Eighteen Acres

by Nicolle Wallace

“Uh-oh, I’m Madam President now. Something really is wrong.”

  “Is there anything going on that I should know about—anything on the personal side of the house?” Melanie asked.

  “No. Why do you ask?”

  “It’s just, you know, I need to be read in on everything to do my job effectively, and if there’s something out there that could have an impact on the administration, it’s best if I can plan for it,” Melanie said. “Whatever it is.”

  “I’m not sure what you’re suggesting, but I think I resent the implication that I’m withholding information from you.”

  “That’s not what I’m saying. It’s just, if there’s anything else I can do to help—to support you,” Melanie said.

  “You can start by agreeing to run the campaign and then coming up with some glimmer of hope for getting me reelected.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Melanie said.

  Charlotte turned and flung the ball so far that the dogs lost its scent and started to whine for a new one.

  “Emma, Emma, it’s over there!” Charlotte shouted, pointing as though the dog could understand her wild gestures.

  Melanie watched Charlotte try to cajole the dogs. She wasn’t having much success, and after a few attempts to get them to run down the hill after the lost ball, she pulled another one out of her pocket and flung it toward the two younger dogs. Cammie remained seated by her side.

  Melanie turned to Cammie and knelt down on the ground to scratch her head. The dog raised her lip to bare her teeth and growled.

  “Jesus, was it something I said?” Melanie stepped away from the dog.

  “Cammie, stop it,” Charlotte said. “Ignore her. She’s tense. She senses that I’m leaving again.” Charlotte planted kisses on the dog’s head.

  Melanie sighed and turned to walk back to her West Wing office. “I’m going to go make these changes to the departure plan, Madam President.”

  “Thank you, Melanie,” Charlotte said, swinging the Chuck-It back and forth and looking out toward the Washington Monument.

  “Anything else I can do for you?” Melanie asked.

  “Nothing I can think of,” Charlotte murmured, her eyes not moving from the monument.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Dale

  Dale left Peter’s place so late she almost missed the Sunday newscast. She didn’t know exactly when they’d leave for Afghanistan, but she was pretty sure she wouldn’t get to spend time with Peter again before she left. When he’d gotten up to make coffee, she’d followed him to the kitchen. They’d sat on the couch together under a blanket and held hands while they stared at the Sunday morning talk shows.

  He’d walked her out to the car and held her to him before she left.

  “I don’t want to go now,” Dale had said, clinging to him.

  “I’ll see you when you get back. You’re going to be fine. It’s going to be amazing. You’re going to be amazing.”

  He’d kissed her on the forehead and opened the driver’s-side door. Dale had climbed in, put on her seatbelt, and started the car. Tears had run down her face as she pulled out of the driveway. She wanted to race back inside and assure Peter that she would be fine—that they would be fine.

  She made it to the newsroom in time to read through her scripts once while she had her hair and makeup done. She pulled an emerald-green jacket on over black slacks and a black silk tank. She raced into the anchor chair with bare feet twenty seconds before the show started.

  “Good Sunday evening,” she said with her dazzling smile. “Violence rocked Afghanistan again today. Our chief foreign-affairs correspondent has the story.”

  While Dale was on the air, the White House press secretary called and left a message with details about the trip: “We’ll leave from the White House immediately following the correspondents’ dinner Wednesday night. You’ll ride in the president’s motorcade from the dinner, and then we’ll put you guys in a car that’ll take you out to Andrews. Bring whatever you need to the press office Wednesday morning before five A.M. Call us back if you have any questions.”

  Dale rushed to the airport after the newscast to catch the last shuttle to D.C. She called Peter on the way and was relieved to get his voice-mail.

  “We go Wednesday. I will call you tomorrow. Love you,” she said.

  Dale spent her two days off shopping and packing for the trip.

