Eighteen Acres: A Novel (7 page)

“Let’s get our picture taken,” Brian suggested.

“I’ve done it a million times. Let’s just get a drink and do some people watching,” Dale said.

Brian looked crushed. “Come on, Dale. Who knows when I’ll be invited back here? Come through the photo line with me,” he pleaded.

“I’m going to pass, but you should go through by yourself. Tell the president about your last trip to Afghanistan—she’d be really interested.”

“I can’t go through alone,” Brian whined.

“Sure you can.” Dale laughed.

“Please? I need the White House insider to introduce me to the Kramers.”

Dale reluctantly agreed to go through the receiving line with Brian. He looked like a little kid as he gazed at the well-known faces. As they neared the president and Peter, Dale grew anxious.

“When we get there, we should keep moving,” she said to Brian. “They have to do this all night.”

As soon as Peter turned to look at her, Dale realized her mistake. He stared at her with a mix of such blatant affection and possessiveness that Dale half expected Charlotte to smack him. She averted her eyes and said, “Good evening, Madam President, Mr. Kramer.” Charlotte didn’t look at her but instead took Brian warmly by the arm and stood between her cheating husband and Brian for a photo. Peter leaned in toward Dale before she could escape and said, “Meet me in the Family Theater in twenty minutes.” She spun around to face him to see if he was joking, but he’d turned his gaze to the couple behind her.

Dale knew instantly that it was a terrible idea to meet Peter in the Family Theater. She also knew that she would be there in exactly twenty minutes. Brian was giddy with excitement about being at the state dinner. He was taking pictures with his cell phone and sampling every appetizer offered to him. Dale made her escape.

“I’ve got to make a quick call,” she told him.

“No way. No work tonight. Not even you, Dale,” he protested.

“It’ll just be a second,” she said, sliding her cell phone out to see the messages that she knew would be there from Peter.

“Where r u,” he had texted.

She made her way down the stairs and walked quickly toward the theater. People were milling around outside the Library and the China Room, but the hall outside the Family Theater was empty. She nodded at Peter’s agent and walked into the theater. Her eyes were still adjusting to the darkness when Peter came up from behind and started kissing her neck and bare back.

“Not here!” she said.

“Why? Are you on a date?” Peter teased.

“Yes, I am on a fake date, so that people will stop debating whether I’m a lesbian workaholic or just a workaholic who can’t get laid.” She pushed him away. “Seriously, Peter, not here. Your wife is up there, my colleague is up there, and your guests are touring the residence. People could walk in at any moment. We shouldn’t even be in here.”

He looked amused. “I told the agents to gun down anyone who tried to come in.”

Dale shook her head. “You’re crazy!”

He put his arms around her and traced circles on her bare back. “Relax,” he said. She leaned her head against his chest and breathed in the smell of his shampoo and his deodorant and his toothpaste. She could smell that he’d been drinking. She looked up at him.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

His hands were still on her bare back. And then they slid her dress off her shoulders, and he was kissing her, and she gave in and kissed him back.

“Stop,” she said halfheartedly as they moved to the floor. “We really should not be doing this here,” she tried one last time.

As was always the case with Peter, he got what he wanted with her. Afterward, Dale pulled her hair into a ponytail and smoothed her dress down.

“You are out of control,” she said, “and you ruined my hair.”

“Your hair looks better like that,” he said, leaning over to kiss her while he tucked in his shirt with one hand and reached for his jacket with the other.

“That was the dumbest thing we have ever done,” Dale told him. She was furious at herself for letting it happen.

She put her hand on the door to go out the way she’d come in, but just before she opened it, she heard voices in the hall outside the theater.

It sounded like Charlotte.

She couldn’t tell whom she was talking to, but if Peter was in the Family Theater with her, it was a safe bet that Charlotte was no longer in the receiving line.

Charlotte

Charlotte cornered Roger in the hallway outside the Family Theater. Since the state dinner fell on Valentine’s Day, the residence was covered with red roses. Charlotte hated red.

“Roger, I’m not asking you to come with me to Afghanistan, I’m telling you. I still have that authority, don’t I?” she asked playfully.

“Yes, you do, Charlotte, and usually, I take my orders from you, but right now, I have a higher calling,” Roger said.

