Charlotte Kramer: Madam President Part 12

"Listen, I just got a two-minute warning from the press advance folks. How are you feeling?"

"Fat, tired, starving, and nauseated. Aren't you glad you asked?"

"I will see you tonight when you get home."

"Go easy on her today."

"Who?"

"Charlotte."

"I will pretend that I didn't hear that."

"Call me back when you're done. I'll be in the air for a while."

Melanie hung up with Brian and tried to think of someone else she could call for a read on how the Penny news was playing. She considered calling Dale to offer her a.s.sistance with the White House response. She knew exactly how Charlotte would want this handled. If she hadn't screamed at Dale earlier in the day over the "Day in the Life" filming, it would be easier to weigh in. Instead, Melanie asked the operator to place a call to Warren. Melanie could register her suggestions with him and be sure that they'd make their way to Dale and the president.

"h.e.l.lo there, Madam Secretary. What a pleasant surprise. How was your trip?"

"We're making some progress with the military but I'm afraid that the police are being infiltrated by thugs - same old struggles."

"I understand exactly what you're saying, and I want to hear about it this weekend. We're having dinner together at your place on Sat.u.r.day."

"With you and Dale?"

"That's the plan."

"I can't wait."

"Is that sarcasm I detect in your voice, Madam Secretary?"

"Not even a touch of sarcasm. We haven't seen you in weeks. What the h.e.l.l do you and Dale do with yourselves? Actually, I don't want to know the answer to that. Listen, I need a favor. Have you talked to Charlotte?"

"Not since yesterday, when we went over the polling on her speech."

"You did polling on her speech?"

"We do polling on all of her major speeches."

"I forgot that."

"If it makes you feel any better, I do the polling after the speech text has gone final. We find out what language resonates and all that stuff. G.o.d, Mel, you make me feel so dirty about it!"

"I didn't mean to do that. Can you please make sure that Dale knows not to try to brush Penny's post under the rug with any sort of shrug of the shoulders or glib comment like 'Teenagers will be teenagers.' That would drive Charlotte crazy. She'd want Penny to be treated like an adult. She doesn't care about how it looks to anyone but Penny, so tell the press folks not to do any apologizing for Penny's behavior. Besides, I'm sure that Penny knew exactly what she was doing."

"You're right, of course. Look, I think this is a good moment for the president. Most people I know with kids in college feel like human ATMs. This show of disrespect from her eighteen-year-old daughter is something that will rally everyone with kids to her side, especially if she is able to reveal some of her angst over being a working mother."

"That's always been something that she talks about in private but not in public," Melanie said.

"It would be great if she could do some hand-wringing in full view of the public, but you are probably the only person who could have persuaded her to do that."

"Not anymore," Melanie reminded him.

"You'd be surprised. She still talks about the advice you used to give her about letting people see enough of her to empathize with her even when they don't agree with her."

"She does?"

"All the time. I can't believe Charlotte let you go to DOD."

"She'd tap me to be amba.s.sador to Siberia at this point, but for the time being, I'm staying put."

"How long until you have to stop traveling?"

Warren was one of five people, including their doctors, who knew she was pregnant. Brian had told him. At first, Melanie was upset that he'd shared the news, but she realized that he'd needed someone to talk to about everything they'd been through.

"I don't have any idea. I guess a couple more months, right?"

"I think they let you travel up to six months these days."

"Good to know. I hear Dale is going to meet the parents tonight. Good luck with that."

"Thanks. You don't like her very much, do you?"

"Warren, I love that she makes you happy, and I think she does a nice job from the podium for Charlotte. I just think she's one of those women who are never happy with what they have or who they are with."

"I hear you, Mel. I worry about that, too."

"Brian would kill me for saying this, but I don't see her wanting the same things you want in life. Women like Dale don't have a biological clock or an internal compa.s.s that points them toward a settled life with a home and a husband and kids."

"Mel, you're probably right, as usual, but I have to play it out. I'm crazy about her."

"I know. I'm sorry to be such a downer. I'm probably wrong. Listen, your parents are going to love her."

"I think so, too, but you know how easily Dale spooks. I hope she doesn't think an engagement ring is imminent or anything. That would totally freak her out."

"Yes, a diamond ring from a handsome, smart, interesting guy with fabulous friends and a steady job. That's every girl's nightmare."

Warren laughed. "Have a safe flight home, Mel. You're spot-on about the White House response. I'll track Dale down as soon as we hang up."

Warren was the only person Melanie knew who appreciated her intimate history with Charlotte's "interior landscape," as they jokingly called it when they were trying to game out how a particular intra-Cabinet debate or power struggle would unfold. Warren hadn't been on the scene as an advisor to Charlotte yet, but he'd listened patiently one night when he'd been over for dinner to Melanie's stories of being wooed by Charlotte six and a half years earlier, when she was the president-elect and Melanie was one of the most well-respected White House press secretaries in modern presidential history.

