“Oh, Lord,” the Republican husband said. “Here we go again.”
“No, I’ve never understood. Tell me about your marriage.”
“It’s a good marriage,” the Democrat wife said. “We fight forty-nine percent of the time and hump-and-bump the other fifty-one.”
Funny and crass! How much had she drunk before she came to dinner? How many alcoholic Democratic women can you fit into a lightbulb? I don’t know, go ask Teddy Kennedy.
“No, really,” said the single white woman. “I mean, don’t you ever wonder how a hard-core Republican like Mary Matalin can be successfully married to a hard-core Democrat like James Carville?”
“Oh, don’t bring those cannibals up,” said the husband. “We always have to talk about those headhunters.”
“Aren’t you two cute?” said the wife. She mimicked the idiots she’d heard so often before: “‘You’re, like, the Mary Matalin and James Carville of Seattle! Come on, argue for us, argue for us!’”
“Sometimes it feels more like theater than marriage,” said the husband.
“Well, you guys made that choice when you married each other, right?” said the single white woman. “You were Democrat and Republican when you met, right?”
“I didn’t mean our marriage was theater.”
“All right, but what is your marriage? What does it mean?”
She wasn’t going to let it go. She was a storm maker! I wanted her to rain down on me!
“You know what I love about this restaurant,” said the other Republican husband, trying to change the subject. “I love that you can smoke. What good is French food without a cigarette?”
“Oui, oui,” said his wife. “I’ve got an unfiltered Camel in one hand and a fork in the other.”
“But is it the correct fork?” asked the Democrat wife.
“Let’s see, I have my salad fork, first-course fork, second-course fork, dessert fork, and yes, here it is, I have my cancer fork.”
They laughed, entertained by their collective wit.
“Hey,” I said to the single white woman. “What’s your name?”
“Teresa.”
“I’m Richard,” I said and offered my hand.
“I know,” she said and took my hand. “You already said that.”
We held hands a moment longer than necessary. It was no longer a polite greeting; it had become a tactile series of questions. Are we gonna? Do you wanna? Will it be juicy and joyous? I wanted to impress her: I wanted to be a member of her tribe.
“You know, I agree with Teresa,” I said to the others. “I’ve always suspected that in mixed marriages, one of the partners is lying about his or her politics.”
“Are you calling me a liar?” asked the Republican husband. He’d switched on his lobbyist voice, loud, clear, and resonant. I’d bet a million dollars he soaked in his bathtub at night and pretended he was a guest on Crossfire or Hannity & Colmes or Meet the Press. Hey, little Tucker, what do you want to be when you grow up? I want to be a bow-tied talking head.
“I’m not calling anybody a liar, I’m just talking theory here,” I said. “Hypothesis. I’m not talking about your marriage in particular. I don’t know you folks at all. I’m talking about politically mixed marriages in general.”
Jesus, what the hell was I doing? How impolitic could I be? But Teresa seemed to be enjoying it. I wondered how soon I would see her naked.
“The thing is,” I said, “maybe both partners in those marriages are lying. When it counts most — at its most intimate, when two lovers are beneath the sheets — I figure Matalin and Carville are moderates who believe in truth, justice, and multiple orgasms.”
“Well, hell, yes!” shouted the Democrat wife. “Now, that’s a subject we can all agree on!”
Okay, I was clumsy and obvious in introducing sex as a topic of conversation. But Teresa already knew sex was on my mind, and I wanted her to wonder about the quality and quantity of the sex. I looked at her. I regarded her. She smiled, and only the poets know what bright shapes a bright container can contain.
“We all want to be special,” I said. “We all want to be the last surviving member of our species. A right-wing woman like Matalin is the only woolly mammoth, and Carville is the most singular white donkey ever born in the state of Louisiana. So maybe Matalin and Carville wear public masks over private faces.”
“Or maybe they’re like house cats,” Teresa said.
“What?” I asked, puzzled by her analogy.
“No, really,” she said. “We didn’t domesticate cats. They domesticated themselves. But not totally, you know? You take a good look at any house cat, and you can tell there’s eventually going to be a day when it goes back wild, you know? When it reverts to its true nature. You fall over and die in a house with your dog, and your dog will lie down beside your dead body, maybe right on top of it, and starve to death. But a house cat will feast on your eyes as soon as its stomach starts growling.”
“So what are you?” I asked. “A cat or a dog?”
“Depends on the situation,” she said.
I stayed too long after dinner because she stayed too long after dinner. We wanted to be left alone together, but we didn’t want to leave together while everybody was watching. We stood at the bar and talked for a few hours about the usual things, but she was unusually smart and funny and tender. I thought about marriage. God, I felt like a sixteen-year-old girl eagerly reading Bride’s magazine. And then I saw our reflections in the mirror behind the bar. She was short, blond, blue-eyed, and white-skinned. I was tall, black-haired, brown-eyed, and brown-skinned, the love child of Crazy Horse and Josephine Baker, of Sacajawea and Julius Erving, of Zora Neale Hurston and Geronimo, of Pocahontas and Malcolm X. I thought about genetics. What kind of kids would Teresa and I produce? What would they look like? I wondered if a black Indian could stand at the victor’s podium and thank his white wife and half-white children for all of their support during the long and successful campaign. Sadly, I decided no candidate would deliver that speech during my lifetime, and probably not during my future children’s lifetime. A simple politico dinner had presented me with a profound moral dilemma. It was a wonderful opportunity for me to self-define. Were my eccentric needs as an individual more important than the country’s desperate need for excellent leadership? I knew I would never achieve my full potential as a public servant if I married a white woman. I would lose votes each time I kissed my wife in public, and I would lose thousands of votes if my wise and terrible opponents created campaign ads that featured public displays of affection between my white wife and me. Any such ads would verbally attack my liberal politics, but the visuals would silently condemn miscegenation. You might think I’m overreacting. But I’ve learned it’s never too early to make your first political mistake. Teresa might have been a wonderful life partner, but I knew my country needed me more than any future wife might. Did I make the correct decision? Personally speaking, I was wrong. Politically speaking, I had no choice. But I didn’t cause Teresa any significant pain. I could have taken her home that night, slept with her, and abandoned her. But I am not that kind of man. I am not cruel.
Instead I said good night to Teresa, and gave her my card, and promised to call her, but I never did. After that night, I often saw her at meetings, rallies, fund-raisers, and dinners, and we always exchanged pleasantries. The last time I saw her, she told me she had quit her job and was moving to Paris to experience a different part of the world. I warmly congratulated her and wished her well, but I felt abandoned by her. I had no right to feel that way. I barely knew the woman and had spent only a few close hours with her, but she’d become a religious symbol for me. She was my Lent, my forty days of fasting and penitence, and by denying myself her possibilities, I felt like a stronger and more faithful man.