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Page 35


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  My whole family came for the inauguration. My aunts, uncles, and cousins came. Our friends from Hyde Park came, along with my girlfriends and their spouses. Everyone brought their kids. We’d planned twin festivities for the big and small people over inauguration week, including a kids’ concert, a separate lunch for kids to take place during the traditional luncheon at the Capitol right after the swearing in, and a scavenger hunt and children’s party at the White House that would go on while the rest of us went to inaugural balls.

  One of the surprise blessings of the final few months of campaigning had been an organic and harmonious merging of our family with Joe Biden’s. Though they’d been political rivals only months earlier, Barack and Joe had a natural rapport, both of them able to slide with ease between the seriousness of their work and the lightness of family.

  I liked Jill, Joe’s wife, right away, admiring her gentle fortitude and her work ethic. She’d married Joe and become stepmother to his two sons in 1977, five years after his first wife and baby daughter were tragically killed in a car accident. Later, they’d had a daughter of their own. Jill had recently earned her doctorate in education and had managed to teach English at a community college in Delaware not just through Joe’s years as a senator but also through his two presidential campaigns. Like me, she was interested in finding new ways to support military families. Unlike me, she had a direct emotional connection to the issue: Beau Biden, Joe’s older son, was serving in Iraq with the National Guard. He’d been granted a short leave to travel to Washington and see his dad get sworn in as vice president.

  And then there were the Biden grandkids, five altogether, all of them as outgoing and unassuming as Joe and Jill themselves. They’d shown up at the Democratic National Convention in Denver and swept Sasha and Malia right into their boisterous fold, hosting our girls for a sleepover in Joe’s hotel suite, all too happy to ignore the politics happening around them in favor of making new friends. We were grateful, always, to have the Biden kids around.

  Inauguration Day was bitingly cold, with temperatures never going above freezing and the wind making it feel more like fifteen degrees. That morning, Barack and I went to church with the girls, my mom, Craig and Kelly, Maya and Konrad, and Mama Kaye. All the while, we were hearing that people had begun forming lines at the National Mall before dawn, bundled up as they waited for the inaugural activities to begin. As cold as I would eventually get that day, I’d forever remember how many people stood outside for many more hours than I did, convinced it was worth it to endure the chill. We’d learn later that nearly two million people had flooded the Mall, arriving from all parts of the country, a sea of diversity, energy, and hope stretching for more than a mile from the U.S. Capitol past the Washington Monument.

  After church, Barack and I headed to the White House to join up with Joe and Jill, along with President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, and their wives, all of us gathering for coffee and tea before motorcading together to the Capitol for the swearing in. At some point earlier, Barack had received the authorization codes that would allow him to access the country’s nuclear arsenal and a briefing on the protocols for using them. From now on, wherever he went, he’d be closely trailed by a military aide carrying a forty-five-pound briefcase containing launch authentication codes and sophisticated communications devices, often referred to as the nuclear football. That, too, was heavy.

  For me, the ceremony itself would become another one of those strange, slowed-down experiences where the scope was so enormous I couldn’t fully process what was going on. We were ushered to a private room in the Capitol ahead of the ceremony so that the girls could have a snack and Barack could take a few minutes with me to practice putting his hand on the small red Bible that had belonged 150 years earlier to Abraham Lincoln. At that same moment, many of our friends, relatives, and colleagues were finding their seats on the platform outside. It occurred to me later that this was probably the first time in history that so many people of color had sat before the public and a global television audience, acknowledged as VIPs at an American inauguration.

  Barack and I both knew what this day represented to many Americans, especially those who’d been a part of the civil rights movement. He’d made a point of including the Tuskegee Airmen, the history-making African American pilots and ground crews who fought in World War II, among his guests. He’d also invited the group known as the Little Rock Nine, the nine black students who in 1957 had been among the first to test the Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education decision by enrolling at an all-white high school in Arkansas, enduring many months of cruelty and abuse in the name of a higher principle. All of them were senior citizens now, their hair graying and shoulders curving, a sign of the decades and maybe also the weight they’d carried for future generations. Barack had often said that he aspired to climb the steps of the White House because the Little Rock Nine had dared to climb the steps of Central High School. Of every continuum we belonged to, this was perhaps the most important.

