even been busted the very first night we’d been out in public as a couple, shortly
after our first kiss, having gone to the Art Institute and then to see Spike Lee’s
movie Do the Right Thing at Water Tower Place, where we bumped into one of
the firm’s most high-ranking partners, Newt Minow, and his wife, Josephine, in
the popcorn line. They’d greeted us warmly, even approvingly, and made no
comment on the fact we were together. But still, there we were.
Work, during this time, felt like a distraction—the thing we had to do
before we were allowed to charge back toward each other again. Away from the
office, Barack and I talked endlessly, over leisurely walks around Hyde Park
dressed in shorts and T-shirts and meals that seemed short to us but in reality
went on for hours. We debated the merits of every single Stevie Wonder album
before doing the same thing with Marvin Gaye. I was smitten. I loved the slow
roll of his voice and the way his eyes softened when I told a funny story. I was
coming to appreciate how he ambled from one place to the next, never worried
about time.
Each day brought small discoveries: I was a Cubs fan, while he liked the
White Sox. I loved mac and cheese, and he couldn’t stand it. He liked dark,
dramatic movies, while I went all-in for rom-coms. He was a lefty with
immaculate handwriting; I had a heavy right-hand scrawl. In the month before he
went back to Cambridge, we shared what felt like every memory and stray
thought, running through our childhood follies, teenage blunders, and the
thwarted starter romances that had gotten us to each other. Barack was especially
intrigued by my upbringing—the year-to-year, decade-to-decade sameness of life
on Euclid Avenue, with me and Craig and Mom and Dad making up four
corners of a sturdy square. Barack had spent a lot of time in churches during his
time as a community organizer, which had left him with an appreciation for
organized religion, but at the same time he remained less traditional. Marriage, he
told me early on, struck him as an unnecessary and overhyped convention.
I don’t remember introducing Barack to my family that summer, though
Craig tells me I did. He says that the two of us walked up to the house on Euclid
Avenue one evening. Craig was over for a visit, sitting on the front porch with
my parents. Barack, he recalls, was friendly and confident and made a couple of
minutes of easy small talk before we ran up to my apartment to pick something
up.
My father appreciated Barack instantly, but still didn’t like his odds. After all,
he’d seen me jettison my high school boyfriend David at the gates of Princeton.