leave her a note figuring
Just flawsome.
it wouldn’t take long.
My husband and some
Unfortunately, there
friends and I recently
was a queue for drug
went to Cirque du Soleil
testing that day, so it
in Las Vegas. We had
as your flawsome self.
front row tickets which made a superb show even better. At some point during the show, the maestro made
by Tracy Bernard
walk my way. I started to panic momentarily because I have horrible stage fright and I thought he was going to pull me up on stage in front of thousands of people. Instead, he took a beautiful long stem rose and presented to me. I stood up to accept it and, here’s the cringeworthy part, curtsied. Yes, you read that right. A deep, plunging, should-be-reserved-for-the-queen curtsy. As I sat down, I whispered to my husband, “oh my God, I just curtsied.” He laughed and said, “yes, you sure did.” Rewind to a couple of decades ago. I’m a 22-year-old intern at the White House and I get a call first thing in the morning that they were elevating my security clearance and I needed to report to another building immediately for a drug test. My boss, Marilyn, usually arrived much later than I did, so I didn’t
From the Editor
before cell phones were prevalent so I rushed back worried she’d be got to her office, she had a stylish older woman
and then proceeded to
8
hours. This happened
upset with me. When I
direct eye contact with me from the stage,
ended up taking a couple
sitting with her. I meant to only poke my head in so she could see I was there, but she called me in. Thinking I was about to be reprimanded, I started speaking, “Hey Marilyn, sorry I’m late but good news, they are elevating me to a blue pass, so I had to get drug tested. Cross your fingers!” Let me clarify quickly that this was an absolute, total joke and I was in no way unsure that I would pass a drug test. Why I thought that remark would be funny though is another question. After a painful, awkward pause, Marilyn decided to ignore my little statement and said, “Tracy, I’d like to introduce you to George Stephanopoulos’s mother, Nikki.” My jaw dropped. I just made a drug joke in front of a senior White House staffer’s mother. I shook her hand and apologized for my joke. She was
