Sex, Lies, and Shackles

On Sunday night Monty and I watched the debate, but as he was in D.C. and I was in Des Moines, we had to put our phones on speaker to have a joint-viewing experience. We shared observations and occasionally I glanced down at my cell, where it sat on the couch next to me, taking the place of my actual husband.

“Martha Raddatz is kicking ass,” his tinny voice said at one point.

I agreed. “Do you like her as much as Judy Woodruff?”

Monty has admitted to thinking Judy Woodruff is attractive, in a sexy-librarian sort of way. “You know how special Judy is to me,” he joked. “But don’t you think Martha is doing a great job?”

“Sure.” Neither of us mentioned Anderson Cooper at all.

I thought Anderson was fairly invisible that night. Now I realize that A.C. deserves major props, that he is responsible for perhaps the biggest moment in the entire campaign, perhaps the biggest moment of any campaign. But it took me a couple of days to come to that conclusion.

On Monday I woke at my usual time and got the kids ready for school. Yet after I dropped them off I had nowhere to be, not since I was put on a two-week leave for telling my students that I was unequivocally anti-Trump.  The Clinton campaign field office only needed volunteers on weekends and evenings, so I came home and caught up on all the laundry, cleaning, and household stuff I needed to do. Meanwhile, the media went crazy for undecided-voter Ken Bone and said maybe he was the real winner of the town hall on Sunday night.

There was little mention of Trump’s multiple lies, of his whining over perceived inequities, of how he stalked Clinton on stage, of how he called her the devil, of how he said she has hate in her heart and threatened to put her in jail. Instead, Chris Matthews said Trump was more “on” and other moderators seemed happy to call the debate a tie.

On Wednesday Monty got back from D.C. “Are you going stir-crazy from not being able to work yet?” he asked, giving me a tight hug.

“Sort of,” I answered. “I wish I was teaching, but maybe it’s good that I’m not. With all my knowledge and experience about the history of our democracy, I still don’t understand how as a nation, we have sunk so low.”

“At least she’s ahead in the polls.”

True, I told him, but the ramifications of Trump “taking off his shackles” could be severe. Trump doesn’t even act like he wants to win anymore. He’s itching to lose so he can use it as proof that the whole system is rigged, so he won’t concede the election, so he can call Hillary’s presidency into question from day one, while he, Roger Ailes, and Steve Bannon go off to start their ultra-right wing media company that roughly 40% of voters will be built-in audience members for.

I went on and on and Monty was a patient listener, agreeing with me on most of my points. Finally, I took a breath and asked if he was still working on getting aide for Haiti, even though his job is to write policy for family planning initiatives and women’s health in underdeveloped countries.  “We’ll see,” he said. “Evelyn doesn’t give up easily. Once she gets an idea for something, she latches on.”

“Right,” I said. Evelyn, Monty’s long-lost ex-girlfriend, had recently started working with him in D.C. and while I was trying to get used to the idea, I wasn’t there yet. So what I didn’t say, but merely thought, was has she gotten the idea to win you back? 

He glanced at the clock. “It’s about time to pick the kids up from school. I’ll go.”

Later that night, after dinner, bath-time, and putting the kids to bed, I wandered downstairs. Monty had disappeared into his office a while ago and I wondered what he was still working on. When I got to the ground floor, I could hear him talking on the phone, laughing.

And something about his soft-tone made me sure that he was talking to Evelyn.

I went back upstairs and watched Rachel Maddow while I waited for him to come back up. That was when I learned about the new allegations from two women who said that Trump had molested them.

And that’s also when it hit me.

“Have you ever done those things?” Anderson Cooper’s insistent question during the debate had backed Trump into a corner, and in the middle of a rambling response, Trump finally conceded, “No, I have not.”

Thank you, Anderson, for forcing the issue. Because it’s obvious why these women, and several more in the last week, have come forward.

Nobody likes to be lied to.

Finally, Monty came upstairs, and as soon as he walked into our bedroom, I asked, “Were you talking to Evelyn?”

