Eighteen Acres

by Nicolle Wallace

  Melanie looked at him and didn’t say anything for nearly a minute. “I’m pretty sure you didn’t summon me to New York to give me political advice, Michael,” she finally said.

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “So, what is it? Peter Kramer is the leader of a polygamist family in Utah? The kids are growing pot at boarding school? What? What crazy conspiracy tale do you have for me?”

  “I can see you’ve lost your sense of humor, Mel, so I’ll cut to the chase. I’ve got a source who claims to have photos, taped conversations, and all sorts of other sordid evidence that Charlotte’s marriage is a sham.” He stopped to gauge Melanie’s reaction.

  Melanie laughed. “And in Washington, that makes her what? Part of the silent majority? You didn’t drag me here to tell me that you have some loony source who heard rumors that Charlotte is gay or Peter is a swinger, did you? Because I can walk down to the briefing room and get that from any twenty-four-year-old blogger. Jesus, I can see clearly now why journalism is on its last legs. I’m embarrassed for you, Michael.”

  “Listen, save the pissed-off act for your underlings; I’m sure they love you for it. I came to you because we’re friends and because I know it’s been an undercurrent for a couple of years, but this feels like it’s about to break, and I wanted to give you a chance to work with us and frame it yourself. People will have sympathy for her—I mean, assuming Peter is the one having the affair. If it’s her…” He stopped.

  “If it’s her, what?” Melanie asked.

  “Well, if it’s her, that changes things. You know that.”

  She fumed silently. She and Charlotte talked about everything. But Charlotte and Peter’s marriage was one topic Melanie never asked about. And Charlotte never volunteered any information outside of what was obvious.

  Charlotte and Peter Kramer lived separate lives.

  But so did every politician on Capitol Hill. Most senators and House members lived one life in Washington and another in their home states and districts. And Peter was the first man ever to fill the role of a first husband. There wasn’t exactly a play book for him.

  Had she let Charlotte down by not insisting that she appear more often with Peter and the family? Should she have dug deeper about why Peter stayed so far away from the White House most days of the week and every weekend?

  “I know how close you and Charlotte are, and I thought you might know what was going on with her, but it’s clear you don’t,” Michael said.

  “How do you know I don’t?” Melanie asked.

  “I know you, Mel. I know you can’t always tell me what you know, but I also know when you don’t know something. And you don’t know what’s going on with her and Peter,” he said.

  He was right.

  “If you have it, why haven’t you written it yet? The Dispatch loves your big scoops,” Melanie said.

  “You know I hate personal tragedy stories, Melanie, but if I don’t do it, someone else will. And if I do it, I’m going to get it right. I don’t have the whole thing yet. But I will get it, and I think you know that, too.”

  “It’s not her. I promise you. She’d be a lot less uptight if she was having an affair, but she isn’t, Michael,” Melanie said, racking her brain to try to solve the riddle.

  Who would go to the press now? The list was endless: Republicans trying to get her to step aside so they could run a hard-core conservative; Democrats trying to weaken her so that a third-party candidate could get into the race and split the Republican and independent votes; the Democrats in Congress who wanted to further weaken her so they could run roughshod over her on the budget.

  Melanie had long suspected Peter had entanglements, but if he did, he was always discreet. And Charlotte would never do anything. It wasn’t even a possibility.

  “So, what you can do for me—” Michael started to say before Melanie cut him off.

  “What I can do for you? Are you kidding me? Do you think it’s still my job to run around and chase down every lead you have, no matter where your crazy tips take me?” She was starting to lose her cool, and she hated how her voice sounded.

  “Melanie, I can do this with or without you, as you well know.”

  “I know, I know. Damn, damn, damn. Let me think, Michael. Let me think,” she said.

  “You’re burning the candle at both ends, and I know this is a lot to take in. Why don’t we talk in a few days, and I’ll let you know what I learn.”

