Eighteen Acres: A Novel (21 page)

“I don’t know. I talk to Roger all the time. If she recorded our calls, she could splice it all together to paint a picture that raises questions. And photos—I mean, I’ve spent a lot of time with Roger. I swear to you, Melanie, I never slept with Roger, but we are, or were, close,” Charlotte said.

“The worst-case scenario is that Stephanie alleges an affair, you and Roger deny it, and then, with her back up against the wall, she releases recordings of you guys and photos that depict an unprofessional relationship but no evidence of a sexual relationship, right?” Melanie said.

“Yes. I suppose that’s about it. And if Roger wants to screw me over for the leave-of-absence trap I set for him at the press avail, he can join forces with his wife and really do a number on me,” Charlotte said, pressing her fingers into her temples.

“That’s a risk, but for that to happen, Stephanie would have to confide in Roger, and there’s no indication that he’s in on this,” Melanie said.

“True, but who knows what will happen now? Spouses have a way of banding together when the world turns against them,” Charlotte said.

“I’m going to bring Michael in when we get back to Washington. I’ll get him to confirm Stephanie as his source, and then maybe you can come in and ask to speak to him alone about the Roger dynamic. Give him reason to suspect that Roger and Stephanie are trying to sabotage you. The best-case scenario is that this all dies a quiet death.”

“Right. Roger is going to be raked over the coals by Congress. We don’t need to expose his wife’s
Fatal Attraction
streak. Let’s do whatever we need to do to kill the story,” Charlotte said.

“I’ll call Michael first thing,” Melanie promised.

“I’m sorry this hasn’t exactly turned out to be a dream job. I’m sure your time in the Martin administration was much more civilized,” Charlotte apologized.

“Nah, there was always a crisis to be managed then, too,” she lied. “Don’t worry about it.”

“I couldn’t do it without you,” Charlotte said.

“No, you could not,” Melanie said, smiling and writing down items on her to do list for when they landed in Washington.

Dale

Dale woke up on the seventh day of her stay in Germany the same way she had the previous mornings. She started by reminding herself where she was. Then she ticked through the various injuries she had suffered. Finally, she took an inventory of the things that had changed in the days since she’d left Washington, D.C., for Afghanistan.

First, the president of the United States liked her. Even before the crash, they had bonded. She was sure of it. Second, she had been sent up on Marine One so that the president could escape safely. Third, her relationship with Peter was out in the open.

What she couldn’t figure out was why Peter was so furious at Charlotte, and it was a topic Peter wasn’t interested in discussing.

She looked at him as he slept fitfully on a hospital bed they’d moved into her room for him. She knew the last few days had been hard on him. He worried about the kids and hated that he wasn’t with them. He worried about Charlotte’s political fate. And he worried about her. She reached out and smoothed his hair. He opened his eyes.

“Was I sleeping?” he asked.

“Yes. Go back to sleep.” She smiled.

“No chance,” he said, yawning and rubbing the arm he’d been sleeping on.

“Come up here with me. It’s more comfortable,” she offered, scooting to the side of her hospital bed.

“That won’t be comfortable for you.”

“It would be the highlight of my week,” she said.

He sat gingerly on the edge of the bed in the space Dale created for him. “Am I hurting you?” he asked.

“Not a bit,” she said.

He lay back cautiously, then settled into the space she’d left him. He closed his eyes and was asleep in minutes.

Dale ran her fingers across his arm while he slept. He put one hand over hers and sighed deeply. She closed her eyes and tried to rest before the doctors came through on their morning rounds. Every time she closed her eyes, Charlotte’s press statement replayed in her mind: “Peter and Dale are involved in a close personal relationship; Peter and Dale are involved in a close personal relationship; Peter and Dale are involved in a close personal relationship.”

Thank God her father had been on the flight when Charlotte delivered her speech. Her parents were staying at a dorm near the hospital for families of wounded soldiers, but when they were all in her room together, the mood was tense. The news about Dale’s relationship with Peter had shaken her father. And he wasn’t alone. Charlotte’s personal approval numbers had plunged to the teens.