He plopped down on the bed. “Yeah. Work stuff.”

“Work stuff, huh?”

He nudged my knee with his foot. “What? You don’t believe me?”

I turned to look him in the eye. “Tell me you don’t still have feelings for her.”

Unblinking, he responded. “I don’t still have feelings for her.”

I let it go at that. But later, in the middle of the night, I got up to go to the bathroom. When I came back to bed, Monty was murmuring in his sleep.

 And I swore that he mumbled “Evelyn.”

Things said in private, unintentional words meant for only one other set of ears or maybe for no one’s ears at all, are all the more powerful when overheard. Funny how one little word could slice right through my heart, could confirm my suspicions and alter everything. Now I can say from experience:

No one likes being lied to.

Hot Mics and Lonely Nights

I was put on paid leave for two weeks after my Trump-supporting student, Brian, accused me of giving him a poor grade, due to our divergent political affiliations. He’d recorded me on his cell phone, blatantly coming out against Trump, and used that as “proof” that I am biased against students who want to make America great again.

Some would argue that two weeks of paid leave is like a free vacation, but I was having trouble seeing it that way. A letter would go in my file and I’d carry the stigma of being reprimanded for the rest of my career. Maybe I could have groveled, offered a sincerer apology than the “I’m sorry if I upset anyone” concession I made when called into the Dean’s office. I could have just changed Brian’s grade to an A, but his paper was poorly written, using unfounded claims like Obama is a non-Christian Arab whose made the country unsafe. Forget about Brian’s misuse of “whose” – if he can’t back up his claims with actual facts, he should feel lucky with the C-.

“I’m not so worried about Brian’s grade,” the Dean told me. He’d read Brian’s paper and agreed it wasn’t “A” material. “But the cell phone footage does worry me. You can’t be so transparent about your political beliefs, Lucy. Otherwise, you risk alienating your students and belittling them for their conservative views.”

“What about alienating or belittling females, homosexuals, Hispanics, Muslims, or any other demographic that doesn’t happen to be white, straight, and male?” I sat in a chair opposite his desk, my back ramrod straight. “If I pretend to support Trump, I run the risk of alienating and belittling them.”

Dean Hughes shook his head, his mouth twitching and his hands shaking, sort of like Tim Kaine during the debate. “You shouldn’t pretend to support either candidate. You should remain neutral.”

“In most cases I’d agree. But not this year. Silence is just as bad as condoning everything that Trump stands for.”

“I see.” Dean Hughes clasped both hands together to ease their quivering. “Then I think you should take a break. We’ll get you out of the classroom for a little while, give you some time to cool down.”

I knew he was trying to be magnanimous, but I left his office fuming. Time to cool down? I felt dismissed, like Megyn Kelly after that Republican primary debate, when Trump attributed her hardball questions to her being on her period.

Still, I doubted myself for about an hour or two, wondering if the Dean Hughes was right and I was wrong. Was I too polarizing? Should I consider representing all views, even the ones I found deplorable?

Then I checked the headlines.

Holy Crap.

“This is a total game-changer!” I spoke to Monty on the phone, since he was still in D.C. for work and would be for the next several days. “It’s like when they found out McGovern’s running mate, George Eagleton, had electric shock therapy. There’s nothing else that’s bad enough to compare it to.”

“I’m glad you’re so happy,” he said. “The timing is great, like you’ve been vindicated,” Monty referred to my enforced-leave, which I’d started our conversation by telling him about.

“Yeah, of course the irony is that Trump’s apology is almost exactly like the one I gave to Dean Hughes, ‘I’m sorry if I offended anyone.’ And we were both busted by a recording. I should feel bad for Trump, but I really, really don’t.”

There was a pause and the clicking of a keyboard. “Are you still working?” I asked.

“Yeah,” he said with a sigh. “Evelyn is obsessed with the hurricane victims in Haiti, so I promised I’d look into outreach.”

