Eighteen Acres

by Nicolle Wallace

  Praise for Nicolle Wallace and EIGHTEEN ACRES

  “One of the best novels I’ve read about life in the White House. . . . Delicious. . . . Entertaining, sometimes moving.”

  —The Washingon Post

  “Nicolle Wallace actually knows what she’s talking about. . . . [Her] firsthand experience comes through.”

  —USA Today

  “A game-changer late in the campaign gives the plot a nice boost, revealing the strength of the female bonds.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “This inside-the-beltway thriller about the first woman president has an authentic ring.”

  —Entertainment Weekly

  “Wallace . . . infus[es] the story with the richness of her professional experiences. . . . A must for political junkies and fans of political fiction.”

  —Library Journal

  “When I finished reading Eighteen Acres, I missed its characters and wanted them back—which is novel feeling for me about a bunch of Republicans! It’s very funny, very reflective of some certain someones we all know, and it’s peppered throughout with true, smart insight into the fraught interdependence of top-tier politics and media in D.C. A great read.”

  —Rachel Maddow

  “An enjoyably gossipy dishing of inside-the-beltway residents of all persuasions.”

  —Kirkus Reviews

  “Realistic characters and unusual insight into the West Wing. . . . There’s a certain irresistible quality to Eighteen Acres. The book is genuinely hard to put down, a testament to its well-drawn characters.”

  —Associated Press

  “Nicolle Wallace neatly melds the political and personal facets of public life to produce an absorbing suggestion of future possibilities in the American presidency in this absorbing novel.”

  —BookPage

  “Eighteen Acres is not a dirty politics exposé, if anything, it’s about teamwork, imperfect people trying to do the right thing, and an acknowledgment that working on the White House 18-acre ground is a privilege of a lifetime.”

  —The Weekly Standard

  “This hybrid model of commercial writing paired with a sharper regard for female characters is a rare find.”

  —Bookslut

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  For my husband, Mark

  CHAPTER ONE

  Melanie

  Melanie pushed the tissue paper aside and gazed adoringly at the Dior bag she had splurged on for her thirty-seventh birthday. It was a ridiculous extravagance. The second most expensive bag in her closet was a Marc Jacobs she’d purchased on sale years before. The elegance of the two-thousand-dollar Dior purse would be lost on most of Melanie’s colleagues, but its perfection brought her a surprising amount of happiness.

  As Melanie pulled the purse out of its protective cloth and removed the paper stuffed inside, she suddenly felt worried that all of her electronics wouldn’t fit into it properly. She looked at the three BlackBerrys—one for the classified e-mail system, one for the normal White House e-mail system, and one for her personal Yahoo account. She considered leaving one of them behind but thought better of it. Gently, she stacked the BlackBerrys, two phones, her ID for the West Wing, an ID and key for the underground command center she’d be evacuated to in case of a terrorist attack, her passes to the Pentagon and the State Department, an ID for the Camp David guard station, a West Wing parking pass, and her wallet and keys inside and closed it.

  She stopped in front of the hallway mirror to attach her hard pin to the lapel of her black Armani pantsuit. The small, round pin bearing the presidential seal signaled to the United States Secret Service that she was to be granted full access to the president. Only a dozen White House staffers were given hard pins. She glanced at her reflection and nodded approvingly. Five years on a strict no-carbohydrate diet had banished her full cheeks, and the miracle of chemical straightening had finally tamed her red curls. Melanie’s hair hung in a stylish strawberry-blond bob. She scrunched her nose and leaned in to examine the creases and dark circles that rimmed her eyes. “Those look like the eyes of an old woman,” she said to herself before turning out the lights in her Georgetown condo and walking out.

  “Morning guys,” she said to her agents as she hopped into the SUV that would take her less than two miles to the White House. She’d resisted full-time Secret Service protection at first, but on mornings like this, she was glad she’d relented. Snow had been falling since late the night before, and at five-thirty A.M., they would make fresh tracks.

