Sarah Palin and Me

I don’t know what got into her brain that summer, but right after the family Fourth of July barbecue, Mom decided I was lazy and had to go work at my Aunt Jan’s beauty parlor, Curl Up and Dye, until school started in the fall.

    “Sarah, honey, you can’t just lay around all day,” Mom said. “It makes me nervous. Listen to me, don’t you have any ambition?”

    It was kind of a nasty thing to say to me, even for Mom. I had as much ambition as anyone going into her senior year. But the summer of ’08 could be the last summer I ever spent in Shoemakersville, PA. And I wanted to enjoy it.

    I figured Mom was just acting miserable because she was pregnant. That didn’t bother me as much as you’d think, considering I was sixteen and she was almost forty, because my stepdad, Jason, is pretty cool.

    My dad’s wife, Cindy, was pregnant, too, that summer. Now, that bugged me. I missed Dad. She made him move to Florida when they got married. I still think they should have asked me to go along. I wouldn’t have left Mom, but still.

    They say things come in threes. My best friend, Candice, also thought she was pregnant that summer. That would have really pissed off her parents because her boyfriend, Chris, was twenty-one and going to Iraq. I was even more relieved than she was when she got her period. If Candice got married and moved to some Army base in Kansas, I would have absolutely nothing to do in Shoey, and no one to do it with.  

    “C’mon, Sarah-pie. Trust me. This’ll be fun. Even more fun than selling real estate,” Aunt Jan said when I showed up for work the second week of July. Aunt Jan’s got this wicked sense of humor. She’s always making fun of my mom in a way that goes right over Mom’s head.

    Mom started selling real estate when she married Jason so she could make her own hours and cook dinner for Jason, which I think is kind of nice. But before that she, too, worked at the hair salon with Aunt Jan. In fact, sooner or later, all the girls in my family ended up working at the salon on Main Street, which Grandma Agnes bought when she moved her hair business out of her kitchen back in the ’80s.

    Aunt Jan, being the oldest sister, inherited it when Grandma died. But this wasn’t what I planned to do with my life. I didn’t know what I planned to do, but this wasn’t it.

    “You know, you could actually make something of yourself,” my guidance counselor, Ms. Gunderson, once told me. She sounded surprised. “Have you thought of community college?”

    “I’ll think about it, Ms. G,” I said. I knew my grades were good enough. I just wished I had some major talent like singing or dancing that would make everyone sit up and notice—something that made me special, like my sister, Jessica. Jessica won two state field hockey championships in high school before she got married, moved to Harrisburg, and had two kids.

    So anyway, I spent the rest of July and August sweeping hair off the floor and shampooing people.

    Then on Friday, August 29, everything changed. I remember the date because it was my dad’s birthday.

    I was sweeping under Mrs. Genovese’s feet, thinking how I was going to hit her in the shins if she didn’t quit talking.

    “So, I hear your mom’s expecting,” Mrs. Genovese said, poking her fat fingers under the foil on her head. “I remember when she was your age. She was a pretty girl. You look like your dad, don’t you?”

    Thanks, Mrs. Genovese. Tell me something I don’t know, I thought. My mom, Aunt Jan, my sister Jessica—they all look like Holly Hunter, with no hips and blond hair down to their asses. Me, I look like a Polanski; I’m tall and wear a size twelve, sometimes a ten. My hair is mousy brown and out of control. And I wear glasses that make me look like a geek and hide my eyes which, naturally, Aunt Jan says are my best feature.

    Suddenly, Mrs. Jaworski started yelling from under the hairdryer in that husky voice that reminded you why you should never start smoking. She pointed to the TV set that hung from the ceiling and where General Hospital had been playing in closed caption.

    Aunt Jan aimed the remote at the TV and raised the volume. The words “Breaking News” ran across the screen.

