Eighteen Acres

by Nicolle Wallace

  That was three years ago. Melanie fingered the smooth gold chain around her neck and stared at the reflection that the diamonds made on the wall of the Oval Office.

  “If you’re still in there, Melanie, you’re welcome,” the president said, waving her hand in front of Melanie’s face. “I’ll see you tonight. We need to talk about the campaign. I’m sorry I’m missing your party, but at least I’m taking Ralph off your hands.”

  “Party? What party?” Melanie groaned.

  “I told them you’d hate it, but as usual, nobody listened to me. Act surprised. Sam and Annie have been working on it for weeks.” The president turned back to her desk. “Sam, please tell the speechwriters to get on the helicopter. We have to write a new speech.”

  Melanie turned to leave and smiled sympathetically at the speechwriters who were huddled in front of Samantha’s desk.

  “Good luck, guys,” Melanie said. “I’ll throw Ralph under the bus later. She’s just being melodramatic. Roll with it.”

  Melanie endured the senior staff singing “Happy Birthday” to her at their seven-thirty meeting. She took calls from most of the Cabinet members, wishing her a happy birthday and from many of the reporters she’d known from her eight years as press secretary for the previous president. Her parents sent a dozen white roses mixed with white tulips, her favorite flowers. But nothing could have prepared her for her own reaction to the slide show that the White House staff assembled to pay tribute to her fifteen years of service.

  Thank God the lights were dimmed and the music blaring. Against a soundtrack of depressing spinster ballads from Natalie Merchant and Tori Amos, the images flooded the room. There she was at twenty-three—in the group photo of all the White House interns—smiling and oblivious to the three chins she’d had in those days. President Phil Harlow was the first president Melanie had worked for. She’d lied about being a student to get the internship, since the White House intern program was only available to college students earning credit for their free labor. When a spot opened up for a junior press aide, she’d confessed about graduating the year before, and they’d given her the job. She spent nearly three years in the same cramped fourth-floor office in the Old Executive Office Building, across the driveway from the West Wing.

  The next images were from her days as a campaign aide to President Harlow’s nephew, Christopher Martin. He’d surprised everyone when he announced a run for the presidential nomination during President Harlow’s last year in office. Melanie had signed on as his campaign press secretary. Everyone was shocked when he won the nomination and, eventually, the presidency. President Martin made Melanie his first press secretary, and at twenty-six, she’d been the youngest White House press secretary in history. The pictures of Melanie as President Martin’s press secretary made her cringe. Fortunately, her clothes, hair, and figure improved with age. There were pictures of her sleeping with her mouth wide open on Air Force One, plenty of shots of her fielding questions from the podium in the White House briefing room, and images she recognized as having been Photoshopped to remove all evidence of Matthew, her husband for a brief period during the Martin administration.

  Photos of Melanie as Charlotte’s chief of staff made up the last and longest part of the slide show. She’d been around the photographers so long that she didn’t notice them anymore, but there she was: speaking to Charlotte as they walked across the South Lawn to board Marine One, being summoned by Charlotte as she stepped off Air Force One, whispering in her ear in meetings with foreign leaders, hiking with her at Camp David with the dogs, and laughing with her in the Oval Office over one of their many inside jokes.

  Melanie stood and applauded when the slide show finally came to an end.

  “Thank you so much. It has been the privilege of a lifetime to serve this president alongside all of you. Thank you for this great surprise. I don’t know what to say, other than thank you, from the bottom of my heart.”

  She stayed and thanked everyone for coming and asked the stewards to bring the leftover cake to the residence. She and Charlotte would eat it for dessert.

  Fifteen years, three presidents, and seven executive assistants later, Melanie thought to herself as she walked back to her office. “And all I’ve done is move forty feet.”

  Around eight P.M., Melanie heard the sound of Marine One as it neared the South Lawn. She loaded her BlackBerrys and phones into her purse and walked down the hall toward the residence where she and Charlotte would have dinner. Charlotte had been bugging her for an answer about running her reelection campaign for weeks.

  As the chopper came closer, her mind flashed back to her first ride on Marine One. It fell on her twenty-sixth birthday, and she had been nervous and excited about joining the elite group of top staffers who rode on the presidential helicopter instead of driving the short distance to Andrews Air Force Base. They’d been traveling to Detroit that day to talk about the economy, and President Martin’s poll numbers were almost as battered as Charlotte’s. More than a decade later, Melanie still remembered how her stomach had churned and the sweat from her underarms had soaked her blouse that day. She had heard the sound of the helicopter as it neared the South Lawn, and she’d raced down the hall to the Oval Office. President Martin had looked at her, clearly enjoying her anticipation.

  “You ready?” he’d asked.

  “I’m ready,” she’d said with a grin.

  He’d flung his arm around her and walked out to the South Lawn, where the helicopter was parked. He’d waved to the cameras and the crowds and mouthed “Thank you” to the friends and staffers who had gathered to see him off. Melanie had walked on her toes to keep her heels from getting stuck in the muddy grass, but it wasn’t enough. She lost one of her Stuart Weitzman pumps in the mud and was too afraid to stop and pick it up with the cameras rolling. She’d boarded Marine One and taken a seat across from the president.