“There’s a higher calling than visiting the troops and being there for the election?” Charlotte asked.

“Yes. My wife. Stephanie found a lump in her breast, and we’re waiting to find out if it’s cancer.”

“Oh, my God! I’m so sorry. Is that why she isn’t here tonight? I feel awful. What can we do? Are you seeing the best doctors? Let’s go call her!”

Charlotte felt like an idiot for being demanding. She relied on Roger for so much that she felt a flash of anxiety that the center of his universe would be somewhere other than the work they were doing together.

“God, Roger, what are you doing here? Go home to Stephanie. Please. I need to go find my husband, anyway. We are supposed to pretend that we enjoy each other’s company on nights like tonight.”

“Charlotte, don’t,” Roger said.

“Don’t what?” Charlotte asked.

“Don’t act like I’ve rejected you and you don’t care. I have not rejected you, and I can see on your face that I have disappointed you, and I hate it. There is nowhere I’d rather be than with those guys—and with you—and you know it. But I need to be there for her. She was there for me, and I need to be there for her now.”

“Of course you do. I completely understand. I would do the same,” Charlotte said, forcing a smile.

He reached to pull her into a bear hug. She hugged him back.

“And that’s why I love you, Roger—you’re so decent. You always do the right thing. Stephanie is lucky.”

“So is Peter,” Roger said, but even as he said it, he knew it wasn’t a plausible statement.

Charlotte laughed. Roger just smiled at her and hugged her closer than he would have if anyone had been watching.

Charlotte took a deep breath and hugged him back for a few seconds before releasing him and pushing him away. “Go home. I insist. If I can’t handle the Panamanians on my own, we’ve got a very serious problem on our hands,” she said.

Roger laughed. “Are you sure you don’t mind?”

“Yes. And I can’t believe you didn’t tell me right away. Please tell Stephanie that I’d like to come see her whenever she’s in the mood for a visitor.”

“Thanks, Charlotte. As soon as we get through this, you know I’ll be back one thousand percent.”

“I know.”

Roger turned to go, and she stood in the hall watching him walk toward the West Wing. Charlotte noticed that her guests had all migrated to the floor above, so she hurried upstairs to take her seat at the head table for dinner. She had no idea what was on the menu or who would provide the evening’s entertainment. Formal dinners were typically the responsibility of first ladies, but since she didn’t have anyone to fill that role, the White House social secretary made all the decisions. As she entered the Cross Hall at the top of the stairs, Sam appeared and gently directed her to her seat.

“Roger had to leave early for a family emergency,” Charlotte whispered to Sam.

“We’re on it. We’ll put Melanie next to the Panamanian defense minister and move Ralph into Melanie’s seat,” Sam said, turning her head to speak into her sleeve, where a two-way radio was hidden to allow her to communicate with the other staffers in charge of making sure the event came off smoothly.

“Thanks, Sam. Any other changes I should know about?” Charlotte asked.

“We can’t seem to find Mr. Kramer,” Sam said.

Melanie

Melanie walked into Washington’s Union Station just after six-thirty
A.M.
and strode purposefully through the lobby. She’d never seen the train station so empty, but none of the regulars took the Saturday regional train to New York City. Only someone trying to avoid lobbyists and reporters would travel the regional, and that was exactly Melanie’s hope. She purchased her ticket and made her way to the waiting area. She bought a large coffee and a bottle of water and unfolded the newspapers she had brought from home. The festive photos from the state dinner days earlier were long gone. She glanced at the headlines: “President’s Approval Ratings at New Lows,” “Women’s Group Assails Kramer’s Apathy on Abortion Debate,” “Conservatives Plot Third-party Challenge to Kramer,” “Economy Continues to Falter.” Melanie sighed. She folded the papers back up and shoved them into her bag. She pulled out her personal BlackBerry and skimmed the e-mails that had come in since she went to bed the night before. She found one from Michael: “Forget Sarabeth’s—meet me at diner on 9th and 58th. Better bacon and more privacy.”

