Girl Gone Mild

This is the same Jenna Bush who was cited more than once for underage drinking? Who was a fixture in the tabloids and a punch line in every late-night talk show monologue? That was then. Today, the president’s daughter is all grown up, teaching in an inner-city public school, soon to be married, and even sooner to be the best-selling author of a serious book about AIDS. And yes, she’s counting the minutes until January 20, 2009.

by Skip Hollandsworth

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Jenna began doing long interviews with Ana in Spanish and wrote five chapters over the course of three weeks. Connolly says that when she showed him what she had done, he was “blown away” by her ability to re-create the life of the young mother. Over Christmas break, Jenna gave the partial manuscript to her mother, a former teacher and librarian, who promptly circled all the passive verbs. (“Mom,” Jenna yelled, “it’s a first draft!”) Washington lawyer Robert Barnett, who specializes in securing book deals for Beltway VIPs, took her and the five chapters to meet publishers in New York. The editors at HarperCollins were so impressed that they offered her a reported $300,000 advance—not bad for a book for teens, and not bad considering that no one knew (or knows) if a book by a Bush would sell in a country that is, at the moment, anti-Bush. “In my first conversation with Jenna, I felt inspired just listening to her talk,” says Kate Jackson, the editor in chief of HarperCollins children’s books. “I saw that she was a very gifted writer, a natural talent. She had an innate sense of how to make the pacing of her book incredibly tight and intense, which is not what you usually see in a new author.”

When Jenna returned to her internship, she met with Ana at least four times a week, asking dozens of questions and then writing. “Day and night,” says Baxter, “sitting at her desk in front of her laptop, wearing these huge goofy headphones that would block out noise.”

“It was pure lunatic writing,” Jenna says. “Mia probably thought, ‘Oh, we’ll go to the beach on weekends, we’ll go hiking, we’ll go to a festival,’ and I’d say no and I’d write. I got inspired. I got inspired about getting out there and opening kids’ eyes about someone like Ana and talking with them about how they can help change things. I feel like kids want to make a difference, but they don’t know how. Or they don’t feel empowered. They don’t feel they can actually change the world, and I think they can.”

Although Jenna says she arranged for part of her advance to go to a fund to pay for Ana’s college education, she initially did not tell Ana who she was. She truly loved her anonymity during those months—“walking up and down the streets, not having people do double takes,” she says—and she didn’t want her fame to get in the way of her relationship with her subject. But she couldn’t stay anonymous forever. When she met Barbara in Argentina for a few days of vacation, the freewheeling local press got ahold of the news, and soon there were reports that Jenna and Barbara had been seen running nude down a hotel hallway, that Jenna had fallen in love with a young man in Argentina and was bringing him back to Washington to meet her parents, that U.S. embassy officials had “strongly suggested” that the twins leave the country because of security concerns. It wasn’t long before the U.S. media were repeating the same stories—“the Paris and Britney of the political world!” the New York Daily News called them—and late-night comedians were on the air with yet another round of jokes. Jon Stewart: “Just to repeat: Argentina, former safe haven for Nazi war criminals, is drawing the line at the Bush twins!”

“Lies, all lies,” Jenna tells me with a sigh. “There was no nudity, no running up and down hallways, no getting kicked out of the country—and no new boyfriend.”

On that last point, she is especially emphatic. Unbeknownst to most people, Jenna had been in a serious relationship for several years with Henry Hager, who was working in Karl Rove’s office when she met him during the 2004 campaign. Described by one columnist as “tall, dark and Republican,” Henry was first spotted with Jenna when he escorted her to one of the inaugural balls. He made news again after complaining that a spin class teacher at a Washington sports club was making anti-Bush jokes. Still, he’s known to have a sense of humor: One evening he persuaded the Bush family to watch a video of the black comedian Dave Chappelle impersonating the president.

When I’m with Jenna in July, word of the engagement has not yet leaked. When I ask her point-blank if she’s getting married, she says no. When I try to get her to give me some information about Henry, who is enrolled in graduate business school at the University of Virginia, she’s coy. When I ask, for instance, if he’s the son of a Virginia politician, she says, “I’m not even sure.”

