Inauguration Day

We got into Washington for the presidential inauguration the Friday before. At the last minute, about a day or two earlier, Kendra’s chief-of-staff told her she was planning to go to Washington with her, with us. Kendra objected. She had set up most of her political meetings while she was down there for after the inauguration on Monday. It had given us the whole weekend to ourselves.

None of her security was coming with her. The outgoing and incoming administrations didn’t agree on much, out of the few things our mainstream politics allow to be debated, but they both agreed local and state officials should not arrive with their own security but rely on federal protection services. Which is to say, Kendra was already travelling without much of an entourage. I had been hoping to travel with her alone, but I think she knew it wasn’t possible. In the end she relented. Kathy, her chief-of-staff, would join her on her itinerary Monday, and Greg would come down with us on Friday. They’d both stay at the same hotel, but mercifully on a different floor from us.

We had stopped fighting so much, the promise of a weekend together in a space that was new and fresh to us, unencumbered by our town, its commitments, or the expectations imposed on us as well as our own inhibitions, helped us cool down. Giving up trying to convince her not to go and accepting it as time we could spend together helped a lot too.

Greg didn’t end up getting much in the way. He could be very quiet, and knew how to get along, though we never spoke all that much despite his proximity to Kendra so often.

We took a train to Washington, the national passenger railroad company having a station in our city. Our city wasn’t the biggest in the country but it was pretty big after all. It’s only a few hours to Washington, not far enough to take a sleeper car there. I’d never been on one. We talked about it on the way down, I think I mentioned I’d never been on one and always wondered what it was like. It turned out she had taken a sleeper car across country while in college, her version of a European backpacking trip.

-You know those aren’t really trips with backpacks right?

-What do you mean?, I asked her.

-Those people stay at hostels and even hotels, Greg said. The backpack’s a metaphor.

-Of course, I laughed.

She had gotten one of those tickets where she could disembark where she wanted, and spent the summer of her sophomore year stopping at nearly every town along the train line, apparently the longest one the passenger rail company had in the country.

We took an early train and arrived around mid-day on Friday, even though we both hated D.C., for the same fundamental reasons, and should have just come in the evening. It was humid, and so it smelled bad, outsiders masqueraded as locals and there was always tourists, and of course the inherent corruption and dysfunction of the whole apparatus there. The dysfunction for sure is by design, and not in a checks and balances kind of way, in a make something big enough and everybody, everybody with means at least, can have their way with it kind of way.

About the only thing I liked about the capital was the national zoo, and I was looking forward to taking her there. On the train, Greg said a few times he was quite excited about the return of the pandas. My heart sunk when I realized he’d be coming with us.

Fortunately, Greg had been pulling my chain. He had an old friend in the city he would visit for lunch. A body man for some politician or other, a higher-end Greg. And besides, he explained, the pandas weren’t coming until next Friday.

The zoo was splendid, and we both agreed it was one of our best dates. The entire weekend felt like a dream, and I couldn’t shake the feeling it was the calm before the storm, even though I didn’t have any reason to believe it. The suicide note gnawed at me. Someone had to be rattling her for sure, but in the end, was it such a big deal? I let it go. But I couldn’t let go of the feeling more fighting was coming, that this was just a lull, full of a happiness we secretly wanted to destroy.

Kendra had not told the federal government she was coming on Friday. Kathy helped with the deception, booking two tickets Sunday night and labelling it 250117 when sending the scan over to the inauguration committee. Kathy could say she had accidentally scanned the wrong train tickets and obviously wasn’t trying to hide anything, because the document had the right Friday date. Kendra was always impressed by Kathy’s machinations but I thought it was a bit silly and overdone.

In the end, the committee put Kendra down as a Sunday arrival and her federal protection service officer, Agent Crawford, texted her Sunday night from the lobby of the hotel. I wanted to go down with her but she said no. Kathy had already checked in, so Kendra went to her room and the two of them met the officer together. The hotel had one of those panopticon style indoor balconies you could look down to the lobby from. I watched at the railing as Kendra and Kathy went down the glass tube elevator to the lobby, crossing it in high heels to a couch where the agent sat. He stood to greet them. They chatted for a few seconds. Kendra’s arms moved to introduce Kathy and the agent, and then the three turned to head to the door, Kendra resting her hand on the small of Kathy’s back. Then Greg walked in from the entrance. They stopped, she introduced Greg to the officer, and the four headed out.

I went back into the room and ordered room service. I’d never done that before in my life. I had an entire rotisserie chicken sent up, with mashed potatoes and gravy and mixed vegetables on the side. I laid it out on the bed and ate it while watching television. At some point I passed out. Kendra returned late, holding her high heels in her hand and wearing sneakers. Greg had had them in his bag. The bag man indeed. She sounded quiet coming in, so maybe I wasn’t sleeping so heavily, or maybe I had only dreamed the way she floated in. She dropped a thick stack of papers on the table, which woke me fully.

-It was a long orientation, they’re really taking everything seriously, she said, thumbing through the stack and sighing in exasperation. Then she turned to me on the bed, pointing at the remnants of the food. I scrambled to move them and make space for her.

At the orientation, she learned the security gates opened at six in the morning, even though the opening remarks weren’t till 11:30 and the actual inauguration of course was at noon. She was used to getting up early but she hated waiting. The federal protection services had taken care of that. She’d arrive at eleven at a designated security gate. She also learned at the orientation that she was one of a few officials attending with their own federal protection service officer. Some state officials had them, usually because they insisted, but most lower-level officials were grouped four or five or more to an officer, even if they weren’t from the same places or even the same party, as long as they were staying at the same hotels, which most of them were.

Kendra got up early anyway, but we decided not to run. I stayed in the hotel all morning. I didn’t want to watch the inauguration even on television but in the end, I relented. Maybe I’d see Kendra, I thought to myself. There were a couple of cutaways to her, and even some comments about her from the talking heads covering the ceremonies. I saw Jeff, who Kendra later said she got a chance to talk to there, telling me he’d gotten a job with the new administration. She wouldn’t admit there’d been anything between her and Jeff, and I didn’t have to assure her I’d dropped it, but she did admit she had always been a little worried about what Jeff might think about us. It turned out, he was happy. I told her I could have told her that.