Read Online Silent Partner: A Memoir of My Marriage by Dina Matos McGreevey - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Dina Matos McGreevey
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community.
In my view, Jim’s candidacy was good for the Portuguese community in New Jersey, a group of seventy thousand or so. New Jersey is among the half-dozen states in the country with the largest immigrant populations, and, as I knew from my own experience, immigrant groups can have great power—but only if they are, first, naturalized and, second, registered voters. Jim understood this as well, and he organized an Ethnic Advisory Board, to which I belonged, along with representatives from such major immigrant groups in New Jersey as the East Indians, Dominicans, Chinese, and Polish.
One good friend who was involved with Portuguese-American politics and whom I’d known for about ten years since my college days also supported Jim’s run for governor. One day, as I was leaving one pro-Jim event to go to another, she fell into step with me on our way to the parking lot. “If this guy wins,” she said, “I hope he gives you a job in Trenton.”
She didn’t suspect we were dating, and I didn’t tell her. Nobody knew. Not Manny, though he did suspect, not my friends, and not even my parents. Part of it was my desire for privacy, and part of it was my cautious nature. But there was more. As of 1997, Jim was still not divorced from Kari, and neither one of us thought it was wise for him to be seen dating someone when he was still legally married.
No one in his family had ever been divorced, nor had anyone in mine. Worse, my parents would have been disapproving if they’d known I was dating someone who to them was still a married man.
Jim’s divorce, which finally came through at the end of 1997, forced me to become more accepting of divorce, but our attitudes were both influenced by the fact that we were religious Roman Catholics. Even after his divorce went through, I didn’t tell my parents we were dating until early in 1998, when I invited him to a family christening. He was out campaigning somewhere and was to meet me at the restaurant where the reception for my niece’s christening was taking place. About an hour before Jim was to arrive, I said to my mother, “Jim McGreevey is coming, I’m dating him.”
My mother, as I’d imagined, was not at all surprised. She told me she already knew and was just waiting for me to get around to telling her. (Once, in an attempt to keep
me
from knowing that
she
knew, she asked me whether “the mayor of Woodbridge” would be coming to an event that I and the rest of my family were attending. She figured if she called Jim “the mayor of Woodbridge,” then I wouldn’t suspect that she suspected, but of course it was her question that was the dead giveaway.)
During Jim’s first campaign for governor, however, there was only one major media occasion when we broke our Vows of Invisibility so that I could appear in public as someone connected to him. It was the day of a big rally at John F. Kennedy High School, in April 1997, which Jim had called in order to officially kick off his first gubernatorial candidacy. I took this invitation to be a sign of our deepening relationship and was pleased when Jim said he wanted me to sit in the first row with his family, whom I had not met more than once or twice.
The press regularly characterizes Jim’s father, Jack, as a “marine drill instructor,” implying a kind of ramrod severity, but in my experience he was gregarious and warm, just like Jim. As for Jim’s mother, Veronica, known as Ronnie, like other members of his family, she worked very hard for him and did everything she could to help her son get elected. But even for Jim, at that time a forty-year-old man, she was more the drill sergeant than Jack—a force to be reckoned with, and often a disapproving force. Ambitious on her son’s behalf, she pushed him unceasingly, always thinking he should do more, and criticized his campaign staff, whom she saw not only as lazy but as sloppy dressers. I can’t say they were enthusiastic about her either.
When I arrived
In my view, Jim’s candidacy was good for the Portuguese community in New Jersey, a group of seventy thousand or so. New Jersey is among the half-dozen states in the country with the largest immigrant populations, and, as I knew from my own experience, immigrant groups can have great power—but only if they are, first, naturalized and, second, registered voters. Jim understood this as well, and he organized an Ethnic Advisory Board, to which I belonged, along with representatives from such major immigrant groups in New Jersey as the East Indians, Dominicans, Chinese, and Polish.
One good friend who was involved with Portuguese-American politics and whom I’d known for about ten years since my college days also supported Jim’s run for governor. One day, as I was leaving one pro-Jim event to go to another, she fell into step with me on our way to the parking lot. “If this guy wins,” she said, “I hope he gives you a job in Trenton.”
She didn’t suspect we were dating, and I didn’t tell her. Nobody knew. Not Manny, though he did suspect, not my friends, and not even my parents. Part of it was my desire for privacy, and part of it was my cautious nature. But there was more. As of 1997, Jim was still not divorced from Kari, and neither one of us thought it was wise for him to be seen dating someone when he was still legally married.
No one in his family had ever been divorced, nor had anyone in mine. Worse, my parents would have been disapproving if they’d known I was dating someone who to them was still a married man.
Jim’s divorce, which finally came through at the end of 1997, forced me to become more accepting of divorce, but our attitudes were both influenced by the fact that we were religious Roman Catholics. Even after his divorce went through, I didn’t tell my parents we were dating until early in 1998, when I invited him to a family christening. He was out campaigning somewhere and was to meet me at the restaurant where the reception for my niece’s christening was taking place. About an hour before Jim was to arrive, I said to my mother, “Jim McGreevey is coming, I’m dating him.”
My mother, as I’d imagined, was not at all surprised. She told me she already knew and was just waiting for me to get around to telling her. (Once, in an attempt to keep
me
from knowing that
she
knew, she asked me whether “the mayor of Woodbridge” would be coming to an event that I and the rest of my family were attending. She figured if she called Jim “the mayor of Woodbridge,” then I wouldn’t suspect that she suspected, but of course it was her question that was the dead giveaway.)
During Jim’s first campaign for governor, however, there was only one major media occasion when we broke our Vows of Invisibility so that I could appear in public as someone connected to him. It was the day of a big rally at John F. Kennedy High School, in April 1997, which Jim had called in order to officially kick off his first gubernatorial candidacy. I took this invitation to be a sign of our deepening relationship and was pleased when Jim said he wanted me to sit in the first row with his family, whom I had not met more than once or twice.
The press regularly characterizes Jim’s father, Jack, as a “marine drill instructor,” implying a kind of ramrod severity, but in my experience he was gregarious and warm, just like Jim. As for Jim’s mother, Veronica, known as Ronnie, like other members of his family, she worked very hard for him and did everything she could to help her son get elected. But even for Jim, at that time a forty-year-old man, she was more the drill sergeant than Jack—a force to be reckoned with, and often a disapproving force. Ambitious on her son’s behalf, she pushed him unceasingly, always thinking he should do more, and criticized his campaign staff, whom she saw not only as lazy but as sloppy dressers. I can’t say they were enthusiastic about her either.
When I arrived
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