Madam President (37 page)

“Stop it. Harry is a gentleman, unlike you,” Brooke chided.

“I want to know if an invitation to Camp David is the new ‘Hey, do you want to check out my aquarium?’ ” Mark continued.

“What are you talking about?” Brooke challenged.

“Harry knows what I’m talking about.” Mark winked at Harry, who rolled his eyes and smirked.

“You guys aren’t coming to Camp next weekend, are you?” Harry asked.

“We are now!” Mark exclaimed.

“What girl would be dumb enough to go to some guy’s room to
see his fish tank?” Penny asked, as she entered the room with a pair of black heels in her hand.

“I have no idea,” Brooke said. Charlotte and Mark laughed.

“Did you seriously have an aquarium?” Penny asked.

“I sure did,” Mark boasted.

“There were always dead fish in it,” Charlotte remembered.

“It stank,” Brooke added.

“But it worked.” Mark planted a kiss on Brooke’s lips while she pretended to push him away.

Charlotte was grateful for the levity, but she excused herself before dessert to review her speeches for the next day and study the line-by-line schedule. She slept fitfully and took the dogs out to the South Lawn for their walk before sunrise. When she returned to the residence, she dressed carefully in a cream-colored Armani skirt and jacket. She had her hair styled in a low, loose bun and her makeup applied and then left the residence for the West Wing. When she passed the medical unit where Peter had huddled with Dale after she learned of Warren’s death, the nurse stood to greet her.

“Good morning, Madam President.”

Charlotte smiled and kept walking until she reached the colonnade. She stopped in front of the Rose Garden. Her Secret Service agent said something into his sleeve, and Charlotte walked onto the grass. A podium with a presidential seal had been set at one end of the garden, and several dozen chairs faced it. She would host a ceremony at the end of the day where she would rename the Rose Garden the Warren Carmichael Rose Garden. She had decided that she wanted him close to her, and the Rose Garden was the closest thing she could find. Charlotte ran her finger along the newly etched letters on the plaque she’d had engraved with the Longfellow quote. It had been mounted on a bench that would sit at the far end of the Rose Garden. As she looked around at the enormous blooms in the summer garden, she thought about the last time she’d spoken to Warren. He had called to assure her that the speech she was giving at the Women’s Museum would solidify her standing among women and independent voters.

“What about the base?” she’d fretted during their call.

“A wise woman once told me that the base wants to be leveled with more than it wants to be pandered to.”

“She was an idiot. They’d rather be pandered to.”

“Madam President, is there anything in the speech that you don’t believe to be true?”

“No.”

“Then stop thinking about it. Stop worrying about it, and give that speech with swagger, or it will be a lose-lose. You’ll piss off the base, and the audience will sense your discomfort.”

“Swagger, huh? I’ll give it my best. How is everything else?”

“Your numbers on national security are strong. Leadership numbers are at an all-time high.”

“I didn’t mean with my poll numbers. I meant with you. How are you doing?”

“Things have never been better, Madam President. Thanks for asking.”

They’d hung up that night, and she had returned to the residence to review her speech. Peter had been watching a baseball game, and Brooke and Mark had been at the Kennedy Center. It felt like an eternity had passed since then, but it had only been one year.

Now she smiled when she remembered their conversations, but for months, she couldn’t read his name in the newspaper or listen to detailed accounts of his heroic actions on the day of the attacks without growing emotional. Everyone around a president is capable of giving the boss positive feedback after a solid showing, but Warren was one of a handful of people who never hesitated to provide blunt feedback about her subpar performances. She remembered the first time he’d critiqued her on the campaign trail. Charlotte had completed an interview with a local reporter in Cleveland. She thought it had gone well, and her campaign aides had smiled and told her she’d done a great job. When she got back onto Air Force One to fly to the next campaign rally, Warren had entered her cabin. He’d watched her sign thank-you notes to contributors for a couple of minutes before he said anything.

“That was pitiful.”

“Excuse me?” She’d been stunned.

