Charlotte Kramer: Madam President Part 29

Lucy turned and looked at Dale.

"You had the White House chief of staff as a source, and you said that you knew some of the information was true. Even without a second source, it was news. Why didn't you use any of it?"

Lucy's eyes narrowed. "I really hope that this isn't a lecture about my journalistic obligations. That would be so rich I couldn't take it."

"I'm curious."

Lucy shrugged. "There are other considerations. Being true doesn't sanitize the information from the stench of Craig's nefarious motives. I sat on plenty of things over the last year, and not just from here. I don't expect you to give me a G.o.dd.a.m.ned medal. My viewers don't give a c.r.a.p about how many scandals I reveal. In case you haven't paid attention to your former profession, there are not a lot of ticker-tape parades being thrown for the great journalists of our times. People are sick of hating their political leaders, and when we give them more reasons to do so, they start to hate us, too. My viewers want someone pleasant who doesn't take herself too seriously to sit with them at the end of their stressful days and make them laugh a little. They already know what happened. They just want to know why they should give a d.a.m.n."

Dale was speechless.

"You should get back to work on that speech," Lucy remarked. Surely she knew from Craig that Dale hadn't contributed one single word.

"I didn't work on the speech," Dale confessed.

"I know," Lucy said, with the faintest of smiles.

"Thank you," Dale said.

"I didn't do it for you, and I didn't do it for the president, so there's nothing to thank me for."

Dale nodded again.

Lucy closed the door behind her, and Dale reached for her phone.

"Sam, I need to see the president."

CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE.

Charlotte When Dale appeared in the doorway of the Oval Office, Charlotte had to force the image of Peter and Dale sitting side-by-side with their heads touching in the medical unit earlier that afternoon from her mind. She hadn't had a conversation with Peter all day about anything other than the whereabouts of their children. Charlotte examined Dale closely. She appeared thinner and paler than usual. Charlotte was overcome with dueling desires. Part of her wanted to throw a comforting arm around her slim shoulders and a.s.sure her that everything would be OK. The other part of her, the one that ultimately prevailed, felt compelled to regard Dale with professional coolness, especially after watching her with Peter earlier.

It was at this moment, however, that she fully understood why Dale served as an inescapable magnetic force for Peter's affections. Dale was in a perpetual cycle of needing to be rescued, and if Charlotte knew one thing about Peter, it was that he desperately needed to be needed. For reasons she didn't entirely understand, Charlotte had never been able to muster any animosity toward Dale. She'd never viewed Dale as her compet.i.tion for Peter's affections, because she'd always seen herself as the one responsible for pulling him in and pus.h.i.+ng him away based on her own limited capacity for intimacy.

Now she focused on the immediate concern, which was Craig's role in spreading confidential information to the press. Charlotte waved Dale toward the sofa.

"Come in and sit down," she urged.

"Can I get you something to drink?" Melanie offered.

"He gave Lucy the speech," Dale blurted.

Charlotte and Melanie exchanged a glance.

"He's been talking to them off the record for more than a year about..."

"What?" Melanie asked.

"About a lot of different things," Dale confirmed.

"What sorts of things, Dale?" the president probed.

"She said that going back a year, he was talking to her on deep background about you, Melanie, and how you were the source for the leaks about Tara. She also said that he'd been pa.s.sing along information all day long - the CNN crew, Warren, the PEOC story."

"Did she say why?" Melanie asked.

"She didn't know why."

"Why didn't she use any of it?" Charlotte asked.

"I'm not sure I buy this part of the story entirely, but she said that it was all tainted by Craig's ill motives and she didn't feel an obligation to use information that was provided by a disgruntled source."

Melanie's face registered disbelief. Despite the fact that she was married to a network correspondent, she set a very low bar for most journalists.

"Should I call her?" Charlotte asked.

"She said that she didn't do it for you and that we should not ever thank her."

"What do you want to do?" Melanie asked Charlotte.

"I want to think about it." Charlotte was annoyed that Melanie expected her to make some sort of snap judgment about her chief of staff on the day of the attacks.

Melanie didn't disguise her disapproval, and Charlotte could tell that Dale suddenly felt uncomfortable.

"I'm sorry to ask this, but what should I do about Craig? He's going to know, or at least suspect, that someone, probably me, waved Lucy off the speech when she doesn't use it in her next live report," Dale said, worried.

"He's going to get a new draft in about fifteen minutes as part of the staffing process. You can say it was an early draft, and you heard from me that the president went in another direction after her last editing session," Melanie suggested.

"Will that work?" Charlotte asked.

Melanie was about to respond when Sam walked in.

"Excuse me. You have an urgent call out here, ma'am."

Charlotte closed the door to the Oval Office, leaving Melanie and Dale alone, and stood at Sam's desk to watch the networks announce that Warren had been killed in the attacks on the Air and s.p.a.ce Museum. She stayed until they read her statement in its entirety and then turned slowly back toward the door to the Oval. She felt wearier than at any other point in her presidency.

"Ma'am." Sam gently touched her arm.

"What?" Charlotte said, more curtly than she'd intended.

"Madam President, your hair and makeup folks are here."

Charlotte sank into the chair next to Sam's desk to catch her breath.

"How much time do I have?"

"You have about half an hour until the speech."

"Tell them I'll be with them in five minutes."

CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO.

Melanie Melanie and Dale both watched Charlotte leave the Oval Office. Melanie could tell by Dale's reaction to being left alone with her that she presumed that Charlotte was doing something related to Warren.

"She and I worked on this together," Melanie revealed. She reached into a manila folder and handed Dale a copy of the president's statement. Dale sat down on the sofa and read it. She wiped a couple of tears from her cheeks and then looked at Melanie and smiled.

