up Interstates 85 and 95 and into the District of Columbia. Cheri did her best to quiet him, and from where I sit now, years later, I have to say she also did her best to bury her own anxieties about moving to Washington and leaving behind a house still undergoing renovation and a good, stable life. I had asked her to “just believe” in the move in the same way that I had asked her to “just believe” when we met and got married. Things had worked out so far, so she set aside concerns about money and the fact that she didn’t know a soul in Washington and came along.
When we got to the city, we went straight to the Embassy Row district and the Edwards mansion on Thirtieth Street NW, where the neighbors included the ambassadors from Italy, the United Kingdom, Brazil, and South Africa. A massive seven-bedroom house with marble walls and a sweeping central staircase, the place reeked of power and money, but when the Edwardses met us at the door, they seemed like the same people weknew in North Carolina. If anything, they were even more down-home friendly, and they welcomed us as if we were good friends. They insisted we have dinner with them, and the senator grabbed his car keys and said, “C’mon, Andrew, let’s get some ribs.”
When we got in the car, I realized that this was the first time I had ever ridden while he drove. And when we took off in the direction of Connecticut Avenue and his favorite hole-in-the-wall barbecue joint, it struck me that I had no idea where we were going. It was a little unnerving to give up control, and the experience made it clear to me that I had left a certain comfort zone. The senator and Mrs. Edwards seemed to sense what Cheri and I were feeling, and they talked about how much time we would spend with them and how they would help us ease into our new life. When they gave us the key to their condo and directions to Alexandria, they told us not to worry about using it and to stay as long as we wanted. No rent. No worries.
It was late evening when we finally got to our temporary home, and no doubt our first impression was affected by our fatigue. However, even after a good night’s sleep, the free condo was still a dark and depressing space with furnishings from the 1970s, as well as an orange shag carpet, a bare-bones kitchen, a living room with a sofa and TV, and a tiny bedroom. It was on the second floor of an odd-looking building that had dozens of units, but we never saw a single other soul coming or going. The neighborhood struck us as cold, not family friendly, and we quickly decided it was not the kind of place where Cheri would be comfortable hanging out alone with Brody while I was at work.
Two days of house hunting with Elizabeth convinced us that we could not possibly afford to buy or even rent a house in Washington like the one we had in Raleigh. We eventually found something we could afford—a gutted condominium in the Watergate complex—and signed a contract to buy it. While we waited for the closing, we took out a month-to-month lease on a nicer apartment in a big complex in the Virginia suburb of McLean. It was the kind of place where almost everyone (me included) left so early in the morning and returned so late at night that it might as wellhave been a ghost town. Alone and isolated, Cheri spent her days with a brand-new baby who fussed and cried all day long and never slept through the night. As the weeks passed she grew more miserable, feeling she had lost her comfortable home, the support of friends, and even her husband.
I became one of those workaholic drones who kissed his wife and baby good-bye at dawn, fought the traffic all the way to the office, and spent the next twelve hours or more in a constant frenzy of phone calls, meetings, and paperwork. To make matters worse, I learned that politics in D.C. is not like politics in good old North Carolina. It’s a full-contact sport where you have to watch your own back.
That lesson came on my first day at
When we got to the city, we went straight to the Embassy Row district and the Edwards mansion on Thirtieth Street NW, where the neighbors included the ambassadors from Italy, the United Kingdom, Brazil, and South Africa. A massive seven-bedroom house with marble walls and a sweeping central staircase, the place reeked of power and money, but when the Edwardses met us at the door, they seemed like the same people weknew in North Carolina. If anything, they were even more down-home friendly, and they welcomed us as if we were good friends. They insisted we have dinner with them, and the senator grabbed his car keys and said, “C’mon, Andrew, let’s get some ribs.”
When we got in the car, I realized that this was the first time I had ever ridden while he drove. And when we took off in the direction of Connecticut Avenue and his favorite hole-in-the-wall barbecue joint, it struck me that I had no idea where we were going. It was a little unnerving to give up control, and the experience made it clear to me that I had left a certain comfort zone. The senator and Mrs. Edwards seemed to sense what Cheri and I were feeling, and they talked about how much time we would spend with them and how they would help us ease into our new life. When they gave us the key to their condo and directions to Alexandria, they told us not to worry about using it and to stay as long as we wanted. No rent. No worries.
It was late evening when we finally got to our temporary home, and no doubt our first impression was affected by our fatigue. However, even after a good night’s sleep, the free condo was still a dark and depressing space with furnishings from the 1970s, as well as an orange shag carpet, a bare-bones kitchen, a living room with a sofa and TV, and a tiny bedroom. It was on the second floor of an odd-looking building that had dozens of units, but we never saw a single other soul coming or going. The neighborhood struck us as cold, not family friendly, and we quickly decided it was not the kind of place where Cheri would be comfortable hanging out alone with Brody while I was at work.
Two days of house hunting with Elizabeth convinced us that we could not possibly afford to buy or even rent a house in Washington like the one we had in Raleigh. We eventually found something we could afford—a gutted condominium in the Watergate complex—and signed a contract to buy it. While we waited for the closing, we took out a month-to-month lease on a nicer apartment in a big complex in the Virginia suburb of McLean. It was the kind of place where almost everyone (me included) left so early in the morning and returned so late at night that it might as wellhave been a ghost town. Alone and isolated, Cheri spent her days with a brand-new baby who fussed and cried all day long and never slept through the night. As the weeks passed she grew more miserable, feeling she had lost her comfortable home, the support of friends, and even her husband.
I became one of those workaholic drones who kissed his wife and baby good-bye at dawn, fought the traffic all the way to the office, and spent the next twelve hours or more in a constant frenzy of phone calls, meetings, and paperwork. To make matters worse, I learned that politics in D.C. is not like politics in good old North Carolina. It’s a full-contact sport where you have to watch your own back.
That lesson came on my first day at
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