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arms. She smelled like home and French perfume. Inside her sprawling
     white and green house most of the lights were on and three English setters barked
     just outside the door. She gave me a hug and whispered, “You know I’m happy, really,”
     in my pink ear.
    Relaxation and motherly love didn’t last long.
    The Monday after I moved home, I was ready to walk into the List ’s Capitol Hill newsroom and become the wonkiest of wonks; the kind of person who
     chided others for not knowing every single member of the United States Senate and
     House of Representatives. “What?” I would say. “There are only five hundred thirty-five
     members of Congress. Is it too much for youto get to know your government? What do you think the Constitution is, anyway? An
     advice column?” I was going to be so brilliant and so annoying.
    In my navy blue 2002 Volvo station wagon, the clunker I had driven home and abandoned
     after college, I drove to the glass and steel office building on Constitution Avenue
     that held the new media empire to which I now belonged. I had been inside for my interviews
     and to drop off monogrammed thank-you notes, but walking in as an employee felt different.
     Sure, I had to sign an ethics agreement that required me to just say no to the free
     trips to Malaga I had grown so accustomed to at Town & Country, and there was no closet overflowing with feathered frocks for me to don at my leisure,
     but I was about to become a brilliant Washington mind, digging up fraud—gossip fraud—for
     the greater good.
    Having been trained by the most primped and preened people in America, I had begun
     getting ready for my first day on the job weeks in advance. My hair, usually bleached
     a very expensive girl-from-the-fjords blond, was toned down with lowlights. I also
     got my angular bangs straightened so I looked more Good Housekeeping than Interview magazine. At five foot eight I was tall enough to scare short girls and short enough
     not to scare shorter men, and that was something I really couldn’t change in Washington.
     So I didn’t. I bought a new pair of Louboutin heels, very high, very shiny. I also
     bought an Hermès scarf that I could fashion into a cape, a headscarf, or even a chic
     winter sarong of sorts. It also came in handy as a blanket if I needed to take a quick
     nap. As it was both unique and expensive, I deemed it perfect to wrap myself in for
     day one.
    “First impressions are lasting impressions,” I sang out, quoting my old Town & Country editor Kevin St. Clair. He wore Finnish reindeer hide slippers, even when out for
     a jog. Really.You might have seen him running the New York City Marathon one year in these slippers
     while simultaneously smoking a massive Cuban cigar. It was quite a sight.
    Seven years of working at glossy magazines in New York had given me a really great
     wardrobe. I had no money at all, but even my underwear was Miu Miu. That was the way
     of the New York world: Everyone who worked at a fashion magazine had Ivanka Trump’s
     wardrobe, but free. (The downside is that we were paid in air kisses and comped meals,
     but it all balanced out. The only things I ever paid for in New York were rent, cabs,
     and medicine.) Perhaps my wardrobe was a little zany for Washington, but wouldn’t
     some originality help me get a leg up? Anything to build a name for myself in a town
     dominated by massive egos.
    Flying into the office, as my wonderful new 11 A.M. start time meant no rush hour traffic, I left my old car with the valet, failing
     to see the sign for the restaurant next door that read, “Valet for restaurant patrons
     only.” I opened the Capitolist ’s glass doors and got ready to become smarter just by breathing the same air as those
     celebrated scribes.
    “Umm, humm, just sign, here, here, here, here, and here. And initial here. And here.
     Oh, and there,” said the receptionist as she gave me my secure pass and building access
     codes. I was about to