    “We repeat,” the news guy was saying, “Sarah Palin has been picked by Republican presidential candidate John McCain as his vice-presidential running mate. At this hour, we can tell you that Sarah Palin has been governor of Alaska for two years …”

    “What’d he say? Another woman’s running for president? What happened to Hillary?” Mrs. Genovese said.

    “There can be two, can’t there?” Aunt Jan’s eyes were on the set. I didn’t think she was right. Didn’t Obama beat Hillary? But I didn’t say anything.

    “Well, they don’t have to interrupt my shows. Can’t it wait for the evening news?” Mrs. Jaworski said.

    “Hey, Sarah sweetie, come over here. You’ve got to see this.” Aunt Jan was waving at me. “I swear that woman looks just like you, babe. Christ, she’s even got your name.”

    “Sarah Polanski?” I asked. I stopped sweeping and looked up at the screen.   

    I was staring at a picture of a woman who looked so much like me it was almost embarrassing. She was smiling, and you could see her big teeth and her square jaw— which I hate about myself—and big eyes behind rimless glasses.

    “Mrs. Palin is forty-four years old and is the former mayor of Wasilla, Alaska,” said the newsman. “Senator McCain said he had selected Mrs. Palin because she was the best ...”

    “Ouch.” Suddenly, my head was yanked back. I tried to turn around, but Aunt Jan was holding my hair so tightly I couldn’t move. “What are you doing?”

    “Shh. Here, let me show you,” she said, as she twisted my hair into a ponytail. She tied it with a scrunchie band she pulled off of her own hair, fluffed my bangs, and stood back.

    “Voila. You two could be twins.”

    I raised a hand to my head, but Aunt Jan slapped it away. “No, don’t touch it. It’s a look.”

    Everyone in the salon was staring at me now. I looked in one of the mirrors. Aunt Jan was right, I thought in wonder. Not only did I look like this Sarah Palin, but I looked older and, I don’t know, maybe smarter.

    It turned out Aunt Jan wasn’t alone. She told me to keep my hair up, and it happened over and over again that weekend. I’d be walking down the street, and people would look at me funny, like they knew me from somewhere. The cashier at the food market even said, “Did you know you look like that lady on the news? You know, the one who’s running for president?”

    “Vice president,” I corrected her, like that was my job now.

    Mom didn’t notice, but my stepdad, Jason, did. Jason had Saturday off from the brick factory where he worked. He was watching TV when he yelled from the den, “Hey, kiddo, that Palin lady looks just like you. Don’t you think so, Ange?”

    Mom wiped her wet hands on the dishtowel and went into the den. I followed, and she gave me a funny look, like I’d done something suspicious. I knew she didn’t know who Sarah Palin was, which made me feel kind of superior.

    “Did Jan do your hair? It makes you look older,” she said, finally noticing.

    “I think you look fine,” Jason said.

    On Monday when I walked into the salon, Tina the receptionist jumped from behind the counter and grabbed my arm. She had fifty pounds on me so I stood tight.

    “Your aunt wants you,” was all she said as she led me over to Aunt Jan’s station.

    “Here’s my girl,” Aunt Jan said to a young guy in glasses standing next to her. He looked confused, like he’d wandered onto an alien spaceship filled with women in tin hats and just wanted to escape without getting probed.

    The guy looked pretty strange himself, I thought. Strapped around his neck was the biggest camera I’d ever seen, like the kind you see in old black-and-white movies about newspapers in New York.

    “Sarah, this is Keith.”

    “Kyle,” he said, pushing the bridge of his glasses.

    “Kyle. He’s here from the local newspaper. You know, the one we advertise in.” She actually winked at me.

    “Sure,” I said, following Aunt Jan’s lead.

    “My editor sent me to get a picture of you for a feature story they’re doing.” Kyle talked fast, as if talking fast would make this go quicker.

    “Apparently, some people called the paper and said that you look like this Sarah Palin in the news.” He paused. “You know, the one who’s running for vice president.” 

    “Yes, I know that,” I said.

    “Imagine that,” Aunt Jan said. “They want to take a picture of you for the front page. Isn’t that so, Kyle?”