But later in the conversation, she begins to open up, telling me Henry has passed what she says is her dad’s “boyfriend test.” (He was able to keep up with the president during a mountain bike ride but, no doubt to the president’s joy, was unable to get in front of him.) She says that she and Henry took a long camping trip together in 2006, driving from her parents’ hometown of Midland to Big Bend, where the owner of a bakery in Alpine, without knowing who they were, gave them a huge bag of doughnuts and brownies. (“Henry was shocked. He’s an East Coast boy. He couldn’t believe how friendly people were.”) From there they went to the Grand Canyon and on to Zion National Park, in Utah. “We hiked and hiked and hiked and read books at night,” she says. “On that trip, we reread our favorite books from school.”

“What did your dad say when you told him you and your boyfriend were going on a trip?”

“He said, ‘Do you have two tents?’”

“I assume that if Henry comes to visit you at the White House, he stays in his own room.”

“Oh, yeah.” She laughs. “Dad’s still the traditionalist, you know.”

With her fiancé, Henry Hager, in 2006.
The White House/Kimberlee Hewitt/AP

The date and place of the wedding have yet to be disclosed, though another of Laura Bush’s biographers, Ronald Kessler, says he has been told it will be held in May at the ranch in Crawford. Meanwhile, Jenna will have her book tour to finish. She clearly likes being a writer: She’s signed a contract with HarperCollins to write another children’s book, this one with her mother, about a boy who does not like to read. (Presumably he does not grow up to be president.) Although Barbara’s personality is more like the first lady’s, Jenna and her mom are close because of their shared interest in teaching and reading. Jenna, who moved into the White House after her UNICEF internship came to an end last summer, says she and her mom love to get into bed and talk about the novels they’re reading. A recent favorite of Jenna’s is Daughter of Fortune, by Isabel Allende. “Allende’s great,” she says. “All of the books I read have strong women characters going out and conquering and becoming independent, and they don’t care about men.”

Jenna sleeps in what she says is “the White House kids’ bedroom,” just down the hall from her parents’ room. (John F. Kennedy Jr., LBJ’s daughters, and Chelsea Clinton all slept there.) When I ask her what it’s like to live in the White House, she gives me the kind of throwaway answer that’s almost worth a story in itself: “I feel like it’s filled with millions of ghosts. I get scared there sometimes. I’m not kidding. I have heard ghosts, I really have—ghosts singing opera. One night, opera noises came out of my fireplace. When I told my sister, she didn’t believe me, but the next week we were up late in that bedroom and we heard 1950’s piano music. People will think I’m crazy for saying that.”

When she’s with her father, she says, they don’t talk shop. She doesn’t read the papers or watch the news because she can’t bear to hear him criticized. “You know, when you really love somebody, especially your father, I mean . . .” She pauses, and her eyes fill with tears. “I see him as a father. I see him as the father who took us to soccer games. For me, he is a father who is so much fun. So, yeah, it’s hard to see. But, you know, you have to ignore it.”

I ask her if, in the waning days of his administration, the president is truly at ease, as he seems to be. She gives me a long look. “No,” she finally says, “not all the time. He acts like he’s at ease—or tries to act like it—but he’s not always.” She’s looking forward to January 2009, she adds, so that her parents can return to Texas and can “just relax. They really can’t relax right now.”

Does Jenna plan to return to Texas too? While she talks at length about how she misses Austin, she’s staying mum about where she and Henry will end up. As for writing, she says she’s not sure about that either. But she does say that regardless of what happens, she will keep teaching. “In our society, where pop culture rules the pages, no one is interested in somebody who teaches,” she says. “But it’s something I love.”

She’s serious. One afternoon before I leave Washington, I drive for the last time past Jenna’s school. I see her down the street at a small city park, where the kids are climbing around on a dilapidated playscape. She is just another young teacher, completely anonymous. A couple of downtrodden people sit on a bench, paper bags at their feet. On another bench is an elderly couple, the husband patting the wife’s back. Young men, apparently with no place to be, stand on a street corner, staring at traffic. No one looks her way.

I sit in my car across the street, unseen, and watch her for a few minutes. She smiles at her kids as they run back and forth, then starts laughing at something one of them says to her. Finally I hear her shout, “Come on, guys! Recess is over!” They line up and head back to school, Jenna leading the way. As they walk through the front door, she’s still smiling.

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