Always (2 page)

It was in the spring of 1968. I met the girl of my dreams and fell asleep that night watching the cities of Detroit, Chicago, and Boston being burned to ashes by the fire of racial divide. It was a day in which I fell in love and had my heart broken and even now, when I think about it, I get emotional.

Washington, D.C.

November 7, 2000

NBS News Studio

7:20
P.M
. EST

“Now for the latest from the Davis campaign, we take you to a rain-soaked Miami and Butch Harper. Butch, what's the word from Miami?”

“In a word, Franklin, it is wet. Actually one might even say it's monsoonal. We've received almost eight inches of rain within the last ten hours here in south Florida, and we are told it has had a dramatic effect on voter turnout. The National Weather Service has informed us that the storm clouds will be over this region until two
A
.
M
. But it has not
deterred the almost jovial atmosphere tonight here in the ballroom of the Fontainebleau.

“In spite of the campaign loss of seven to ten points in the last three months, mere's a sense of real anticipation in the air. The campaign supporters are wearing buttons that read, ‘Tonight We Changed the World,' and they sincerely believe that they'll be a party to history. Pop icons Eric Clapton and Kenneth ‘Babyface' Edmonds have both flown into town and will be onstage at some point tonight to sing a song they had on the charts a couple of years ago, ‘If I Could Change the World.' That tune has been the unofficial theme song of this campaign in the last few weeks as it has been played at every campaign stop.

“So although it's a dead heat for the presidency according to our latest polls, hope is very much alive here in Miami. This is Butch Harper reporting from the Davis campaign headquarters in the grand ballroom of the Fontainebleau Hotel.”

Miami, Florida

Fontainebleau Hotel

Suite 1717

“Hail Mary, full of grace,” Leslie whispered, and touched her fingers to her forehead, her chest, her left, then right shoulder.

The wife of the candidate stood slowly, rubbed her knee, and sat on the corner of the king-sized bed. With the black lacquer television remote in hand, she flicked through several channels until she found CNN and a familiar face. She'd liked Bernard Shaw, who was a friend of the family, even when he was at CBS, and on this night she needed him to hold her hand until it was all over.

As she leaned back on her pillows and ignored the wrinkles forming in her designer dress, she kicked off her shoes and dug her toes into the thick paisley comforter. It felt good to relax for a moment.

The bedroom of the jasmine-scented suite was completely
dark except for the blue light emanating from the television, and she could hear the supporters in the living room erupt as soon as the
H
in her husband's name was heard. Her administrative assistant had left the suite to meet with her press secretary, so Leslie took a half Valium with a glass of red wine to soothe her mind. She never allowed anyone to see her take medication. Not even an aspirin. No one, except her husband and a physician friend of the family, knew about the Valium, because they remembered '88 and what Kitty Dukakis had gone through. If Henry were to lose, history would point to her as the reason, and she did not want to bring any additional harm to this campaign.

LESLIE

My name is Yvette Leslie Shaw-Davis. I am forty-seven years old, five feet six and a half, a member of Delta Alpha Rho incorporated,
Ooop Skiii
. I attend mass twice a week, and I am a graduate of Georgetown Law.

I weigh just under one-ten, work out every morning with a videotape from our friend Billy Blanks, and I typically wear my shoulder-length hair in a soft flip.

My complexion is what one may call cocoa, and my eyes and nose are nothing special.

I handle the money in our family, and let's just say we're financially well off due to investing in a small Florida-based company when I graduated which is now known as Red Lobster.

I was born in Rome, New York, in the autumn of '53 and we moved to California for my dad's job in '67. He came home one Friday after work and announced to us at dinner that we would be moving, and my mom never stopped sipping her tea.

My brother, sister, and I looked in her direction, and all she said was, eat your food and stop looking at me. Next thing we knew, she was calling movers, and in a week we were in the station wagon headed toward the Pacific.