"I told her no way, no how, when she first asked me to stay on," Melanie had recounted. At the time, Melanie had been the seasoned Washington insider who'd served two presidents and had her pick of plum postWest Wing job opportunities. There were lucrative paid speeches to be given, invitations to appear on network television shows as a White House expert, and offers from investment banks, defense contractors, and the former presidents she'd served. But she'd been intrigued by the notion of serving as the first female White House chief of staff. While it was well known that the country had never elected a female president, it was a matter of slightly more consternation to Melanie and a small circle of high-powered women in Washington that no president had ever selected a woman to serve as his chief of staff. That was the case until Charlotte had asked Melanie to take the job and Melanie had accepted.

Now Warren was the only person who sought out Melanie's judgment on sensitive political and policy issues. Warren looked out for her and made sure she was never blindsided by anything coming out of the West Wing, particularly when it pertained to national security. But going from Charlotte's closest ally and most trusted counsel to a Cabinet official with waning influence was more than a blow to Melanie's self-esteem. It had forced her to examine all of her own motives for serving in the government. She was forced to confront her own ego and the blows it had suffered when she was cut out of the tight circle around the president. This, in turn, forced her and Brian to have a more practical discussion about whether she could even carry out her responsibilities as the secretary of defense. Ultimately, they'd read Charlotte's public statements of admiration for Melanie's commitment to the troops and the Pentagon as a strong enough show of support for her to stay in the post, but Melanie privately hoped that some sort of reconciliation with the president was in the cards in the very near future. It was something she planned to discuss with Warren the next time she saw him alone.

CHAPTER TWENTY.

Dale The vice president had the crowd whipped into a frenzy. The veep was. .h.i.tting every applause line and ad-libbing in all the right places. The vice president had also added a very funny joke about her and the president that would get picked up everywhere. Dale was smiling for the cameras in her office, and it wasn't staged. She felt her phone vibrate. She'd missed the last call from Warren, so this time, she picked it up.

"Are you watching?" she asked.

"Dale?" It was Peter.

"I thought you were someone else. Hang on."

She covered the phone with her hand.

"Sorry, guys, can you excuse me?"

"We were supposed to be allowed to shadow you all day, Dale. We won't put every call you get on TV."

She was getting tired of being reminded that it was part of the agreement she'd made with the network to allow the cameras to be stationed in her office all day. She sighed and walked out of her office and into the hallway.

"Did something happen with Penny?" she whispered.

"That's not why I'm calling."

"Oh?"

"You were obviously uncomfortable in the Oval Office, and I'm sorry that I didn't do anything to make you feel more at ease. I was pretty d.a.m.n uncomfortable myself."

"You were?"

"I don't know if uncomfortable is the right word."

Dale didn't say anything. She heard Peter sigh the way he did when he was choosing his words carefully.

"I think it's easier this way," he said.

"What way?"

"Not having any contact. Leaving you and Charlotte to have a professional relationship that has nothing to do with me."

"Is that what you want?"

Peter sighed again. "It's not exactly like the two of us could meet in Georgetown for lunch, Dale."

Dale didn't disagree. The only way they'd all been able to settle into what was once an unthinkable scenario - the president's husband's former mistress serving on the White House senior staff - was that they'd all erected firewalls around their past entanglements. Everyone, including the president, had become a master at projecting an air of amnesia when it came to everything that had transpired. What few people outside of the three of them would ever know was that it had been Charlotte who had done the unthinkable. She'd treated Dale with extraordinary kindness. She'd offered her a prized interview at a time when Dale had been on the ropes professionally at the network. Charlotte had always kept her disagreements and disappointments with Peter separate from her dealings with Dale. It suggested to Dale that Charlotte was very much in control of the relationship with Peter.

Dale realized that neither one of them had spoken for nearly a minute. "Peter?"

"She asked about you this morning."

"Charlotte?"

"Penny."

"Why?"

"I called her very early this morning at Charlotte's behest to ask her not to do anything outrageous today, and she asked me for your e-mail address. I didn't know yet what she'd written on Facebook when I spoke to her, but it all makes sense now."

"Peter, I can tell that you're beating yourself up over this. I meant it when I said that it was not your fault."

"Listen, Dale, I can't see you or talk to you or be around you, because I can't keep moving forward with Charlotte if I have any reminders of the past - of our past. Can you understand that?"

"Of course." She wanted to tell him that she had never stopped loving him.

"I really am glad that you're happy. Charlotte would definitely say that you've made an upgrade with Warren."

Dale forced herself to laugh, but she wanted desperately to seize this window to tell him how much she still wanted him. "You set the bar very high."

"Don't expect me to toast you at the wedding. I'll leave that to Charlotte."

The thought of getting married to Warren in front of Peter made her insides ache. Of course, if they ever were to get married, Charlotte would probably attend.

"I don't know if things between Warren and me are heading in that direction."

"Really? Well, that's too bad for Warren, if that's the case."

Oh, G.o.d. This was starting to feel like a nightmare. "Peter, do you ever wonder what would have happened if things hadn't fallen apart in Stinson that weekend?" she asked.

He was quiet. "I try not to."

"I can't not think about it. I think about it all the time. I was such an idiot."

"It's not worth rehashing."

"But it is. Can I see you for five minutes? I want to explain and apologize, properly. Can I do that?"

Peter didn't say anything, but she knew he was still on the line.

"Peter?"

"I don't think it's a good idea."

"I will take five minutes of your time. Please. I will leave you alone forever after this."

"It's a busy day."

"Five minutes."