Dale hadn’t read the thousands of e-mail messages she’d received since the crash, but she was following the news as closely as she could. Members of both political parties and several editorial pages had called for Charlotte’s resignation. Others called for investigations into the crash and urged Charlotte to announce that she would not seek reelection. The nastiest and most personal criticism came from Charlotte’s nemesis on the
Washington Post
editorial page. She’d written every day since the crash, and the latest was titled “Impeach the Ice Queen.” It accused Charlotte of neglecting the American people to “hopscotch” around war zones in humvees and helicopters, said she deserved to have her “hunky” husband leave her, and urged the Senate to begin impeachment hearings to remove Charlotte from office because of her “reckless and willful endangerment” of the news crew traveling with her in Afghanistan.

The harsh newspaper coverage paled in comparison with the death watch under way on television.

Since arriving in Germany, where there was satellite television, Dale’s days consisted of sleeping, watching cable news, and trying to reassure her parents, Peter, and the doctors that she wasn’t in pain. Mostly, she wanted them to leave her alone so she could watch the coverage of the crash and the political fallout. Each time a correspondent or anchor began a news report about Charlotte or the investigation into the crash, CNN blasted ominous music and filled the screen with a giant graphic that read, “A President in Crisis.” MSNBC simply ran “Is Kramer Finished?” under every newscast or interview it broadcast, and Fox News was obsessed with the fate of Roger Taylor. All of the cable channels were running an endless loop of exclusive interviews with marriage counselors, child psychologists, pollsters, feminists, security experts, pundits, reporters, politicians, and former politicians. The networks were doing daily polls on everything from Charlotte’s chances of being impeached to the perils of dating in office. The news anchors began each evening newscast joined by experts and historians who described Charlotte’s presidency as “squandered,” “swallowed by scandal,” and “finished.”

Dale turned up the volume when one of the stations teased a segment called “Dale Smith: The Other Woman.” She hoped it would air before Peter woke up again.

Dale knew she was lucky to be alive, and she was thankful that Peter was there with her. And of course, her parents provided some comfort. But she was frustrated about being on the sidelines for one of the biggest stories of the century, not to mention the biggest political crisis since Watergate. And the fact that she was a key figure in the very presidential crisis she yearned to cover made her begin to wonder if her career would recover. She tried to imagine herself in front of the White House, reporting on the calls for impeachment. She couldn’t make out exactly what she’d say to carve herself out of the story, but surely her producers would help her finesse her scripts.

Her head started to ache, and she reached for the painkillers the nurse had left on her last visit.

Peter stirred in his sleep, and Dale quickly muted the television.
He didn’t approve of her cable news addiction. “You shouldn’t watch the coverage. It upsets your parents,” he’d said the night before. She’d changed the channel, but she knew that what upset her parents was their new reality, to the extent that they understood it. Dale’s mom had been bombarded with e-mails from her friends. “That’s not your Dale that President Kramer nearly killed, is it?” they’d asked. “Is she having an affair with Peter Kramer? Is she in trouble?” their friends wondered. Her father still hadn’t looked Peter in the eye or spoken to him about anything other than Dale’s condition.

The phone rang, and Dale reached over and picked it up on the first ring so it wouldn’t wake Peter.

“This is the White House operator. I have the president for Ms. Smith,” a friendly voice said.

“Thank you,” Dale said quietly. She looked over at Peter. He didn’t stir.

“Hi, Dale. Are they taking good care of you?” Charlotte asked.

“Yes, ma’am,” Dale said.

“That’s good to hear. Please call me Charlotte.”

“Thanks for calling. I know how busy things are for you. I’ve been trying to follow it from here.”

“It’s a full-fledged media circus.”

“The press loves a crisis,” Dale said.

“That’s for sure.”

“Do you want to talk to Peter?” Dale asked, realizing that she might have called for him in the first place.

“No, just tell him we’ll be at Camp David this weekend if he wants to say hi to the kids,” Charlotte said.

“No problem.”

“Any idea when they’ll send you to Bethesda?” Charlotte asked.

“They’re moving me early next week.”

