Three

Sure enough, just as I predicted, five days later I stand backstage at the Democratic National Convention, my feet pinched in stiletto-heeled, pointy-toed knee-high boots, listening to the Senate Minority Leader detail for a cheering crowd all the ways my father will work to reverse the environmentally unsound policies put in place by the last administration. I try to concentrate on the speech, but it’s pretty much impossible. Not only am I nervous about my own speech, which, according to the huge digital clock in the backstage area, is scheduled to begin in exactly 7 minutes and 42 seconds, but I’m also distracted by the incredible uncomfortableness of the outfit Suzette picked out for me.

First there are the shoes, which have already succeeded in introducing me to new levels of pain I had heretofore never dreamt of. I put them on this morning for several hundred laps around my hotel suite to make sure I could walk without falling flat on my face. In retrospect, this was probably not such a good idea, as they left horrible blisters on my toes and the balls of my feet that the several band-aids I stuck on are doing little to cushion.

To go along with these lovely black leather instruments of torture, Suzette selected a gray tweedy skirt that flares at the knee and a sleeveless black satin top with with a little lace insert on the neckline. I love the skirt, and while the top looks a little too much like lingerie for my taste, I do have to admit that it looks pretty cute in the context of the outfit as a whole. Of course, I didn’t realize when we finally came to a consensus on this ensemble on our big shopping day that it would require me to wear some of the most restrictive undergarments known to man. First, there’s the push-up bra (“Never hurts to appeal to those young male voters,” Suzette told me with a conspiratorial little wink as she handed me bra after bra to try on, at which point I actually thought I might strangle her), which has enough padding to suddenly turn me into Anna Nicole Smith and is cutting off the circulation around my ribcage.

Then there’s the underwear. Oh, God, the underwear. Suzette calls it a “body shaper,” but to me, it resembles nothing so much as a girdle. Whatever it is, it took me nearly 10 minutes just to yank it on under my skirt this afternoon. Suzette says it will help the skirt “drape better,” but I suspect she’s just using it as payback for my insolence at the Vogue shoot.

I glance back at the clock. Six minutes and 30 seconds. As I nervously take another gulp out of my bottle of water, I suddenly realize that I’ve got to pee. Badly. Like, right now. It can’t wait until after the speech. I’ve been chugging water non-stop for the past half-hour or so to ensure that my mouth won’t be dry when I get up to the podium, and I chastize myself for not realizing the inevitable. But still, six minutes should be plenty of time to run down the hall to the green room, use the bathroom quickly and then get back to the stage before it’s time for my grand entrance.

“Suzette!” I hiss. She’s standing a few feet away from me, listening with rapt attention to the senator’s remarks. “Suzette!”

She whips around. “I’m just going to run to the bathroom,” I whisper. “I’ll be right back.”

As I turn to go, she reaches out and grabs my arm. “No!” she hisses. “You don’t have time! You’re on in five minutes.”

“I’ll be back in three,” I promise.

She screws up her face, studying the clock on the wall. “Two and a half,” she finally says.

I flash her a grateful smile and hurry down the hall to the green room, trying not to think about the excruciating pain shooting up from my feet. Entering the room, I make my way through the maze of fruit baskets and cheese trays and bound into the bathroom. No sooner do empty my bladder and breathe a sigh of relief than I hear a knock on the door.

“Julia!” Suzette’s voice cuts through the bathroom door.

I can’t believe it! What is she doing out there? There’s no way it’s been three minutes already.

“I’ll be right out!” I call, trying not to betray the frustration in my voice. As I begin my tug-of-war with my unweildy undergarment, I can hear Suzette pacing back in forth in front of the door. Good Lord, I think, it’s one thing to not let me pick out my own clothes, but now I can’t even be trusted to go to the bathroom by myself? I’m 20 years old—a full-fledged adult by most standards—and yet I’m being treated as if I’m a toddler.

Just as I’m giving the underwear a final violent tug into place, the bathroom door bursts open. In my hurry, I must have forgotten to lock it.

