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letra de step on it - lizzie widdicombe

two fridays before the inauguration, sophia lear, a twenty-three-year-old editorial -ssistant at the new republic, was at her friend isaac chotiner’s apartment in dupont circle, watching the movie “c-cktail,” when she got a text message from a number she didn’t recognize. “it was, like, ‘do you want to take monday off work to drive in obama’s motorcade?’ ” lear recalled. “i went, ‘yes, absolutely. but who is this?’ ” the sender turned out to be jonny dach, an acquaintance from the yale new journal, who was working on the presidential inaugural committee. he told her to e-mail her social security and driver’s-license numbers. lear did, and she e-mailed her boss to ask for the day off. he wrote back, “how could i say no? it’s a fine washington adventure.”
at ten-thirty on monday morning, lear, who has long brown hair and an unfussy, hippie-ish demeanor, reported for duty at the obama transition office, on sixth street. she was wearing jeans and carried a copy of “the mill on the floss.” (she had been warned that there would be downtime.) after p-ssing through something like airport security—bag screen, metal detector—she was sent to a bas-m-nt garage, where there were rows of black chevy suburbans and about ten secret service agents holding automatic weapons. an obama aide handed her the key to her vehicle: a rented blue dodge minivan. she had been told that she’d be transporting high-level staffers. (before the swearing in, volunteer drivers were often used by the p.i.c., to save money.) at first, no one could get the key to work. a staffer appeared, and he asked if she could drive for the rest of the week. lear told him, “i have a job,” but he pressed her. “i was, like, ‘what’s going on here? how could you possibly be so desperate for somebody to drive in the motorcade?’ ”
the secret service guys told her the drill: it would all happen fast; the suburbans would pull out, one of them with obama inside, and she would follow right behind. one of the agents had a starbucks drink, and he offered lear a sip: six espresso shots on ice. “he told me he gets it three times a day,” she said. they gave her one piece of driving advice: “don’t hit anything, and drive like you stole it.”
after an hour and a half, lear’s p-ssengers arrived: general james l. jones took shotgun; lawrence summers and two men she didn’t recognize got in back. no one spoke. “the ride there was so awkward,” lear said. “i was racking my brain about some introduction i could make.” finally, someone brought up the world economic forum, in davos—general jones said he guessed he was going; summers said it sounded fun—and lear was listening closely until she realized, “o.k., i need to focus on not crashing general jones and larry summers and all these important people! i need to execute this task properly.” she concentrated on the driving: a real-life grand theft auto. secret service agents leaned out of the suburbans in front of her, holding their guns. there was no stopping at red lights—policemen blocked the intersections—and no other cars in the street

the motorcade arrived at the mexican cultural inst-tute on sixteenth street. the p-ssengers got out, and lear tried to read her book. but mostly, she said, “i sat in the car for about two hours and texted everybody i know.” she asked for suggestions for ice-breakers to use with jones. her dad wrote, “how about ‘at ease, general!’?” her mom sent a list of “possible entry points”: georgetown basketball (jones played for the hoyas), biking, and paris (they’d both spent time there). most of her journalist friends recommended mentioning books or articles they’d written
when lear’s charges returned, they were chattier, especially summers. “he definitely filled the vacuum,” she said. “he was babbling on and on and was very gossipy.” at that point, lear made her conversational move: she asked jones if he’d seen the profile of him in a recent issue of the new republic. he seemed a little surprised. “he was, like, ‘oh, i’ll have to look that up.’ ”
when they got back to the garage, jones turned to lear and said, “thank you so much for driving us. i hope to see you again soon.” she was thrilled, but she’d decided that she couldn’t miss any more work, and so she recommended her friend chotiner for the next day’s duties. (on tuesday, the van carried rahm emanuel and john podesta, who were accompanying obama to the capitol for a meeting with senators about the bailout. on the way back, chotiner tried laughing at one of emanuel’s jokes. he recalled, “i thought maybe it would, you know, ingratiate me in the conversation.” it didn’t.)
on inauguration night, lear attended a party thrown by google. she was introduced to a member of obama’s staff, and she told him her motorcade story. he seemed unimpressed. “he told me, ‘yeah, they transitioned to the official presidential motorcade today.’ as in ‘that was the last chance you’ll ever get.’”

- lizzie widdicombe

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