    “She really should be dressed different for this to look right,” Kyle said.

    “Okay, just give me a minute,” Aunt Jan said and went to the back room.

    I was left standing with this guy. “You’re kidding, right?”

    “It’s called human interest.” Kyle shrugged. His mouth puckered like he’d eaten a pickle, but he didn’t sound sarcastic, just annoyed. He wasn’t bad-looking. He had spiky hair with blond tips, so he wasn’t uncool. He’d even be kind of cute without the glasses, though I should talk. Still, he looked awfully young to be a reporter, I thought.

    Kyle took out a small notepad and started talking without looking up.

    “Your name?”

    “What?”

    “I need your name.”

    “Sarah Elizabeth Polanski.”

    “Really? Sarah, huh?” He looked at me as if he had just noticed me standing there.      “How old are you?”

    “Sixteen.”

    “Where do you live?”

    “Shoemakersville. You mean my street? We live on Main Street.”

    “School?”

    “Yeah.”

    He sighed. “I meant what grade.”

    “Senior.”

    “Democrat or Republican?”

    No one had ever asked me that before. Didn’t I just say I was sixteen?

    “I don’t vote,” I said. “Obviously.” I didn’t feel like explaining how my dad was a Republican, my stepdad was a Democrat, and I didn’t know if my mom had ever voted in her life.

    Kyle just stared at me. Maybe he was looking for that resemblance; maybe he didn’t see any. Fortunately, Aunt Jan was back, waving a red cardigan sweater.

    “It’s the best I could do on short notice,” she said. “Will this be in color? My God, your hair. Give us a minute, okay, Kyle?”

    She sat me down in her station and pulled the whole thing down and put it back up again. “Can we get you anything? Some coffee? Bottled water?” she asked Kyle, like she was talking to a client.

    Kyle’s eyes brightened, but he said, “No, thanks. I’m working.” It took ten minutes to get me right. Aunt Jan posed me on the black leather couch in the waiting area under the front window.

    I started to take my glasses off, like I always do for photos, but Aunt Jan shook her head. I kept them on and could clearly see all the ladies in the salon gawking at me while Tina beamed behind the front desk.

    To my surprise, I didn’t feel self-conscious. I felt, I don’t know, kind of special.

    Once it was set up, it just took a few minutes. Aunt Jan wanted to get into a shot, but Kyle had the guts to say no. I liked that. Then he was gone.

    That Friday, there I was on the front page of the local newspaper next to a photo of Sarah Palin, the same one they ran on the TV over and over again.

    The headline said “Palin or Polanski?” like one of those “separated at birth” things. It was weird because she’s old enough to be my mother. I had to admit the picture kind of made me look pretty. I may wear glasses, have big teeth, and weigh more than 110 pounds, but so does Sarah Palin—and she’s running for vice president. Thank you, Kyle. Thank you, Sarah Palin.

    That’s how it started. Everyone we knew phoned my mom. For a week, people stopped me on the street or in the market or at the CVS and said they’d seen me in the newspaper. It was pretty amazing.

    The biggest shocker was when Mom came home with a dozen copies of the newspaper to mail to relatives.

    I never thought about politics in my life, but now it felt like everybody around me was talking about the election. I even started watching CNN with Jason. I kind of liked Barack Obama, now that Hillary wasn’t running anymore. He seemed smarter and, I don’t know, more upbeat than the others. And I wasn’t so sure about Sarah Palin yet. What if she turned out to be some evil person? No one wants to be told they look like Hitler.

    Just before Labor Day, I was going to the movies with Candice to see The Dark Knight. We were squeezing everything into our last week of vacation. I was almost out the door when the phone rang. Mom ran from the kitchen to catch me.

    “It’s a boy,” she mouthed as she handed me the phone with both hands, like she might drop it. 

    “A boy?” I grabbed the receiver. “Hello?”

    “You’re not going to believe this? Are you sitting down?”