  She stopped by the Patagonia store in Georgetown to look for a thin fleece to fit under her flak jacket. Dale pulled three different sizes and colors and was changing into them in front of a full-length mirror near the back of the store when she saw Stephanie Taylor, Roger’s wife, looking at men’s fleece vests.

  She caught her eye and waved.

  “Hi, Mrs. Taylor,” Dale said. “Dale Smith. I interviewed you about a year ago about your work with injured vets.”

  “Of course, we watch you every night, or I watch you every night. It’s not like Roger’s ever home at that hour,” she said, smiling tightly. “He’s usually off saving the world with Charlotte.”

  “I’m so glad you watch. I imagine it’s been a very busy time for Secretary Taylor,” Dale said.

  “Yes, he keeps saying it will slow down, but I haven’t seen any evidence of that,” Stephanie said.

  Dale smiled sympathetically. Everyone liked Stephanie Taylor. She was the most politically active spouse of any defense secretary in history. She served as an advocate for various veterans’ groups and had testified on Capitol Hill about the need to provide funds for spouses and children of injured troops so they could afford to stay in town while their loved ones recovered at the area’s military hospitals.

  “Can I tell you something super-secret and ask you not to tell anyone, not even your husband?” Dale asked Stephanie.

  “If I couldn’t keep a secret, people like you would know it by now,” Stephanie said.

  “I’m going on the trip this week,” Dale whispered. She’d been given strict instructions not to tell anyone, not even her family, but Roger always accompanied Charlotte to the war zones, so Dale assumed Stephanie knew.

  “This week?” Stephanie asked.

  “Yes, Wednesday night,” Dale said.

  Stephanie looked puzzled.

  “I was told by the press office that Roger was a late addition but that he’d decided to come on the trip this week to be there for meetings with his counterpart. Did I get that wrong?” Dale asked.

  “The White House press office or the Pentagon press office?” Stephanie asked.

  “The White House,” Dale said.

  “Of course,” Stephanie said.

  Now Dale was confused. Maybe Stephanie was pretending not to know because it was forbidden to discuss the president’s travel to the region.

  “I’m sorry. I understand that you can’t say anything. I shouldn’t have mentioned it. I could get in a lot of trouble. Please don’t tell Secretary Taylor,” Dale begged. “If they think I broke the confidentiality agreement, they could cancel the entire trip because of me.”

  Stephanie regained her composure and put one arm around Dale’s shoulder. “Don’t worry. I won’t say anything. Is this your first time?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then you need some of these,” Stephanie advised, walking Dale over to the heavy-duty hiking boots. “Your feet will bleed the first day, but after that, they’ll fit like a glove.”

  “Thanks,” Dale said, picking up a pair in her size.

  “Be safe over there,” Stephanie told her.

  “Will do. And I’d love to interview you again about the work you do for veterans.”

  “I’ll look forward to it.” Stephanie smiled, waving over her shoulder as she left the store.

  Dale paid for her boots and fleece. She was furious at herself for opening her big mouth. Stephanie’s reaction had been so strange that she double-checked the coded message the White House press office had sent her the day before when she’d asked who was traveling to Afghanistan. It simply read: “In response to you
r q, POTUS, SEC DEF, dep. COS, NSA, MIL AIDES and Pool.” Translated, the list meant that the president, the secretary of defense, the deputy chief of staff, the national security advisor, military aides, and the press pool were all making the trip.

  When she got home, she packed and repacked her bag a dozen times and then lay in bed checking and rechecking the two alarms set for three A.M. She was too nervous to sleep. She was already in the shower when the alarms went off. She dressed carefully in a black Akris suit with a purple blouse underneath—the first of three outfit changes before taking off for Afghanistan that night. The black suit was for her live shots on the seven A.M. and the six-thirty P.M. newscasts. A bright pink strapless gown went into a garment bag for the correspondents’ dinner, and a pair of jeans and a turtleneck sweater were folded and stowed in a tote bag for the flight to Afghanistan. She pulled a coat on over her suit and carried her bags down to the garage.

