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would come in the year 2000.) She wanted a perfect picture, and it didn’t seem to be working out.
    Part of the problem was the camera, or rather the guy working it. Mrs. Edwards had a fancy digital setup with a telephoto lens, and it took me some effort to learn how to work it. But the whole operation was also affected by the time pressure—we needed a great photo
now
—and Mrs. Edwards’s desire for every detail to be perfect. I also thought that Mrs. Edwards, who looked like a normal woman of forty-nine—pretty but a bit overweight—was self-conscious about getting her picture taken with her husband, who was very youthful and photogenic. Finally, there was the pressure that surrounds every big politician’s Christmas card. These cards are more than mere messages of good tidings. They promote the family’s image, communicate Christian values, and signal who is favored by the powerful and who is not. People left off the list never forget it. People on the list feel honored, show off their cards to friends as status symbols, and keep them as historical mementos.
    With so much riding on the photo, I had to struggle to stay cool as I snapped away and Elizabeth came over to check the images in the viewer on the back of the camera. She hated the way she looked in almost every frame, but in the end she had to accept one for the card. I had no idea whether anyone actually liked the picture. All I knew for sure was that it had not been the best time to get to know the Edwards family, and I hoped I’d get a second chance.
     
    W
hile I waited to see how my professional future might work out, I had no doubts about my personal life. Cheri and I had bought a house, and wemoved in with my dog, a boxer named Meebo (a mash-up of My Boy), and a pair of cats named Pepper and Granny. We all got along so well that in January 1999 I ordered an engagement ring, which the jeweler told me would take several weeks to make. On the morning of Friday, February 12, a clerk at the store called to say the ring had been finished early and was ready to be picked up. I hadn’t planned to pop the question so soon, but I was suddenly filled with inspiration and set about creating a night Cheri would never forget.
    Fortunately for me, everyone, including the caterers I called—a company called the Food Fairy—loves a romantic. They agreed to go to our house at a little after five o’clock, find a key I would hide for them, and prepare both the meal and a beautiful table—china, crystal, flowers—and put Stan Getz on the stereo. (I wanted a violinist but couldn’t find one who was available.) At about three o’clock, I called Cheri and said my boss had suddenly assigned me—which meant us—to attend a black-tie event that evening. She didn’t like the idea of racing around to find something to wear and getting ready on such short notice, but when I told her that the governor would be there and it was important for me to attend, she agreed to do it.
    By six o’clock, Cheri, who had worked until three-thirty, had somehow found something to wear, and she looked beautiful, although she was tired and a bit frustrated with me. I managed to get her in the car and down the road just as the Food Fairy truck whizzed past us. “I wonder where they’re going,” said Cheri. As she mused about the truck, I suddenly realized I needed to kill an hour so they could get things ready. I decided I’d drive to one of the city’s few venues for black-tie galas—the Sheraton Raleigh Capital Center—and use up half an hour or so figuring out that it was “the wrong place.”
    The ruse would have worked better if the lot and entrance at the Sheraton hadn’t been deserted, but as we drove up it was obvious that no one was having any kind of event there. Nevertheless, I had Cheri wait in the car while I ran inside to “check.” When I came back out to report it was the wrong place, Cheri pushed for me to call my boss for the proper address. Iresisted her.