“But that’s not even your department’s area.”

“Right, but if it’s possible for us to do something, we should. Don’t you think?”

“Yeah, of course.” I swallowed roughly. “Is she there with you right now?”

“No. She had to pick up her son at daycare.”

“Oh.” If I asked how it was going for him, working with his ex, would that sound prying and suspicious? I didn’t want to risk coming off as critical towards Evelyn, as she battled AIDS, conquered single-motherhood, and spent her extra time worrying about Haitian hurricane victims. No. I could only criticize her if Monty criticized her first, and even then, I had to be careful not to prompt him.

But suddenly everything I had to talk about seemed trivial. I felt like Gary Johnson, unable to identify anything the beyond the borders of my own little world.

“I should let you work then. Good luck with the outreach.”

“Love you,” he said. “I’ll call tomorrow. Skype with the kids.”

“Sure. Love you too.”

We hung up and I spent the rest of the night glued to MSNBC, wondering if Trump would drop out. Today he says that he’s staying, that there’s zero chance he’ll quit.

I guess that’s one more thing he and I have in common.

Anyone's Game

On the last Monday in September, I looked at the polls, saw that Trump was gaining on Clinton in Pennsylvania and Colorado, and thought, “He’s going to win. He’s actually going to win.”

But I couldn’t immediately pack my bags for Canada because I had to go teach American Government and Politics, where Ryan (the most vocal Trump supporter of all my students) immediately raised his hand yet didn’t wait to speak before I called on him. “Did you hear about that teacher who made her class compare Trump’s speeches to Hitler’s? The story was on Fox News. This guy recorded her on his cell phone and after he proved she was trying to indoctrinate her students, so they fired her.”

I looked at the clock. Two minutes into class and I already was wishing it was over. “What’s your point, Ryan?”

He shrugged, his face beaming underneath his Make America Great Again baseball cap. “I thought you’d think it was interesting. Everyone talks about the liberal bias of the media; what about the liberal bias of our educational system?”

I lifted my chin and squelched down the hot ball of resentment that had formed in my stomach. “I don’t think there’s a liberal bias with either the media or with public education. If anything, both institutions have to go too far to prove the opposite.”

“But you admit that you’re for Clinton.”

“No.” I stepped out from my podium and walked in front of it so I could stand closer to Ryan. I couldn’t let him get the best of me.  “As your instructor I won’t say who I’m voting for, but I will admit that I’m against Trump.”

Ryan burst out laughing. “That makes you a hypocrite! And I’m so tired of women like you trying to turn Trump into a bad guy.”

“I don’t have to try! With the stuff he says about immigrants, minorities, and women – I can’t even pretend to have an open mind about him. He is a ‘bad guy.’”

“Better be careful,” Ryan sneered. He held up his cell phone. “I might be recording you.”

I stepped even closer. “Go ahead.”

What was I thinking?

I should have been more careful. Instead, I forged on with class and then went home to watch Hillary and Trump debate. My mood lifted dramatically as I realized that maybe packing my bags for Canada wasn’t necessary, not yet. And I could learn something from Hillary about how to stand up to a bully.

The week that followed was great, full of late-night Tweet rants and shocking revelations about Trump’s taxes and his “charitable” foundation. I was no longer afraid to look at FiveThirtyEight or at the news headlines, but perhaps my giddiness came too soon. Yesterday, after I gave my students grades on their first formal essay, Ryan approached me.

“Why’d you give me a C-?”

I gathered my papers, trying not to flinch as he stood over me. “It’s all in my note. Your thesis wasn’t supported and your arguments were weak.”

“You mean you don’t agree with my argument,” he retorted, waving his cell phone in my face. “I’ve been recording you.”

“What are you talking about?”

Ryan leered at me. “I have proof that you’re biased. You gave me a bad grade because you hate Trump which means that you also hate me. I have the evidence on my cell phone, and unless you change my grade right now to an A, I’m going to the Dean.”

I stood as tall as I could and looked him squarely in the eye. “I’m not changing your grade.”

