Madam President (7 page)

“I know—the abortion speech. I think it’s great, Char, but I’ve seen you deal with bigger shit storms than that, and you’re never like this.”

“Well, it’s not just an abortion speech. It’s broader than that, really. It’s going to get at the very nature of what a unity government can do around some of the most polarizing social issues. I’m going to frame the debate about reproductive freedom in terms that I hope will be less divisive.”

“Blah, blah, blah. Sounds good to me. You’ll come out for the prochoice side, won’t you? I mean, that’s why it’s such a big deal, right?”

“Yes, it will be clear which side of the divide I come down on, but I’m not pushing any prochoice policies other than reinstating some of the funding for mammograms and Pap smears and things like that, that are done at women’s health clinics like Planned Parenthood.”

“Can we go back to Peter for a second, Char?”

“Yes, sorry. What was I saying?”

“That things are fine.”

“They are.”

“But?”

“Nothing. Things are good.”

“Is he staying in line?”

“What do you mean?”

“You know.”

“I’m not going to spy on him, for Christ’s sake.”

“Don’t make it sound like such a preposterous suggestion. You spy on everyone else,” Brooke retorted.

Charlotte ignored the insult and crossed her legs underneath her. Brooke wasn’t going to settle for her one-line answers. “Things didn’t fall apart overnight, and they aren’t going to get put back together overnight—if ever. But I feel like we’re both taking baby steps back toward something that feels better than it has in a very long time.”

“And Dale?”

“What about Dale?”

“For one, you made her one of the most powerful people in your White House by appointing her press secretary. That is either insane or brilliant, and I’m still deciding which,” Brooke remarked.

When Charlotte didn’t bite, Brooke continued.

“And if it were me, I’d be dying to know if they’re still in contact.”

“I have no idea, but I don’t care either way. Peter and I are fine, and Dale is dating a wonderful guy who happens to be my pollster. His name is Warren Carmichael.”

“The Iraq and Afghan war veteran? I saw him on
Morning Joe
the other day.”

“That’s him.”

Brooke made a face that displayed her dissatisfaction at Charlotte’s answers and reached out for the cocktail Mark was handing her. He’d poured three juice-glass-sized drinks. Charlotte took one sip and choked.

“What is this?”

“It’s an old-fashioned.”

“Without the sugar?”

“Brooke and I are cleansing.”

“You’re cleansing?”

“Juice cleansing. Don’t you cleanse?”

“I do not. Why on earth are you guys cleansing? You both look amazing.”

“It’s the juice, it’s a miracle!” Brooke exclaimed. “By day three or four, you’re so hungry you could eat the children, but your skin glows and your skinny clothes fit perfectly again. I am going to sign you up for a weeklong cleanse. The juices show up at your doorstep every morning.”

Charlotte wondered if she’d be buying five-day juice cleanses that showed up on her doorstep if she still lived in San Francisco. “They’d come right to my front door?” Charlotte teased.

“Yeah, unless the juice delivery guy gets shot first,” Mark joked.

Charlotte stayed up with her friends for another forty-five minutes, catching up on gossip and talking about their kids. When she returned to her room, Peter was sound asleep.

What she’d failed to tell Brooke was that she was worried about
Peter feeling lonely and isolated. It wasn’t like he could walk out of the White House complex and head to Starbucks to read the paper, or play pickup basketball games at the gym, or head outside for a run like he did in San Francisco. Those sorts of outings had to be prearranged with the Secret Service. Peter despised the motorcades and the security and the cameras, so he usually stayed home when he was in D.C. and stretched out his visits to the kids and clients on the West Coast. Living in the White House had to feel like a prison. Charlotte resolved to suggest that they take more trips together to California the next time they were alone. She set her alarm for five
A
.
M
. and crawled into bed beside him.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Melanie