I start to smooth my skirt, but Suzette grabs my arm. “Come on!” she cries, and begins to race out of the green room. I attempt to follow her as quickly as possible, but I haven’t exactly mastered the art of running in stilettos (hell, I’ve barely mastered the art of walking in them), so I’m forced to adopt some sort of modified trot.

“What’s the rush?” I pant as we race down the hallway.

“Senator Mitchell finished early!” Suzette yells, not even bothering to glance back at me. “They want you on stage right now!”

“Now?!” I repeat, panicked. But there’s no time for me to work myself into a nervous frenzy—the next thing I know, Suzette is pushing me onstage, where all I can see is the glare of bright lights, and all I can hear is deafening applause. I take a deep breath, then smile and wave, and stride confidently to the podium.

This is no big deal, I tell myself. All I have to do is read off the teleprompter. The lights make it impossible for me to distinguish faces in the crowd and therefore very easy for me to pretend that I’m the only one in the room.

“Good evening,” I say, slightly startled by the sound of my voice echoing throughout the cavernous hall, which has suddenly become very quiet.

“Over the past few days, you’ve heard lots of stories about the battles my father has waged in Washington,” I say, my voice growing more confident with each word. “You’ve heard how he’s taken on the lobbyists and the big corporations to stand up for the interests of hard-working people. But there’s one battle you haven’t heard about yet, and it’s the one that meant the most to me. So I’m here tonight to tell you the story of how my dad fought for the rights of Gertie, my second-grade class gerbil.”

This brings a low peal of laughter from the audience. As it dies down, I segue into my chosen anecdote: One day I came home from second grade, complaining to my father how sad Gertie looked in her tiny cage. I’d already taken the issue up with our teacher, Mrs. McAllister, but she’d informed me that we didn’t have enough money to buy her a bigger one. Dad helped me organize a petition and a fundraising campaign in which I convinced my fellow classmates to fork over their milk money for the next two weeks to help pay for a new cage for Gertie. When I presented Mrs. McAllister with the petition (signed by everyone in the second-grade class) and the money, she was so moved by my activism that she not only bought Gertie a new cage, but she also sprung for one of those little exercise balls.

“If my father is elected president,” I say, wrapping up my speech, “I know he will fight just as hard for every person in America as he did for my class gerbil. And now, ladies and gentlemen”—my voice rises as the cheering begins again—“I’d like to introduce you to the man who taught me that no cause is too small to be worth fighting for—my father, and your next president, Charlie Rowan!”

At this, I extend my arm toward the back of the stage, where I see my dad walking out of the wings. He’s smiling and waving at the audience, but he keeps glancing at me urgently. I don’t have time to wonder why as I turn from the podium and begin to walk back across the stage, where I’m supposed meet him halfway for one of those affectionate father-daughter photo ops Suzette loves so much. As soon as my back is to the audience, I swear I hear the cheering get ten times louder. I assume that’s a reaction to my father’s entrance, but I decide to milk my moment for all it’s worth and throw my head back around, giving the audience a coy little smile and a wave. The cheering gets even louder, and I turn to my father, smiling, and give him a little shrug as if to say, “They really love me, don’t they?” He meets my eyes, and I can see that he still has that urgent look.

We meet in the middle of the stage, and when he bends down to kiss me on the cheek, he whispers something in my ear that sounds like, “The wonder bread is snowing.” I know that can’t be right, but I can’t hear him very well over all the applause. I pull back and give him a quizzical look.

Suddenly, he pulls me into a huge bear hug, and I feel his hand reach down and tug something on my waistband. I freeze in horror as I feel fabric fall down my legs and swish around the backs of my knees.

“I said, ‘Your underwear is showing,’” my dad whispers, enunciating a little more clearly this time, but he needn’t bother. I’ve gotten the message, loud and clear.

With a little pat on the back, he lets me go and keeps walking across the stage. For a moment, I can’t move, paralyzed by the sheer embarrassment of knowing that I’ve just mooned the entire country. I look up and see my mom and Suzette gesturing wildly to me in the wings, and I hurry backstage as fast as my stiletto heels will carry me.

“Oh God, oh God, oh God,” I moan, rushing into my mother’s open arms and burying my face into her shoulder. “Please tell me that did not happen. Please tell me this is all just one big nightmare.”