    I don’t know how I recognized his voice or why it made me feel happy. “Kyle?” I asked.

    “You know that picture we ran in my paper, the one with my story? Well, my editor got this call from the John McCain campaign—in Washington.” Kyle sounded excited. Not like the “just-the-facts” guy at the salon.

    “Sarah Palin is coming to Reading in two weeks, and they want you there—on stage. They’re going to introduce you to Palin and everything. I’m going to take pictures.”

    “How did you get this number?” I said because I couldn’t think of anything else to say.

    “What? Oh, your aunt gave it to me.”

    “And how did they see my picture?” I asked.

    “Maybe they’ve got a clipping service. I don’t know. Anyway, they think it’s cool you look like her. You kind of do, actually.”   

    “I don’t get it,” I said, but my heart was pounding.

    “What don’t you get? They’re coming to some high school outside Reading. And I get to shoot Sarah Palin.”

    I chuckled. “I wouldn’t say that to anyone.”

    I heard silence. “I didn’t mean it like that,” Kyle said with a snarl. Now that sounded like Kyle. “By the way—and this is very important—they want you to dress up like Sarah Palin. They like that you look like her, and I think they want to set up some photo of you both together. Anyway, they’ll call you with the details.”

    “What? That’s crazy,” I started to say, but he’d hung up. Too late, I realized he had probably sent them the photo.

    When I told Mom, she just kind of froze and went pale, like when Jessica said she was pregnant the first time. “Sarah Elizabeth Polanski. You are going to be famous.”

    I liked that she said that. “Not really, Mom. It’s just the local newspaper.”

    “Shh. Just listen to me. There’ll be lots of TV cameras there from Philadelphia. You may be meeting the next president of the United States.”

    “She’s the vice president, Mom, not the president,” I muttered.

    “God help us,” Jason called from the den.

    “Jason, did you hear what happened? Sarah’s going to meet Sarah Palin,” Mom called back.

    “I heard. She’s a little nutty, if you ask me. Palin, not you, honey.” Jason made it no secret that he was mad at the current president; he had a younger brother in the Army who could go to Iraq any day. Besides, being a Democrat was kind of a religion for Jason, his being in the union at work. “I’d rather she met Hillary.”  

    “Since when are you a Hillary fan?”

    “Jealous?”

    “Maybe,” Mom said in that purring voice she gets with Jason. Yech, I thought.

    Kyle wasn’t lying. The McCain people called the house a few days later and asked to talk to my parents. Jason handled the call. I heard some man giving orders in this deep voice, like he was an FBI agent, which Jason said he probably was.

    “You’ll pick up your ID at the location. The candidate is going to announce you and call you up to the stage. And make sure you’re wearing the appropriate attire,” the man told Jason.

    When he hung up, I circled the date in September on the calendar. That made it real.

    Then school started, and for the first time in my life I was a celebrity.

    Mom really got into it. She even left work early one day and took me to the mall. We went to the ladies department at Macy’s, and I tried on dresses for the first time since Jessica’s wedding. We finally bought this red dress. Mom said it looked like something Sarah Palin would wear, only lots shorter. I was surprised Mom knew that, but then Jason did watch a lot of CNN.

    Meanwhile, Aunt Jan couldn’t keep her hands off my hair. She put my hair up then tried it down and finally stayed with the ponytail. She said she was my “official” hairdresser, which I liked, especially when she said I had nice thick hair, like Grandma had. She also said I should get contact lenses someday.

    I was getting nervous, but it was a good kind of nervous. Everyone was cheering for me. Candice begged to come along. Jessica phoned. And my dad called from Florida.

    Dad almost never called, and I had just talked to him on his birthday in August.

    “Hey, sweetheart, I hear you’re famous. I’ll look for you on TV.”

    Did Mom send him a picture? Had I been on the national news? I asked.

    “I saw it on your Facebook page.”

    My dad followed me on Facebook. I couldn’t believe it.

    “We’re proud of you down here. Me and Cindy both.”

