for the opportunity to draw close to the administration. And Derek too.
During President Bannon’s eight years, the media hounded him incessantly about the appearance of impropriety that his relationship with Derek suggested. Yet to his credit, Bannon never distanced himself from his college roommate. Everyone understood the message that loyalty conveyed. More importantly, the attention M&G received as a result of the constant publicity, whether good or bad, made Miller and Gladstone the hottest lobbying firm in the country. With the 2004 election of former U.S. Senator, President Alan Conroy, the fortunes of M&G had changed overnight. Not for the better. Access to the Oval Office and Congress were not easy to come by for what the press had once called “the world’s most prestigious law firm.”
A new chief executive in the White House brought with him new standards of access. President Conroy made a concerted effort to distance himself from the ways of his predecessor. To make matters worse, a deliberate strategy by some in the halls of power to settle old scores, left M&G, once the ultimate insider, on the outside looking in. While business was still good, it was far from the windfall of the Bannon years.
Callie Wheeler had single-handedly changed all of that.
“Where do you stand on this, Callie?” asked Barry Miller. He was her boss and a man she thoroughly distrusted.
“I’m not even sure why we’re discussing this at the moment…”
“Of course you’re not, because it’s not about you,” Whitaker Jordan interrupted Callie. He could not help but sound pompous. Jordan, a talented lobbyist in his own right, resented everything about Callie Wheeler. His distaste for her was the worst-kept secret at the firm. A former aide to retired Senator Andrew Abeles, he had butted heads with Callie quite a few times while working on Capitol Hill. He despised her then and that sentiment had not changed since he joined the firm two years earlier.
“What is it that bothers you more, Whitaker? Me being a woman, or me being a woman with an opinion?” The other lawyers seated around the conference table sat quietly. They had seen this confrontation plenty of times before.
“Stop, you two. We’re not doing this again,” Barry said. “Callie, what’s the problem?”
Callie glanced over at Jordan and gave him a sarcastic smile. She stood up and sashayed towards the dry-erase board. She picked up a red marker from the tray and yanked off the cap. The heavy smell from the marker made Callie recoil. As the fumes receded, Callie zeroed in on the proposals Barry had laid out on the white board in front of her.
“This...here...is a non-starter,” Callie said as she drew a thick long red streak diagonally across nine lines of information. “The legislation on nuclear waste is dead; I killed it before the Memorial Day break.” With the Sharpie in her hand like a sword in search of its next victim, Callie strode over to the adjacent section of the board and drew a large ‘X’.
“Drilling off the southern coast is going to happen no matter what so we don’t have to insert anything into the Wildlife bill...”
“Who says it’s gonna happen?” Jordan asked.
“I do,” Callie said as she turned around and faced Jordan and the other thirty-one attorneys in the room. “I already took care of that in the last appropriations bill and as far as that section over there,” Callie said, pointing to the far end of the board as she made her way back to her seat. “It makes no sense and we should get out of it as soon as possible...”
“Do you agree with that, Barry?” Jordan asked, obviously dissatisfied with Callie’s assessment. Jordan stood just above six-feet-tall and fancied himself a good looking man, which he was. His disheveled brown hair helped to give off a care-free attitude which he felt should have endeared him to all women, but especially Callie Wheeler. He was unsure if his hatred for her was mostly due to her success or her rebuffing of his constant advances when they had first met on the Hill five years before.
Barry hesitated a few moments before answering the question. “I think we need to consider what Callie said, but in the long run we have to protect our clients.”
Whitaker looked over at Callie. He wanted to return her sarcastic smile, but she never saw him. She’d seen this scene before from Barry and had prepared herself for the onslaught. While she had gotten used to his games, they usually involved someone else. She sometimes thought things would have been different if Derek was still around. It was at times like these that she missed him the most.
• • •
Derek Gladstone was forty-one years old when he met Callie for the first time in the Lobby at M&G. Callie had spent the previous week preparing for her interview yet none of that mattered. She was immediately struck by Derek’s athletic six foot-two frame as if it had been designed in a laboratory. After exchanging pleasantries, Callie followed him into a large office overlooking the city, where red and white carpeting dominated the decor. Behind a ten-thousand-dollar mahogany desk, a long eight-foot window exposed a skyline accented by the White House and Capitol Hill.
“Callie, this is my partner, Barry Miller.”
“How do you do, Ms. Wheeler? Welcome to Miller & Gladstone.” Barry only referred to the firm that way. He was sure it sounded more dignified than using a catchy set of initials.
“It is a pleasure to meet you, sir,” Callie said.
Before he took his seat across from her, Derek motioned Callie to the corner of his office where a set of white couches were situated underneath a picture of Derek and President Bannon sharing a laugh in the Oval Office. To the left of the massive photo, another huge frame displayed a shot of Derek and the President wearing their football uniforms following Stanford’s Rose Bowl upset of Ohio State twenty years earlier. Callie gently smoothed the back of her skirt as she sat down, while Barry grabbed a black executive chair from the conference table behind him and positioned himself next to Derek.
“How do you like the view?” Derek asked, with a smile.
Callie glanced around the office. “Very impressive, sir.”
“Please, call me Derek.”
“Yes, sir…yes, Derek.”
Derek crossed his legs and leaned back in his chair. “A Bruin, huh?”
“Proudly,” Callie said and smiled at his reference to her alma mater, UCLA.
“It almost cost you,” he said. “But you did your penance at Georgetown. Professor Watkins told me you are his pride and joy.”
Callie was a bit uncomfortable by the compliment, but remained confident, “I did okay.”
“Top of your class?” Derek asked. “I’d say you did a bit better than okay.”
She toyed with the sapphire ring on her middle finger. “I enjoyed my time there. But as you can see, I’m ready to move on.”
Callie had been destined for big things from an early age. Born in Kingston, Pennsylvania in 1982, she competed as a three-sport athlete at Wyoming Valley West High School in the late nineties and landed on the honor roll every semester. Voted first team all-state in both basketball and softball, Callie captained her teams to two State Championships in each sport. During her sophomore year, she won the Pennsylvania Junior Miss Pageant and spent most of her free time fulfilling her duties across the state, then vowed never to do it again.
After graduation, Callie chose to attend UCLA on a full athletic scholarship, forgoing an Ivy League education for a chance to compete on softball’s highest level and live somewhere warm. She pitched and played shortstop on three National Championship teams for the Bruins then capped off her athletic career with an Olympic gold medal as a member of the United States Women’s Softball team at the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens. Having decided to leave college after only three years, Callie attended Georgetown Law School where she graduated first in her class. It was because of that success and hard work that she was sitting in Derek’s office and interviewing for the job of her dreams.
“Human