Too Much and Never Enough, стр. 3
Each of the waiters carried a bottle of red wine and a bottle of white. Real wine, not TRUMP wine. That was unexpected. In my entire life, there had never been any alcohol at a family function. Only Coke and apple juice had been served at my grandparents’ house.
Halfway through the meal, Jared walked into the dining room. “Oh, look,” Ivanka said, clapping her hands, “Jared’s back from his trip to the Middle East,” as if we hadn’t just seen him in the Oval Office. He walked over to his wife, gave her a quick kiss on the cheek, then bent over Donald, who was seated next to Ivanka. They spoke quietly for a couple of minutes. And then Jared left. He didn’t acknowledge anybody else, not even my aunts. As he crossed the threshold, Donny leapt out of his chair and bounded after him like an excited puppy.
As dessert was being served, Robert stood up, wineglass in hand. “It is such an honor to be here with the president of the United States,” he said. “Thank you, Mr. President, for allowing us to be here to celebrate our sisters’ birthdays.”
I thought back to the last time the family had celebrated Father’s Day at Peter Luger Steak House in Brooklyn. Then, as now, Donald and Rob had been sitting next to each other with me directly across from them. Without any explanation, Donald had turned to Rob and said, “Look.” He’d bared his teeth and pointed at his mouth.
“What?” Rob had asked.
Donald had simply pulled his lips back farther and pointed more emphatically.
Rob had started to look nervous. I had no idea what was going on but watched with amusement while I sipped my Coke.
“Look!” Donald had said through his gritted teeth. “What do you think?”
“What do you mean?” Rob’s embarrassment was palpable. He had glanced around him to make sure nobody was looking at him and whispered, “Is there something in my teeth?” The bowls of creamed spinach scattered around the table rendered that a distinct possibility.
Donald had relaxed his mouth and stopped pointing. The contemptuous look on his face summed up the entire history of their relationship. “I got my teeth whitened. What do you think?” he had asked dryly.
After Rob’s remarks, Donald shot him the same dismissive look I’d seen at Peter Luger’s almost twenty years before. Then, Diet Coke glass in hand, Donald made some perfunctory remarks about my aunts’ birthdays, after which he gestured toward his daughter-in-law. “Lara, there,” he said. “I barely even knew who the fuck she was, honestly, but then she gave a great speech during the campaign in Georgia supporting me.” By then, Lara and Eric had been together for almost eight years, so presumably Donald had at least met her at their wedding. But it sounded as if he hadn’t known who she was until she had said something nice about him at a campaign rally during the election. As usual with Donald, the story mattered more than the truth, which was easily sacrificed, especially if a lie made the story sound better.
When Maryanne’s turn came, she said, “I want to thank you for making the trip to celebrate our birthdays. We’ve come a long way since that night when Freddy dumped a bowl of mashed potatoes on Donald’s head because he was being such a brat.” Everybody familiar with the legendary mashed potato story laughed—everyone except Donald, who listened with his arms tightly crossed and a scowl on his face, as he did whenever Maryanne mentioned it. It upset him, as if he were that seven-year-old boy. He clearly still felt the sting of that long-ago humiliation.
Unprompted, my cousin Donny, who’d returned from chasing down Jared, stood up to speak. Instead of toasting our aunts, he gave a sort of campaign speech. “Last November, the American people saw something special and voted for a president who they knew understood them. They saw what a great family this is, and they connected with our values.” I glanced at my brother and rolled my eyes.
I flagged down one of the waiters. “Can I have some more wine?” I asked.
He returned quickly with two bottles and asked if I preferred red or white.
“Yes, please,” I said.
As soon as we finished dessert, everybody rose. Only two hours had elapsed since we’d entered the Oval Office, but the meal was over, and it was time to leave. From beginning to end we had spent about twice as much time at the White House as we ever had at my grandparents’ house for Thanksgiving or Christmas but still less time with Donald than Kid Rock, Sarah Palin, and Ted Nugent would two weeks later.
Somebody suggested that we all take individual pictures with Donald (though not with the guests of honor). When it was my turn, Donald smiled for the camera and gave a thumbs-up, but I could see the exhaustion behind the smile. It seemed that keeping up the cheerful facade was wearing on him.
“Don’t let them get you down,” I said to him as my brother took the picture. It wasn’t long after his first national security advisor had been fired in disgrace, and the cracks in his presidency were already beginning to show.
Donald jutted out his chin and clenched his teeth, looking for a moment like the ghost of my grandmother. “They’re not going to get me,” he said.
When Donald announced his run for the presidency on June 16, 2015, I didn’t take it seriously. I didn’t think Donald took it seriously. He simply wanted the free publicity for his brand. He’d done that sort of thing before. When his poll numbers started to rise and he may have received tacit assurances from Russian president Vladimir Putin that Russia would do everything it could