    I didn’t even gag when he said that.

                                                                    * 

    I’d never seen so many people in one place, I thought, as Jason pulled the Ford pickup carrying me, Mom, Candice, and Aunt Jan into the driveway at the high school outside Reading.

    Cars were parked on both sides of the street, and people were walking in the middle of the road like there was a parade or something. The two-story high school was on the top of a hill. Looking down to the right, we could see a long line of people waiting to get into the football stadium, which looked far away.

    A guy in an orange vest waved wildly at us to keep moving around the building until we got to a parking lot on the other side. I felt a little sick to my stomach when we got out of the truck, but it could have been all the speed bumps on the driveway. I was dressed to the nines in my new red dress and the highest heels I’d ever worn. In the end, Aunt Jan had pulled out the scrunchie and put my hair up.

    As I stood by the car door, Aunt Jan came up behind me and put her arm in mine. “You look great, Sarah-pie. They won’t be able to tell you from the real thing.”

    One or two people stared at me, which was encouraging, but most of them ignored us.

    We followed the growing crowd down the hill, toward the stadium. Inside the chain link fence were bleachers and a big red scoreboard with the words Bulldogs and Visitors.

    “Do you know where we’re supposed to go?” I asked Aunt Jan.

    Before she could answer, I spotted Kyle at a table by the gate of the chain link fence. I knew him by the spiky hair and that stupid camera. It felt like seeing a long-lost best friend.

    I called out to him. He held up a hand and said something to the girl at the table, then ran up the hill toward us, his camera bouncing against his chest.

    “Wow, you look great,” he said, looking me up and down. I was too surprised to answer.

    “I was just getting my press credentials.” He flicked the plastic card dangling around his neck. “This place is a fucking zoo. Oh, sorry there,” he said, noticing my mom and Jason.

    “Have you ever seen anything like this?” I said. “So, where am I supposed to go?”

    “Do we have to get an ID?” Aunt Jan interrupted.

    “Not to worry. I’ve done plenty of these events,” Kyle said.     

    Suddenly, a shout went up, and the crowd surged forward.

    “Is she here?” I asked.

    “Nah, I think they just opened the gates. Follow me,” Kyle said. As I walked next to him, I heard him mutter something.

    “What?” I asked, shouting over the crowd.

    “I hate to say this,” he said, pushing his glasses up, “but I’m kind of sorry I got you into this.”

    “What?” I said. “Why? Don’t I look all right? Do I look stupid or something?” I wanted to stop in my tracks, but he kept walking.

    “No, you look fine. You look good,” he said, but he wasn’t looking at me. “I’m just starting to think this whole thing is just one big publicity stunt. You know what I mean?”

    “No, I don’t know what you mean.”

    He walked faster, on purpose, I thought. I would have run after him, but my shoes were hard enough to walk in.

    “What do you mean?” I called after him. Jason, Mom, Candice, and Aunt Jan caught up with me by the fence, where a girl wearing jeans with holes in the knees stopped us at the gate. She held a clipboard and looked me up and down.

    “Here’s another one,” she shouted over her shoulder to no one in particular. We walked inside, and then I saw them.

    They were lined up along the inside of the fence in two rows. There were what looked like dozens of girls and women, all wearing glasses, with big hair, and looking more or less like Sarah Palin.

    Some of them were older than my mom. Some were tall; some were fat. One woman was wearing an orange hunting vest and carrying a stuffed bear.

    I stared but no one stared back.

    “You don’t look too bad. You can stand in front.” I jumped as a man, also holding a clipboard, came up behind me.

    He gripped my elbow and walked me over to the front row. He squeezed me into the front row of ladies, in between a girl who weighed over two hundred pounds and someone I swear was a guy.

    “Where’s Sarah Palin?” I tried to say, but I wasn’t sure the words came out.

    “We have to get this photo first,” said the guy with the clipboard.

    There were giggles and chatter behind me. “This is so cool,” I heard someone say.

