Eighteen Acres: A Novel (3 page)

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.”

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.

“Halibut or salmon?” Peter asked.

“Are you ordering from Asiate?”

“Yeah. As soon as you land, I’ll put in our order,” he said.

“I want a steak.”

“You got it. I’m not going anywhere. Relax. You’ll get here when you get here.”

“I know. I just hate to waste any of our time together traveling,” she said.

“Me, too, but it’s awful out there. Listen, Steve is at his daughter’s prom, so Danny will be outside my door. He knows you’re coming …” Peter trailed off.

All of Peter’s regular Secret Service agents knew her by now, but Steve had been there since the beginning. The Secret Service had a narrow and all-consuming mission: to protect the president and her family from harm. While they could not participate in arranging a rendezvous, a protectee’s wandering eye was not the responsibility of the Secret Service.

“OK. I hate the stupid shuttle. I should have taken the train,” Dale moaned.

“You hate the train, too. Relax, honey. I’ll see you soon,” he said.

As Dale sat waiting for the delayed seven
P.M.
shuttle to La Guardia, she remembered the very first time she’d met Peter.

She had flown out to California to do the first interview with the country’s first-ever “first man.” At twenty-nine, she was one of the youngest network reporters on the White House beat, and the interview was a major get.

She had thought he’d seem emasculated by his wife’s success. Nothing
could have been further from the reality she encountered that day. He was the center of the family, and their teenage twins clearly worshipped him. He also had a full workload and a staff of deputies, nannies, and personal assistants swirling around him that rivaled the size of his wife’s entourage.

He’d been pursued by NFL teams after two seasons as UCLA’s starting quarterback, but he’d passed on the NFL and finished college. After that, he’d gone to law school and turned to the business side of sports, where he was known as one of the last honest brokers in the sports agency world. Athletes knew him as someone who would die for them. He’d built one of the most successful shops in the industry, and when his wife became governor of California, he’d thrown himself into his own business with even greater fervor.

When Dale had started the interview, she’d made good use of the extensive research she’d done on the first man, asking him about one of the professional football players he represented who’d gone straight to the NFL after one year at Miami and probing him for his views about the debate over the college football ranking system. Dale’s father was an orthopedic surgeon who worked on dozens of famous athletes, and as an only child, Dale had no choice but to absorb his passion and encyclopedic knowledge of sports. Dale and Peter had talked for more than an hour before she turned on the cameras.

Although he was humble and funny when the cameras were rolling and spent the interview praising his wife’s record and vision, she’d seen glimpses that day of a sharper, more sarcastic side to his personality that she found surprising. She’d left Sacramento with new respect for the president-elect and more than a twinge of jealousy that Charlotte Kramer had found time for a career and a relationship—a balancing act Dale hadn’t quite mastered.

Dale smiled now at the memory. She had a recurring nightmare that she and Peter would be discovered and that he would deny knowing her. She knew it was ridiculous, but they’d been so careful not to leave any trace of their relationship that she worried she would be easy to erase if that ever became necessary. That was why Dale replayed every conversation, every kiss, every moment together, over
and over, so that there would be a record somewhere of their shared history, if only in her mind.