  “Happy birthday, Ms. Kingston,” Sherry said. Sherry was one of her regular agents. She turned around, smiled at Melanie, and handed her an envelope. “Open it—it’s from both of us,” she said, gesturing at Walter, Melanie’s other agent.

  “Thanks, Sherry, but my birthday is a classified national security event. I didn’t even remind Char—er, President Kramer that it was today.”

  “Mmm-hmm,” Walter said, glancing at Melanie in the rearview mirror as he navigated M Street in the snow. “And it’s not like she has the CIA or the FBI to turn to if she wants to find out for herself when her chief of staff’s birthday is, so you should be fine, Melanie.” He smirked. “Your secret is safe with us.”

  “Shut up, Walter. Just keep your eyes on the road,” Melanie said.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Walter said, still smiling.

  A minute later, he pulled the car as close as possible to the entrance of the West Wing and jumped out to open the door for her.

  Melanie stepped out of the SUV, holding her Dior bag protectively under her suit jacket so the fresh snow wouldn’t touch the leather. She wished she’d worn a coat, but she’d stopped dressing for the seasons years ago. It could be ninety-seven degrees outside, or minus seven, and the climate was always a cool sixty-six degrees inside the West Wing, where she’d be for the next sixteen hours.

  Melanie climbed the single flight of stairs to her office and walked inside. Her assistant, Annie McKay, was already there.

  “Happy birthday,” she whispered, even though no one else would have heard her if she’d yelled at the top of her lungs. Melanie always arrived before anyone else on the senior staff.

  “Thanks, Annie,” Melanie said.

  “Let me see it,” Annie said.

  “What?” Melanie replied innocently, opening her suit jacket.

  “Oh, my God, it is amazing—totally worth the splurge. It has elegant and expensive and woman of substance written all over it,” Annie exclaimed, standing to get a better look at the bag.

  Melanie smiled. She settled in at her desk, casting an admiring glance at the fire that had already been lit in the fireplace. Cozy, Melanie thought. Maybe today won’t be so bad.

  She looked around her spacious office on the main floor of the West Wing and wondered if it was her elevation to this most lonely job on the White House staff or growing fatigue from so many years in the political trenches that had made her reflective to the point of distraction.

  Every room in the White House brought back a memory of a time when she had felt fortunate to be there. These days, she usually found herself standing in these rooms, asking—sometimes begging—the walls to talk to her. Sometimes the history that she and Charlotte were making struck her as embarrassingly overdue—many other countries had been ruled by women. And at other time, it was exhilarating to think that a new generation of women would grow up knowing that the glass ceiling had been shattered once and for all. But
the vast majority of the time, Melanie’s life was exhausting, her assignments unseemly, and the rewards nonexistent.

  She read the intelligence reports from the overnight, a memo from the national security advisor about troop reductions that would go to the president that morning, and the jobs report number that would be kept secret until eight-thirty A.M. She finished the front sections of the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, the New York Times, and Washington’s first official tabloid, the Washington Journal.

  When she noticed that the sun had come up and brightened her office with an orange glow, she glanced up at one of her five televisions. She unmuted one of the stations just as it was teasing its lead story: “Coming up at seven A.M.: Is President Kramer AWOL on the economy? We’ll have some surprising reactions from our viewers to that very question.”

  “The president is on her way to the Oval,” Annie said, appearing in Melanie’s door. “You should probably walk over. She’ll want to see you about the speech, I’m sure.”

  “I’ll head over in a couple minutes,” Melanie said.

  Melanie had been given a desktop device that told her where the president was at all times. “Wayfarer” was the president’s Secret Service code name, and whenever the president moved anywhere—other than the bathroom—an automated voice would announce her whereabouts: “Wayfarer departing residence. Wayfarer arriving Oval Office. Wayfarer departing Oval Office. Wayfarer arriving Cabinet Room.” The voice had driven Melanie crazy, so she’d moved the box to Annie’s desk, and it fell to Annie to inform her of the president’s movements.