She hadn’t seen Michael since the year before, when they’d run into each other at the Caucus Room in D.C. Michael didn’t frequent the D.C. establishment restaurants. Most of his sources couldn’t afford to be seen with him. He’d been out with his twenty-two-year-old
daughter, Elizabeth, the night Melanie saw him. They were celebrating her graduation from Georgetown. Michael had mentioned that Elizabeth was trying to get an interview in the White House communications office. Melanie had arranged the interview and put in a good word for her. It had been enough. Elizabeth had just completed her first year as a junior press aide in the regional press office, and she sat in the same cramped office that Melanie had occupied when she started with President Harlow fifteen years earlier.

The seven
A.M.
train arrived, and Melanie stood with the small group of travelers to board. She settled in an empty seat in the quiet car and tried to remember the last time she’d been on the train. When she’d first started working at the White House, she took the train to New York every weekend she could. She’d stay with her older sister, Claire, and they’d wake up early to jog around the reservoir in Central Park. Afterward, they’d order steaming cups of coffee and pastries from one of the bakeries on Madison. If Claire didn’t have to work, they’d visit the Met or the Guggenheim and shop at Bloomingdale’s and Barneys. At night, Claire would take her to Craft or Pastis or one of her other favorite restaurants. Melanie loved those visits. She’d depart Union Station an underpaid and overworked government staffer and arrive at Penn Station ready to dive into her sister’s glamorous New York life. As the head of antique furniture at Sotheby’s auction house, her sister ran with a hip, artsy crowd that couldn’t be more different from the buttoned-down political types who surrounded Melanie.

This was a very different kind of trip. Melanie had lied to Charlotte about needing to visit Claire to get out of going to Camp David. Charlotte’s best friends from college, Brooke and Mark Pfiefer, would be there, Melanie reminded herself, pushing her guilt aside. She tilted her seat back as far as it would go and closed her eyes. Unlike the Acela, which sped to New York in less than two and a half hours, the regional train took more than three and a half hours. Plenty of time for a nap, Melanie thought, covering herself with her coat and turning the ringers down on all her phones and BlackBerrys.

She had known Michael since she first arrived in Washington. One of the last of the old-fashioned “source” reporters, he’d earned a
special place in her heart early in the Martin administration when he waited for her outside the White House gate to tell her that he’d seen her husband making out with a twenty-four-year-old legislative aide the night before.

Melanie was one of Michael’s best sources at the beginning of her career without even knowing it. He’d befriended her at the bar at the Hay-Adams, where Melanie and other press staffers used to convene after long days in the office. She’d drink big glasses of merlot and enjoy how quickly the alcohol would erase her insecurities. When she met Michael the first time, she’d just been noticed by President Harlow’s senior staff for her attention to detail and sharp political antennae.

“Hi there. You look like someone important,” he’d said to her the first night they spoke.

“You must have me confused with someone else,” Melanie had said, turning back to her friends.

“You’re Melanie Kingston, rising star in the White House press operation and the provider of Harlow’s daily fix of Florida news.”

His lines had been cheesy, but Melanie had desperately wanted his words to be true.

“Uh, I don’t know where you get your information, Mr.—” Melanie started to say before he interrupted.

“Michael. Call me Michael,” he’d said, taking a seat at the table next to Melanie, shoving a handful of wasabi peas into his mouth, and washing them down with a large gulp of his martini.

“Michael. Well, you have my name right. I’m Melanie.”

“I know,” he’d said.

“Why did everyone warn me about talking to you? You’re not exactly subtle.” She’d laughed.

“Maybe that’s my secret.”

“What are you working on?” she’d asked.

“You really want to know?”

“Sure.”

“Doug Fischer is going to be indicted by the end of the week for perjury, and I’m trying to figure out if the special prosecutor has given the president a heads-up,” he’d said.

Doug Fischer worked in the White House counsel’s office, and he’d
testified before a grand jury investigating an unauthorized leak that lead to an undercover FBI agent’s cover being blown. The agent had been killed as a result.

“And you know this how?” Melanie had asked.

“My ex-wife is the public affairs officer for the special prosecutor’s office, and when I went to pick up my daughter last night, I heard her on the phone. He was asking her to come back in, and the special prosecutors always fill in their press staff at the last minute—always the very last to know anything big, just like the White House, Kingston.”