M
elanie finished her morning meetings feeling both inspired and depressed. On the one hand, she was heartened by the high morale of the troops she’d met. No matter what was said by Democrats, Republicans, and the entire spectrum of media pundits about America’s ongoing security role in Iraq, the troops remained loyal to one another and committed to the mission. Being in their midst always clarified things for Melanie and reminded her what she was fighting for day in and day out in the offices of well-meaning but clueless senators and congressmen. On the other hand, she was discouraged by what she knew would translate as minuscule progress on the ground. The public had long since moved on, but thousands of troops remained in Iraq and Afghanistan. To Melanie, that amounted to thousands of sons, daughters, fathers, mothers, brothers, and sisters. Additionally, most of the men and women stationed in both countries had already endured multiple deployments away from their families. At this point, they returned home to little fanfare. Nothing frustrated Melanie more than her inability to refocus the country’s attention on their ongoing sacrifice. With prominent voices on the right and the left clamoring for every last American to get the hell out of the region, it was difficult to make the case that the effort was worthwhile. She’d invited some of the local leaders from her meetings
that morning to Washington to brief the members of the House and Senate Armed Services and Foreign Relations Committees. As she was trading personal e-mail addresses with one of the women serving in Parliament, her assistant gave her the signal to wrap things up. She used to ignore cues from aides, but sometimes they were a warning about a sudden change in the security situation on the ground. She ended her conversation and moved toward the door.

“What’s up?”

“Brian’s on the phone.”

“It’s three in the morning in D.C.”

“That’s why I interrupted you.”

Melanie rushed to the holding room.

“Honey, is everything OK?”

“Everything is fine. I’m sorry I worried you. I told them to tell you that it wasn’t urgent.”

“Oh, my God. My heart is beating out of my chest. What are you doing up?”

“I couldn’t sleep. I was worried about you and the baby.”

“We’re fine. I promise.”

“When you get back, I think we need to make a plan for you to slow down. I don’t think all of the travel is good for the baby, and I know it isn’t good for you.”

“We’ll do that. Don’t worry. I’m not straining myself. I slept eight hours, and when I’m not puking, I’m stuffing my face.”

“I worry all the time that something is going to happen.”

“Me, too, but this little baby is going to be fine.”

“I know.”

“Get some sleep.”

She hung up and touched her stomach. Brian was overly concerned, but Melanie had to give some thought to her travel schedule and the hectic pace she’d always maintained. She had spent her entire adult life working harder and longer than everyone around her. She couldn’t imagine doing these jobs any other way. She finally understood why so many women felt forced to choose between their careers and their families. Melanie couldn’t comprehend what full-time motherhood entailed. She only had a few friends who were mothers,
mostly former White House colleagues who dropped out of politics and talked about being swallowed whole by the production of taking care of a newborn and then by the playdates and toddler classes that followed. It sounded daunting, but after everything they’d been through to get pregnant, she couldn’t envision handing her precious little baby over to a stranger.

Melanie also felt the baby might provide a graceful transition out of government. Surely no one would fault her for stepping away from public service after nearly two decades to raise her child? Melanie rubbed her stomach again and realized that she was famished. She pushed herself up from the table and headed back toward the conference room in search of the cheese tray.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Dale

D
ale slid her iPhone out from under her pillow and watched the time change from 3:59 to 4:00
A
.
M
. She gave up on sleep and thought about how she would have given anything to magically transport Warren across the river to his own bed so she wouldn’t have to get dressed in the dark. After carefully extricating herself from his embrace, she balanced her iPhone and BlackBerry on top of her iPad and tiptoed to the bathroom. Once inside, she scanned the e-mails that had come in during the four hours she’d been unplugged. While she waited for an attachment from one of her deputies to open, she glanced at her reflection.
Marie Claire
magazine had flown in a colorist and a hairstylist to give her a new haircut and highlights for the photo shoot they’d done of her the week before. Her dark brown hair had a great bouncy shape, and a fresh batch of chestnut-colored strands made her skin look less pale. As the face of the administration, she was getting plenty of attention for her appearance, but it wasn’t the kind of attention that did her any good at all at the podium. She hoped the “Day in the Life” production would be the catalyst for people seeing her as more than a spokesperson; she wanted to be viewed as an influential presidential advisor.