  Almost exactly at noon that day, we stood before the country with our two girls. I remember really only the smallest things—how brightly the sun fell across Barack’s forehead just then, how a respectful hush came over the crowd as the Supreme Court chief justice, John Roberts, began the proceedings. I remember how Sasha, too small for her presence to register amid a sea of adults, stood proudly on a footstool in order to stay visible. I remember the crispness of the air. I lifted Lincoln’s Bible, and Barack placed his left hand on it, vowing to protect the U.S. Constitution—with a couple of short sentences, solemnly agreeing to take on the country’s every concern. It was weighty and at the same time it was joyful, a feeling mirrored in the inaugural speech Barack would then deliver.

  “On this day,” he said, “we gather because we have chosen hope over fear, unity of purpose over conflict and discord.”

  I saw that truth mirrored again and again in the faces of the people who stood shivering in the cold to witness it. There were people in every direction, as far back as I could see. They filled every inch of the National Mall and the parade route. I felt as if our family were almost falling into their arms now. We were making a pact, all of us. You’ve got us; we’ve got you.

  * * *

  Malia and Sasha were quickly learning what it meant to be watched publicly. I realized this once we climbed into the presidential limo and began our slow crawl to the White House, leading the inaugural parade. By then, Barack and I had said good-bye to George and Laura Bush, waving as they lifted off from the Capitol in a Marine helicopter. We’d also had lunch. Barack and I were served duck breast in a formal marbled hall inside the Capitol with a couple hundred guests, including his new cabinet, members of Congress, and the justices of the Supreme Court, while the girls feasted on their favorite delicacies—chicken fingers and mac and cheese—with the Biden kids and a handful of cousins in a nearby room.

  I marveled at how our daughters had managed themselves perfectly throughout the inauguration, never fidgeting, slouching, or forgetting to smile. We still had many thousands of people watching from the sides of the road and on television as the motorcade made its way up Pennsylvania Avenue, though the darkened windows made it difficult for anyone to see inside. When Barack and I stepped out to walk a short stretch of the parade route and wave to the public, Malia and Sasha stayed behind inside the warm cocoon of the moving limo. It seemed to hit them then that they were finally relatively alone and out of sight.

  By the time Barack and I climbed back in, the two girls were breathless and laughing, having released themselves from all ceremonial dignity. They’d shucked off their hats and messed up each other’s hair and were thrashing around, engaged in a sisterly tickle fight. Tired out, finally, they sprawled across the seats and rode the rest of the way with their feet kicked up, blasting Beyoncé on the car stereo as if it were just any old day.

  Barack and I both felt a kind o
f sweet relief just then. We were the First Family now, but we were also still ourselves.

  As the sun began to set on Inauguration Day, the air temperature dropped further. Barack and I, along with the indefatigable Joe Biden, spent the next two hours in an outdoor reviewing stand in front of the White House, watching bands and floats from all fifty states pass by us on Pennsylvania Avenue. At some point, I stopped feeling my toes, even after someone passed me a blanket to wrap around my legs and feet. One by one, our guests in the stand excused themselves to go get ready for the evening balls.

  It was nearly 7:00 p.m. when the last marching band finished and Barack and I walked through the dark and into the White House, arriving for the first time as residents. Over the course of the afternoon, the staff had pulled off an extraordinary top-to-bottom flip of the residence, whisking the Bushes’ belongings out and our belongings in. In the span of about five hours, the carpets had been steamed to help keep Malia’s allergies from being activated by traces of the former president’s dogs. Furniture was brought in and arranged, floral decorations set out. By the time we rode the elevator upstairs, our clothes were organized neatly in the closets; the kitchen pantry had been stocked with our favorite foods. The White House butlers who staffed the residence, mostly African American men who were our age or older, stood poised to help us with anything we needed.