“You acted bored by the questions and annoyed that he asked to take a picture with you afterward. Do you even remember his name?”

“The reporter?”

“That wasn’t a reporter. That was Miles Henry. Do you know Miles’s claim to fame?”

Charlotte had placed her letters on the table and looked Warren directly in the eye. “You’re about to tell me.”

“Miles is the longest-serving news anchor in Ohio. He’s turned down a dozen offers to move to larger markets. LeBron James tried to get him a job at the Miami affiliate when he moved there in 2010. Do you know what Miles did when he was offered a job in Miami?”

“You’re going to tell me that, too.”

“You bet I am. As a favor to his friend LeBron, Miles agreed to fly out to Miami Beach for the weekend. He brought his wife and daughter with him. They stayed at the Lowe’s Hotel on Miami Beach and shopped and ate in the restaurants on Lincoln Road. They took pictures in front of the house where Versace was killed and lay by the pool until they were sunburned. At the end of the weekend, Miles called LeBron and thanked him for the opportunity, and then he called the station manager and told him that Cleveland was the only place he’d ever wanted to work. Madam President, there wasn’t anything more important on your schedule today than making Miles believe that you cared about him and that you cared about Cleveland. And in my humble opinion, you fucked it up royally.”

“Your opinions are a lot of things, but I wouldn’t call them humble,” she’d retorted.

“I’m not one of your staffers. I get paid by the hour, Madam President, and it isn’t worth the ridiculous amount you’re paying if I suck up to you and tell you how inspired each of your performances is. That, in my humble opinion, would be a waste of your money and my time.”

Charlotte had pushed the stack of thank-you notes in his direction. “To be fair, it’s their money that’s paying your exorbitant rate,” she’d said.

“Even those assholes deserve more than a candidate who is simply going through the motions,” he’d said.

“What exactly do you suggest I do, campaign Svengali?”

Warren had smiled. “About the interview?”

“Yes, about the interview.”

“Well, the interview really isn’t the problem. It’s a symptom of a larger illness.”

“I see.”

“There’s nothing you can do about the interview except have the press office call them and tell the station that you’ll be back next week and you’d like to finish the conversation you started today.”

“Are we going to be back next week?”

“I’ll add it to the schedule.”

“You do have an answer for everything. And what about my illness?”

“Your Svengali would suggest a few more focus groups and some fine-tuning of your campaign message and maybe a few million dollars’ worth of new ads. You could even throw in a staff shake-up for good measure and put your old pals Brooke and Mark on the campaign bus to lighten the mood. As your friend, and as someone who is deeply interested in seeing this country remain in your able hands, I would suggest that you get out of your head, get over yourself, and stop worrying about what’s going to happen on Election Day. These things have a way of working themselves out if you trust the universe.”

At that point, Charlotte had laughed. “I’m really glad that you didn’t suggest I trust the universe in your capacity as my campaign Svengali. I would have fired you.”

Warren had been her peer and a trusted counselor, but she’d also felt a maternal sense of pride in all that he’d accomplished. She missed his optimism, his humor, and his insights. Most of all, she hated knowing that all of his potential and all of his formidable talent had been cut short by the cruelty of fate.

The boy Warren had saved that day was traveling to the White House from his home outside Philadelphia for the ceremony, and Warren’s parents would also be there. The Carmichaels had visited the White House half a dozen times since their first visit the day after the attack. They had created a victims’ support network, a national network of charities and mental health professionals that worked
primarily to support the children of those killed in the attacks. The twins had also founded a charity to raise scholarship money to pay for college tuition for the victims’ children. Brooke and Mark were the cochairs, and Peter had recruited several of the professional athletes he represented to serve on the charity’s board. Charlotte would announce at the ceremony that they’d raised more than five million dollars.