As we rode through the mountains of Pennsylvania, I realized
I could never be a woman like that. The kind of woman who would follow orders without question. The sort of woman who would find an unknown shade of lipstick on a shirt and simply put it in cold water or will herself to believe that men always kept phone numbers folded up in their wallet. That was my mom. Quiet. Reserved. Never going against the grain. I knew that could never be me.

Regarding my name, I've never cared for it. It doesn't seem to flow like other names, such as Eleanor Roosevelt. Her name floats from your mouth like warm air in winter. Or Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy. That's a name that forces one to say it slowly because one's lips actually
kiss
themselves when they form the words. She didn't have a name. She had a poem.

On the other hand, mine just does not do it for me. Henry's brother told him before our first campaign that my name would sound better if I went by Leslie instead of Yvette. He thought that Yvette sounded too ethnic, which is a code word for black. So I went with it. Now even my husband calls me Leslie.

Henry and I are the same age, and he is the validation that there is a Supreme Being, and that
She
loves me beyond compare. I know this because no other entity could bring so much happiness to someone like me and I know the sole reason She created me was to love Henry.

When I think of the good times we've shared I feel closer to heaven than earth, but don't get me wrong, I'm not a “stand by your man whatever the reason” type of woman, but I can say that I have been blessed with him . . . and Henry was definitely blessed with me.

Henry's eyes are as dark as sapphires and nearly as unforgettable. All it takes is a little sunlight to make him squint, which does not make for the best photographs, but when you see them clearly, it's hard to look away.

The man has never, at forty-seven, had a single gray hair. A producer for
Prime Time Live
in a preproduction meeting asked him to come clean and tell him what he did to his hair. When he was asked that question, I could see Henry get a little agitated. This same producer asked the other
candidates about their stance on China or campaign finance. When he got to us, he asked Henry about hair dye and why he, like Oprah, Bill Cosby, and Colin Powell, was considered to be
colorless
.

On the other hand, my hair has been graying slowly since I turned thirty. I did not have a strand of gray hair until the morning of my thirtieth birthday. I looked into the mirror that day and started howling. It was not me looking back. It was Aunt Esther from
Sanford and Son
, in the flesh. Teddy, which is my pet name for Henry, ran down the hallway into the bathroom thinking I'd hurt myself. When he saw the three strands I'd just plucked, he didn't laugh, as I am sure some men would have. He didn't patronize me by saying there were
only
three strands. He understood. He's always like that, although at times it's not readily apparent. Teddy wrapped both his arms around me like a first-time mother holding her newborn, rested his chin on my head as we rocked slowly to unheard music, and said, “I wish you could see you through my eyes.”

And then, lowering his voice, Teddy said, “I once heard that angels congregate on the shores of the ocean at sunrise. And that the moment is so beautiful, they could actually hear music in the rising of the sun. Leslie, even if I were one day able to witness such a moment, I know it could never compare to the beauty I've found in you.” And then he told me, with his voice as soft as church music and just as emotional, to look at myself in the mirror. As I opened my eyes, for the life of me, all I could see was him. But it seems since the day we met, all I've ever seen was him.

A friend heard me quietly call him Teddy, which is something I rarely do in front of others, and asked me why. Because, I told her, they could have Henry. Henry belonged to the world, but Teddy was all mine.

My calling him Teddy is a curse in a way. I gave him the name because he reminded me of a big, cuddly teddy bear. When he ran for president it got leaked on the Internet that I called him Teddy and he received hundreds of teddy bears from women around the world. As a result, the teddy bear became our unofficial campaign mascot, which he initially
felt trivialized the seriousness of his efforts, but I think he soon grew fond of it.

I must admit, and I would never tell anyone this because they would never understand, but a small part of me would like for us to lose tonight. I know the notion is maniacal, and I feel ashamed even admitting it to myself when you think of the historical relevance and social implications, but that's how I feel in my heart.

