city’s departments, including Health and Human Services. The job was broad and
people oriented enough to be energizing and almost always interesting. Whereas
I’d once spent my days writing briefs in a quiet, plush-carpeted office with a view
of the lake, I now worked in a windowless room on one of the top floors of city
hall, with citizens streaming noisily through the building every hour of the day.
Government issues, I was learning, were elaborate and unending. I shuttled
between meetings with various department heads, worked with the staffs of city
commissioners, and was dispatched sometimes to different neighborhoods around
Chicago to follow up on personal complaints received by the mayor. I went on
missions to inspect fallen trees that needed removing, talked to neighborhood
pastors who were upset about traffic or garbage collection, and often represented
the mayor’s office at community functions. I once had to break up a shoving
match at a senior citizens’ picnic on the North Side. None of this was what a
corporate lawyer did, and for this reason I found it compelling. I was
experiencing Chicago in a way I never had before.
I was learning something else of value, too, spending much of my time in
the presence of Susan Sher and Valerie Jarrett, two women who—I was seeing—
managed to be both tremendously confident and tremendously human at the
same time. Susan ran meetings with a steely and unflappable grace. Valerie
thought nothing of speaking her mind in a roomful of opinionated men, often
managing to deftly bring people around to whatever side she was arguing. She
was like a fast-moving comet, someone who was clearly going places. Not long
before my wedding, she’d been promoted to the role of commissioner in charge
of planning and economic development for the city and had offered me a job as
an assistant commissioner. I was going to begin work as soon as we got back from
our honeymoon.
I saw more of Valerie than I did of Susan, but I took careful note of
everything each of them did, similarly to how I’d observed Czerny, my college
mentor. These were women who knew their own voices and were unafraid to
use them. They could be humorous and humble when the moment called for it,
but they were unfazed by blowhards and didn’t second-guess the power in their
own points of view. Also, importantly, they were working moms. I watched
them closely in this regard as well, knowing that I wanted someday to be one
myself. Valerie never hesitated to step out of a big meeting when a call came in
from her daughter’s school. Susan, likewise, dashed out in the middle of the day if
one of her sons spiked a fever or was performing in a preschool music show.
They were unapologetic about prioritizing the needs of their children, even if it