Kiss and Tell

I met the great man’s wife at the Sunday dinner. She had flown in that afternoon. She was not a trophy: only five years younger, the mother of his children, and with a self-deprecating husky voice. She carried off peacock-blue silk with aplomb; she brought glamour and style to our dowdy writers’ gathering. She had all-American confidence. He was holding forth at his end of the table, and she sat some distance from him, but their eyes still met from time to time. They were a couple. I thought about what I could tell her.

On the day your husband arrived he was purely obnoxious. The silence of the writers’ retreat was shattered. The whole place was thrown into a flutter by him. He thundered up and down the stairs demanding bottled water, Internet, a better desk lamp, coffee. We had been told he was there to finish his memoir; it was implicit that we were privileged to be in his company. But please consider: does the world need another politician’s memoir? Is it likely that a motley selection of little-known writers and poets would rally to feed such a man’s ego?