Saving Graces - Elizabeth Edwards [94]
I got home from shopping just before Cate and her friends arrived in the airport shuttle van from Baltimore. The girls—and there were about six of them, all of whom John had coached in soccer or basketball—were coming for four days. They had graduated from high school together and within weeks they would be headed off to different colleges, so this was a farewell fling for them, one they had been planning for weeks. When the van stopped in our driveway, the press leaped up and ran across the street, leaving spraying soda cans and pizza boxes in their wake. The girls sat paralyzed in the van for a minute, and then, unable to contain girlish giggles, they fell all over each other and finally out of the van. The press figured that one of these was our daughter, but which one? Did anyone know what she looked like? I don’t know who looked more confused, the press or the girls. The press was snapping and filming them all, asking which one of these girls was Cate Edwards. For a few minutes, all the girls had cameras in their faces. They were all Cate Edwards. From that point on, the girls never left the house without looking terrific.
The next morning we watched the hosts of the Sunday talk shows eviscerate John. It was, “These are hard times. We need a president with experience, and this guy’s been in office for a year and a half. How can you even be seriously considering him?” Representatives of the Gore campaign were countering with things like, well, Abraham Lincoln had been in office for two years when he was elected president of the United States, and George Bush had been governor for four years in a state where the governor didn’t have much authority. The best defense of John was, oddly enough, given by John McCain, who was on Meet the Press; he said he’d worked with John and John Edwards was really talented and smart.
We lived in a residential area, so I went out in the early afternoon on Sunday and asked the press if anyone needed to use a bathroom. We had a first-floor bathroom they were welcome to use. Of course they did. They all poured in. And while they were waiting, they pored over the mail that had collected on the front hall bureau. Bad boys, I said, retrieving the mail. They were not asked back.
We spent the rest of the day talking to the girls when they were home, playing with the children, and talking about the news shows and my new clothes. Sunday night we went to dinner with Julianna Smoot, who had been working for John since the Senate campaign. In every campaign, you get to do exciting things and you have to do boring, menial things. I got such a kick out of Julianna because when she was tired of doing the menial jobs, she would complain in frustration, “But I went to Smith College!” Even when she was complaining, she was good company.
We went to bed Sunday night believing that in the morning Al Gore would pick John Kerry as his running mate. Joe Lieberman went to bed believing that Al Gore would choose John Edwards. In the morning, the television news and the ringing phone simultaneously announced that we were all wrong. He had chosen Joe Lieberman. John talked to whomever it was on the phone, and I got up and walked downstairs to Cate and all her friends. They were still sleeping and spread all over her room. I stepped over legs and luggage until I could lean over Cate and whisper, “He picked Lieberman.” She didn’t open her eyes, just “Uh-huh.” “You can sleep in.” As I walked