He just smiled and waved his cell phone again. “Good. Because I think the Dean will want to see this.”

Then he strode off and my stomach sank.

I told myself not to worry, this is community college, not high school, and I’ve done nothing wrong. But last night, as I watched Kaine and Pence duke it out, Pence evading and pirouetting past accusations about Trump with ease, I had to admit that I was worried.

When delivery is more important than the truth, it’s anyone’s game.

Savior Complex

Four years ago, when I worried that Romney would defeat Obama, I didn’t volunteer to work at the phone banks or to canvas neighborhoods, because after all, I was living in Washington State and it was sure to go blue. This year I’m not worried; it’s more like a deep-seated terror at the idea that our democracy might be destroyed by an egomaniac who appeals to people’s fear, ignorance, and the most sinister parts of their psyches. I have to work through near-paralysis every time I fully consider the very real possibility that our nation’s darkest hour may soon be upon us. And I’m living in Iowa now, so I can’t get away with saying that there’s nothing I can do. I have to at least try to make a difference, even if I neglect other areas of my life in the process.

“Is this right?” Monty sat in our bed and he pointed to his tablet, our family Google calendar displayed on its screen. “You’re volunteering three evenings next week?”

“Yeah. I want to do as much as I can before you’re back in D.C. Monday is obviously out, with the debate and all, so that leaves Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.” I was putting away laundry, folding pants and hanging up my work blouses, talking loud so he could hear me, my head buried in my closet. “That’s not a problem, is it?”

“Umm…” He cleared his throat and I stepped out for a moment, glancing at the muted TV. Commercials were running but Lawrence O’Donnell would be back on soon. “Lucy, are you still mad at me?”

Mad? No. I mean, yes, he'd shut me out for a week while he was out of town for work, but as soon as he'd gotten home he told me that he'd gotten his AIDS-ridden ex-girlfriend a job and they'd be working together now. I guess Monty and both have a bit of a savior complex. 

I let my eyes stray from the television screen and settle on my husband, his dark hair flecked with gray, stubble covering his cheeks and chin, wide eyes blinking with confusion. “No,” I said. “I’m not mad. Volunteering for Hillary has nothing to do with you; you know how committed I am to getting her elected.”

“You’re panicking,” Monty stated this without judgment; it was merely an observation.

It’s hard not to panic. I find myself obsessing over how both the media and the public can just assume that any allegation against Clinton is true until proven otherwise, while any allegation against Trump is simply ignored, because he always manages to slide through the mud without having any of it stick to him.

“Of course I am. With the debate on Monday, the stakes have never been higher. How must it feel to be her, to know that she MUST deliver, that millions of us are relying on her to take down Trump?” I reached for more laundry, folding and putting things away like it was second nature. “But then I think about all the stuff I tell my students, about responsible citizens in a democracy, and I know I have to get out there and practice what I preach.”

“Yeah, okay…” He looked off toward our bathroom like there was something to see. Dismay was etched into his profile.

I sighed, picked up my laundry basket, and moved over toward the dresser so I could put away my underwear. “What’s the big deal?” I spoke with my back toward him. “You’re gone all the time. I can’t spend a few nights volunteering? I’ll be back by 9:00.”

“It’s not a big deal, Luce. I guess I just thought that you’d say something to me before planning to be out on my birthday.”

I dropped the last of my laundry into my top dresser drawer and shut it, feeling my heart thud in the process. “Oh,” I said simply, and then I turned around. “I can’t believe I forgot. Wednesday is the 28^th. I’m sorry, Monty.”

He shrugged. “Don’t worry about it. We’ll get someone to watch the kids and go out on Saturday night. We can celebrate then.”

“Yeah, sure.” I moved toward the bed and sat down next to him. “Of course, but Abby and Noah will want to make you a cake, watch you blow out the candles and open presents.”

He nodded. “What about what you want?”

“It’s your birthday,” I replied. “What do you want?”