“I’m afraid it did,” my mom says, and all of a sudden I notice that her shoulders are shaking. I look up to see that she’s practically crying from trying to hold in her laughter.

“Mom!” I cry. “This is not funny!”

“I’m sorry, Julia,” she says, wiping her eyes and taking a deep breath. Seeing the look of outrage on my face, she continues, “I shouldn’t be laughing, I know. I know it’s embarrassing for you. But it’s just when you turned around and gave the audience that little wave, I just…I just…” She devolves into a fit of giggles once again.

“Mom!” I stomp my foot this time for added emphasis.

“Oh, honey,” she says, ceasing her laughter and softening her voice. “You’ve got to have a sense of humor about this kind of stuff.”

I glare at her silently to let her know exactly how likely I think that is.

“I’m sure everyone will have forgotten this by tomorrow morning,” she says reassuringly. Again, I can only glower in silence.

“Okay, why don’t you head on back to the hotel?” she says, patting my arm and giving me a hopeful smile. “You can take a nice hot bath and forget all about this.” I nod meekly, forcing the corners of my mouth up in a small smile. “Wait right here, and I’ll go get Suzette and have her call a car for you.”

As my mom hurries off to find Suzette, I look out at the stage, trying to concentrate on my dad’s speech rather than the snickers and whispers of the campaign staff members milling around behind me. When Suzette finally taps me on the shoulder and indicates that the car is ready for me, I don’t think I’ve ever been so happy to see her in my life. Then again, seeing her face just brings the whole debacle crashing back to the front of my mind. If she hadn’t made me wear that ridiculous girdle thing in the first place, and then hadn’t yanked me out of the bathroom before I’d had time to properly adjust it, none of this would have happened in the first place.

Suzette at least seems to feel some sort of contrition for her role in tonight’s turn of events. She’s noticeably silent as she escorts me to the back entrance of the convention center, where a car is waiting to take me back to my suite at the Waldorf.

“Well,” she says with forced perkiness as I climb into the car, “get a good night’s sleep. We’ve got a big day ahead of us tomorrow—kick-off rally in the morning, and then we board the bus and head off across America!”

Needless to say, I can’t quite muster the phony enthusiasm to match hers, so I just stare at her stonily and finally manage a clipped, “Good-night, Suzette.”

I sink down in the seat, my head in my hand, as the car zips down Broadway. Maybe my mom is right, I think. Maybe I am making too big a deal of this. I mean, so my underwear was showcased on national television for millions of people to see. So what? Worse things have happened, right? I can’t really think of any right now, but I’m sure they have. And maybe people will be so enthralled with my dad’s speech that my embarrassing incident will be completely forgotten. After all, what’s more important—a presidential nomination acceptance speech, or a tiny little embarrassing mishap?

By the time we reach the hotel, I feel much better. I plop down on the bed in my room and turn on the TV, hoping I can catch the end of my dad’s speech—or at least a sound bite from it on the evening news. But it seems I’m too late even for that, as Leno’s already on the screen, giving his opening monologue.

“Say, did you catch Julia Rowan’s big appearance at the convention tonight?” Leno asks the audience. They respond with wild applause. “I’d say she’s really working her ass off for her father’s campaign, wouldn’t you?” I flip the channel as the audience roars with laughter.

“Ladies and gentlemen, take a look at this,” Letterman is saying on the next channel. The image of me, smiling and waving while my underwear hangs out for the world to see, pops up on the screen. “Now, Julia, I know you want to raise money for your dad’s campaign,” Letterman says to the camera, “but you’re not going to make much if it’s all in ones.” The band’s drummer responds with the requisite ba-dum-ching, and I switch the TV off, feeling dejected once again. Perhaps the hot bath my mom mentioned isn’t such a bad idea.

As I watch the tub fill up with steaming water, I think of one of my favorite quotes from Sylvia Plath: “There must be quite a few things a hot bath won’t cure, but I don’t know many of them.” I sink down into the tub, feeling the warmth pass over my body and relax all of my muscles, and suddenly I know exactly what she means.