Madam President

by Wallace, Nicolle

The idea of a spa vacation was enough to propel Dale out the door. She and Lucy drank a bottle of red wine at a small table in the bar at Capitol Grille. Lucy returned the following week and forced her out for dinner. Two weeks passed, and she was in town again, bullying her into another night out.

  Dale had secretly started to look forward to Lucy’s visits. After a couple of months, the dinners were punctuated by e-mails and texts and brief calls while Lucy was in a car on her way to work or when Dale drove home at night. Lucy had listened to Dale’s entire confession about her attempt to seduce Peter in the family theater on the day of the attacks one night after they ate at CityZen at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in D.C., where Lucy was staying. Dale didn’t spare any of the details. She’d felt lighter after telling Lucy. It was the first time all of the platitudes about the power of female friendship rang true for Dale. And Lucy had confided that she often felt like she did all the work and secured all the important interviews while Richard happily accepted half of the credit for all their success. She’d also shared her worries that she had the work-life equation dramatically out of balance. Lucy feared that her husband had an emotionally intimate relationship with their nanny that was designed to make her feel like an intruder in her own home. Only Dale knew how devastated she was by the dynamic and how much effort Lucy put into appearing completely satisfied with every aspect of her life to the outside world.

  In a plan that Lucy had hatched one night over dinner in Georgetown, she had suggested that Dale relocate to New York after the one-year anniversary of the attacks. When Dale admitted that the idea appealed to her, Lucy introduced her to a Realtor who’d leased her D.C. condo to a lobbyist. Lucy also found Dale a West Village apartment that was a short cab ride from her own Tribeca loft. The final piece had been the meeting with CNBC, which Lucy’s television agent had arranged for Dale.

  “Voilà,” Lucy had announced when the CNBC offer had come through the week before. “I’ve officially transformed your life. Now you have to raise my twins, have sex with my husband every night, and carry Richard through every newscast. Deal?”

  Dale had laughed and promised her friend that at the very least, she’d buy the drinks from now on.

  Craig had also moved to New York after Melanie demanded that he be forced to move on before she’d consider returning to the White House. The president never said anything to Dale about Craig’s breach after that night in the Oval Office, and Craig never confronted Dale about her role in the sting that had revealed his actions in leaking sensitive information to Lucy and Richard. He was courteous and professional in his dealings with her, but their friendship had cooled immediately. Dale was astounded that the president kept him in his position for as long as she had. Where staff was concerned, the president seemed to operate in a moral gray area. Dale had benefited from the president’s liberal interpretation of what constituted loyalty. But once an aide had crossed her, she had a way of letting him linger beyond a point when most politicians would have shown him the door. It made Dale wonder if perhaps Peter had been in a state of limbo with Charlotte, too, not ever firmly in her good graces but never cut loose, either. The inability to sever ties was not a trait most people would associate with the most powerful woman in the world, but Dale found it reassuring that Charlotte wasn’t perfect in all of her relationships either.

  Fortunately for the president, Melanie’s return had permitted her to disengage entirely from personnel matters. Melanie ushered in an era of stability and order and gave the president a noticeably firmer foundation on which to govern. The two of them communicated in a mystical way. Dale had seen it herself on the night of the attacks. The president was more relaxed and focused than at any other time since Dale had observed her. It made leaving more difficult in ways that were unexpected. Leaving the place—and the people—Warren had loved so much made her feel like she was losing him all over again.

  She wiped the tears that had run from the corners of her eyes and dabbed at the eye makeup that had smeared beneath them. Dale thought about Lucy’s determination always to put a strong and happy face on every situation. She forced a smile onto her face and opened the door for Marguerite.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN

  Charlotte

  Charlotte could hear Brooke and Penny talking in the hallway outside her bedroom. She quickly changed out of her suit and into jeans and a thin white sweater.

  “Mom?” Penny called.

  “In here,” she replied.

  The twins were spending more time at the White House and at Camp David than they ever had before. She suspected they were worried that she was lonely, but Brooke and Mark had also managed to manufacture excuses to visit Washington every few weeks, and the house had never been noisier or busier. She loved it. The year since the attacks had ushered in the most painful moments of Charlotte’s presidency and the most satisfying times she’d ever spent with Penny and Harry.

  “We were talking about those blissful early-morning hours a year ago, when we thought that your bitchy daughter was going to be your biggest problem,” Brooke taunted.

  “It was a cry for help!” Penny insisted.

  “I can’t believe you two are making jokes about it. Your father nearly had a heart attack when he read your post, young lady,” Charlotte scolded.

  “That’s true. Your dad was angrier than your mom. She wanted to tell the press that your barb constituted a compliment coming from you, but the West Wing staff wouldn’t let her,” Brooke added. All three of them laughed.

  “Can I borrow something to wear tomorrow?” Penny asked.

  “Of course.”

  Penny made a beeline for the section of clothes in Charlotte’s closet with the tags still on them. “What are these?”

  “My stylist sent them down last week.”

  “Can I try them?”

  “Sure.”

  Penny pulled the designer dresses off the hangers and zipped herself into them while Charlotte and Brooke watched. Penny was taller than her mother, but they wore the same size.

  “Do you like this?” She had on a black short-sleeved shift dress that looked stunning.

  “You look so sophisticated,” Brooke said.

  “It’s gorgeous on you,” Charlotte added.

  “Can I wear it?”

