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He was living in a spartan one-bedroom apartment in Somerville, but during my recruiting trips Sidley put me up at the luxe Charles Hotel adjacent to campus, where we slept on smooth high-quality sheets and Barack, rarely one to cook for himself, could load up on a hot breakfast before his morning classes. In the evenings, he parked himself in my room and did his schoolwork, giddily dressed in one of the hotel’s thick terry-cloth robes. At Christmastime that year, we flew to Honolulu. I’d never been to Hawaii before but was pretty certain I’d like it. I was coming from Chicago, after all, where winter stretched through April, where it was normal to keep a snow shovel stashed in the trunk of your car. I owned an unsettling amount of wool. For me, getting away from winter had always felt like a joyride. During college, I’d made a trip to the Bahamas with my Bahamian classmate David, and another to Jamaica with Suzanne. In both instances, I’d reveled in the soft air on my skin and the simple buoyancy I felt anytime I got close to the ocean. Maybe it was no accident that I was drawn to people who’d been raised on islands. In Kingston, Suzanne had taken me
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