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stared out the window. She sent Peter a text: “on my way see you soon xo.” He wrote back instantly: “safe flight.”
    They were seventh in line for takeoff.
    Dale sighed and sipped the glass of wine that the flight attendant had brought her without asking. She closed her eyes and thought about all the little things she wanted to share with Peter—the everyday things that made her laugh or struck her as curious. They never had enough time to talk. But that had always been the case with them, Dale thought as her plane sat waiting to take off for the twenty-five-minute flight.
    More than two and a half years had passed since they’d first slept together. Dale looked out the window of the plane as it took off from Washington a few moments later, the White House and the Capitol shining beneath them. She wondered what her life would be like if she hadn’t fallen in love with the president’s husband.

CHAPTER THREE
    Charlotte
    Charlotte spent the weekend much the way she’d spent most of her weekends as president. On Friday night, she and Melanie finished a bottle of wine and half a pack of cigarettes and talked into the night about what their lives would be like when they left the White House. Melanie had said something about needing to talk to her about the campaign, but then the twins called to ask where their ski stuff was stored up at boarding school, and Melanie never raised it again.
    On Saturday, Charlotte traveled to Camp David with Melanie and the dogs, where she’d conducted a meeting with her military commanders and national security team by video conference. They’d woken up Sunday to six more inches of fresh snow and taken a long hike in snow shoes around Camp David with the dogs. They’d returned to the White House at noon, and now Charlotte was in the Oval Office catching up on paperwork.
    “Down, get down. Get down right now!” Charlotte shouted at her three vizslas, who were trying to make mouth-to-mouth contact with her new Secret Service agents.
    “Get off the nice men. Sit down. Kennel!” She tried every command that the trainers had taught her, but while she commanded the United States military, she could not get her three dogs to stop jumping off the floor to try to kiss the agents on the mouth.
    “It’s OK, Madam President, really. I have two dogs at home, and they like to kiss humans on the mouth to see if they know them. It’s all in a book I read when I got my first problem dog. Not that your dogs are problems, they are not, of course, but, you know. I’m sorry …” He trailed off, embarrassed.
    “No, of course, they are problem dogs,” Charlotte said, “Look at them.”
    The smallest of the three dogs was peeing on the rug of the Oval Office, a habit she didn’t seem able to break despite Charlotte’s efforts to have her trained by the best dog trainers in the country. The last trainer had quit when the puppy bit her.
    “Melanie!” Charlotte yelled from the Oval Office. Charlotte’s assistant, Samantha, ran into the Oval Office just as the middle dog was squatting to pee on top of the wet spot created by the puppy.
    “Sam, please ask Melanie to get the trainer over here to deal with the dogs. Tell her Mika is still peeing on the rug in the Oval Office.”
    “Ma’am, I can call the trainer myself. Why don’t I take the dogs to the park for you? Have they been for a run yet today?” Sam asked.
    “Yes, we hiked for more than an hour this morning. They just don’t tire out. I don’t know what to do. Mika peed all over Camp David. And Emma followed suit, but just to outdo her. The only one who is still behaving like a good girl is my sweet Cammie. Come here, peanut.” Charlotte summoned Cammie, her seven-year-old vizsla. Cammie jumped into her lap and curled into a small ball of cinnamon-colored fur and licked Charlotte’s face—eyes, nose, mouth, and chin.
    “That’s my good girl. That’s my best girl. Why aren’t your sisters good girls like you?” Cammie