Kimball Billy - A woman first: first woman: the deeply personal memoir by the former President

Copyright 2019 Home Box Office, Inc.

Text by Billy Kimball and David Mandel

Jacket 2019 Abrams

Cover image courtesy of HBO

This is a work of fiction. All of the individuals and characters in this book are fictitious. Any similarities that characters discussed in this book bear to individuals living or dead, are purely coincidental.

Published in 2019 by Abrams Press, an imprint of ABRAMS. All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher.

Library of Congress Control Number: 2019931287

ISBN: 978-1-4197-3353-6

eISBN: 978-1-68335-411-6

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For Richard Splett,
the only person who never let me down

FOREWORD
A Brief History of the Meyer and Eaton Families in North America

CHAPTER ONE
Mornings on Horseback, Evenings at the LibraryMy Early Years

CHAPTER TWO
Confessions of a Popular Nerd AthleteSchool Days... and Nights!

CHAPTER THREE
The Greatest Night of My LifeThe 1984 Baltimore Junior League Debutante Cotillion

CHAPTER FOUR
Of Age I Come

CHAPTER FIVE
Adventures in the Private Sector

CHAPTER SIX
Climbing Capitol HillA Woman in the House... and the Senate

CHAPTER SEVEN
A Heartbeat AwayThe Vice Presidency

CHAPTER EIGHT
Second in Command

CHAPTER NINE
The Meyer Era Is InauguratedA Blind Date with History

CHAPTER TEN
Crisis to CrisisThe Testing of a President

CHAPTER ELEVEN
No I in TeamThe Wind Beneath My Wings

CHAPTER TWELVE
On the Run AgainCampaigning in the Real America

CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Making Even More HistoryThe Tie Heard Round the World

EPILOGUE
A Woman in Full: Full Woman

Welcome!

I am so pleased that you have purchased this book. I hope that you have as much fun reading it as I had writing it!

Before we get started, Id like to issue a few caveats and establish some ground rules.

As we know, all great literature was written quickly. There is simply no way that incredibly long books like War and Peace, Crime and Punishment, or Madame Bovary could have been written over one persons lifetime (not to mention along with a lot of other books) were they not written fast. In writing this book, I have attempted to follow in that great tradition.

While those justifiably well-regarded books are fiction, mine is something completely different: fact. But it is a special kind of fact that bears a bit of explanation. Because there is a trade-off between capturing the particular feel of a moment in timeespecially when one is on a rolland being scrupulously, tediously accurate, I have chosen to try to tell you the larger truth of what my impression was about what happened, when it happened, why it happened, where it happened, how it happened, and who it happened to. If there are any errors or omissions, I am sure that they are trivial, and I will endeavor to correct them for the paperback and international editions or else in another book.

It would, of course, be deeply inappropriate for a president to write the official history of her (or his!) own presidency, due to the tendency of our human natures to ignore uncomfortable, inconvenient, and unflattering truths. So do not think for a moment that this book purports to be an official, critical biography. However, I have done my best to face the facts about myself, and I offer myself up to the reader with nothing hidden and as I really am, not as I might always wish to be.

Finally, in attempting to offer you Selina unadorned, I have included a certain amount of frank talk. I think you will find that though there is some very occasional coarse language, it is never used gratuitously and has been employed sparingly in the interest of reporting a sentiment accurately and when there were no other viable options. Nevertheless, since this book is intended for a family audience, I have removed key vowels from the words in question so that adult readers may experience my account with w-rts and all, while children will be left with a more sanitized, age-appropriate impression along with, perhaps, some awkward questions for their parents and teachers.

So, enjoy! I envy you the journey you are about to take through my life. I only wish I could do it all again myself and maybe change just one or two little things. See if you can guess what they are.

I think the work of future historians should also be taken with a grain of salt, since third parties arent necessarily any more reliable than the subjects of books themselves. A lot of people have a lot of agendas and are out to get other people. Never forget that.

Children are our future.

From the moment I entered the the White House, I felt like I was, quite literally, stepping into history. Not simply the history of the presidents who had gone before me, like Washington, Lincoln, etc., but the history that I was making myself and bringing with me and which I would leave behind for future generations.

I remember the moment with crystal clarity. It was February 6, 2016, the birthday of singer Celine Dion and former Major League slugger Jose Canseco, as well as Liberation Day in the Philippines. The weather in the nations capital was cold and clear, with some high scattered clouds forming around sundown, and the daytime high temperature hovered around 17 degrees Fahrenheit (or about 10 degrees Celsius). Fortunately, the winds were mild, at 9 to 12 miles per hour, and from the northeast. The dew point was more or less irrelevant, since the relative humidity was an exceptionally low 6 percent.

As I began to walk the short distance from the office in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building that I had been using as vice president to the Oval Office in the world-famous West Wing, I reflected upon the much longer journey that had brought me to this historic moment. A journey that had begun some forty-seven years ago in rural suburban Maryland, where a little girl with the unusual and occasionally unfortunate name of Selina (it had proved just a little too close to Smellina for some second graders) was born and raised.

For those of you who have never had the pleasure of visiting Eastern Maryland, Centreville is as all-American as apple pie on the Fourth of July. Our neighborhood was a true melting pot of religions (everything from Methodist to Episcopalian), races (it seemed like half the diplomatic corps lived within half a mile), and political beliefs, be they Democrat or Republican. We had bankers, we had doctors, we had businessmen, we had small businessmen, we had people who took care of horsespretty much every profession under the sun was represented.

Service was a way of life in our townservice to country and service to community. Every year, dozens of candidates would step up to run for seats on the zoning board, even though there were almost never any vacancies. Let me tell you something: If you want to see true democracy in action, just turn up on the second Tuesday of the month for a Centreville zoning board meeting. Theres so much shouting, youll think youve walked in on one of those plays where people curse at each other about real estate being put on by a theater for the deaf. But while I might wish people watched their language a bit, especially when seniors are present, I cant fault their passion.