Dear Hillary! And actual punctuation! And a sign-off! In a text! What a charming man he was. Dear Albert, I texted back immediately, I had a wonderful time, too. I can’t thank you enough. I hope all goes well with your travel. Let me know when you arrive east this afternoon? —H

Albert Boyd was supposed to arrive at my apartment at seven for a glass of wine; at seven-thirty, we’d be driven to the restaurant; at nine o’clock, we’d leave the restaurant. I barely remembered what one did to get in the mood for a date, but certainly analyzing Donald Trump’s tweets wasn’t it.

“Yeah, but if you could spend your days sitting on a gold-plated shitter, fucking hookers, and getting paid millions to appear on TV for a few minutes, would you run for president?

“Did I lose my moral compass?” Theresa said, “You want to win.” “That was beyond weird,” Greg said. “But I don’t think anyone who’s lost their moral compass wonders if they’ve lost their moral compass.”

Was it possible they could mitigate each other? Could some unholy alchemy of testosterone occur, a destabilizing blaze that incinerated Bill but left my own campaign intact? Because, really, weren’t they two sides of the same coin, wasn’t Donald simply a far less palatable version of Bill? Rich and narcissistic and verbose, charismatic, and

She was blinking back tears as she said, “I’ve never wanted children. I’m sure of it. Being the oldest sister, by the time I was in first grade, I was changing diapers and getting other people’s sandwiches ready and tying their shoes. Everyone always thinks not wanting kids is a temporary phase, which is so condescending. I don’t dislike them, but

Of course I thought he’d left it behind, but I knew from Silicon Valley fundraisers that there was little a tech billionaire found more pleasing than the pretense that his innovations made life more equitable and meaningful.

I didn’t yearn to be envied by others, and wasn’t a great love affair with Bill Clinton enviable? Hadn’t it been thrilling and also made me slightly uneasy? Now the catch had made itself known.

The reality was that I was a hardworking and not beautiful middle-class Midwestern girl with a mean father. I had never believed the world existed for my enjoyment.