  “You’re really going after this story, huh?” Melanie asked.

  “Of course I am. The country elects the whole package—the man or woman, the mother or father, the husband or wife. Isn’t that what you always told me during the campaigns when you pushed me to write shit about Martin’s political opponents? The fact that you are my friend doesn’t change any of that, Melanie.”

  As she looked Michael in the eye for the first time that morning, she felt she was seeing him for the first time in her life. His dark brown hair was streaked with gray. The lines around his mouth and eyes had deepened since she’d first met him. He was handsome in the scruffy, badly dressed, cigarette-breath kind of way that only a reporter can be handsome. All she could do was look at him. And then exhaustion hit her like a wave. She was suddenly so tired she couldn’t form a sentence or a thought. She just stared at him and tried to will herself to stand up and walk out. She felt as if she was in a nightmare where you want to run but your legs are stuck in concrete. So she stayed. He ordered pancakes, and she pointed at the picture of toast on the menu. She wasn’t sure how long she sat there and nodded and smiled while he went on about how much Elizabeth was learning at the White House and about how Charlotte should dump her vice president.

  Something was ringing.

  “Are you going to get that? It looks like the Situation Room,” Michael said, pointing at her phone.

  Melanie stared at her phone. She knew it was Charlotte. She didn’t want to talk to her in front of Michael, but she couldn’t let it ring, because the Situation Room never gave up. They’d call all her cell-phone numbers, her sister, her mother, and then start over with her cell phones again. She picked up.

  “This is Melanie,” she said.

  “Brooke and Mark tried to smoke a joint at Camp David,” Charlotte said. She sounded as if she was laughing—something she didn’t do much of, but she always lightened up when Brooke and Mark were around. Charlotte’s college friends had caused Melanie plenty of headaches over the years. Brooke and Mark had no idea how they were supposed to act now that their best friend was the president. They threw Charlotte a huge party at their beach house in Coronado for her forty-fifth birthday, and a near-naked man jumped out of a cake. The White House press corps had a field day when they caught wind of it from one of the guests. As far as presidential pals went, they were hardly the worst Melanie had seen. President Martin’s old buddies from business school used to bring young women back to the residence at all hours to party in the bowling alley and skinny-dip in the pool. Melanie sighed deeply.

  “I’m going to have to call you back. My sister and I are at brunch, and it’s pretty loud in here,” Melanie said.

  “OK, but hurry up. I had them flush it down the toilet, but I just want to be ready in case, you know, I mean, do you think that was a good idea? Oh, damn, here they come—call me back, Mel,” Charlotte said.

  Melanie pulled two twenty-dollar bills out of her wallet and tried to catch the attention of their waitress. She didn’t want to leave with Michael thinking she was upset. That would make things worse.

  “I appreciate that you came to me, really, I do, I just don’t know what you expect me to do with this information,” Melanie told him.

  “There’s nothing you can do. I just thought I owed it to you to tell you what I was working on. I won’t publish anything without giving you a head-up.”

  “Thanks for that, at least,” she said wryly.

  “I’ve got breakfast. Why don’t you get out of here? Get some rest, Melanie. Unfortunately, I think t
hings are going to get tougher before they get easier.”

  “Sounds like it,” she said, trying to sound airy.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Dale

  Hi, honey, I’m home,” Dale announced as she entered Peter’s rented colonial in Washington, Connecticut. She’d made the drive in less than an hour and a half. It was a new record.

  He rushed to the entryway and helped her take her coat off with one hand and pulled her to him with the other. He kissed her. “How was your day, dear?” he asked.

  It was one of their inside jokes, pretending they were a normal couple. She smiled and kissed him back. She was where she belonged, and her whole body melted into his embrace. She moved her hands to his face and held it to hers.

  He pulled back and looked at her. “You hungry?” he asked.

