Too Precious to Lose

Too Precious to Lose

1

I walked, almost glided, down a narrow corridor, my arms gently extended. I was following so closely behind myself I could almost kick my back leg to make it buckle, like we used to do playfully back in the day. Something about the barren walls and humming fluorescent glow felt familiar, but I couldn’t place it. My outstretched hand skipped from the rail, floated through the gap left by a doorframe, and landed back in place. Surprised my high-top sneakers weren’t squeaking against the linoleum, I looked down to investigate and came to a stop in front of a closed door.

When I looked back up, I could see a number beside the door. There was no name, just a number. I was drawn to it and could sense someone was waiting behind it. I gathered myself to knock, but before anyone could even answer, I turned the knob, leaned my shoulder into the door, and pushed it open. Just before entering the room, I craned my neck to get a peek at who was inside.

I jolted upright in bed.

Adrenaline, more than fear. I had the feeling of something unresolved.

My eyes followed the blades of the ceiling fan. It was early, around 5 a.m., and the chances of falling back to sleep seemed slim. Besides, I liked getting to work early. I pulled myself into the shower and played the usual morning game: blue or black suit? Definitely not the tan. Never the tan.

As I buttoned my shirt, the dream repeated in my head. What was I chasing?

After spending nearly a year and a half working on the 2008 Obama campaign, I had been swept up in the fast-moving wave of new hires flowing into President Obama’s administration. During the campaign, I’d held a few different roles, including National Voter Registration Director. But now it was 2009, and at twenty-seven I was appointed to serve as one of the president’s lawyers in the White House Counsel’s office.

My appointment came with many spectacular things, the opportunity to do meaningful work, a coveted White House badge, brilliant colleagues, work that made me think, occasional tickets to the president’s box at the Kennedy Center, an invite to play basketball on the highest court in the land, boxes of presidential M&Ms, even the clout to offer the occasional behind-the-scenes White House tour. But one thing I didn’t get? An office. That’s right, instead I got a bullpen—a glorified conference room that I shared with three talented young lawyers: Ian Bassin, Rashad Hussein, and Blake Roberts.

For months it didn’t bother us. Until it did. And then each of us started to groan at meetings, “Any update on those offices?”

As attorneys, it would get a little awkward. A client might walk in seeking counsel. I’d say, “Tell me what’s going on,” and they’d glance around the wide-open space and ask, “Here?”

Our bullpen was on the east side of the Old Executive Office Building lodged between the executive gym and 17th Street NW. The OEOB (or EEOB, depending on who you ask) was a hulking landmark that had stood beside the White House since the 1800s. Once affectionately nicknamed a “beautiful monstrosity,” the building first housed the departments of State, War, and the Navy, but since 1939, it has served as home to White House staff.

I faced our heavy slab of mahogany (one of more than 1,300 interior doors in the building), and as my shoulder leaned to push it open, it clicked: This must be the hallway from my dream. I felt a little silly dreaming about office space but relieved I’d at least figured it out. I turned and hustled down the corridor, late for our team meeting.

The Office of the White House Counsel, established in 1943 to provide the president, vice president, and senior staff of the Executive Office of the President with legal advice informed by both constitutional and political considerations—preserving the independence of the Attorney General and Department of Justice—crowded into the Counsel’s West Wing office for weekly all-hands meetings. They were usually pretty routine.

But that week we had a special guest and needed more space. To accommodate, our meeting was moved to the Situation Room.

The Situation Room is an SCIF—a sensitive compartmented information facility—meaning phones and other devices aren’t allowed inside. We checked and catalogued ours at the door. Even that small ritual stirred the political nerd in me. The Situation Room had been created at President Kennedy’s direction in 1961 in the wake of the Bay of Pigs Invasion, and now I was there, sliding into history.

The White House could grow routine over time, but things like the Situation Room never did. The glow of strategically positioned flat screens on every wall gives the room a high-tech feel. Intimidation was built into the design. I looked around at the high-tech command center, with its sense of consequence, and felt like I’d stepped into a political thriller where world-altering decisions unfold in hushed tones.

As we all shuffled in, I became hyperaware of my own presence and place. I was the youngest lawyer on the team. The only one who hadn’t clerked for a prominent judge or worked for a big-name law firm. In fact, aside from the campaign, I hadn’t worked in law at all. This was technically my first legal job after law school. That morning, I felt every bit like the little gap-toothed Black kid who’d grown up on a dirt road.

The centerpiece of the room was an imposing conference table, surrounded by sleek, high-backed leather chairs, the highest back reserved, of course, for the president or most senior staffer. Less conspicuous seats lined the perimeter, seemingly far from the action. I backed away from the table and slid into a seat positioned on the periphery as close to the door as I could find. A few colleagues gravitated toward the table, but most, like me, were happy to take a seat along the wall.

Then President Obama walked in. He made his way to his chair, surveying the empty seats around the table. He glanced at those of us happily perched along the walls, notebooks open for note-taking, safely removed from the center of action.

“Who are you waiting for?” he bellowed, not looking at anyone in particular, but it felt like he was talking directly to me. “Take your seat at the table. We’ve got work to do.”

For a second, the words rattled around in my head.

Who are you waiting for?

Take your seat at the table.

We’ve got work to do.

The president was calling us to action. Reminding us that no one else was coming to fill those empty seats. We were the ones entrusted with the opportunities and responsibilities before us. Yes! I thought. Let’s go! This was why I signed up to work for this administration. Despite all the reasons I’d convinced myself I should sit quietly, my age, my race, my background, here was the POTUS telling the first-job-having me to roll up my sleeves, pull up my chair, and take my place at the table. Because I belonged here and we had work to do.

Ever since I was a kid, all I wanted was to do something, anything, that would make people’s lives better. Growing up, I’d envied the friends who could articulate the exact job they wanted. That was never me. I didn’t have a title in mind. I just knew I wanted my work to matter. And the White House? The White House mattered. Growing up in the D.C. region, I couldn’t help but revere the building and the office it held. When I got the job in the Counsel’s office, I didn’t let myself show how thrilled I was. I tried to play it cool, tried to act like I belonged. In D.C., you’re supposed to grumble about the traffic, the hours, the lawyers, and the bureaucracy. That’s how people know you’re serious. I was floating down those halls, but I made sure no one saw my feet leave the ground.

One morning, I was late for a meeting, rushing down a corridor in the West Wing. Hugging the wall coming around a tight corner, I nearly collided with Rahm Emanuel, the president’s chief of staff, infamous for his steel-melting temperament and the dead fish story that had made him a legend. It was rumored he sent one to a Democratic pollster. As we brushed past each other, I heard him yell, “Goddamn lawyer!”

My only thought? Wow! He does know who I am. That was Washington.

It was a time of adrenaline and awe, elbows and elegance, sometimes all wrapped in the same moment. Yet, amid the mayhem, there were these rituals that reminded me why I loved being there in the first place.

Early each morning, I’d arrive at the East Wing Gate, tie tucked in my pocket. After the Secret Service checkpoint, I’d weave among the early-bird tourists lined up for their public tour. I loved blending in with them and basking in their wonder. Sometimes I’d drop a quick White House fact as they gazed at some portrait, just to get their oohs and aahs: “Did you know that the Brady Press Room was actually built over the old pool, which is still there?”