  Annie reappeared one minute later. “Sam just called. The president wants to see you,” she said. Samantha Cohen was the president’s assistant.

  “Tell her I’m coming,” Melanie said. She stood up and walked the twenty-five feet to the Oval Office, stopping briefly at Sam’s desk.

  “Morning, Samantha. Is anyone else in there?” Melanie asked, even though she knew no one would be.

  “Nope, she’s waiting for you,” Sam said.

  Melanie walked into the Oval Office and stood a few feet away from the president’s desk.

  “Good morning, Madam President,” Melanie said.

  “Good morning, Melanie,” the president said.

  “How are we doing today?” Melanie asked.

  “Crappy. Did you see the jobs number?” the president asked.

  “Yes. One hundred thousand is better than they predicted. The markets might hold up,” Melanie said.

  “I don’t think so. We’re going to get killed today. The story writes itself: ‘President Proves She Is Tone-deaf on Economy.’ I don’t know why I’m giving this speech in Detroit. Why couldn’t we go to Silicon Valley or New York or somewhere with an economy that isn’t in the toilet?” the president asked as she took her black Sharpie to the speech text and started slashing huge sections—a tactic she employed to show her displeasure and make staffers nervous.

  Melanie’s head started to throb.

  “Sam, get the boys from speechwriting down here,” Charlotte ordered. “This speech was either written by an idiot or someone got drunk last night and wrote it as a joke. The press will kill me if I say the economy has turned a corner. Tell that to the unemployed mother of four. Who writes this garbage, Melanie?”

  Melanie sighed. She had told Ralph Giacamo, the White House political director and Melanie’s nemesis, that the president wouldn’t like the spin. He’d launched into a tirade about how he was in charge of getting her reelected and needed to have his voice heard on message matters. Melanie didn’t have the energy to fight with him, so his language remained in the draft that went to the president.

  “Earth to Melanie? Did you even look at this?” the president snapped, tapping her perfect bone-colored high heel—a Manolo Blahnik, for sure—on the floor under her desk. The president always dressed in the same color from head to toe. Today she was in a crème skirt and matching belted jacket. She wore a silk camisole underneath and a single strand of tiny pearls. Her thick blond hair was pulled back in a ponytail, and she didn’t have any makeup on yet. Her hair and makeup team came in at seven forty-five. From a distance, she could easily pass for someone fifteen years younger than her forty-seven years.

  “Of course I did, Madam President, and I’m sorry it isn’t to your liking, Madam President. We’ll write you a new speech, my lady,” Melanie said, bowing her head down toward the president in an exaggerated act of deference. She stayed in that position until the president spoke.

  “Oh, shut up, and stop with the bowing,” the president said, stifling a smile. She rose from her desk and walked over to one of the sofas. A fire burned in her fireplace. “This fire is a little much, don’t you think?” she said.

  “It’s a little more robust than the one they lit in my fireplace,” Melanie said.

  “Looks like a goddamn bonfire,” the president said, gesturing toward the sofa across from her for Melanie to sit.

  Melanie laughed and sat down, relieved that Charlotte’s dark mood had passed. The president needed to be “on” for the trip to Detroit. Half a dozen small-business owners and a handful of members of Congress were flying on Air Force One with her for the speech, and if Charlotte were brooding the whole time, the trip would be a waste.

  “Sam—will you please bring Melanie’s present in here?” Charlotte yelled. “And two cups of coffee with cream.” She turned to Melanie and broke into a full smile for the first time that morning. “Happy birthday, smart-ass,” Charlotte said.

  “Oh, God, no presents, please. I’m trying to go to a happy place in my mind—a place where I’m not thirty-seven years old, single, childless, and working steps away from the office where I sat when I was twenty-three years old,” Melanie said, sinking into the couch and looking up at the ceiling.