“I heard you had a second operation a couple of days ago.”

“Yes, they went back in to make sure nothing was bleeding.”

“And everything looked good?” Charlotte asked.

“Yes, they took care of everything.”

“Good,” Charlotte said.

Dale wanted to ask Charlotte how she was coping. She wanted to
know if she was feeling the strain of the media frenzy and the political pressure. She wanted to tell her that the
Washington Post
editorial page was full of jerks. She wanted to tell her to hang in there.

“Thank you again for calling,” Dale said.

“You’re welcome. Let us know if you need anything,” Charlotte offered.

“I will. Thank you, Madam President,” Dale said.

Charlotte hung up. Peter stirred again.

Dale’s back felt stiff, and her hips were starting to ache from spending so much time in bed. She wiggled her arms and legs to get her blood moving.

Peter yawned and stretched his arms above his head. “Who was that?” he asked.

“Charlotte. She called to see how we were doing.”

He turned on his side to face her. “I’m going to rent a place for us in D.C. so we can be near the hospital.”

“Charlotte sounded good—unfazed, if that’s possible,” Dale told him.

“It’s possible. She thrives in disasters. What do you think about Georgetown?” he asked.

“Why don’t we just stay up in Connecticut so you can be close to the kids?”

“Because the only doctors in that part of Connecticut are for the horses, and I want you near first-rate trauma centers.”

“I’m not going to need ongoing trauma care,” she said.

“I don’t care,” he said. “I want you near the best doctors, just in case.”

“Whatever you say,” she agreed.

It felt good to have someone else make the decisions, and at least they were finally making plans together.

Charlotte

Charlotte thought her chest might burst when she caught her first glimpse of her kids. She rushed to them as soon as she stepped off Marine One at Camp David.

“Hi, guys,” she said.

“Hi, Mom,” Harry said.

Charlotte pulled Penelope and Harry into a hug.

The dogs raced toward her, and she looked up to see her parents, Brooke, and Mark standing a few feet away. She smiled at them. Cammie jumped into her lap and licked her entire face. Emma and Mika wriggled next to her. Charlotte laughed.

“How about a hug for your dad before you get covered in dog slobber?” her father teased.

“I’m coming,” she said. She embraced her parents and her friends and then pulled the kids aside.

“Let’s take a walk,” she said to Penelope and Harry. “I want to talk to you.”

She told them that Congress was investigating her administration, that Roger had made a decision that she didn’t support about putting the reporters on Marine One, and that it was unlikely she’d be reelected. She left out the topic that was of greatest interest to them.

“Are you and Dad getting divorced?” Penelope asked when Charlotte finished.

“I don’t know, honey,” Charlotte said. She knew the answer was yes, but she didn’t think it was fair to confirm this to the kids before she and Peter could speak. Besides, she couldn’t give the kids one more thing to worry about. They were too young to worry about their parents as much as they did.

Harry looked concerned. Penelope was trying to act mature, but Charlotte saw worry flash across her face.

“I would be fine. I want Dad to be happy. Just like he wants me to be happy,” she said.

The kids looked skeptical.

“Daddy’s friend is a nice lady,” Charlotte said. “And things with Dad and me are complicated, but we both want the best for each other.” Harry and Penelope were looking at her as if she was full of it. “Is anyone hungry? I’m starving. Let’s get some food,” she said.

They made their way back toward the main house. Charlotte was aware of her daughter’s eyes on her. She couldn’t explain the intensely contradictory things she was feeling to a teenager. She could not make her children understand that, while it was painful, setting Peter free made her feel generous for the first time in a very long time. As difficult as it was to tell them that their father loved someone else, Charlotte was certain that this was a blow she’d survive. She took a deep breath and tried to smile.

Penelope had a very serious look on her face.

“Penny, what’s wrong?” Charlotte asked.

“I don’t want you to be alone, Mom,” she said.

“I’m not alone, honey, and you don’t have to worry about me. I promise,” she said. “I could never be alone with Brooke and Mark following me everywhere I go. You know, we are going to give them their own seats on Air Force One for Christmas if we win.”