Eighteen Acres: A Novel (14 page)

“Is that right?” Peter said.

“I figured you knew already. You guys are friends, right?” Charlotte said. She hadn’t planned to put her husband on the spot, but something about traveling in such an intimate group with Dale was more than she could take. She didn’t think Dale was entitled to any special access. She had enough of that, Charlotte thought.

“Uh, yeah, you know, I, you know, met her years ago in Sacramento.”

“I know,” Charlotte said.

They stood there for a minute, neither one of them saying anything.

One of Charlotte’s agents stuck his head in and cleared his throat loudly. “Excuse me, Madam President, but we’re wheels up from Andrews in exactly forty minutes,” he said.

“I’m coming. Is Miss Smith in the car?” Charlotte asked.

“Yes, ma’am,” the agent replied.

“Thanks again for coming tonight. I hope you have a good week,” she said to Peter before turning to walk out of the Diplomatic Room.

“You, too,” he managed to say.

As she walked toward the SUV, looking sporty in jeans, a black fleece, and black running shoes, Charlotte tried to shake off the guilt she felt for reducing Peter to a flustered mess. She pulled her ponytail through the back of her black baseball cap and stuck her head into the drivers’-side window.

“Hey, guys, we’ll get going in a minute. Good evening, Dale. I thought you might want to ride with me and Roger since this is your first trip.”

“Yes, of course, thanks so much,” Dale gushed.

“I just need to talk to Roger about something briefly, and then we’ll be on our way,” Charlotte told her with a smile.

“Great,” Dale said.

Charlotte and Roger stood talking a few feet away from the car.

“Everything OK?” Roger asked.

“Yeah, everything is fine. How’s Stephanie?”

“Pissed as hell that I’m going, but she’ll get over it.”

“Did you ever think that it would be like this?” Charlotte asked.

“Like what?”

“You know, that we’d fix the stuff over there and screw things up back here?” Charlotte said.

Roger smiled and put his arm around her. “We did more than fix stuff, Char,” he said.

Charlotte smiled. It felt so good to talk to Roger. Just thinking about being out of Washington for four days lifted her spirits. The trips boosted Charlotte’s morale by distilling her job down to its most essential elements. The commander-in-chief role had always been more comfortable for Charlotte than any other aspect of the presidency, which was ironic, since convincing Americans that a woman could serve as commander in chief had been her greatest hurdle in getting elected in the first place. Her strengths were well suited for the decisions she faced as a wartime leader. While her private deliberative process alienated and offended many in Congress and some of her Cabinet who preferred long, public debates about the future of health care or education, Charlotte’s ability to seek advice on the wars and reach a conclusion without any public hand wringing or hedging earned her great respect up and down the military’s chain of command.

It helped that during Charlotte’s presidency, support for the wars and the men and women who were fighting them rose to their highest levels since the months after September 11, 2001. Charlotte had honed her message to one that perfectly calibrated the public’s need to hear the difficult truths, on the one hand, and its need for leaders who displayed confidence about the prospects for victory, on the other.

Charlotte looked back at the residence to see Melanie crossing the lawn in the black gown she’d worn to the dinner.

“Hey, Mel,” she said.

“Madam President, I need to speak to you.”

“What is it?” Charlotte said.

“Alone, please.”

“I can’t imagine why that’s necessary.”

“Please,” Melanie insisted.

“Fine,” Charlotte said, leaving Roger on the South Lawn and walking into the Rose Garden with Melanie.

“I need to ask you about something before you leave,” Melanie said.

“What is it, Melanie?” Charlotte said.

“I need to ask you one more time. Is there something going on that I should know about?”

Charlotte looked at her. Melanie’s hair had come out of the updo she’d worn for the dinner, and her makeup was smudged. She was breathing heavily from her speed walk from the West Wing to where the mini-motorcade was parked.

“No,” she said calmly.

“This is the point where I can do something to help you, Charlotte. After this, after tonight, if you walk away and don’t tell me what’s going on, I’m not sure I can.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about or what kind of rumor you’re chasing down for one of your buddies in the press corps, but there’s nothing going on,” Charlotte said.