But before that, she had to film the first of three short interviews with Lucy and Richard. They were waiting for her in the Oval Office and would travel on Air Force One to cover the events marking the one-year anniversary of the attacks. Their “Day in the Life” special from the year before had won an Emmy and cemented their status as the anchors to beat. Lucy had become an unlikely ally. Charlotte had called her several weeks after the attacks and asked her to reach out to Dale, who was dangerously thin and sleeping on the couch in her office instead of going home most nights. Charlotte couldn’t exactly turn to Craig and ask him to look after Dale, and Melanie was too judgmental to become Dale’s confidante, so Charlotte had asked Lucy to help. Lucy reported back to Charlotte after their regular dinners, and Charlotte was immensely pleased that they’d developed a real friendship.

Now Sam handed Charlotte a cup of coffee, which she sipped while the technician attached a microphone to her lapel. Sam took the battery pack from the sound tech and attached it to the president’s skirt.

“When you’re ready, we’ll give them the heads-up that you’re coming in.”

Dale had informed her the day before that Lucy would ask her if there was a particular story or memory about Warren that she liked to think about when she thought of his contributions to her administration. Charlotte had decided to share a slightly edited version of the story from the campaign plane, when Warren had told her she’d done a terrible job with the Cleveland reporter. It encapsulated all of the things she’d loved about him as an advisor, and it made clear that he was brave enough to tell her the truth even if it meant that he risked losing his political clout by offending her with an unflattering review.
From Charlotte’s perspective, his honesty had had the opposite effect. From that trip on, Warren’s political influence was unrivaled.

Charlotte stood a little straighter and put her coffee cup down on Sam’s desk. “I’m ready,” she said.

One of her agents pushed open the door to the Oval Office, and Lucy and Richard stood to greet her. Dale and Monty quickly moved to the side of the room to stay out of the camera shot. Charlotte spent the first couple of minutes discussing the ceremonies that would take place over the next two days.

“Madam President, I know that your focus is on the victims and their families today, but I wonder if you can talk about the impact or the toll that this monumental tragedy has had on you personally.”

“You’re right, Lucy. Today is about the victims and their loved ones, and there’s nothing that has made me feel more powerless in my time as president than to stand with a child who has lost her mom or dad or to comfort parents who lost a child or grandparents who lost children and grandchildren. I can’t do anything for them in terms of easing their pain, because I can’t bring their loved ones back. But I have promised all of them that their loss will always be a part of me. I’ve spent enough time with the victims’ families to understand the character and strength of these individuals.”

“Madam President, a lot of people were surprised by your capacity to be so public in your grief. Was some of that ability to mourn with the families and understand what they were going through because you lost someone important to you on that day? For any of our viewers who don’t recall, a member of your White House family—a very close advisor, Warren Carmichael—died in the attacks on the Mall here in D.C.”

“Thanks for the question, Lucy. We miss Warren so much. There are no words to describe how important he was as an advisor and a friend to me and to everyone here. But every single person who lost someone that day—and even people who didn’t know anyone who was killed or hurt in the attacks—endured something truly shocking and terrifying. If people feel that I did a respectable job tapping into the emotions that others felt, then I think Warren would have been the first to say that’s not a bad outcome.”

“Madam President, your staff is giving us a sign to wrap things up. I know we’ll speak again later today, but is there anything else you want to say before the event gets under way?”

“It’s important to remember the families after today’s ceremonies and tributes are over. For them, the pain never ends. We can all learn so much from their examples. The true character of this country is not that we avoid tragedy. It’s that we find our way back. Today I plan to honor the resilience, strength, and grace of all the family members and friends of the victims, including the Carmichaels, who will be here today.”

“Madam President, before we go, I want to ask you one final question. The attacks of July 31 and your administration’s response to them will always be viewed as the most historic aspect of your presidency, but I wonder if you ever do any thinking, now that you’re just eighteen months away from the end of your presidency and a return to life as an ordinary citizen, about the rest of your legacy?”

“I can’t say that I do, Lucy,” Charlotte demurred. She worried for an instant that perhaps Lucy knew about the house she’d just allowed Brooke and Mark to buy for her in their Atherton neighborhood.