  “You sit here—you won’t bump into me the way these thugs would,” President Martin had ordered, referring to the male staffers who would bump into his knees if they sat in the seat across from him.

  “Yes, sir,” Melanie had agreed as she sat across from the president and peered out the window of the helicopter. Melanie had no idea what to do about her shoe. She hoped that no one would notice. She’d send someone to buy her a new pair in Detroit. Ernie Upshaw, President Martin’s deputy chief of staff, noticed her bare muddy foot first.

  “Where is your shoe, Melanie?” he’d asked.

  “Uh, it fell off.”

  “Where?” the president had asked.

  “Somewhere between the Oval Office and the helicopter,” she’d admitted, her cheeks and neck turning hot.

  The president had howled with laughter and sent Buckey, his personal aide, out to find her missing shoe. The shoe was wedged so deep in the mud that it took Buckey about five minutes to find it. The helicopter pilots had eventually powered down Marine One, and all three of the cable news networks had carried the shoe hunt live.

  Melanie’s BlackBerry had filled with new messages.

  Her assistant: “They aren’t looking for your shoe, are they?”

  Her mother: “All the news stations are calling you Cinderella. Why didn’t you wear flats?”

  The White House chief of staff: “Way to go—the president will be late, but you will have your shoes.”

  He is such a jerk, Melanie had thought.

  Buckey had finally returned to Marine One with Melanie’s muddy black pump in his hand. The president thought the whole episode was hilarious. As they lifted off from the South Lawn of the White House and flew over the Washington Mall, Melanie had felt as if she’d been transported to a different world. The Tidal Basin glistened in the morning sun, and the Washington Monument jutted out of the ground. The flags that surrounded it flapped in the wind below her window, and the tops of the buildings on the mall looked like doll houses.

  “It’s pretty spectacular, isn’t it?” the president had said.

  “Amazing,�
�� Melanie had replied, not moving her eyes from the sights below.

  “How could that have been eleven years ago?” Melanie thought, not realizing she’d muttered to herself until one of Charlotte’s agents spoke to her.

  “Ms. Kingston, is everything all right?”

  “I’m sorry; I’m fine. Losing it, perhaps, but fine. Is she upstairs yet?”

  “Yes. She said to tell you to come on in.”

  Melanie walked past the table that had been set for two with fancy china and flatware and out to the Truman balcony. Charlotte had installed heaters so they could sit out there year-round. Melanie sat in her usual spot and pulled a blanket over her lap. She took in the view and tried to work herself into a positive frame of mind for Charlotte’s benefit. The Washington Monument was directly in front of her, lit to perfection by carefully placed spotlights and brightened by the full moon reflecting off a blanket of fresh snow. The Lincoln Memorial could be seen off to her right, and if she leaned forward, she could make out the top of the Capitol to her left.

  One of the president’s dogs put her two front paws in Melanie’s lap and started kissing her face. She leaned back and let the dog lick her.

  Melanie had never planned to spend her entire adult life working for the president. When people gazed at the wall of presidential commissions that hung in her West Wing office, she used to feel proud. Now, they embarrassed her.

  With the thirty-five-pound dog now sitting in her lap, Melanie practiced what she would say to Charlotte that night: “Charlotte, I can’t run your reelection campaign, because you can’t run for reelection.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  Dale

  Dale finished her live shot at six thirty-three P.M. She grabbed her overstuffed bag, flung her white cashmere coat over her arm, and raced toward the car waiting for her outside the northwest gate of the White House. She dialed Peter’s personal cell phone as soon as she shut the car door behind her.

  “Hey. If the seven o’clock shuttle is running late, I might make it. Otherwise, I’ll be on the eight o’clock,” she said.

  “Hey, yourself. Didn’t I just see you on live television?” Peter asked.

  When she heard his voice, Dale relaxed for the first time that day—the first time that week, for that matter. She missed him so much during the week. All she could think about was seeing him.

  “Yes, that was me, but I’m working on finding a clone, so I can get the hell out of this place earlier on Fridays and see more of you,” she replied.

  “That would be nice. Do you have any candidates?”

  “A few. Do you want to audition them? See if they are as good at keeping secrets as I am?”

  “That’s not all they’d have to be good at. Harry has a basketball game at one, and Penelope is studying for a French test, so I can get a late start tomorrow,” he said.

  “That sounds good. I’ll call you and let you know which shuttle I’m on. We’re at the Mandarin, right?” Dale asked.

  “Yep. Forty-fifth floor. Did you remember your hard pin this time?”

  “Got it,” she said, reaching into her coat pocket to finger the lapel pin that would allow her full access behind the Secret Service security perimeter set up to protect the husband of the president of the United States.

  “OK. See you soon. I love you.”

  “I love you, too,” she replied.

  As the car sped around the snow-covered monuments on the Mall, she dialed her weekend producer and left a voice-mail saying she’d be in around noon. Much to the jealous dismay of her colleagues at the network, she’d been given the weekend anchor job. Like everything else in her life these days, her promotion could be traced back to her relationship with Peter.