Her comment about “buddies” just about ruptured Melanie’s forced composure. She was pissed enough at Charlotte to ruin her trip by telling her exactly what Michael had told her. The only reason she didn’t mention the affair rumor was to preserve Charlotte’s focus on the high-stakes trip she was about to make to the front lines. Melanie took a breath and blew it out slowly before turning to face Charlotte again.

“Madam President, I have been here for fifteen years. I have never had my neck out as far as it’s out now. If there are things that have happened or things that are happening that could be used against you by your political opponents, I need to know about them so I can help you. That’s all. I would not be standing out here in a strapless gown in forty-degree weather at midnight for my buddies in the press corps. Besides, most of them hate me these days.” She forced out a smile and a nod in Roger’s direction and then turned to leave. She didn’t know what else to do. Charlotte was either playing dumb or in complete denial.

Charlotte followed her and put her hand on Melanie’s shoulder. “Can we talk about this when I get back?” Charlotte asked.

“Sure,” Melanie said. “Have a good trip.” She turned and walked back toward the West Wing.

Charlotte stood watching Melanie.

“Charlotte?” Roger asked.

“I’m coming. Everything is fine,” Charlotte said. “Let’s go.” She climbed inside the SUV and sat next to Dale.

Roger sat in the backseat and leaned forward between Charlotte and Dale. “So, Dale, this is your first trip, right?” he asked.

“Yes. I’m really excited. Thanks so much for allowing me to come with you,” Dale said.

“It’s a serious place,” Charlotte warned.

“Yes, ma’am,” Dale replied.

“A lot of brave people think they can handle what they see there, and then they get over there, and they choke. You know, they think about their families and their loved ones, and they can’t put one foot in front of the other. I need to make sure that you’re not going to freeze, Dale, and put the whole group in danger. I usually don’t take anyone who hasn’t done at least one solo trip,” Charlotte said.

“I know, and I really appreciate it, Madam President and Mr. Secretary. I assure you that I am prepared for the trip,” Dale said.

“How can you say that?”

“Excuse me?” Dale said.

“How can you say that you are prepared if you have no idea what you’re about to see?” Charlotte asked.

Dale wasn’t sure what the right answer was to her question. It didn’t matter.

Charlotte continued, “You can’t imagine what it looked like three years ago when Roger and I first visited, right, Roger?”

She talked all the way to the airport and seemed to lose herself in the details of the countries she’d tried so hard to put back together. Dale was surprised by how transported Charlotte was when she talked about what she and Roger had done in Afghanistan and Iraq.

When they arrived at the airport, Charlotte didn’t stop talking until her agents interrupted her. “Why don’t you board from the back, Madam President?” one suggested.

Charlotte got out of the car and walked toward the plane, talking
to Dale the entire time about the generals who had been in charge and the debriefings she’d done when she became president.

“I hope you’ll come back here and help us tell the story, Dale. It’s important that the public understand how much has been accomplished,” she said as they climbed the stairs to Air Force One.

Dale smiled and nodded.

“I hope you’ll come back as changed as I have been by every one of my trips,” Charlotte said.

She greeted the other reporters in the press cabin, and then disappeared to the front of the plane with Roger.

Melanie

Melanie waited until she was back in her office with the door closed and locked. She wanted to hurl her phone against the wall and watch it smash into tiny pieces. She wanted to scream at the top of her lungs. She wanted to throw her chair through the window. But she couldn’t do any of those things. She wasn’t sure precisely what had set her off. She felt as though she’d been broken by the proverbial straw on the camel’s back. As she paced back and forth in front of the fireplace, she tried to determine if it was her fear of another looming crisis on top of everything else she had to manage or the fact that she felt trapped in her job by her own demented sense of loyalty and duty that had her feeling so enraged. Whatever it was, it had pushed her over the edge in the Rose Garden. She had never lost her cool with any of the presidents she’d served. Everyone always said that she’d know when it was time to go. Others who had held her position told her that the trick was leaving before the job altered your personality and turned you into someone you neither recognized nor liked. She was certain that moment had arrived. After her breathing returned to normal, she sat at her desk, booted up her computer, and did something she’d fantasized about a great deal in recent weeks. She started drafting her resignation letter.

