Eliza had a sneaky look on her face, like she’d done something bad. “I have something to tell you,” she said. We were in the teachers’ lounge while the kids were at recess, throwing candy-colored kickballs at each other and scaling the building’s walls. She set me up on a blind date, she revealed. “I know this really sweet guy, and I just have this idea that he’d be perfect for you.”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Dating isn’t really on my radar. I prefer to focus on the kids.”
“And that’s great,” she said. “I’ve always been an admirer of your passion. But don’t you deserve to have a little fun sometimes?”
“I’m having fun now,” I said.
Eliza was a little younger, a teacher who still thought most kids in her class hate her for whatever reason. She sighed and slipped me a piece of paper that said Dolores’ on 18th, 8pm, tomorrow. “Please show up,” she said. “He’s a good guy.”
It turned out I was curious. I buzzed about the unknown man who would take a chance on a random teacher, all because of Eliza’s recommendation. I had no idea how much Elisa knew about me, and how much of that she had told him. And anyways, I liked Dolores’.
The next night at the restaurant, the maitre d’ showed me to a private table in a VIP section, hidden from other guests. He must have been either very shy or very rich. I was right on time. I felt strange, a lady in waiting. I was convinced he should have been there earlier to pull out my chair and compliment my outfit.
Two men in black suits and earplugs entered the area without speaking to me. One lifted up the tablecloth and got on his knees to inspect underneath while the other scanned the walls. I was afraid the restaurant had been a crime syndicate this whole time. The men remained silent as they worked. One sifted through the petals of the roses on the table, their final task. Once he was done, he said to me, “Have a nice dinner, ma’am.”
After they exited, my date sat down; it was the President of the United States of America. “I apologize for all of that hullabaloo,” he said, and I noted that I had never heard a politician use that word. He shook my hand and introduced himself. I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of knowing who he was, but it was clear that I froze when he first walked in.
“I didn’t vote for you,” I said instead of greeting. “Or the other guy, either. I’m not really… involved in that.”
“That’s perfect,” he said with a smile. “That way you can get to know me, and not Mr. President.”
I wasn’t lying to him. I knew nothing about politics. I didn’t like voting; my polling place was at a nearby library, which reminded me of a particularly stern woman’s glare as I returned my books in the second grade. Crowds scared me, so I never showed up to protests. Whichever way the presidency swang didn’t seem to affect me all that much, no matter how much my friends convinced me it was important. Wavering grocery prices seemed to me a whim of the global marketplace, not whether the man in charge was wearing a red or blue tie.
“To tell you the truth,” he said, “I don’t want to be with someone who agrees with me about everything. A healthy debate can sometimes be just as erotic as sex.”
I agreed just as our salads came. “It’s a fixed menu,” he said. “I hope that’s okay. We just can’t risk poisonings.”
“I understand,” I said. As he picked at his salad I remembered, vaguely, something from around the time of his candidacy — the op-eds and warnings about how he’d be the first presidential bachelor in American history. It was like a stain on his record, an insurmountable obstacle to the highest office, like Pete Buttigieg’s homosexuality or Cory Booker’s lazy eye. If he can’t keep a girl down, how could he do the same for the country? some asked. But others said it meant he’d have less to focus on. His opponent displayed his heavily glammed, tranquilized wife at events where he teased him with schoolyard insults. Many pundits said that his erectile dysfunction jab is what cost him the presidency.
“Eliza says you work together as teachers,” he said. “I think that’s the single most undervalued job in American society.”
I wanted to tell him to knock it off. He wasn’t here trying to earn my vote — or maybe he was. But I played along. I told him that I liked teaching, that I liked reading books, that I liked to bake on Sundays. I tried to be unremarkable; I wasn’t very attracted to him. Besides, I wasn’t equipped to be a First Lady, or a First Girlfriend — my duty was to my students, and I didn’t have enough fancy dresses.
We each had one glass of wine and shared a small chocolate cake. He paid and asked if he could kiss me on the cheek, which I accepted. He let me leave first, since his security guys had to sweep the place and make sure it was safe again. As I was leaving, he said he hoped to see me again soon, and I nodded.
“Why didn’t you tell me he was the president?” I asked Eliza the next day.
“He’s more of a reserved guy,” she said, squirting a packet of mayonnaise onto her lettuce sandwich. “I didn’t want to scare you.”
I explained that he was a nice guy, but I didn’t think it would work out. Eliza seemed saddened at the fact that her suggestion hadn’t panned out how she thought it would.
I shrugged. “He’s just got a lot going on right now.”
I played coy with my students, but I quickly got bored of our English lesson about similes and metaphors. I smiled a little. Something special had happened to me yesterday, yet I didn’t have anyone to brag about it to. I knew the kids would be interested that I met a political figure; I hoped their social studies teacher had talked to them about this stuff.
I turned away from the whiteboard. “Do you all want to know who I met last night?”
They all screamed yes.
“Can you guess?”
One kid guessed Santa Claus, another, his mom.
“Here’s a hint. He’s in charge of the entire country.”