    No, it’s not. I turned around and glared at her. There’s nothing cool about this at all.

   I faced forward and stood still, like I was told. What was I doing here? Did I look as ridiculous as they all did?

    I looked for Jason and Mom but couldn’t see them. I did see Kyle. He was standing with the other photographers in a line facing us. He had a look on his face like he had killed his dog.

    “Ladies, listen up.” The man who had yanked my elbow was yelling without a microphone. “I want to thank you all for coming here today and getting dressed up like our vice presidential candidate.” He paused as if for applause. I heard one person clapping behind me.

     “Where’s Sarah Palin?” came one brave voice. So, I wasn’t the only one.

    The man looked over his shoulder, first to one side then the other. “She’s not coming. Not today. But you’ll get your chance to meet her. The winner here gets to go to Washington.” He paused again; there was no applause, just the start of grumbling.

    The winner? What winner? Was this some kind of beauty contest? What was the prize? Then I realized. So, that’s what Kyle was trying to say.

    I looked around me at the ladies in their glasses and red dresses. I bet every one of these ladies thinks they’re special. I bet they all think they look like Sarah Palin. And who cares, anyway?

      I felt something bubble up inside me. I glared in Kyle’s direction. He hadn’t lifted his camera.

    Kyle, you got me into this. All of them had, I thought. Why did I listen to any of them? Because they thought I was special, for once? Because they let me talk? Because they said I was pretty?

    Then as I stared, I saw Kyle moving, more like creeping, away from all the other reporters. He was shaking his head, and then he motioned with his arm. Oh my God, I realized, he was signaling to me.

    I tilted my head, trying to understand what he was saying. He started waving his arms like an idiot. “Run, Sarah, run,” he yelled.

    And I did.

    It’s amazing how fast you can walk uphill in high heels when you have to. I didn’t stop until I got to the truck.

    I fell against the door. The stadium’s sound system had started squawking, and I heard a cheer go up inside the field.

    I just wanted to crawl inside the cab and die.

    Jason was the first one to reach the truck after me. He doesn’t like to hug, but he put a hand under my chin and looked straight into my eyes.

    “You’re a very smart girl, Sarah Polanski, you know that?” he said.

    “Yeah, sure,” I said, looking anywhere but at his face. “I ruined everything for everyone.” I realized that I was about to cry.

    “Nah, you didn’t.” Jason poked around in his pockets for a tissue but didn’t find one.

    “I just wanted to be special for once in my life,” I said, wiping my cheek with my sleeve. “I just wanted to be pretty.”

    “You are special, kiddo. And you sure are pretty. Between you and me, I never got why you went along with this anyhow. Who’d want to look like a forty-year-old lady when you’re a cute sixteen-year-old with your future ahead of you?”

    I don’t know why, but it felt good hearing it from him.

    “It was a publicity stunt, wasn’t it?” I felt kind of smart, repeating Kyle’s words. “Sarah Palin wasn’t ever coming, was she?”

    Jason shook his head. “No, I reckon not.”

    “You know, that’s the closest I’ll ever come to being anything important, like a vice president.”

    “That’s not true, Babe,” he said. “You’re my girl. You’re your mom’s daughter. And someday, you’ll be somebody’s very beautiful and smart wife. Maybe that young reporter, what’s his name, Karl.”

    That made me laugh. “It’s Kyle. And you know it,” I said. “I just wanted to make everyone proud of me.”

    “And we are. You handled this really well, if you ask me. You didn’t let it go to your head. And you knew when to get off. I’d say that shows more brains than half the grown-ups I know.”

    “Do you mean that?”

    “I really do.” Jason said. Behind him, Mom, Candice, and Aunt Jan had finally made it up the hill. They ran towards us, and we all had a group hug.

    That night I called my dad in Florida.

    I told him what had happened, and he said he was really proud of me, too.

    Then he said he wasn’t going to vote for Sarah Palin anyway. For some reason, that made me feel even better.