April of 2014, I was invited to Houston as a guest author for the Barbara Bush Foundation for Family Literacy fundraiser, along with two well-known male authors and a male journalist who’d written a book about a Navy SEAL. At a small luncheon at a private home before the big event, I was seated next to Barbara Bush, who was warmly intimate and surprisingly funny. In my nervousness, I knocked a cherry tomato onto her pristine white slacks. She smiled wryly and said, “Seriously, Christina?”
After the luncheon, it was time to take group photos. Barbara Bush and I stood and chatted for a few minutes while the photographer readied his camera. President George H.W. Bush, whom I had not yet met, sat in his wheelchair in the center of the room, while others were arranged around him for photos in various groupings. When it came time for my husband and me to be photographed with him, President Bush beckoned me close.