  “Oh, your life is so awful. You’re just the White House chief of staff, that’s all. What an underachiever you are. Open your present,” Charlotte said, smirking and pushing the gift toward Melanie. She let the speech scatter on the carpet beneath them.

  Melanie picked up the carefully wrapped box. As she slowly untied the bow and removed the tape from the wrapping paper, Charlotte grew impatient.

  “Hurry up, the speechwriters will be here soon,” the president said, grabbing the box from Melanie and removing the wrapping paper herself.

  Melanie stared at the black Bulgari box and said softly, “Charlotte, what did you do?”

  “You’ve been so depressed lately, I thought you needed to be cheered up,” Charlotte said. “Open it, already. This Hallmark moment has gone on too long.”

  Melanie stood up to give her a hug.

  “Open it first,” Charlotte squawked, pushing Melanie aside. “I have to go to Detroit in this damned blizzard to console the inconsolable about the crappy economy in a few minutes.”

  Inside was a thin white-gold chain dotted with diamonds—the most tasteful and beautiful thing Melanie had ever seen and, by a factor of one million, the most elegant piece of jewelry she owned.

  “Thank you so much. I love it,” Melanie said, sliding it over her head and admiring the way the long chain sparked against her black silk blouse.

  She knew she was lucky to work for Charlotte, and it almost hadn’t happened. She had been planning to move back to Colorado with Charlotte’s predecessor, President Martin, to head up his presidential library. But then she’d agreed to meet with Charlotte two weeks after she’d won the election.

  When she’d walked into the room for their first meeting, she’d been struck by how small Charlotte was. She was a natural blonde, but her hair looked like straw. It was her one feature that actually looked better on television than in person. The toll of the long, nasty campaign was apparent on Charlotte’s face. Her blue eyes looked gray, and the lines around her mouth that usually disappeared behind her campaign smile were deep. She was so thin that the black slacks and jacket she wore looked as if they belonged to someone else several sizes larger. She wore low heels t
hat almost passed as sensible, but when she crossed her legs, Melanie noticed the red soles that gave away both the price tag and Charlotte’s commitment to fashion.

  Melanie hadn’t wanted to like her enough to be tempted to say yes. She really hadn’t wanted to like her at all. There was a cushy job waiting for her in Colorado with “nine to five” and “private jet” written all over it if she agreed to take President Martin up on his offer. There was nothing tying her to D.C. She could have easily flipped her condo to someone in the new administration—even in a down economy, people would be looking for places to live close to the White House. But something had nagged at her. She felt a sense of obligation at least to go through the motions and meet with the president-elect during the transition.

  Melanie had been told that President-elect Kramer had made a special trip to Washington to meet with her.

  “Please call me Charlotte,” she’d said. “It took me two years to get used to ‘governor,’ and now all this ‘president-elect,’ and then ‘Madam President,’ who can keep track of it? Call me Charlotte—I insist,” she’d said.

  She was smart and funny and self-deprecating. She’d seemed to have been handed a briefing paper so detailed about Melanie’s career that Melanie wondered if the FBI had been involved. After some small talk about the current unusually cold temperatures for Washington, Charlotte had told Melanie that she’d seen her on the Today show years earlier and that she had admired and tried to emulate her cheerful toughness in her own television appearances. She’d praised Melanie’s decision to have the president do weekly press conferences in media markets around the country instead of from the White House. She’d said she agreed with the outgoing president’s decision not to campaign on her behalf because of the ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which she must have known had been Melanie’s advice to the president.

  Melanie’s defenses had been down. She was feeling more and more flattered by the minute. And the idea of being the highest-ranking staff person for the first female president in America’s history did capture her imagination. Despite the fact that in the recesses of her mind, she understood that it was all part of an elaborate scheme to entice her, she’d said yes on the spot to serving as chief of staff to the nation’s forty-fifth president.