“I want alone time with you.”

We’d had a rough week, the relationship equivalent to getting pneumonia and calling the other side deplorable. I let my finger trace the line of his jaw, starting at his ear and ending at his chin. “I want that too.”

He gave me a tentative smile. “So you can cancel for Wednesday? Our democracy won’t be destroyed if you skip a night?”

I scooted in close, letting my head nuzzle the space his chin and shoulder. “Hopefully not.”

He stroked my hair. “Maybe you should go. If Hillary loses and the Donald gains the nuclear access codes and brings about the apocalypse, I don’t want me and my birthday to be blamed.”

I closed my eyes and imagined election night - Rachel Maddow, visibly shaken, stating that Trump had won Iowa by just a few dozen votes and that put him over the top. I shrugged off the thought and opened my eyes again. Lawrence O’Donnell was back on. “Don’t be silly,” I said, reaching for the remote. “I’ll blame CNN and all the voters in Ohio and Florida long before I blame you.” I sat up and kissed his cheek. “I love you. I’m not missing your birthday.”

Then we turned the volume back on, cuddled and watched Lawrence O’Donnell, and even though the news wasn’t great, I felt less panicked than I had all day.

If anyone deserves to have a savior complex right now, it's probably Hillary. But I bet that even she would agree: sometimes you have to save your own little corner of the world before you can worry about the rest of it.

Breaking News

I feel the way CNN should feel.

CNN has a love/hate relationship with the Republican nominee and they’re the worst when it comes to falling prey to his antics. Maybe it’s because they have a twenty-four news cycle to cover, plus they attempt to be “neutral” while lapping up the high ratings they get just from mentioning his name. But if Trump actually wins, in my mind, CNN will have a lot of explaining to do.

Just this week, they ignored a major story from Newsweek about Trump’s shady international business deals, instead covering the suspenseful results of his latest doctor’s appointment, a manufactured farce. But Friday was worse, when the network got tricked into giving him free coverage of veterans endorsing the new Trump hotel, all so he could spend less than a minute to say “Hillary Clinton and her campaign of 2008 started the birther controversy. I finished it. I finished it.”

You know what I mean.

“I think I’m being taken in,” I said to Robin, who had come for dinner on Tuesday night, one day before Monty was due home, one day before he’d finally reveal the details of dinner with his ex-girlfriend, Evelyn. “I’m terrible at calling him on his crap. I should have insisted that he tell me everything over the phone, but instead I’ve been distracted all week, wondering what the heck he has to tell me.”

Robin rubbed her belly, which was starting to protrude ever so slightly as she moved into her second trimester. “Okay, maybe I just have babies on my mind, but you don’t think he found out that he got her pregnant all those years ago and she just never told him until now, do you?”

Thank God I’d sent Abby and Noah outside to play in the backyard after they’d finished their chicken nuggets. Of course the possibility had occurred to me, but I certainly didn’t want to explain it to my children. “I don’t know,” I said glumly.

Robin reached over and squeezed my arm. “Forget what I said. I’m sure it's something simple. She probably just wants one of his kidneys, or maybe she's actually an alien and wants to take him back to her mother-ship.”

I surrendered half a laugh. "Something simple like that, huh?" She shrugged. “Let’s talk about something else,” I told her. “How’s business lately?”

Robin started telling me about her latest dress order from a C-list celebrity, and I tried my best to listen actively and ask questions. But I couldn’t stop myself from thinking ahead and wondering what talking points the next day would bring.

By some miracle, I was able to free up my schedule so I could pick Monty up at the airport on Wednesday afternoon. My car was pulled up to the curb at baggage claim and as soon as he climbed in I pounced, desperate for the interview I’d been promised. “Okay, we can talk in person now. Tell me about Evelyn.”

To his credit, he didn’t sigh belligerently or make some sarcastic comment, like “nice to see you too.”  Instead he leaned his head back against the car seat and stared forward, not meeting my eyes, which admittedly, needed to be on the road. “She’s a single mom - ”

I cut him off. “How old is her kid? Is it yours?”