"Thank you."

"Thank the president," Melanie said.

"Please thank her for me. I've got to get down to the briefing room before her address."

Melanie watched Dale push herself up from the couch as though it were as difficult for her in her one-hundred-and-five-pound body as it was for Melanie in her growing form. She walked toward the door that opened to the hallway between the Roosevelt Room and the Oval Office so that she wouldn't b.u.mp into the president, who had exited to the reception area on the other side of the Oval. Dale turned to face Melanie before she left.

"I know that you and Brian knew him better and longer than I did, but I was falling in love with him, and I always knew how important you and Brian were to him. I'm sorry that we didn't all spend time together," Dale said in a near whisper.

"Me, too," Melanie admitted, even though she remained skeptical that Dale and Warren ever would have had the kind of relations.h.i.+p she knew Warren yearned for. Even in her grief, there was something unfeeling about Dale that Melanie couldn't ignore. The news of Warren's sudden death had undoubtedly shaken her, but Dale's sadness seemed more akin to what someone might feel at the news that they'd missed out on something exciting, rather than the loss of one's soul mate.

When Charlotte returned to the Oval Office a few minutes later, it was apparent that the public announcement of Warren's death had added a layer of personal loss to the day for her. While it was important that the president appear emotional and connected to the enormous sense of loss that the victims' families would be experiencing, Melanie worried that she might be feeling too much.

"Have you eaten anything today?" Melanie asked.

"I don't remember. Have you?"

"I had a Luna bar when I got here. Sam gave it to me. Why don't I order you a cheese plate or something?"

"No. Let's run through the speech one more time."

Charlotte clasped a copy of the speech in her hands. When she went for her black Sharpie, Melanie stopped her.

"It's too late for that. If you want to change anything else, I'll do it myself in the teleprompter."

"What time are we doing this?"

"You'll go on the air at eleven-oh-two to give the anchors a couple of minutes to set things up and announce that you're addressing the nation live from the Oval Office."

"What time is it now?"

"It's ten minutes before eleven, Madam President."

There followed a familiar scene in the Oval Office. The president lashed out, and Melanie listened and tried to absorb as much of her negative energy as she could. When the time came for the president to be seated behind her desk in the Oval Office, she seemed to adjust her mind-set and put on a "game face."

Now, as Melanie watched the president deliver the address that she'd carefully crafted, she wondered what would happen in the days to come. Surely their collaboration on this most extraordinary day meant that Charlotte still trusted Melanie more than all of her other advisors. However, it was possible that the president simply needed her too much to leave Melanie on the outside of her inner circle.

One thing was certain: there was no way Melanie would return to the White House if the president allowed Craig to stay on. Other presidents had prosecuted government officials for leaks like the ones he was guilty of. Without an a.s.surance from Charlotte that Craig would face consequences for his actions, Melanie was overcome with an almost urgent desire to flee the Oval Office. But Charlotte had insisted that they be left completely alone for the address to the nation. It was irrational for a president to ask to be left alone without any technical experts, but Melanie had agreed to the a.s.signment. She made sure that everyone she would need if anything went wrong was stationed on the other side of the door.

Melanie was following along by watching the words displayed on the teleprompter. She noticed that Charlotte was nearing the Longfellow excerpt. She touched her stomach lovingly. The pa.s.sage fit the occasion perfectly. Melanie looked directly at Charlotte as she delivered the final line and smiled. All politicians needed that instant approval at the moment a performance ended, and Charlotte needed it more than most. As soon as Melanie got a signal from the producer speaking in her ear that they were clear, she gave Charlotte a thumbs-up and rose to praise her.

"I couldn't have done it without you," Charlotte replied.

Melanie offered Charlotte more compliments on her performance as they moved into the dining room to allow the crew to break down the lights and other equipment. She wondered where everyone else on Charlotte's staff was. Her entire body ached, and she wanted to see her husband and feel his arms around her for a few minutes before she returned to the Pentagon.

"Madam President, that was very strong!" Craig exclaimed, bursting through the door.

As soon as he arrived, Melanie made her getaway. She stopped briefly in the hallway outside the Oval Office to send Brian a text message. She asked him to meet one of her agents outside the briefing room. After he finished his live shot, the agent led him to her SUV, which was parked on West Exec. It was all she could do not to cry with relief when he opened the door and climbed in next to her. She couldn't remember a time when she'd been more comforted by his presence.

"How's my wife?"

"I'm exhausted."

He put his arm around her, and she leaned into him. Her agents were waiting outside the car.

"I'm sorry about earlier," she said.

"Me, too. How do you feel?"

"Everything hurts."

"You need to tell Charlotte about the baby. She's going to call on you all the time. It's going to be around the clock. I can see it happening already. And you're going to get sucked in. You can't help it. It's what I love about you. You don't even see it; you can't say no to her. You have to tell her you'll be there for her, but it can't be like before," Brian pleaded.

Melanie nodded. She couldn't stop the tears from streaming down her face.

"What's wrong?"

"I'm so sad about Warren. He was trying to help. And all of those people on the s.h.i.+p - do you think they knew they were going to die? And can you even imagine getting a call about your kid getting killed at the Air and s.p.a.ce Museum?"

"Do you have to go back to the Pentagon, or is the next meeting something you can call into? I think you need a couple hours of sleep."

"I can call in. When can you come home?"

"I'll come with you. Let me go grab my bag and tell them I'll be back for GMA."

While she waited for Brian and the agent who accompanied him, she rested her forehead against the window. She dozed off and woke up a few minutes later when they were driving up Foxhall Drive toward their home in the Wesley Heights neighborhood of Was.h.i.+ngton.