  Dale drove the two miles to the White House and approached the security barricade on E Street where the press office had told her to enter. She rolled down her window, and a Secret Service agent in a black jumpsuit approached.

  “Hi. I’m supposed to park on the driveway and drop some things off for transport to Andrews,” she said.

  “ID, please,” he said.

  She handed him her D.C. driver’s license.

  “Pull up to that spot there, and turn off the motor, please,” he said.

  Dale did as she was told and held her breath while a large German shepherd sniffed her car and examined the contents of her trunk. There was no reason to hold her breath, but the process was nerve-racking.

  “Head up to the next gate, and show him your ID, Miss Smith,” the agent said.

  “Thank you,” Dale said.

  The large black pillars lowered into the ground, and she drove onto the closed street and toward the next security checkpoint. She was cleared for entry at the next gate and waited while a large iron fence swung open. She drove inside the White House complex and parked in an open spot. She pulled her bag out of her trunk and walked over to a white van, where she saw a couple of reporters she recognized doing the same thing.

  “Good morning,” she said to them.

  “Morning,” they replied.

  Dale left her bag and walked to the spot on the front driveway of the White House where she’d give a report for that day’s morning news show. She had plenty of time before her live shot, so she decided to walk across the street for coffee.

  She checked her cell phone and saw a text from Peter: “I will see u at the dinner 2nite.”

  “Really? What happened?” Dale responded.

  “Ralph must want to improve Charlotte’s poll numbers among sports fans,” Peter wrote back.

  “I’ll be the one in pink,” Dale texted.

  “I’m sure you’ll be hard to miss,” Peter wrote.

  Dale smiled and put her phone back into her purse. She ordered a mocha and sipped it slowly as she walked back toward the front lawn of the White House. She laughed to herself as she thought about an alternative report for her morning live shot: “Today, the president will accompany her cheating husband to the White House correspondents’ dinner, where she will pretend to enjoy the company of her disrespectful and annoying press corps. Immediately following the dinner, President Kramer will get into a motorcade, where the slut her husband is sleeping with will ride in a car behind her to Andrews Air Force Base. From there, President Kramer will sneak out of Washington en route to Afghanistan.”

  Dale laughed at her own dark humor and took another sip of coffee. The sugar and caffeine were hitting her system and warming her from the inside out. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d eaten.

  She bounced through her morning live shot and the rest of her day. The president’s schedule included a meeting with her economic team to discuss the challenges facing small businesses, an event honoring Women’s Heart Health Month, and a meeting with the British prime minister.

  After her live report for the evening newscast, Dale went into the ladies’ room in the West Wing of the White House and stepped into the floor-length pink gown. Layers of fabric skimmed her body. She slid into a pair of heels and stuffed her cell phone and BlackBerry into her evening bag. A few of the correspondents shared a car to the Washington Hilton. They arrived seconds before all roads were closed to accommodate the arrival of the president’s motorcade.

  The White House correspondents’ dinner was jokingly referred to as Washington’s “Prom Night.” Reporters, not known for their devotion to fashion or style, donned formal attire one night a year, and many tried to pull off looks that didn’t flatter their figures or the decade. The president, not known for her affection for the press that beat her up day in and day out, had to attend hours of cocktail receptions followed by a four-hour dinner in which her success would be determined by how hard she made them laugh. She’d also have to endure a comedy act by some B-list celebrity who would tell a new version of the same jokes they told every year about Charlotte wearing the pants in her marriage and scaring the crap out of everyone from her husband to her Cabinet.

  No wonder Charlotte can’t wait to get to the war zone, Dale thought to herself.

  She passed through the metal detectors and made her way to her table. Billy was already there.

  “You ready for tonight?” he whispered.

  “I think so. Thanks for making them take me,” Dale whispered back, hugging him warmly. He was her biggest champion at the network, and his close relationship with Melanie had come in handy more than once.

