The Day Mrs. Nixon Asked for My Elephant Pin
Though my star-struck grandmother urged,
I wouldn’t give it up. Well, what did the President’s wife
expect? She, mother of two, should have known better
than to ask such a thing. Granted, I was tall
for a five-year-old; perhaps she thought I was six or seven
and capable of giving — the just-bought plastic trinket
was fastened tight over my heart, shiny red,
two imbedded rhinestone eyes, the elephant’s mouth
and trunk drawn back in a premature but apt leer
of triumph. Everybody knew the President
had the nomination. Hustled along the receiving line,
elaborately outfitted in my pale yellow spring coat and hat
from Sak’s, I reached for Mrs. Nixon’s offered hand,
scared silly when she didn’t let go. All around stood
blank-faced men with crew-cuts. “That’s such a pretty pin.
May I have it?” She leaned in close and I could smell her
breath, sweet dried apricots, her hair-spray, each fragile
lock shellacked into a precise curl. Mrs. Nixon’s face
was gaunt, her sad eyes sunk deep within her cheeks,
but her toothy smile was kind, her voice gentle.
My squirmy hand lay trapped within hers — her grip cool,
dry, firm, not the sort of woman who easily takes “no”
for an answer. I couldn’t speak a word, just stared
at my feet and shook my head, ashamed. At eighteen,
when I registered to vote for the first time,
I wrote in “Democrat” — the perfect coda. Years later,
looking for a place to rent, my husband and I
toured the Nixons’ condo development in the remote wastes
of northwest New Jersey, and I saw my ancient nemesis
getting onto the elevator; wincing a little in sorrow
at her fixed, glassy expression, wondering if she still
remembered me, or even that breezy day in Miami.
Kimberly Townsend Palmer 