“No.” He took a deep breath and tapped his fingers against his knee. “Her son is only three, not twelve, like he’d have to be if was mine. The father is someone she met in South Sudan, but he’s dead now, because it turns out he was HIV positive when they met and later he came down with AIDS.”

“Oh.” I stopped at a light and switched on the turn signal, trying to form a reply. That’s too bad would sound like a terrible understatement.

“There’s more,” Monty said. I glanced over at him. His eyelids were drooping and so were his shoulders, making him look worn out and deflated. “Her kid is fine, he doesn’t have the virus, but a couple of years ago Evelyn tested positive, and recently she was diagnosed with AIDS herself. So she moved back to the U.S so to get better health care, but that’s really hard to do without a job.”

“She doesn’t have a job?”

“Actually, she does now.” He swallowed hard and finally looked at me. We were in traffic, inching forward at a snail’s pace. His ominous tone made me wish to press on the gas pedal, to speed toward some unknown destination. “She begged me to pull some strings so she could work in my department at the Gates Foundation.”

“And you did?”

“Yeah. I mean, she’s more than qualified, and I didn’t know how I could say no.”

I white knuckled the steering wheel while I bit my tongue.  If I pointed out that he owed her nothing I’d be the “deplorable” one, speaking ill of a single mother with AIDS. But Evelyn would never have to answer for all her misdeeds; she’d earned a free pass at a terrible cost. “You’ll be co-workers now?"

Through my peripheral vision I saw him nod. “I knew you’d be upset. That’s why I had to wait to tell you about this in person, so you could see my face and believe that it’s all going to be fine.” Monty placed his hand on my knee, surprising me with the coolness of his touch, its chill seeping through my cotton khaki pants.

“I’m not upset,” I said. “I… I don’t know what I am.”  Just like CNN, I didn’t know how to insist that he back up his blanket statement of fineness, or do anything but be stunned at getting caught off guard. I was one step behind the breaking news, one step behind having the news break me.

But Civil is Boring

“So how did the dinner go?”

It was nearly 11PM, well after my bedtime. I had to be up early the next morning to drop Noah and Abby off for their first days of Kindergarten and second grade, then I would put on my community college-instructor hat and begin a new semester of teaching political science. I’d hoped to be in bed by 10:00, but Monty had flown to D.C that morning for work, where he was having dinner with long-lost ex-girlfriend, Evelyn. She’d called last week out of the blue, saying she had something important to talk to him about. Monty had promised to call me as soon as the dinner was over, but by 10:45 my phone still had not buzzed. Finally, I gave in and called him.

“The dinner is still going,” Monty said, his voice distant and smothered.

“Still?” I said. “Are you eating a seven-course Italian meal or something?”

His laugh came out in a jumpy, quiet, burst. “No, we just have a lot to talk about.”

I clutched my phone, which had grown slick in my palm, and took a slow, measured breath, trying not to sound panicked and crazy. “She’s sitting across from you right now, isn’t she?”

“Yeah. Look, can I call you tomorrow? I know you need a good-night’s sleep.”

Yes, I did need to sleep, but how would doing so even be possible? As soon as I closed my eyes, I’d be haunted by images of Monty and Evelyn, sipping wine in a candle-lit restaurant, traipsing down memory lane while they shared dessert, their fingers grazing each other as they passed the plate of tiramisu back and forth.

“Lucy? You still there?”

“Yeah,” I answered, but it came out in a sigh.

“We’ll talk tomorrow?”

“Sure.”

“Love you,” he told me, as if saying it by rote.

I didn’t want to say it back, not when I doubted it would even register. “Goodnight, Monty.”

He called the next morning to wish Noah good luck on his first day of Kindergarten. We were driving to school, Noah in his car seat, pressing my phone to his ear and telling Monty, “No, I’m not newvous.”

“Let me talk to Daddy!” Abby insisted, and she reached across from her booster seat and pried the phone from Noah’s little fingers.