Dale thought she heard Warren stirring. She stuck her head out the bathroom door to check. He’d rolled onto his back and was snor
ing. She closed the door and finished her hair and makeup with more care than usual and then padded into her closet to get dressed. She selected a black Jil Sander dress that her personal shopper from New York had sent down the week before. Its exquisitely cut shape, fabric, and construction would be lost on the Ann Taylor enthusiasts on the White House staff, but she felt more like herself when she adhered to her fashion-addicted New York ways.

Lucy would appreciate the dress. Lucy Edinburg and Richard Thompson, CBS’s hot new evening anchor team, had been Dale’s pick for the “Day in the Life” special.

She had selected Richard and Lucy over the other network anchors she knew better because everything they did these days was generating tons of buzz. They were being hailed as the saviors of network news for figuring out how to make the evening newscast the most-watched twenty-four minutes of television again.

The rise of Lucy and Richard at CBS represented a final nail in the coffin of Old Journalism. Lucy was a former Fox News anchor, and Richard a beloved fixture at ESPN over the previous three decades. Neither one of them had ever reported from a combat zone, covered a presidential campaign, or done a turn as a White House correspondent. They were skilled conversationalists who managed to endear themselves to viewers by sharing just enough of the details of their personal lives to prove that their challenges and headaches were the same ones that everyone else faced. Their guiding philosophy was that viewers wanted the news delivered by people who managed to inform them without talking down to them. When Lucy underwent invasive fertility treatments at the age of forty-two, she did so with a camera crew in the room. Similarly, Richard did a weeklong special on difficult-to-diagnose ailments that focused on his own symptoms of low energy and weight gain. He subjected himself to several different medical exams, and the series culminated in a visit to an endocrinologist who diagnosed him with “low T” on the air. The reality-television aspect of their newscasts was only one part of their successful formula. Despite a twenty-year age difference, they had the kind of chemistry that made you feel you were peering into someone’s breakfast room on a Sunday morning to listen to them read
the best parts of the newspaper to each other. Whether or not their off-air relationship was as cozy as their on-air presentation suggested was a topic of endless debate, but most people in the news business figured that they were simply maximizing every tool at their disposal to attract viewers.

While at Fox, Lucy had built a loyal audience by railing against the mainstream media and conducting tough interviews with politicians and so-called experts. Like most of the women who appeared on Fox News, Lucy was blond and looked more like a beauty queen from the South than a woman who’d lived in New York City for more than a decade. Since she’d made the move to CBS, she’d traded sleeveless teal and fuchsia mini-dresses that looked like they’d been sewn onto her for sophisticated suits in black, navy, and off-white that were expertly tailored. She’d also cut back on the Botox injections and stopped wearing false eyelashes.

Richard added whatever gravitas the team possessed. He was the one who was most likely to apologize to a policy expert or a foreign leader if Lucy asked a question about twerking. With a thick head of silvery blond hair and a permanent suntan, Richard was one of the most likable people on television Dale had ever seen in her life.

Their path to success started a little more than a year earlier, when they were paired up for a weeklong pilot at the third-place morning show. Management was throwing everything against the wall to see if anything would stick, and Lucy and Richard were instructed to be themselves. What happened was pure TV magic. Lucy was irreverent and feisty, and Richard was funny and relaxed. Together, they interviewed celebrities, senators and congressmen, victims of a tornado, and other journalists. Since they’d never covered any official government beats, they leaned heavily on the network’s correspondents at the White House, the State Department, and the Defense Department and, at times, kept them on for an entire newscast. If a celebrity meltdown or weather story was dominating the news, they talked about that and ignored the network correspondents at the White House, State, and DOD. Their approach had plenty of detractors, particularly among the Washington, D.C., circles of elite journalists and pundits, but it attracted viewers from every important demographic. Richard
and Lucy quickly turned their show into the hottest thing in television news. After a nine-month streak on the morning show, they’d taken their freewheeling, teleprompter-free gabfest to the evening news hour, and that program had moved from dead last to second place in only a few short months.