  I was almost too cold to take anything in. We were due at the first of ten inaugural balls in less than an hour. I remember seeing very few people upstairs beyond the butlers, who were strangers to me. I remember, in fact, feeling a little lonely as I moved down a long hallway, past a bunch of closed doors. For the last two years, I’d been constantly surrounded by people, with Melissa, Katie, and Kristen always right by my side. Now, suddenly, I felt very much on my own. The kids had already headed to another part of the house for their evening of fun. My mom, Craig, and Maya were staying with us in the residence but had been packed into cars and shuttled off already to the night’s festivities. A hairdresser waited to style me; my gown hung on a rack. Barack had disappeared to take a shower and put on his tux.

  It had been an incredible, symbolic day for our family and I hoped for the country, but it was also a kind of ultramarathon. I had only about five minutes alone to soak in a warm bath and reboot myself for what came next. Afterward, I’d have a few bites of steak and potatoes that Sam Kass had prepared. I’d have my hair touched up and makeup redone, and then I’d slip into the ivory silk chiffon gown I’d picked for the night ahead, specially made for me by a young designer named Jason Wu. The dress had a single shoulder strap and delicate organza flowers sewn across it, each one with a tiny crystal at its center, and a full skirt that cascaded richly to the floor.

  In my life so far, I’d worn very few gowns, but Jason Wu’s creation performed a potent little miracle, making me feel soft and beautiful and open again, just as I began to think I had nothing of myself left to show. The dress resurrected the dreaminess of my family’s metamorphosis, the promise of this entire experience, transforming me if not into a full-blown ballroom princess, then at least into a woman capable of climbing onto another stage. I was now FLOTUS—First Lady of the United States—to Barack’s POTUS. It was time to celebrate.

  That night, Barack and I went to the Neighborhood Ball, the first inaugural ball ever to be broadly accessible and affordable to the general public and where Beyoncé—real-life Beyoncé—sang a stunning, full-throated rendition of the R&B classic “At Last,” which we’d chosen as our “first dance” song. From there, we moved on to a Home States Ball and after that to the Commander in Chief Ball, then onward to the Youth Ball, and six more beyond that. Our stay at each one was relatively brief and pretty much exactly the same: A band played “Hail to the Chief,” Barack made a few remarks, we tried to beam our appreciation to those who’d come, and as everyone stood and watched, we slow danced yet another time to “At Last.”

  I held on to my husband each time, my eyes finding the calm in his. We were still the same seesawing, yin-and-yang duo we’d been for twenty years now and still connected by a visceral and grounding love. This was one thing I was always content to show.

  As the hour got late, however, I could feel myself starting to sag.

  The best part of the evening was supposed to be what came last—a private party being held for a couple hundred of our friends back at the White House. It was there that we’d finally be able to let down, have some champagne, and stop worrying about how we appeared. For sure, I’d be taking off my shoes.

  It was close to 2:00 a.m. by the time we got ourselves there. Barack and I walked across the marble floors leading to the East Room to find the party in full swing, drinks flowing and elegantly dressed people swirling beneath the sparkling chandeliers. Wynton Marsalis and his band were playing jazz on a small stage at the back of the room. I saw friends from nearly every phase of my life—Princeton friends, Harvard friends, Chicago friends, Robinsons and Shieldses galore. These were the people I wanted to laugh with, to say, How in holy hell did we all get here?

  But I was done. I’d hit a final fence line. I was also thinking ahead, knowing that the next morning—really just a matter of hours from now—we’d be going to the National Prayer Service and after that we’d stand and greet two hundred members of the public who were coming to visit the White House. Barack looked at me, reading my thoughts. “You don’t need to do this,” he said. “It’s okay.”