A few minutes later, Annie knocked softly on her door. “Mel, it’s
me. Do you need anything?”

“No, Annie, I’m fine. You should be at one of the afterparties. Why don’t you get out of here? I’ll manage,” Melanie said.

“Are you sure?” Annie asked.

“Yes, positive. I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Good night, Melanie. Call me if you need anything,” Annie said.

Melanie heard the door close behind her. Less than a minute later, the phone rang. She wanted to ignore it. She looked to see who was calling. It was the White House operator. Charlotte would have called through the Situation Room switchboard.

“Hello, Melanie Kingston’s office,” Melanie said, trying to disguise her voice by sounding extra-polite like Annie.

“Uh, hello, is Melanie there?” asked a vaguely familiar voice.

“It’s after midnight,” Melanie said.

“I know. I just thought maybe she’d be there, since the motorcade went back to the White House,” he said.

“Who is this?” Melanie asked in her normal voice.

“Oh, hi, Melanie, this is Brian. I was calling to see if your night got any better. You were talking to yourself last time I saw you,” he joked.

“Actually, it got worse. Much worse.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Brian sympathized.

“Why aren’t you at the afterparty?” she asked.

“I was there. It was awful. This town might kill my soul. How do you live here?”

“Good question,” she said.

“What are you doing now?” Brian asked.

“Right now?” she said, glancing at the letter she’d started typing on her screen.

“Yes, right now.”

Melanie was silent for a moment, and then she sighed and held down the delete button until the screen was blank.

“Nothing,” Melanie said.

“Do you want to get a drink?” he asked.

“Actually, I would love a drink, but I don’t think there are many places still serving in the District of Columbia at this hour.”

“I’ve got that under control. Where should I pick you up?” he said.

“I’ve got a built-in ride, you know, one of the few perks of the job,” Melanie said.

“Of course. Well, that ruins my element of surprise,” he said.

“Surprise?” she asked.

“Yeah, OK, forget about the surprise. Can you meet me at the Jefferson Monument in ten minutes?”

“The Jefferson Memorial?” she corrected.

“Yes, sorry, the Jefferson Memorial.”

“Seriously?” she asked.

“Seriously. Don’t stand me up, or I will develop a complex and have to leave D.C.”

Melanie glanced at herself in the mirror. Her makeup had smudged a bit, but she didn’t completely hate her reflection.

“One drink,” she said.

“All I ask,” he said.

Melanie hung up and went down the hall to the bathroom to brush her teeth and splash some water on her face. She grabbed Annie’s coat from the coat rack in her office and walked out to West Exec.

“We’re making a stop, guys,” she said to Walter and Sherry.

They pulled up in front of the Jefferson Memorial, and at first Melanie didn’t see anyone.

“It would be just my luck to get stood up tonight on top of everything else,” she muttered under her breath. She got out of the car and walked up the steps toward the rotunda. All of the monuments were illuminated after dark, but the Jefferson Memorial shone brighter than the others and had always been Melanie’s favorite.

Brian was standing in front of the statue of Jefferson.

“You came,” he said.

“I came,” Melanie said. He was holding a six-pack of Heinekens and two heavy blankets. They sat on the bench inside the rotunda in front of Jefferson’s statue. Brian opened a beer for her and one for himself.

“I love this place,” he said.

“Me, too,” Melanie said. She shivered a little bit, and he moved closer to her and wrapped the blanket around her legs.

Melanie drank her beer and looked up at the quotations she had memorized. Her favorite was the one about the need for institutions
to change. Every time she read it, she felt as if Jefferson had been talking about Charlotte’s presidency.

“Now I get it!” Brian exclaimed.

“What?” she asked.

“Why people live here. I mean, this is cool. Where else can you share a beer with Jefferson?”

Melanie laughed. “Exactly. And you get free political advice,” she said, standing up to read one of the inscriptions carved in the massive marble walls of the rotunda.