Downhill Partying

"Uh-oh, I got this thing," he says. He pulls out his new gold medal. "Everyone wants me to wear this thing. It's kind of a big deal, I guess." He puts it around his neck.

We ask if it's heavy and White lets us heft it. It is. He says when he saw it on his bedside table this morning when he woke up, "I was, like, wow."

He's grinning like he's got all the time in the world, like he just happens to be at a party in his honor in Turin, after just happening to win the gold medal in halfpipe, and just happening to be a millionaire who owns three homes at the age of 19.

The tense publicist darts over.

" Allright-we'regoing-let'sgo ," she says.

"Uh-oh," White says, happily, as the publicist yanks him onto the stage.

Inside Club Bud, the floor is sticky. There's a hot tub with models who have been hired to sit in warm water for hours in Speedo bathing suits and look like they're having fun.

There's a guy with a long, waxed mustache; we enjoy his uniquely Italian sense of style until we find out he's American.

Much has been made of the chocolate of Turin, but we are dying to try this thing called a Budweiser. Luckily, they just happen to have some at the bar. It tastes . . . wet. We wander the rooms, bored, thinking perhaps we will leave.

And then, as if out of a dream, sitting by themselves on a long expanse of red couch, are first daughter Barbara Bush and an Unidentified Female Companion. Barbara accompanied her mom, Laura, in an Olympic delegation and stayed behind after the first lady left for home on Sunday. And now, apparently, she has decided she wants to party with us. She looks gorgeous. She's wearing jeans and a sleeveless olive top with a blue scarf, and her dark hair is full and wavy around her face. Babs!

We introduce ourselves and ask Miss Bush if she speaks Italian.

She fixes us with a disintegrating stare, the sort of look that could pulverize stone. She asks if we're planning on writing this down.