  Dale didn’t permit herself to dwell on the risks they were taking. With Peter, she didn’t feel she had a choice. She loved him with every fiber of her being, and in some ways, it had made her success at work possible. It was as if her instincts took over when her mind became consumed with keeping her relationship with Peter a secret.

  She was also always available to work when others were not. She had volunteered to work on Thanksgiving Day during the first year of her romance with Peter. Her parents had been disappointed that she wouldn’t be coming home for the holiday, but she’d wanted to be in New York in case Peter could find an excuse for a quick trip to the city. Billy Moore, the news director and her boss, had picked Dale to anchor that night over more experienced reporters who were dying for the unofficial audition.

  On Thanksgiving Day, around five P.M., a wire story had crossed her desk that made her palms sweat: “First family evacuated from Camp David after terror plot deemed credible.” Terror threats were quite common, but it had been years since a president had been evacuated because of one.

  Her first instinct had been to call Peter, but she knew better. The Secret Service would be on high alert. They would be monitoring all communications, and she was certain that Peter would call when he could. Of course, her job was to confirm that the president was safe and to report, on behalf of the network, on the president’s actions, but once Peter was in the picture, that was always an afterthought. Her colleagues had been suspicious of her scoops in the early months of the Kramer administration, and she was careful about never implicating Peter as a source. But that Friday, their relationship had come close to creating a national security incident.

  As the start of the newscast had neared, Dale was working her sources to try to determine the nature of the threat against the first family at Camp David. She had calls in to Melanie Kingston, the defense secretary, the national security advisor, and every single press officer from the Secret Service to the Department of Homeland Security and the State Department. They’d all been tight-lipped, telling her nothing that would allow her to advance the story. Then her cell phone had rung, and she’d reached for it frantically, hoping it was Peter.

  “Hi, it’s me,” he’d said.

  “Hi, you,” she’d said softly. “Are you OK?”

  “Yeah, we’re all fine. I can’t talk, but we’re going back to the White House tonight. I’m going to bring the kids back up to school in Connecticut in the morning. I can meet you in New York tomorrow night before I fly home to San Francisco, if you want.”

  “Yes, yes, of course, I want to see you. Call me when you get here.” Dale had hung up and gone back to her calls.

  She’d never intended to reveal what Peter had told her, but when she finally got the national security advisor on the phone, she’d said, “When was the decision made to bring the first family back to the White House?”

  The line had gone quiet. Dale had thought he’d hung up.

  “Are you still there?” Dale had asked.

  “Dale, who told you that a decision had been made to bring the first family back?” the national security advisor had asked.

  “Uh, no one. I just assumed that they would get back to the White House, you know, to be in the Situation Room, in case, you know, in case there’s something g-going on,” Dale had stuttered.

  The national security advisor wasn’t buying it. “Dale, I need to know right now if someone told you that the first family is returning to the White House. It’s a matter of national security,” he’d said.

  “No, but I’m going to take your reaction to my questions as confirmation that the president is indeed returning to the White House,” Dale had responded.

  “Don’t do that,” the national security advisor had warned. “Don’t do that, Dale, or you’ll regret it.”

  “The country has a right to know where the president is at all times, sir, and with all due respect, I had a hunch that she’d return to the White House, and you’ve just confirmed it, so I’m going with it in ten minutes unless you tell me it isn’t true.”

  Fuming, the national security advisor had told Dale she’d regret her brazen abuse of the First Amendment and that he’d make her source pay.

  Dale had led the news that night with her exclusive report about the first
family returning to Washington. The higher-ups at the network had been thrilled, and she’d been given the weekend anchor post.

  Since she’d been anchoring weekends, ratings were up twenty percent, and her contract had been renewed for four years at a salary she wasn’t sure she deserved. The best thing about the weekend job was that she got to spend Friday and Saturday nights with Peter.

  “Thanks, AJ,” Dale said to her driver now as he pulled up to the US Airways gate at Reagan National Airport at exactly six-fifty P.M. Dale went flying through the airport, stopping at the kiosk and ramming her American Express card into it to retrieve her boarding pass. Friday nights were always busy at Reagan, and with the snow falling outside, Dale was praying for a delay that would hold the seven P.M. shuttle until she could reach the gate. The kiosk spit out a boarding pass, and Dale ran toward security. The TSA agents recognized her and helped her unpack her laptop from its case.

  “Thanks, guys—I’m trying to get on the seven,” she said.

  “Slow down, pretty lady,” one of the regular TSA agents said. “Everything is backed up. You’ll be fine.”

  “Oh, good. That’s good news. Thanks.” She yanked off her wet high-heeled boots and threw them on top of her coat and purse.

  “Slow down and get yourself another bin. You’re gonna get mud all over your fancy jacket,” the TSA agent said.

  “It doesn’t matter—I just need to get to the gate,” Dale said.

  Once through security, she pulled her boots back on, grabbed her coat and bag, and ran toward gate 41. Her flight was delayed. She called Peter again.

  “Hey, so, the seven is delayed about forty minutes, but I bought a ticket on the eight, too, so I will get on whichever one takes off first,” she said.