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Hillary took one last look in the mirror. Physically, she was ready for the night ahead. Emotionally…that was another story.
Outside of her dressing room, the 2024 Democratic Convention was in full swing and the entire party was excited and ready to nominate Kamala Harris for President. Hillary was preparing to walk onstage and graciously signal (more like scream with flashing lights around her words) that no, she was not bitter and that it was finally time to end the glass ceiling metaphors.
She heard the door behind her click open and jumped before she saw who was behind it.
“Hi. Sorry it took me so long to get here,” Huma said. “Mic issues are resolved.”
“I wish you could go faster, but we can’t all be Michael Phelps,” Hillary replied, suddenly obsessed with fixing her makeup.
Huma stared at her. “Michael Phelps? Don’t you mean Katie Ledecky?”
“Is that a swimmer?”
“Wow, you are really behind. So maybe it wasn’t just me who hasn’t heard from you this summer?”
That caught Hillary’s attention. “What?” she asked, turning around to face Huma the woman instead of Huma the reflection. And damn , did she look good. Hillary clenched her fist around her tube of lipstick as she got her first view of her former bodywoman since June, when Huma told her she was engaged.
“Are you really telling me you didn’t watch any of the Olympics, or talk to anyone else who was watching them, or at least get a briefing? People are going to want to have small talk about that at the afterparties. You need–”
“I don’t. If the briefing was so important, you would have set it up for me.” Hillary couldn’t look at Huma anymore (or the black dress she was wearing). Instead, she busied herself smoothing her blazer sleeves and the buttons on her jacket.
“Hillary. I don’t believe no one mentioned the Paris Olympics to you. Come on.” There was a pause and then Hillary heard the concern snap into her voice–sickeningly sweet in this moment–to replace the consternation. “Where have you been since…?”
Hillary didn’t answer. How she summered was none of Huma’s business anymore, quite frankly.
Huma tried again. “Hillary, you told me you could manage everything until this week. You said I could just come and handle things here so I could wrangle my own press. I can’t always be there to take care of y- take care of things anymore.”
“Please don’t flatter yourself. I’m fine. Everything is fine. I’m here.”
Huma’s face from when she came through the door–nervous, but still hopeful–had now fallen completely flat, and if Hillary didn’t know her so well (and God, did she hate now that she did as she studied her expression), Hillary might think she was just angry. Unfortunately, Hillary knew this as the Ice Face. It was the one she usually saved for high-profile men who made racist comments, those most reviled diplomats, and elected women who vote against family planning funding. This was the face Huma has always given to the people she hated but put up with. For Hillary, for Hillary’s career, and for the world Hillary and Huma were building together.
In all their years working together, Hillary had never felt like she was a job to Huma before. I guess times change, she thought.
It was for the best anyway. Hillary would take the hatred over Huma looking at her like she cared about her right now, especially while she looked the way she did tonight.
Hillary checked the clock. 20 minutes until she would step out to endorse her beloved party’s new darling as the first woman President America actually wanted.
“Okay. I can see you don’t want me here.” Huma turned to go, then winced. “I always stay with you until you go on. If I go back out, they’ll…they’ll talk.”
“That’s fine,” Hillary said. She wasn’t sure if she meant that about Huma staying or about them talking. They always fucking talked anyway. The New York Times had published fanfiction about her and Liz Warren, for God’s sake. Although, Hillary had to admit, the weeks after that had been fun. The article was high-profile enough that Huma coordinated a round of interviews for Hillary to go out and “casually” reassert that she wasn’t a lesbian. Huma had planted the questions with interviewers in advance, and Hillary sat in their chairs and laughed demurely at the right moments while she denied having any feelings for women. Then she left the spotlight and met Huma in the wings, or in her dressing room, or in the car, and the person who mattered knew about her feelings for one woman in particular.
So, unfortunately, Huma was right about this. If Huma and Hillary avoided each other too much now, just a month after the engagement was announced, all the people in their circles they had spent years convincing that Huma’s skills as an assistant were the only thing keeping Hillary locked to her would connect the dots between the rock on Huma’s finger and the rock in Hillary’s heart.
As Huma turned again to go, Hillary called back, “You’re right. I’m sorry. Please stay.”
Huma cocked her head toward the small seating area in the dressing room. “Can we sit?”
Hillary nodded slowly, then went to sit on the opposite side of the couch from Huma. She crossed her legs, resting her hands uneasily in her lap. She took some quiet pleasure seeing her former bodywoman do the same. They were their CNN clones.
Huma looked up at her and those chocolate eyes were molten, back to that concern from before. “You know, you could have said that before.”
“Said what?”
“‘You’re right, I’m sorry’ would be a good start.” She left out “please stay,” which Hillary noted like a kick to the stomach.
“I always tell you you’re right.”
“Okay, I’ll give you that one; I think we both do know that I’m always right. But Hillary, there were so many chances, and you still never– and then that night…” Huma trailed off, leaving that night unspoken between them.
“Is that why?” Hillary asked.