I hate sharing my husband with the world, and I don't think that's necessarily a selfish emotion. Having him burned in effigy and talked about like a dog in the papers and on the news shows every day is not something I look forward to. Add to that the fact that if we should win, for the next four or possibly eight years I will not be able to sleep peacefully knowing there is someone somewhere just flunking of ways to assassinate—no, let's call it for what it is,
kill
—him.

Saying JFK was assassinated takes the sting off what happened. John Fitzgerald Kennedy was killed in front of the world, and having my husband subjected to that possibility is something I dread.

I assured Henry that I was over the scare of what happened in the parking lot in Omaha, but I will never forget it. I will never see him pack his bags and leave, and take it for granted that I'll see him again. If the security officer had been a fraction of a second slower, there would be no Henry Louis—I don't want to think about it. Damn those tears. So if he loses tonight, maybe, just maybe, we can fall in love. Again.

If Teddy were not a politician, I am sure he would be a history professor, because he is enamored by the subject. I once heard him tell a reporter how important 1968 was to the fight for civil rights. When he thinks of '68 he thinks of the race to the moon, Muhammad Ali, and McCarthy. Ironically, when I think of '68, the first thing to cross my mind is TV dinners. Weird, huh? I told Teddy that once, and I bet he still gets a laugh out of it.

I was not socially aware then. I did not watch the freedom riders get hosed down the streets of Selma like litter. I had
no idea that Brezhnev, Khrushchev, and Kosygin were names of people I should know, and while I hate to admit it, my family and I didn't even watch the King funeral processional on TV. In the Shaw household, having pro-colored thoughts was looked upon as harboring contraband. You just didn't do it.

Looking back on my childhood, I realize we were raised
Brady Bunch-Leave It to
Beauer-suburban white. I think we watched
Get Smart
or something the night King's body was returned to Atlanta.

My dad was an interesting character. He was well educated, but inside he felt his skin was his sin. He used bleaching cream every morning just as most people used toothpaste. He used so much of it, it left his fingertips red and the skin on his face raw in places. As I grew older, I felt sorry for him because what he hated
most
was not who he was, but what was done to him by society, yet he never understood that. I think—well, I know—that is what attracted me to Henry. Henry always had a clear idea of himself and what he wanted, and people had to accept him on those terms.

In the late sixties I formulated my mission in life. It was simple. I would move to New York City and become incredibly rich. Doing what? I had no earthly idea whatsoever. All I knew was that I wanted a brownstone on the lower west side, a hideaway somewhere on the coast with a view of the Atlantic ocean, and a Fleetwood Cadillac.

I had a sister by the name of Kathleen and my younger brother is named Myles. I love them both equally, but Myles and I are a lot closer. I don't think Kathleen ever forgave me for doing the unforgivable. That is, being born. She is eight years older then me and was the only child for years. Then I came along and screwed up everything.

My parents used to go to this retreat for the firm's associates and their spouses every August and March in Southern California, and they would leave us home with her. She was a mean bitch. I remember one day getting into this fight with a girl who called me a nigger and being sent to the
principal's office. Well, he gave me three licks with the paddle and sent me home early. When I got there, Kathleen was already home.

I was fourteen or fifteen, which would have made her about twenty-three, and she attended a junior college or trade school or something. That day she did not go and was sitting on the couch smoking, which was totally forbidden in the Shaw household. So I just walked in and headed to my bedroom, but before I took one step up the stairs, she yelled, “Where the hell you think you going?”

“To my room.”

Without breaking eye contact with the TV, she said, “So you can't speak when you walk in a room?”

“Hey,” I said, and continued my march up to my room, still sore from the paddling.

“Stop!” she screamed without looking in my direction. “Put your book bag down . . . on the stairs . . . and come here.”

“Come on, Kat, don't start.”

She stood up. “Don't start what? Bisch, I told you to put down that bag and come here. Mom and Dad left
me
in charge of this house and I'm the boss. What I say goes!”

I stood there just staring at her and decided the best thing to do would be to go along and get it over with. So I walked back downstairs and stood sluggishly in front of her.