“The president?” a smart child named Dan yelled.
“Yes!” I said. “I had dinner with the President of the United States of America.” I shouldn’t have been talking about this in the middle of the day, but I didn’t have time to call up a girlfriend and gab. And I couldn’t dish with Eliza, since he was her friend. Teachers were not supposed to talk about their relationships. But everyone knew when teachers were married, a loophole that irked me. I figured if I didn’t mention that my meeting with the president had a romantic intent, then I should be fine.
The kids were excited, as I expected. A lot of them jumped up and down. It was so nice to have someone interested in my stories! “He was very nice,” I said once they quieted down. “He smelled like oak.”
“Why were you with the president?” This question came from Eustace, a child I didn’t like because her name was Eustace. I know this was unreasonable, but if I disliked the child, then I’d be disliking 50% of both her mother and father, and hopefully that would cover the part of them that would think to name her Eustace.
“We were just hanging out,” I said.
“Did he hang out with all of the other teachers?” Eustace asked.
“Nope,” I said. “Just me.”
“But why?”
“He just stopped into town.” I tried to turn back to the lesson, but Eustace interrupted me.
“But why… you? Why didn’t he come into the class? I see presidents reading to children all the time. Or holding rallies. Why would he just see you?”
“Well, you can write a letter to him and ask. Now, let’s talk about hyperbole. If—”
“Miss, I’m sorry, but I’m quite curious about your night. I don’t know why the president would solely visit you and not other townspeople. Does anyone else know why he would do that?” she asked the kids around her. Eustace had the irritating trait of being able to turn the class against me. A spat with her usually lasts 10 minutes if I’m unable to quell it early.
“It’s not important,” I said.
“But you brought it up,” she said.
“Now the conversation is over and we have to talk about English,” I said.
“Did he have dinner at your house or at a restaurant?” a meek boy named Tim asked.
“That’s a good question,” Eustace said.
I sighed. I didn’t quell it in time. “It was at a restaurant.”
“A fancy restaurant or a Waffle House?” Eustace asked.
“A Waffle House,” I said.
“My mother works at Waffle House,” Tim said.
“Hyperbole is when—”
“What did you eat?” Eustace asked.
“Salads and steaks.”
“What color were the flowers?” Eustace asked.
“Red.”
“It was a date! He brought you flowers, it was a date!” Eustace shrieked.
My cheeks went red. I can’t believe I got got by this little asshole. All the kids were taunting me, calling me Missus First Lady and asking if he smooched me and if I had cooties now. My plan had failed, but I suppose there was a fallback: if they told anyone about this, it’d seem like they were just making it up.
The next week, I faced the consequences of my actions. Sitting in my office was the hefty and combative Mrs. Ivanov, mother of Eustace Ivanov, looking red and disgruntled. I said hello to her and extended my hand, which she did not take.
“I know you’re fucking that commie,” she said.
“Oh, Lord.”
“This is about Eustace’s education and Eustace’s education only. And I don’t want her to be taught by a spy from the government who’s got extramarital affairs with the executive branch.”
“I’m not married,” I said. “And I agree with you, this is about Eustace’s education. Are you aware of how much she interrupts during class and forms a coalition against me?”
“Well, she’s a critical thinker. You’re probably jamming partisan bullshit down her throat.”
“Ma’am,” I said, “I have no political beliefs. I have never voted. My friend Eliza set me up on a blind date, and the guy happened to be the President of the United States. This was unplanned and very random. I’m not even seeing him again.”
“Like hell you won’t. Hussies like you are always hunting for new jobs, so I can imagine just how comfortable the Oval Office is for your kind. Teachers,” she spat. “You’re why I cheat on my tax forms.”
“You can always un-enroll her in my class,” I said, which would be the best scenario for me.
“Nah,” she said. “She’s my eyes on the ground. She tells me everything. Gotta make sure you’re not infecting these precious kiddos with your ignorant beliefs. If I hear one word of proselytizing I’m taking your ass to court for one million bucks.”
“You can do that,” I said, as she left my room angrily. I felt entirely justified in my hatred of this woman; I now knew it was certainly her and her alone that decided on Eustace, a terrible name for that stain of a child.
Against my better judgment, I set up another date with the president. He could understand how I’m feeling, I’m sure, and I wanted to rant to him about being unfairly prosecuted for my involvement with him.
“Tell that to my former defense secretary!” he joked when I told him that, but, of course, I didn’t laugh. I had no idea who that was.
He cleared his throat. “Um, but I totally get it,” he said, resting a hand on my knee. “That sounds like a terrible situation. I hate children like that. But I, uh, love all children. But in an appropriate way.”
We were at my small apartment, unfit for a man with a terribly large aura. Politics seeped from him like sweat. I could feel him analyzing my attractiveness like an exit poll. I had seen him in stadiums, in North Korea, in outer space, and here he was in my beige home. He kissed me on the cheek when he came in, set a bottle of wine on the counter. Going on a second date implies sex, and inviting him to my home confirms it. He was still in his suit, coming from the office where he signed bills and called senators or whatever he did all day.
