The Male Trailing Spouse and Mrs. Yates

 

"Licensed to Spill" claims the banner under the title of this blog. Well, I'd best spill the beans about me and Sally Yates, the gorgeous, pouting, former Acting Attorney General of the USA.

   

 

The world is a small place for the Male Trailing Spouse. Ah, you may ask, but how did I happen upon the feisty and uber-serious figure of Mrs. Yates on my strip joint travels? Allow me to begin this tawdry tale with a ripple dissolve...

 

Almost five years ago, in August 2012, I fetched up in Atlanta after nine years in sweaty Bangkok as the accompanying partner of a UK based civil servant. A Male Trailing Spouse (I.E. a self-unemployed house-husband) needs to stay in shape and I signed up at the local gym (which shall remain unnamed because Mrs. Yates might still be a member). Some months into going, I noticed a thin, middle-aged woman with perfect, symmetrical hair and the striking face of a Renaissance-era beauty. She always stuck to the same routine (legs, tum and bum) and always kept herself to herself (wise woman).

 

The lady whom I was "working out" with, a middle aged Italian-American of considerable charm and beauty herself, noticed that I had a bit of an eye for the "Renaissance Lady," and grew jealous. Did I think that the "Renaissance Lady" was hot? Kind-of-very-much-thank-you, albeit in a Mary Archer meets Harriet Walter kind of way. The silly bint didn't get my cultural references. "You know," she shrieked, "I'm way hotter than she is." Yes dear, I hastily replied, but this is not a competition and she is... well, a different sort entirely (I.E. classy, intelligent, circumspect, and not impetuous and impulsive like a child). The Italian-American lady, who looks just like Ali MacGraw, took this comment very personally indeed."What does that mean, smart ass?" Calm down, I said, calm down, you are the hottest old bag in town. 

 

Bah, irrational crushes always reek of the compost heap. But who was this faraway lady in the gymnasium, exactly? Was she an unhappily married trophy wife? I'd come across quite a few of them in my time overseas. Was she American? She didn't much look it and was so stylish that she could even pass for French. What made me think that so far from Paris, France?  It must have been the lady's slim figure. And the hair. Always cut to precision and perfectly styled. Was she some God awful high-powered legal eagle type? Yes, I was warm. I was getting there. I was half-right but not yet quite.

 

One day the Renaissance Lady noticed me and the old bag version of Ali MacGraw doing some dangerous exercises in the gym. She was moved to comment, "You must have a very strong core to do that." Oh dear. Not only was the lady of the barbells pleasing to the eye, her Southern accent reeked of the antebellum era and was utterly beguiling. Full disclosure plus prevarication: I don't think these Southern Belles have got any clue what that accent does to red blooded Englishmen. You hear a lot of guff about our accents making the hearts of American females flutter, but you never hear much about our flame for that honeysuckle and sweet tea voice.

"These exercises are not so hard to do," I curtly replied, "you're strong enough to do them." Unfortunately, she failed to answer the olive colored foreigner with the posh English accent and swiftly got up from her exercise machine. Ho-ho-ho, I was BLANKED. Ali MacGraw, however, was on hand to note as Mrs. Yates sauntered off to do some crunches on a clunky looking machine. "I don't think she's straight,"she tut-tut-tutted in a barely audible whisper, "I think she's gay."  

 

Not long after in 2014, I was watching the local news when a story came on about a horrid Preacher who was using his church for a sordid Ponzi scheme. I immediately recognized the establishment figure in neat hair and power suit busting up the shop like a latter day version of Eliot Ness. It was the Renaissance Lady from the gym up the road. Blooming heck, she was only the United States Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia.  Oh dear, I do have an eye for 'em. She was filth through-and-through. No way would I be having any love in the afternoon with this high-powered pillar of the establishment. Nonetheless, I immediately reported this development to Ali MacGraw on the phone. She yelped down the line, "You mean the one who's gay?" I sent her the news story via email. She commented on the picture accompanying it (see above). "That's an old shot." (Meow, I thought). Soon after, in 2015, Mrs. Yates was appointed Deputy Attorney General of the United States by POTUS 44. The rest of it is modern political history.  

 

Is she not fragrant? Is she not radiant? Is she not elegant? I am paraphrasing Mr. Justice Caufield,  the Judge in the Jeffery Archer libel case when he was describing Archer's wife, Mary, way back in 1987. I thought just as much when I saw Mrs. Yates up on the Hill the other month putting the smug and condescending figure of Ted Cruz to shame on his pitiful knowledge of constitutional law. What a class act.  

 

Apart from the wife, I mentioned my gym run-in with Trump's rose thorn to "KOAP," an old pal of the firm in Brooklyn, New York. Fascinated, KOAP wanted the full brief on the former federal prosecutor and Madam Attorney General. At the end of it, he asked, "Have you seen her since?" I told him that I last saw the sultry lady from the Justice Department picking up her dry cleaning near Ansley Mall (a 1960s era monument to American consumerism) in nearby Piedmont Heights (an upscale hood full of rich whites with guns). KOAP, however, was concerned about my mental health after four plus years in America. "You're not stalking her, are you?" I reassured the old timer that I was just passing by in a motor vehicle.

 

Well, that's the beans spilled on my brief encounter with the very serious and historical figure of Mrs. Sally Yates. 

 

Until next time...

 

The Male Trailing Spouse.