  She laughed. “I’m starving. What are you cooking?” She noticed the massive undertaking in the kitchen for the first time. Appliances lined the kitchen counter. A bread maker appeared to be heating up. The food processor was in use, and various blades and attachments littered the countertop. At least half a dozen pots and pans were spread from the stovetop to the butcher block.

  “How long have you been in there?” Dale asked.

  “It took me a while to get started. I dragged the agents back to the store three times for things I forgot. I’m making homemade pasta with peas and crab. Sound good?”

  “Sounds wonderful,” she said.

  Dale slid in next to him in the kitchen, and they chopped and steamed and sautéed and boiled as effortlessly as they seemed to do everything else together. He handed her a glass of wine, and they cooked and drank in silence for a while.

  “So, what’s going on in that head of yours tonight?” he asked.

  “I need to tell you something, and I know you’re not going to be excited, but you need to be excited for me, because it’s a really good thing,” Dale said.

  “You’re leaving me for a man who can take you on a date in a restaurant?” he asked.

  “Very funny,” Dale said. She’d trade a million dates at fancy restaurants for one night with Peter. “I’m going to Afghanistan,” she said, lifting her wine glass to her mouth and taking a large sip as soon as the words were out.

  He lifted his glass and did the same. “I think you’ll be very happy there, honey. I hear Kabul is beautiful in March,” he said.

  “I’m serious. I’m going with Charlotte for the elections. The White House is taking a very small press pool, and they asked me to go.”

  They hadn’t exactly asked for her, but she was going. They’d invited the network, and Billy had insisted that they take Dale.

  Peter stopped chopping and looked at her. He didn’t move toward her or say anything; he just looked at her. Dale’s heart was racing. She needed this trip. She was slipping away from the hard-news circles at her network. It was a trap she’d seen many women in the business fall into. She knew that if she did too many soft profiles and easy interviews, she’d be on a fast track to daytime cable. She wanted to anchor an evening newcast someday. She needed to keep herself in regular rotation for substitute anchor during the week. She needed to be seen in a war zone with the president. And she wanted Peter to be happy for her.

  “I’ll be with Charlotte the whole time, and nothing is ever going to happen to her. The military will make sure of it. I’ll be fine. I promise,” she said, smiling hopefully up at Peter.

  “It’s been really bad lately. There are no safe places in Afghanistan right now, so you can’t promise me that you’ll be fine,” he said.

  “You can’t guarantee my safety when I drive the two hours here and back every weekend,” Dale answered.

  Peter winced. “You’re right. I can’t even protect you from a traffic accident. But I do know a lot about these places, Dale. Charlotte’s been going over there for years. She takes risks I wish that the mother of my children wouldn’t take, but I gave up my right to weigh in on the chances she takes with her life when—” He stopped and looked away from her.

  “What? When you started cheating on her with me?” Dale said, sounding defensive.

  “When I fell in love with you,” Peter said quietly.

  Dale moved toward him. He stiffened at first but then put his arms around her and pulled her toward him.

  “Nothing is going to happen,” she promised.

  He sighed deeply.

  “Do you have any idea how much I love you?” she asked as Peter stroked her hair and held her to him.

  “Mmm,” he said.

  She stood on her toes to kiss him. He put his hands on both sides of her face and looked her in the eye.

  “You are the only thing that propels me through my own strange existence, and I wish I could make you understand how frightened I am by the thought of you going over there without making you feel like I’m not supportive of your career.”

  “I do understand, but I am not making the choice that you think I’m making,” Dale said.

  Peter gave her a look she couldn’t read. She tried to kiss him, but he pulled his face away from hers. She leaned into his chest, and they stood like that for a long moment. Then he sighed again and stepped back. He put his hand under her chin and looked into her eyes.

  “You don’t owe any explanation or apology to a man who can’t walk down the street with you and hold your hand.”