“No. Well, why what? Why am I marrying him?” Hillary gave a quick nod. “No.” Huma hesitated, then continued, “Well, not specifically. It didn’t help, but this was where things would have gone anyway.”
“With us, or with him?”
“With us. We always knew this couldn’t last.” She paused, then added, “Maybe with him, too, but that’s different.”
Hillary collected her thoughts, glancing at the clock. 15 minutes until her speech, ten until places.
“I didn’t realize we knew this couldn’t last. It never–those men–I never thought you saw them as anything permanent. They were all so…” Beneath you , Hillary thought. She shouldn’t speak down about Huma’s “forever,” as little as Hillary understood it. “I just thought they were something else.”
“I did too, but I thought we both knew I was looking. I never wanted to be alone.”
Hillary felt herself recoil. When had Huma felt alone? When she was walking into state dinners at Hillary’s side? When they talked all night every night after the divorce? Those weekends when they were able to get away upstate?
“Did you say that just to hurt me?” Hillary asked, her voice low.
“I don’t know, Hillary. A little. But mostly I just want you to understand– maybe I want you to hurt too.”
“Well, so much for ‘Both/And,’” Hillary muttered bitterly.
“Stop. I never wanted both , I wanted you . You were the one who didn’t want that.” Huma checked her watch. “It’s almost time. Are you ready?”
After tonight, Huma would quietly exit her career with Hillary and the Clintons. She would then move into her new job: being a member of the Soros family. Meanwhile, Hillary would bear the brunt of it in more ways than one. The story so far (miraculously for Hillary’s career, devastatingly for her ego) was all about getting to know Huma and branding it as a star wedding, but Fox News would sink their teeth into the connection between Hillary and the Soros family through her “assistant” any day now. Little did they know Hillary wanted nothing less than this connection.
“I’m ready.” Hillary stood, trying to gather her thoughts. She just needed to get through this speech, and then…
…And then only see Huma on a tiny screen, in the news, maybe at a random cocktail party if Hillary got lucky. If Hillary ever accepted another social invitation.
Huma stood to follow her. “Wait.” She stepped closer and coaxed a section of Hillary’s hair into place, then used her thumbs to blend Hillary’s blush into her cheeks. She took a step back and smiled sadly. “You look so beautiful tonight, Hillary.”
As Hillary caught her breath, Huma’s phone vibrated. “They’re running behind out there,” Huma said, reading the message. “Your new call time is in ten.” Huma looked up and finally saw the effect her compliment had on the most admired woman in America (many years running, back in the day). “And really, you do look beautiful. We were right to pick the cream. You’ll glow again up there.”
Hillary hated how quickly her anger was replaced by butterflies just from knowing Huma still thought she was beautiful.
“I think it’s nice too. I guess the off-white makes me a retired suffragette now.”
“Hey. You and I both know how important the retiree vote is.”
Hillary rolled her eyes, choosing to ignore that the age joke felt much different now that things were so different between the two of them. “What did you mean, when you said I didn’t want that? I thought we already had that.”
Huma took a deep breath. “I asked you a question that night, the same one I asked you after the New York Times article came out. I gave you another chance to take things public. I thought now–after all this time–maybe you would be ready. The first time we talked about it in 2019 we made a clear business decision. It wasn’t the right time. But I thought that when I asked you again…maybe it could be part of the legacy, or maybe enough time had passed that we could just trust the imprint we’d already made, or you would just be ready to accept that maybe things would change and that this being real would be worth it. Even all these years later though, your answer was the same. You made a choice, and it was the safe one. I understand why and I don’t blame you, but I had to make choices too.”
Hillary nodded slowly. “I understand why, too. I’m sorry.”
Huma’s phone vibrated again. “Time to go.”
“Will you tell me something else?” Hillary asked.
“What?”
“Do you think I can do this tonight? I haven’t spoken to a crowd like this since…”
“2016?” Huma studied her; in a flash, Hillary knew she was deciding how honest to be. “I know you can do it. I just hope it’s not too soon tonight. But Hillary…she’s not you. And things aren’t the same as they were in 2016. If the timing were different, Pokemon Go to the Polls would have gone over like the coconut tree thing. I don’t know if ‘basket of deplorables’ would ever take off like ‘weird people,’ though.” Huma grinned, then went serious again. “You worked your whole life to get the world ready for the first woman President of the United States, and I’m sorry you’re not her after all that we gave up for it. You know I’ll always believe in you, and in what we built together.” She paused, then asked, “Can you do it?”
“I can if you’ll stay in the wings while I speak. One last time.”
Huma smiled. “I can do that.”
***
The red, white, and blue balloon drop in 2016 would always be the most euphoric moment of Hillary’s political life, but hearing the crowd chant “Lock Him Up” was a pretty close second.
“That was amazing. Maybe the best of your career,” Huma said once Hillary was safely offstage. “Do you need anything now?”
Hillary’s stomach chose that moment to audibly growl. “Yes, actually. I am craving Taco Bell.”