Living History Unknown (best books to read fiction .txt) 📖

the job, and, at least for her tenure, the rights and needs of women were integrated into America’s foreign policy agenda.

She made that clear when she hosted a celebration of International Women’s Day at the State Department in 1997. I was honored to share the podium with her as we discussed the importance of women’s rights to global progress. I spoke out strongly against the barbaric rule of the Taliban in Afghanistan. I believed that the United States should not recognize their government because of its oppression of women; nor should American business enter into contracts for pipeline construction or any other commercial enterprise.

I was much more relaxed for the second inaugural, and I enjoyed the events without worrying that I was about to fall asleep on my feet. At the same time, there was less of the excitement and awe that we had experienced in 1993. Of course, our world was very different now. I felt I was entering this new chapter of my life like steel tempered in fire: a bit harder at the edges but more durable, more flexible. Bill had grown into his Presidency, and it endowed him with a gravitas that showed on his face and in his eyes. He was only fifty, but his hair was almost completely white, and for the first time in his life he was looking his age. But he still had that boyish smile, sharp wit and infectious optimism that I’d fallen in love with twentyfive years before. I still lit up when he entered a room and I still found myself admiring his handsome face. We shared an abiding belief in the importance of public service, and we were each other’s best friend. Even though we’d had our share of problems, we still made each other laugh. That, I was certain, would get us through another four years in the White House.

I was not the same person who had worn the violet blue gown in 1993. Nor could I fit into it after four years of White House fare. And I had grown not only older but blonder.

The press still kept track of my changing hairstyles, but they were finally giving me a pass in the fashion department. I had become friends with the designer Oscar de la Renta and his glamorous wife, Annette, after we met at the first Kennedy Center Honors reception Bill and I hosted at the White House in 1993. I was wearing one of his dresses that I had bought off the rack, and when he and Annette went through the receiving line and saw it, he told me how flattered he was and offered his help. I loved his elegant designs, and he made me a fabulous embroidered gold tulle gown with a matching satin cape for the second round of Inaugural Balls. I also wore one of his coral-colored wool suits with a matching coat for the swearing-in ceremony. In a break with tradition, and with Oscar’s strong advice, I ditched the hat. The only fashion censure I got that day was for wearing a brooch with the coat, which was strictly my decision. I like brooches!

But I had a complaint of my own. Our sixteen-going-on-seventeen-yearold Chelsea came downstairs covered up in a calf-length coat, and I didn’t realize what was under it until we were ready to leave the White House. I caught a glimpse of her mid-thigh miniskirt and asked to see the outfit. She opened her coat, and photographer Diana Walker, who was doing a behind-the-scenes assignment for Time, caught my face. It was too late for Chelsea to change―and she might not have even if I had begged. She got a lot of attention when she walked in the parade without her coat, but she just waved and smiled and handled herself with confidence and aplomb. She had needed all of her poise―and sense of humor―earlier that day during lunch at the Capitol.

The Republicans controlled Congress, hence the Republicans determined the seating arrangements for the traditional congressional luncheon. Perhaps it was someone’s idea of a joke to seat me next to Newt Gingrich and to put Chelsea between the House Republican Whip, Tom DeLay, and the frisky nonagenarian Senator from South Carolina, Strom Thurmond. DeLay, who had been saying all kinds of awful things about Chelsea’s father, was amiable, and Chelsea reciprocated. He talked about how his own daughter worked in his office and how important it was to have your family involved in your public life. And he offered to give Chelsea a tour of the Capitol.

Strom Thurmond made small talk too. “You know how I got to live this long?” he asked Chelsea. Thurmond was ninety-five. He was the oldest serviceman to parachute behind the line in Normandy just be fore D-Day and had been married to two former beauty queens. The Senator had fathered four children in his sixties and seventies. “Pushups!

One-armed push-ups!” he advised Chelsea. “And never eat anything bigger than an egg. I eat six meals a day the size of an egg!”

Chelsea nodded politely and picked at her salad. Another course arrived.

“I think you’re nearly as pretty as your mama,” the Senator said with that silky Southern charm that had gained him quite a reputation. By the middle of the meal, he mused, “You’re as pretty as your mama. She’s real pretty and you’re pretty too. Yes, you are.

You’re as pretty as your mama.”

By the time dessert arrived, Thurmond was saying, “I do believe you’re prettier than your mama. Yes, you are, and if I was seventy years younger, I’d court you!”

My lunchtime conversation wasn’t nearly as colorful as Chelsea’s. Newt Gingrich seemed subdued. I persevered through the meal with him, talking about nothing in particular.

How’s your mother? Fine, thanks. How’s yours? It had been a bad couple of years for Gingrich.

Although he had won reelection as Speaker of the House, he had lost his national popularity and lost ground in the House. He also had recently been grilled by the