  “They’re lucky to get you. I told Melanie that if anything happens to you, I’ll kill her,” Billy said in a low voice.

  Dale laughed nervously.

  “You got a custom-fitted flak jacket, right?” Billy whispered in her ear.

  Dale nodded.

  “Take care of yourself over there, Dale. I need you in one piece.” Billy hugged Dale again before turning to greet the secretary of the treasury, who was seated on his other side.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Charlotte

  Charlotte had thirty minutes to kill before the motorcade would leave to take her to the press dinner.

  I’d rather be water-boarded, she thought to herself.

  She considered walking down the hall to say hello to Peter but didn’t have the energy for the charade. She was furious that Ralph had called him and ordered him to come. Charlotte hated to subject him to the same stupid jokes year after year about being “Mr. Charlotte Kramer.”

  She thought about calling Roger, but he’d told her earlier in the day that Stephanie hadn’t taken the news about the trip very well. Charlotte didn’t want to complicate things any further for him.

  She and Stephanie had been friends since Charlotte had arrived in Washington, but the relationship had cooled recently. Stephanie had turned down Charlotte’s last few invitations to Camp David, and she’d canceled a dinner date at the last minute the week before.

  Charlotte figured Stephanie was drained from the breast-cancer scare or frustrated by the demands on Roger’s time, but she couldn’t imagine that there was anything she had done to put Stephanie off. She’d given Roger time off, sent her personal physician with Stephanie to the oncologist, and sent flowers, fruit baskets, books, and movies to Stephanie while she waited for the test results.

  And when Roger had, at first, refused to come on the trip, she hadn’t pushed. But when he’d called her over the weekend with the news that he’d changed his mind, she’d been elated. He was the closest thing she had to a partner.

  Charlotte looked out the window and saw the motorcade lining up on the driveway below. She stood and went into her dressing room to get ready. She’d had her makeup and hair done earlier. The dogs were out for a session with the trainer, and the house felt empty without them underfoot. She changed into the gown she’d had flown down from New York for the occasion and walked back toward the West Wing to discuss final details for the trip with Melan
ie before they left.

  She stopped outside Peter’s suite of rooms on her way out. She heard the evening news on inside and proceeded toward the staircase without knocking.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Melanie

  Melanie stared at the simple black Vera Wang gown she’d pulled out of her closet that morning. She’d meant to grab a different one, but they all looked the same at four-thirty in the morning. She kept all of her black formal dresses in a separate closet in her apartment, and she tried to keep track of which one she wore which years, but the dresses and the dinners all blurred together. She put it on in her office and stepped into a new pair of Jimmy Choo’s. She buzzed Annie’s desk to ask her to come in and zip her dress, but Annie didn’t answer. She struggled with the zipper herself but gave up after a muscle spasm ripped through the side of her neck.

  “Damn,” she said under her breath.

  She opened her door and peered out to see if there were any suitable dress zippers in the waiting area. Brian, the new Pentagon reporter at ABC, was standing there smiling at her.

  “I heard some banging around in there, but I didn’t want to interrupt,” he said, flashing a mouth full of teeth that were so white they looked as if they’d glow in the dark.

  “Oh, hi. Do we have a meeting now?” Melanie asked.

  “You’re supposed to ‘meet and greet’ me for five minutes before tonight’s dinner. If this is a bad time, I can call Annie and reschedule,” he said.

  “No, no, it’s fine, come in. Just don’t look at my back, I’m half-naked,” Melanie said.

  He smiled and took a seat in front of her desk. “I would offer to help, but that seems a little inappropriate,” Brian said.

  Melanie’s eyes moved from his green eyes to his perfect haircut and down to his masculine jaw line. He looked like a Ken doll.

  “Unless you’d like me to help,” he added.

  She couldn’t decide if it was tacky or endearing that he was trying to flirt with her. He was at least five years younger and very attractive in a perfect, anchorman-in-the-making kind of way.