  “Of course.” Charlotte smiled. These were the silly mother-daughter moments she felt she’d missed out on. As superficial and materialistic as trying on her dresses might be, it gave her an outsized amount of pleasure.

  Penny had started talking to her—really talking—after she’d traveled to California three weeks after the attacks to tell the twins that she and Peter had split for good. They went to lunch in Tiburon, and Charlotte told Penny and Harry all the things that parents think they are supposed to tell children when they decide that despite the gigantic reservoirs of love they have for the children they created together, they no longer love each other enough to try to make a marriage work. Charlotte had underestimated Penny’s understanding of their situation.

  “I don’t know how you did it as long as you did, Mom,” Penny had said.

  “What do you mean?”

  Penny had looked at her mother with such compassion that Charlotte felt embarrassed. Her daughter’s pity was not something she was prepared to experience. “It shouldn’t be so hard,” Penny declared.

  Charlotte considered Penny’s remark and wondered why she’d never spoken to her daughter like the grown-up she’d become. “You’re right.”

  Harry had returned to campus after lunch to study for a test the next day, and Penny and Charlotte had gone for a hike.

  “Do you think Dad and Dale will get back together?” Penny had asked.

  “I don’t know. Do you?”

  “I don’t know. Would you care?”

  Charlotte sighed. She knew that if she wanted Penny to talk to her, she was going to have to start by being honest with her.

  “Of course I would care, honey. I wish it were as simple as wanting Dad to be happy
, but it’s more complicated than that.”

  “Why?”

  “There are other people involved.”

  “But Dad and Dale never cared about that before.”

  “That’s true. I don’t know if Dale still loves your dad. She was dating Warren.”

  “I know.”

  “You know everything.”

  “Not everything. Just more than you give me credit for.”

  They’d hiked and talked for more than two hours. When Charlotte returned to Washington, she felt as though the walls between them had finally started to come down. Penny called the following week and asked if she could bring a friend to Camp David for Thanksgiving.

  Reaching Penny had been so simple, in hindsight. It made her wonder if she might have saved her marriage if she’d been honest and direct with Peter at an earlier point in their relationship. If she’d ever figured out how to tell him that she’d needed him as much as Dale had needed him, maybe he would have been there for her; maybe they could have been there for each other.

  It didn’t matter anymore. He’d returned to San Francisco a week after the attacks, and their separation hadn’t generated much attention. Charlotte didn’t feel that she owed anyone an explanation this time, and aside from a few articles on the San Francisco Chronicle Web site about Peter being spotted around the Bay Area without any Secret Service detail, no one had written much about it.

  The first few weeks after the attacks were packed with memorial services and visits to the cities that were bombed, private strategy sessions with her foreign-policy team, briefings on the intelligence they’d gathered with allies and members of Congress, and speeches and press conferences designed to calm the nerves of a jittery and terrified public.

  When she finally had time to think about Peter again, she recognized that salvaging her marriage had appealed to her masochistic side. She’d convinced herself that if things between them weren’t difficult, they must not be worthwhile. Charlotte and Peter had spent more than a decade growing apart, and she’d naively hoped to bridge all of that distance in a few months. The end hadn’t been entirely Peter’s fault, but it was clarifying for her that on the day of the attacks—the most horrible day of her presidency—he found his purpose in getting Dale through the shock of losing Warren. Charlotte couldn’t square what she’d seen between them with her hopes for a second chance with Peter.

  For her part, Charlotte had found someone to save, too. The morning after the attacks, she’d asked Craig to ride with her in the limo to the D.C. site. As soon as the door to the limo slammed shut, she’d turned to him.

  “I don’t know why you did what you did, and I don’t want to know. I need to know what you want to do now.”

  Craig had reached into his coat pocket. “I drafted a resignation letter last night.” He’d handed it to her.

  “Is that what you want?”

  The car had stopped outside the museum. She heard the Secret Service announce her arrival: “All cars, all stations, Wayfarer arrive.”

  “Give me a minute,” she’d told the agent who’d opened her car door. Then she’d said, “Craig, I believe that you made a mistake—a few mistakes. But before I step out of this car, I need to know if you want to continue to work for me.”

  “I would like to explain,” he’d said.

  “No. You don’t get to explain why you did it, and I don’t have to explain why I didn’t accept your resignation. It doesn’t matter to me all that much. All that matters to me, today, is that you do your job. Understood?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  They’d never spoken about it again, and she had no reason to suspect that he’d ever leaked again. Melanie would never be able to understand, but Charlotte had forgiven Craig as much for her own sake, and in the interest of staff stability, as for his. At this point in her presidency, every action—regardless of how principled or justified—had consequences. To her, purging the White House of a chief of staff who was competent; well-liked by members of Congress, the Cabinet, and the rest of the White House staff; and possessed unmatched influence with her Democratic vice president was unwise. Melanie’s strength as an advisor was her clarity and her moral compass, but in some instances, that clarity was blinding. Charlotte saw the decision to keep Craig on for a few months after the revelation of his bad behavior as rooted squarely in the murky area of presidential decision making, where a perfect outcome isn’t on the menu, but a leader must make the best choice among less than ideal options.

  Now Charlotte walked into the dining room, where Brooke, Mark, and Harry were seated for dinner. Penny had returned to her closet to hunt for shoes to go with the black dress. Harry greeted her with a kiss and confirmed that his new girlfriend would be accompanying them to Camp David the following weekend.

  “Smooth move with the Camp David invitation. That must be a magic bullet with the ladies,” Mark teased.

  “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?”