“That would be five generations.”
“My grandfather was a black sheep and made his living as an insurance salesman. No one can account for him, least of all my grandmother.”
“That makes you a Marine on your mother’s side?”
“It does. Grandma was in the Marine Corps during Vietnam through Desert Storm—clerical work. Mom served in a somewhat more enlightened age and is still an MV-22 Osprey pilot—though just a stateside trainer now.”
“Which explains what about you?” Actually it told her a great deal—high intelligence, deep motivation, and an unusual view of the world. But she wanted to know what conclusions it had given him.
“As the first one to combine the two professions, it has given me an immense respect for strong women.” This time his nod to her communicated just that.
Cornelia wasn’t quite sure what to do with the sudden warmth inside her. People always saw her as a political player without being a woman at all, or as a woman who could only possibly be interested in marrying well in Washington no matter how often she proved otherwise. Each election cycle she had to deal with all of the freshman senators and congressmen coming to meet the Vice President and thinking they were God’s gift to his “lonely” assistant. The offers had redoubled with his marriage this spring when it became clear that the rumors about them having a romantic connection were untrue. She’d tried wearing a ring for a while, but that had only served to increase the seediness of the propositions.
She wondered if Damien was the first person to see her as both woman and political player at once. Her mother certainly didn’t. All she saw was a daughter she loved but didn’t begin to understand.
The setting of the Navy Mess in the White House basement was beautiful, the food excellent, and the company…exceptional. The conversation ranged widely across literature, politics, and his mother’s service experience as a female Marine.
It was only after she was climbing the stairs back to the first floor that she realized that Damien had still managed to avoid answering her question of why he was the long-serving “anomaly,” though she no longer thought it was intentional. Or perhaps he had. His intelligence and clear insights placed him sufficiently above any norm that his position made sense.
Cornelia swung by her office, but Daniel was at her desk and on her phone, deep in conversation. She continued down the hall and stepped into the Chief of Staff’s secretary’s office.
“Good afternoon, Ms. Day. May I help you?”
“Good afternoon, Janet.” Daniel’s secretary was an institution, guiding the secretarial pool like a steady helmswoman on a storm-tossed sea. An apt metaphor after staring at the nautical wall paintings in the Navy Mess over lunch. Though Janet looked more ready for a spot of tea than to sail a ship.
In addition to her computer, Janet’s desk had a notepad, a framed picture of her husband and family, and a small Christmas tree made of copper wire curled up like branches each dangling a cheerily colored ornamental ball. The day after Thanksgiving weekend, it was the first sign she’d seen of Christmas in the White House.
Cornelia handed over the President’s letter, “I suppose you can make sure this goes wherever it needs to go.”
Janet read it quickly, nodded once, and set it in the center of her desk. “I’ll take care of it, Ms. Day.”
“No reaction?” Cornelia couldn’t resist asking.
“Perhaps About damned time! would suffice,” she raised her voice for only a moment. “That is, if you’re asking for my personal thoughts.” Janet smiled pleasantly. “You’re enough to make me rethink retiring. I like Daniel immensely, but I rather expect you will be more fun to work for. Don’t fear, ma’am—”
“Cornelia.”
“Yes, ma’am. I’ll stick around at least through the transition. Let’s go look at your new office.” She rose from her desk. Janet was trim, neatly gray-haired, and dressed in better than average Nordstrom. A single strand of pearls and matching earrings spoke of a woman from some era prior to the one she actually belonged in.
Cornelia stepped over the threshold casually this time—concentrating so that Janet would have no cause to tease her—and came to a stop in the middle of the room as naturally as possible.
To her right was a grand fireplace. The Chief of Staff, she!, had one of the two corner offices on the same floor as the Oval Office—National Security Advisor Sienna Arnson had the other—which gave her two walls of windows. The last wall had large panoramic photos that she assumed were the Darlington’s Tennessee farm.
For herself…perhaps she would see if the White House collection or the National Archives had any renderings of the Lincoln-Douglas debates. She had studied those debates very carefully and it had become the key structure for her own successes. The most prized volume in her library was the first edition of Lincoln’s collection of those debates that her parents had given her as a college graduation present.
The office’s general motif was cream and white. A couch and a couple of armchairs formed a group by the fireplace. A long whitewashed-oak conference table dominated the corner window space. The open curtains gave her a view of her old office in the EEOB and to the south: the pergola and masking trees of the Oval Office patio, as well as the back of the pool’s cabana. She’d never sat out on the stone-flagged patio and now she had her own private door to it.
The last corner of her office was filled with a large, wrap-around desk with several guest chairs…and a pile of folders so deep that there was little chance of seeing any guests from the big desk chair beyond.
“I swear that man does his filing by tornado,” Janet huffed out. “I’ve never seen him hesitate to find a file, but the Lord alone knows how it’s done.”
Cornelia circled around enough to see that there were even a few piles on the floor under the desk. She didn’t want to disparage her predecessor, especially as he was going to be her Vice President, but this would never do.
“I think you need a garbage can,” Janet voiced the thought for her.
“Several.”