“He called to talk to me!” Noah yelled, instantly bursting into tears. “Mommy! Abby stole the phone!”

My head was foggy from a restless night of tossing and turning, and now it was pounding. I pulled over, unbuckled my seat belt, and leaned over the driver’s seat. “Abby! Give me the phone!” But before she could, I snatched it from her. Then she started to cry too.

“Great,” I said into the phone. “Two crying children. Perfect way to start the school year.”

“Sorry,” he answered. “Put me on speaker and I’ll try to calm them both down.”

“In a minute,” I snipped. “How late did you go last night?”

“I don’t know… it was…” he sighed. “I don’t know. I have a lot to tell you, but not over the phone, okay? And certainly not right now.”

“Are you saying I have to wait until after you get back to hear about your dinner?”

“Luce!” His exasperation was more out of shock I think, then anger. “Let me calm down the kids, okay? We can deal with the rest later.”

Abby and Noah were both wailing and school was starting soon. I had no choice. “Fine. I’m putting you on speaker.”

I held up the phone with one hand and steered with the other, while Monty managed to say some magic words to get our children to stop crying. I didn’t say goodbye when we pulled into the school parking lot. I just clicked the end button, shuffled my kids inside, tried not to let myself cry as I left Noah in his classroom, and forced my head on straight so I could go teach my classes.

“We’re obviously going to have a lot to talk about this term,” I later told my students, who had gathered for their first session of American Government and Politics. “As Iowa is a swing-state, I’m assuming you all represent a variety of political beliefs, ranging from left to right, and one goal is to keep the conversation civil.”

“But civil is boring,” said a guy wearing a Make America Great Again baseball cap. He’d chosen to sit in the middle seat in the front row.

“That may be true,” I responded, leaning against my podium, wishing I’d worn a thicker heal. I felt small. “But lots of people share that attitude, and it has gotten us where we are now, with made-up controversies dominating the news cycle and reality TV stars posing as potential presidents.”

Baseball cap guy threw back his shoulders, puffing out his chest. “You just insulted my candidate. How is that civil? And I thought instructors were supposed to be neutral.”

He kind of had a point, but my inability to remain neutral was my Achilles heel, especially when it came to teaching politics. And as the week went on, I wouldn’t improve, growing more and more anxious as Monty refused to fill me about his dinner with Evelyn. It left me with the sense that, like Trump and Putin, if Evelyn was going to say great things about Monty, he’d say great things about her too. Things I defiantly didn’t want to hear.

“I promise to explain everything as soon as I get home,” Monty had told me during another phone conversation later that week. But he wasn’t getting home until Wednesday. Meanwhile we tried to stay civil and I caught myself wishing that civil was actually boring.

Fact-Checking and Foreboding

“You’ll never guess who called me today.”

I was not in the mood to guess. I’d just finished a volunteer shift at the phone banks, calling on behalf of the Hillary Clinton campaign to make sure Democratic leaning voter’s registration was up to date. People hung up on me multiple times but that was far more pleasant than the “I don’t trust that lying bitch” tirades that so many people felt necessary to release.

“Actually,” I’d tell them, “the bipartisan group Politifact has done lots of fact-checking and they’ve determined that Hillary Clinton rarely lies. But Donald Trump’s record with the truth is terrible. He lies more than any recent candidate.”

“I’m not voting for him either! This year’s election makes me sick!” Then there’d be a click and I was left shaking my head in wonder that somehow, Clinton’s negatives almost matched those of a man who has built his campaign on hate, just like he built up his career by cheating people. Yet all it took was one or two well-staged photo-ops with the president of Mexico or at an African American church in Detroit, and the press let Trump win the news cycle. Meanwhile, if I had to hear about Clinton’s emails ONE MORE TIME I might just move to Canada.