  She stood on her toes and tried to kiss him again. She was desperate to show him what she couldn’t tell him, that she would choose him, that she wouldn’t make any other choice when he was hers. But right now, there was no excuse she could offer her colleagues at the network. She had no family and no personal life that she could claim, and until that changed, the holiday shifts and hazard assignments were hers for the taking.

  “I’m sorry that I’ve put you in this situation. I can’t help but wonder if you’d be risking your life on a trip like this if you were married to some nice guy who could give you the life you deserve instead of sneaking around with me,” Peter said.

  “The answer is yes. I’d still be taking a trip like this, because this is what I do. I cover the president of the United States, and she is going to Afghanistan, so that’s where I have to go to cover her. And you are the nice guy who gives me more happiness than I deserve,” Dale said, moving closer to him and planting kisses on his neck.

  He was kissing her back now. He lifted her off the floor, and she wrapped her legs around his waist. He set her down on the kitchen counter and unbuttoned her blouse. She kissed him hungrily and pulled his body closer to hers with her legs. He buried his head in the space between her collar bone and her shoulder. She couldn’t get close enough to him. She kept pulling him closer, and soon their bodies moved as one.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Charlotte

  Here,” Brooke said, handing Charlotte a cigarette.

  “That’s just a cigarette, right?” Charlotte quipped.

  “Of course. Come on, I’m sorry about last night. I thought you could use a good laugh. I forgot it was, you know.” Brooke stopped to take a sip of her wine.

  “Illegal? You forgot it was illegal?” Charlotte said, laughing at how ridiculous her life was sometimes.

  “It’s medicinal. I get migraines.”

  “I think I made that illegal, too,” Charlotte reminded her.

  “That’s why you’re so unpopular in California now,” Brooke said.

  “Thank God you’re here. You’re a genius. I can fire my pollsters.” Charlotte grinned. It felt good to be with people she’d known long before her life had become so limited. It also hurt like hell to be with people she couldn’t fool about what her life had become.

  Brooke and Mark were Charlotte’s best friends from college. The three of them had been inseparable at Berkeley, and their friendship was one of the few things Charlotte could rely on never to change. Peter had joined the threesome when he and Charlotte started dating during their junior year. He’d been visiting Berkeley for the Cal-UCLA football game
. He was injured that season, so he’d made the round of pregame parties. His first stop had been a party at Mark’s fraternity. Mark and Peter were best friends from home, and when Charlotte and Peter fell in love, he’d rounded out their group perfectly. Peter had taken Southwest Airlines to the Bay Area almost every weekend to hang out with Charlotte and Brooke and Mark. After college graduation, he’d gone to law school at Hastings in San Francisco, and Charlotte had gone to business school at Stanford. Hastings was a good law school, but Stanford was one of the best business schools in the country. It was the first time Charlotte had outshone Peter, but they were young and happy and in love, and it hadn’t come between them. They had shared a two-bedroom apartment in Pacific Heights with Brooke and Mark, and the four of them had been a single unit. They’d vacationed together, spent every night on the weekends together, drank Bloody Marys at tailgate parties before football games together, and shared the laidback life of successful twenty-somethings together.

  Now that Charlotte was president, Brooke and Mark shared those moments, too. Charlotte looked over at her friend and thought back to her first night at the White House. Brooke and Mark had spent the night after Charlotte’s inauguration. It was one for the history books. Brooke had read online about ghosts in the Lincoln Bedroom, so she’d refused to stay there. There was a second guest room on that floor called the Queen’s Room, where she and Mark had stayed that night and on all subsequent visits. Brooke had run around the residence scantily clad in a nightgown until Charlotte went to her closet, where her clothes had miraculously been unpacked, pressed, and organized during the day’s events, and pulled out a robe for Brooke to cover up with. Brooke had rummaged through the family kitchen looking for a blender and ingredients for frozen margaritas. She’d found margarita mix but no tequila.

  “The Martins wiped you out, Char. They took everything. There isn’t even any tonic water in here,” Brooke had shouted from the small kitchen.