“I’ll get you a stack of burn bags,” Janet agreed heartily. “The extra large kind.”
If only it could be so simple. What she really needed was a librarian. But she wasn’t about to call the one who…she looked down at the wall-to-wall carpet in some surprise.
“What is it, dear?”
Her office was exactly on top of the Situation Room. Damien’s watch desk would be directly under the patio outside her window—perhaps she wouldn’t be going out there. She took a deep breath and waved Janet over.
She sat in the chair Cornelia indicated.
“Okay. Let’s sort through this and see what we have.”
Cornelia might need a librarian, but she definitely wasn’t calling Damien.
Chapter Three
Damien glared at his phone.
It had rung a hundred times over the last week, but not once had it been a call to warn him that the Chief of Staff was on her way down to the Sit Room. She’d been here any number of times, slipping along in the wake of the President or the President-elect each time, and then hurrying out as if avoiding him.
Had he been too pushy? He knew he was bad about that. Every time he met an attractive woman, his mind immediately painted all of the possible scenarios. And with Cornelia Day his imagination had been working overtime. He could see her laughing easily whenever he dug deep enough to find that funny bone she struggled so hard to keep hidden. He could picture quiet dinners together. And, just as easily as he could imagine how she might look morning-tousled, he could picture her growing old and how stunning an—
“Shit!”
“What’s wrong?” both Bettani and Gerardo startled from their duty watch officer positions to either side of his central seat.
“Nothing!” He was just being his normal idiot self.
“I know that look,” Bettani accused him.
“No, you don’t!” He glared at her. The three of them sat on the upper t
ier of workstations, each with triple computer screens. Marko, the communications specialist, and Felice, the intelligence analyst, sat in the row directly in front of them, just low enough to not block anyone’s sightlines to the big screens on the walls.
Marko and Felice were now turning around to look up at him.
“I absolutely know that look,” Marko crowed.
“Shit!” No way this was going to get any better. Pulling on his “Marine Corps” wasn’t going to save him any grief either.
“Who is she?” His coworkers exchanged looks, but no one had caught on. That was some relief.
“No way!” He informed them. A warble tone and he dove for the phone. Saved by the bell. He spotted the display the moment before he spoke. “Good morning, Ms. Day. How may I be of assistance?”
He could see Bettani exchanging a startled glance with Marko. They mouthed whispers at each other.
“Day?”
“The new Chief of Staff.”
Their stereo “Ohs” and knowing nods had him turning away to glare at Gerardo who had the decency to find sudden interest in the data on his screens.
“Do you ever make house calls?” Cornelia’s voice didn’t have the businesslike brusqueness that he’d overheard during meetings in the Sit Room. Instead it was…gentler. Still business, but less fiercely so.
Then her question registered and that stopped Damien for a second. “House calls?”
“I have—”
Bettani made a small whoop of delight close behind him that stopped Cornelia cold.
“I have,” she had to clear her throat to start again, “some issues here and, frankly, would appreciate the assistance of a trained librarian.”
He glanced at the queue on his screen—seriously ugly at the moment. White House Chief of Staff Cornelia Day had not been neglecting her massive duties to the new administration, despite being immersed in old one, and had inundated his team with background checks and information requests. Then Damien turned further and caught sight of Bettani’s knowing smirk. That’s when he decided that she could just double up on her workload for a while.
“I’ll be there in a minute,” he hung up. Anger wasn’t in his usual repertoire, but he could feel it coursing through him. It built as he rose, straightened his tie, and donned his jacket.
“Gotta be all purty for your date,” Bettani drew out the words in an obnoxious singsong.
He slammed his palm on the back of her chair forcing her to turn and fully face him.
Damien got right up in her face.
“You do not, I repeat, not ever talk about the White House Chief of Staff or any other senior staff with anything but the utmost respect. Not in my Sit Room. We clear?”
Bettani was wide-eyed in shock. He could see Marko out of the corner of his eye also in shock.
He slammed her chair back to facing her console, “Now get some goddamn work done. I want that queue caught up before I return.”
Damien stormed out of the room. It had never been so silent.
“Perhaps this wasn’t a good time,” she greeted him as Damien arrived in her office. Cornelia could almost see curls of steam coming off his collar.
“No, it’s fine,” he paced from the holly-bedecked fireplace mantel to the twinkle-light framed windows and back. She and Janet had selected carefully from the decorator’s offerings and she thought that their choices had made the office cheery yet tasteful. Wishing to be non-denominational, she had vetoed the crèche for the center of her conference table in favor of a Victorian porcelain Santa’s sleigh with reindeer. The effect was warm and pleasant, but Damien didn’t appear to notice as he steamrollered up and down her carpet. Maybe he didn’t like Christmas.
Finally he plummeted into the chair across her now immaculate desk—which bore only her portfolio and a small wire-form tree to match Janet’s—practically snarling as he did so.
She merely raised an eyebrow and waited him out.
“I just made a complete jackass of myself,” he sighed and continued to study something in the vicinity of his feet. “Not unusual, but I really did it spectacularly this time.”
“About what?”
