.”

“Seriously, this apartment is like twice as big as our last place and I still don’t know where to put anything.”

“Ugh,” Matt said, leaning over to look into one of the boxes, which was filled with the most random of our possessions—Post-it notes, a shower cap, a pair of wooden lovebirds. “Let’s just toss it.”

“Deal,” I said. I stepped over the pile of stuff around me and sat on the couch as he went to the kitchen to get himself a beer.

“How was work?” I asked.

“Good,” he said. He sat down on the couch with a sigh and leaned his head back. “I’m so tired.”

“Too tired for a trip to the grocery store? I was thinking we could go to the Giant up on Connecticut.”

“Why do you want to go all the way up there?”

“We need so much stuff. It’s not that far. I can’t eat Chipotle again for dinner. The employees are starting to recognize us and it’s getting embarrassing.”

“I know,” Matt said. “The manager seemed genuinely excited to see me last night.”

“We basically have no food in the house. I just think the Giant is our best bet.”

There were two Safeways within walking distance of our apartment, but they were both disappointing, full of dirty produce and questionable meat. In DC, all of the Safeways had nicknames—the one in Georgetown was the Social Safeway, because apparently it was a good place to find a date, although I never met anyone who actually got picked up there. There was the Stinky Safeway (self-explanatory), the Underground Safeway, the UnSafeway. The two closest to us were the Secret Safeway, because it was tiny and hidden away on a side street, and the Soviet Safeway, because the shelves were always bare.

People found these nicknames charming. I found them stupid. When I went to the Soviet Safeway for milk and had to walk away empty-handed because the dairy case was empty, I wasn’t amused. I just wanted them to get new management.

“We need a real grocery store,” I continued. “One that has actual food on the shelves.”

“Do you think you could take the car and go?” Matt asked. He gave me an apologetic look. “I’m so beat.”