Now I was home, stretched out in bed, after a long day during the last week of summer for Abby, Noah and me. Next week I’d resume teaching, Abby would start second grade and Noah would start Kindergarten. “Just tell me,” I said to Monty, who had been working out in our basement when I got home. A couple of moments ago I heard him bounding up the stairs, and now he stood in front of me, his t-shirt clinging to his chest and sweat beading his forehead.

“You look tired,” he said. “Rough night?”

I nodded my head without raising it. “She’s slipping in the polls and her negatives are actually going up. I don’t get it; how can Trump even still be standing after all the crap he’s said and done?”

Monty shrugged and sat on the edge of the bed. “People are idiots.”

“People are sexist idiots. Why can’t anyone talk about how much sexism still plays into presidential politics?”

“I don’t know.” Monty seemed nervous as he breathed in and out and looked away, toward the window. The shade was drawn, shutting out the fading light of evening in the suburbs.

I sat up, sensing a foreboding. “So who called you?”

By the time he turned his head back toward me he’d composed his face with an easy smile and unblinking eyes. I guessed he was trying to look relaxed and confident but he communicated the exact opposite. “Evelyn,” he said, his voice half an octave higher than normal.

I could feel something collapse inside my chest, a sickening sensation worse than the bristly heat that had repeatedly flared up while I worked the phone banks. “You’re in touch with her?”

He swallowed like it hurt. “Not for like, twelve years.”

“Not since she left you to die in the Congo?”

Evelyn had been Monty’s girlfriend over a decade ago. The two of them were both altruistic lawyers who had given legal aide to rape victims in the Congo, until Monty had caught malaria and Evelyn had abandoned him, running off with his doctor, no less. As far as I knew, the last time they’d spoken was when she’d ended their several-year relationship by walking out while he was feverish, delusional and too weak to lift a glass of water. It was sort of a huge deal.

“She didn’t exactly leave me to die,” he corrected. “I was pretty much on the mend by the time she took off.”

“Oh, well then, bygones. What did she want? How did she even find you?”

“She looked me up on Facebook and saw how often I’m in D.C.  She works there too now and she wants to have dinner.”

His eyes darted down so I couldn’t stare into them. I couldn’t garner the truth behind his casual facade. “Are you going to say yes?”

“Yeah, unless you really don’t want me to.” Finally, he met my gaze. “Would you have a problem with it?”

“I guess not,” I lied, not even sure why I let these words fly from my lips. “But why would you want to eat dinner with her?”

Monty took a careful breath, forming his response over the span of a few seconds. “I don’t want to. But she said she needs to talk to me about something, and that if we happened to run into each other it would be really awkward, so we should meet.”

“Oh.” I rubbed my forehead, trying to massage away the tension that pressed between my eyes. “What does she want to talk to you about?”

He stood and moved toward the bathroom, probably to shower. “She didn’t say. But you’re okay with it, Luce? It would just be a one-time thing.”

 My stomach turned over. His need to justify and reassure me that it would only be a "one time thing" was by far the most disturbing part of this conversation. “Just promise you’ll call as soon as the dinner is over and you’ll tell me everything.”

Now his smile seemed genuine. “I promise,” he said. And I believed him.

So this morning Monty flew to D.C. for the workweek. He’ll be back on Friday evening, but he’ll miss dropping Noah off for his first day of Kindergarten. “Promise you’ll take lots of photos,” he said.

“Of course. Do you want to call on Tuesday morning? Talk to him before I take him to school?”

His eyes watered and he gave me a sad smile. “Sure. Sounds good.”

We’d be talking on the phone twice in less than twelve hours. Monty had arranged his dinner with Evelyn for tonight, saying he just wanted to “get it over with.” I’d be counting down the hours until he could give me the recap.

But that isn’t all I’ll be doing. Today I’m driving for over an hour to see Hillary at an event, with both kids in tow. We’ll stand and listen to her Labor Day speech, proud that she chose our state as a venue. “She’s going to be the first girl president,” I’ll say to Abby.

And as a new season begins, I expect we'll be reminded, probably multiple times, that we're stronger together.