His eyes flickered to hers for a moment, then back to his feet.
“Okay,” Cornelia did what she could to catch her breath. She wished she’d left a few of Daniel’s files on her desk so that she had something to occupy her hands for a moment. She could think of several possible scenarios. First woman in the job. Or merely the first person to follow in Daniel’s immensely popular footsteps. Or was it…personal?
“Let’s just say,” his smile grew and shifted wryly sideways as if he was finally starting to see some humor in the situation, “that I became a little defensive.”
“I wouldn’t know anything about that.”
He laughed aloud; she’d never met someone who laughed so easily. “Do tell.”
“During my first trip to the Hill as Chief of Staff, I met a wide range of aides and congressman who did not consider me to be worthy of my predecessor.”
“To hell with them.”
“That is not really an option. I have to—”
“No! Seriously, Ms. Day, to hell with them. If they want access to the President, this one or the next, they’re going to have to go through you. They damn well better get used to it.”
She’d never thought of it that way. “For Zachary Thomas as first Governor then Vice President, my responsibilities were…defensive.”
“Guarding the gates like a good Marine,” he nodded a solid confirmation.
“Now, it is less clear. I am discovering that I am an extension of the President’s voice, or I’m trying to be.”
“Do. Or do not. There is no try.”
“And now you’re quoting Yoda at me?”
Damien shrugged and slipped a little lower in his chair.
“Are you sure you’re a Marine?”
“You asked for a librarian’s help, so that’s who I brought. I left the Marine downstairs,” then he grimaced. “Oh brother did I.”
Cornelia almost asked for details, then thought better of it. Straightening her jacket, she turned to the matters at hand.
Damien loved the gesture. It was like Captain Picard straightening his uniform just before he gave an order. Cornelia Day in command of a starship wearing a form-clinging Star Trek outfit. Wow! Way better than Janeway. Even better than Dr. Beverly Crusher who he’d had a weak spot for from the very first episode.
“The quantity of information flowing toward the President,” Cornelia folded her hands neatly on her desk as she spoke, “is staggering. At the moment I’m trying to manage two administrations and it is completely overwhelming.”
“Despite the evidence of your immaculate desk.”
“Twelve burn bags and three new filing cabinets.”
He could easily believe it; he’d seen Daniel’s desk before.
“I’m seeking suggestions on the proper filtering and organization of information.”
Now that was his kind of problem.
As they discussed the options he couldn’t help watching her stillness. It was strictly external—her mind was moving at an incredibly rapid pace. It was as if her thought processes consumed all of her attention until there was nothing left over for her physicality. Even her eyeblinks were alarmingly wide-spaced; he could feel his own eyes going dry from unconsciously matching her steady gaze.
“One page,” he finally suggested. They’d discussed a dozen different techniques: priority tagging, electronic queuing, and others.
“One page?” She tilted her head to the side, the tips of her hair now draping across her shoulder rather than brushing her collarbone. Her long neck elegantly on display. She made him want to see things that he definitely shouldn’t be thinking about the Chief of Staff…though he had to admit that he had been thinking them all week.
“Mom had a colonel who used to say that if someone couldn’t distill their idea down into a single page, then they hadn’t finis
hed thinking it through enough. I’ve never forgotten that. What’s the average length of a memo delivered to your desk?”
For the first time since he’d first seen her, she opened her tablet computer. She tapped a few keys, stroked her finger down a spreadsheet column, and studied the result.
No guesses for Cornelia Day and an indexing system that included number of pages. This woman was making his inner librarian swoon with delight.
“Average is eleven pages with a first standard deviation of only three.”
“Don’t these people know how to communicate a thought?”
“Oddly,” more taps on the screen, “other than the head speechwriter, not a one. His average memos are typically two pages and his speeches trend six minutes shorter than any prior writer’s.”
“Hire that man!”
“I already did,” she didn’t even look up from her screen. “His assistant averages fourteen pages and eleven minutes longer than the last decade’s average.”
“Fire his ass!” Damien felt like he was becoming a swashbuckling captain on an old cutter. “Keelhaul the blaggard!”
Cornelia raised a single eyebrow at him, à la Mr. Spock.
“Seriously. A speechwriter who—” And then Damien snapped his mouth shut. He was talking to the White House Chief of Staff about one of her key staff members, one who’d been with the administration for over three years. That was seven kinds of inappropriate. “Sorry.”
“Interesting,” Cornelia mulled the thought.
“Are you channeling Mr. Spock intentionally?”
“Who? Oh, the Star Wars character? No.”
Damien groaned and slapped his hands over his heart.
“What?”
“Star Trek! Not Star Wars!”
Her thin smile was unreadable. Tolerant perhaps? It goaded him on.
“You were doing great as my fantasy woman right up until that moment.” Then he heard his own words and bolted upright in his chair. Unable to contain his embarrassment, he jolted to his feet. “I’m sorry, ma’am. I have deeply overstepped the bounds of propriety. Please allow me to formally apologize. If you wish to file a complaint, I will make no argument.” He held parade rest, looking straight ahead at the wall.
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