  Partygoers were moving toward me now, eager to interact. Here came a donor. Here was the mayor of a big city. “Michelle! Michelle!” people were calling. I was so exhausted I thought I might cry.

  As Barack stepped over the threshold and got promptly sucked into the room, I froze for a split second, then pivoted and fled. I had no energy left to verbalize some First Lady–like excuse or even wave to my friends. I just walked quickly away over the thick red carpet, ignoring the agents who trailed behind me, ignoring everything as I found the elevator to the residence and took myself there—down an unfamiliar hallway and into an unfamiliar room, out of my shoes and out of my gown and into our strange new bed.

  20

  People ask what it’s like to live in the White House. I sometimes say that it’s a bit like what I imagine living in a fancy hotel might be like, only the fancy hotel has no other guests in it—just you and your family. There are fresh flowers everywhere, with new ones brought in almost every day. The building itself feels old and a little intimidating. The walls are so thick and the planking on the floors so solid that sound in the residence seems to get absorbed quickly. The windows are grand and tall and also fitted with bomb-resistant glass, kept shut at all times for security reasons, which further adds to the stillness. The place is kept immaculately clean. There’s a staff made up of ushers, chefs, housekeepers, florists, and also electricians, painters, and plumbers, everyone coming and going politely and quietly, doing their best to keep a low profile, waiting until you’ve moved out of a room before slipping in to change the towels or put a fresh gardenia in the little vase at the side of your bed.

  The rooms are big, all of them. Even the bathrooms and closets are built on a scale different from anything I’d ever encountered. Barack and I were surprised by how much furniture we had to pick out in order to make each room feel homey. Our bedroom had not just a king-sized bed—a beautiful four-poster with a wheat-colored cloth canopy overhead—but also a fireplace and a sitting area, with a couch, a coffee table, and a couple of upholstered chairs. There were five bathrooms for the five of us living in the residence, plus another ten spare bathrooms to go with them. I had not just a closet but a spacious dressing room adjoining it—the same room from which Laura Bush had shown me the Rose Garden view. Over time, this became my de facto private office, the place where I could sit quietly and read, work, or watch TV, dressed in a T-shirt and a pair of sweatpants, blessedly out of sight of everyone.

  I understood how lucky we were to be
living this way. The master suite in the residence was bigger than the entirety of the upstairs apartment my family had shared when I was growing up on Euclid Avenue. There was a Monet painting hanging outside my bedroom door and a bronze Degas sculpture in our dining room. I was a child of the South Side, now raising daughters who slept in rooms designed by a high-end interior decorator and who could custom order their breakfast from a chef.

  I had these thoughts sometimes, and it gave me a kind of vertigo.

  I tried, in my way, to loosen the protocol of the place. I made it clear to the housekeeping staff that our girls, as they had in Chicago, would make their own beds every morning. I also instructed Malia and Sasha to act as they’d always acted—to be polite and gracious and to not ask for anything more than what they absolutely needed or couldn’t get for themselves. But it was important to me, too, that our daughters feel released from some of the ingrown formalities of the place. Yes, you can throw balls in the hallway, I told them. Yes, you can rummage through the pantry looking for snacks. I made sure they knew they didn’t have to ask permission to go outside and play. I was heartened one afternoon during a snowstorm when I caught sight of the two of them through the window, sledding on the slope of the South Lawn, using plastic trays lent to them by the kitchen staff.

  The truth was that in all of this the girls and I were supporting players, beneficiaries of the various luxuries afforded to Barack—important because our happiness was tied to his; protected for one reason, which was that if our safety was compromised, so too would be his ability to think clearly and lead the nation. The White House, one learns, operates with the express purpose of optimizing the well-being, efficiency, and overall power of one person—and that’s the president. Barack was now surrounded by people whose job was to treat him like a precious gem. It sometimes felt like a throwback to some lost era, when a household revolved solely around the man’s needs, and it was the opposite of what I wanted our daughters to think was normal. Barack, too, was uncomfortable with the attention, though he had little control over all the fuss.