Slowly he revealed his personality to me. It was stifled during our first meeting, but the absence of his security team (waiting outside my door) meant he could relax a little. He was funny in a strange way, and I found that I cared about what he had to say, so long as he didn’t talk about the government. He probably found my education-related complaining boring too, but he’d never say.
I looked at this man and watched his profession slip away from him. In here, he was just some guy. I didn’t own a television, so we couldn’t watch the news, where no doubt he would be featured. He was just a man and I was just a woman. When he left, of course, he’d have to act, be bigger than who he is. But in my apartment he was learning to be himself. Secretly I believed this was comforting to him.
I saw him as a boy whose dreams of the presidency hadn’t been realized yet. He could still go to the grocer’s without it being a photo op. He could still play with friends and be roughhoused. He could go on a date and make a strange food choice without it being national news. I think he liked being with me, a total nobody, because it made him feel like one too, like he didn’t really matter. I felt the urge to ask him if he ever wanted to leave, for good, get plastic surgery and escape to an island and never have to deal with any of this again. To live a life like mine.
Instead I inched closer to him on my stain-ridden couch. He coughed and looked away. It was endearing that this man who had bombed the shit out of countries had trouble initiating a kiss. I realized that I had the possibility to seriously disrupt his thought process during work by sending him a flirtatious photo, which could lead to the collapse of the United States, if he wasn’t paying serious attention. Every newspaper around the world would show his boner on the front page. All because of me.
I pulled his tie close to me and kissed him. His lips smelled like bourbon. I wonder if I was the first constituent he’d ever kissed, consensually or non-consensually. Guys like that have a certain hold over women and most of them take advantage of it. I remembered this wasn’t a power thing since I didn’t even vote for him. I removed his jacket and asked if we could go to the bedroom. He just had to let his security team know that he was getting laid, but he said to undress and wait for him there.
I liked him as a sexual partner. You’d think the president would be pushy, forceful. But he was surprisingly adaptive to what I wanted to do, and reacted positively to my many erotic neuroses, allowing me to take my time with him and talk things through. He did what he was told and asked for feedback. We were building something special here. He came first, face twisting in a way I had never seen before in any debate or press conference. I was a part of history, I thought, something bigger than me. I came more forcefully than I ever had before. Our sweat was woven into the fabric of the American flag. It was disgusting, but who can blame a girl for wanting to be in the history books?
He didn’t speak to me after that. I didn’t text him at work the next morning, no matter how tantalizing the boner scandal would have been. I think Eliza knew we hooked up, but I didn’t say anything, so neither did she.
For the first time in my life, I watched the news. During my lunch break, I googled ‘president’ and watched him at a hearing regarding farmers. There was the man I knew, maybe a little more formal, but the man I had in my bed last night nonetheless.
As he answered questions I wanted some evidence of us to appear on his face somehow, a smirk during a pause, a moment of mind-wandering. But nothing happened. There was no trace of me on his body, maybe in his psyche. I suppose I got what I wanted. I was back to my ordinary life, being a nobody.
A couple weeks later, I had the pleasure of smelling Mrs. Eustace Ivanov from the hallway. I took a deep breath and wondered what I had done wrong, if I should just bail. But when I walked into my office, she stood up and hugged me.
“Oh, sweetie,” she said. “I’m so sorry.”
I told her I didn’t know what she was talking about.
“Haven’t you heard the news?” she asked.
I told her no, I didn’t like the news, the same as I told her during our first meeting. She pulled up a video clip of a suited reporter behind a desk breaking the latest Washington scandal: the president allegedly had more than 37 pre-planned dates in the past couple months, analyzing who would be a potential First Lady to restore public image. Voters were antsy he hadn’t secured a woman yet, and with re-election looming, he needed a bump in the polls. Chauvinists were saying he was just doing guy stuff, while feminists said he was tossing women around to play with. I wasn’t sure what I agreed with.
“Thank you for showing me, Mrs. Ivanov,” I said.
“Please, call me Eustace.”
I rolled my eyes. “Okay.”
“I didn’t mean to be so hard on you,” she said. “With you gettin’ tricked and all that.”
I didn’t really feel like it was trickery. It was a date that didn’t work out. Even if it had nefarious intent, it was still a way of life. Mrs. Ivanov exited and I sat at my desk, staring at the wall.
I guess I couldn’t have been too surprised. I always felt a thin layer of unreality between us, like our positions and choices in life had set us apart such that we could never fully understand each other. We had only seen each other twice, but I would have liked to try further.
I felt used, but I was okay with it. It was just what men like him did — that’s the name of the game. I didn’t sign an NDA, so I don’t even feel bad telling you his name now: George W. Bush. Yes, I fucked George W. Bush. Are you happy?
I couldn’t believe I was heartbroken over a politician. The slimy, conniving son of a bitch. My mother was right, as usual. I suppose it always comes back to her. When I was little, and we were forced to watch the political ads that came around every election season on the television, she’d turn to me with a serious look on her face. “The only good politician,” she said, “is a dead one.”