The Willard (3 page)

Had this man even looked outside in the past hour? Had she slept longer than she thought? Maybe it wasn’t even Wednesday anymore. Something wasn’t right.

“Yes! What is the date and time that you were given for my appointment?” She was practically screaming at the man by this point.

“You needn’t worry about being late, madam. I assure you we have all the right information. The gentleman’s office was very specific. It says here two-thirty today, April 12,” he calmly told her.

She could hardly believe the next words out of her own mouth.

“April 12 . . . of what year?”

“I beg your pardon, Ms. Parker?”

“What is the
year
, Mr. Chase?” The tension in her voice was mounting.

“Madam, it is 1865 of course. Are you feeling unwell? Would you like me to send up a lady’s maid to assist you, Ms. Parker?”

Catherine sank to the bed and noticed the sounds the old springs made.

“No,” she answered. “I don’t think the maid can help me.”

And with that, she started for the closet to see what she could find to wear. There was an answer to what was happening to her, but she wasn’t going to find it in this room. Catherine Parker was going out.

C
HAPTER 2

THE GRANDE DAME

The Willard Hotel stands at the corner of 14
^th
Street and Pennsylvania Avenue, two blocks from the White House. The grand Beaux-Arts structure has stood sentinel at this corner since 1847 when Henry Willard combined a number of existing hotel structures dating to 1816, expanded them, and put his own name on his creation. From this vantage point, more than 165 of years of history has marched through, and past its front doors.

For decades the Willard family built, tore down, acquired, and repurposed the property, bringing to life the magnificent hotel that exists today. Though it was shuttered for almost twenty years beginning in the late 1960s, the Willard re-emerged as the grande dame of upper class hospitality in 1986.

Legends abound regarding the Willard and while some are documented fact, others are open for debate. One such story has it that President Ulysses S. Grant would walk the two blocks from the White House to the Willard to sit in its expansive lobby and enjoy his evening cigars because his wife didn’t like for him to smoke in the White House. When word got out that the president could be found there, people began to converge on the Willard in the evenings to bend his ear about all kinds of plans and schemes for which they hoped to solicit his support. Thus the term “lobbyist” was born. It makes for a good story, but likely isn’t true since the word “lobbying” appeared in print more than forty years earlier. While the word may not have originated at the hotel, it
is
true that Grant frequented the Willard to enjoy
his cigars and brandy and some visitors today claim they can still smell his cigar smoke. Stories like these have given the Willard the kind of insider status other hotels can’t claim.

It is absolutely true that Abraham Lincoln stayed at the Willard when he arrived in Washington before his inauguration. He stayed there on the advice of security chief Alan Pinkerton, who feared for his safety with threats of continued secession and war abounding. Pinkerton sneaked Lincoln into the hotel in the early morning hours, frustrating thousands of people who had gathered at the train station to catch a glimpse of the man from the frontier. After a nine-day stay, newly inaugurated President Lincoln paid his $773.75 bill with his first chief executive paycheck. It’s no wonder the hotel came to be known as the “Residence of the Presidents.”

This period of history is rife with Willard importance. Shortly before the inauguration, delegates from both North and South gathered in Willard’s Hall to form the Peace Commission. There they undertook the task, unsuccessfully, of trying to find a way to keep the Union from fracturing.

From her room at the Willard, Julia Ward Howe wrote the stirring lyrics to “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” and Martin Luther King, Jr. finished his “I Have A Dream” speech here before the March on Washington.

Mark Twain wrote not one, but two of his famous stories while staying at the Willard. It is said that he liked to enter Peacock Alley from the back stairs and saunter down the lane drawing as much attention to himself as possible. Other famous guests included P.T. Barnum, Buffalo Bill Cody, and a long list of presidents and politicians. In fact, some regarded the Willard as both the social and political center of the city. It was such a popular place that, despite space limits, the proprietors packed in more than 1,500 guests on occasion during its pre-Civil War heyday. This meant strangers weren’t just sharing rooms, but
also the beds themselves. But not every patron could be paired with just anyone.

Before the outbreak of the Civil War, the Willard went to great lengths to accommodate those of both Northern and Southern loyalties. Northerners entered through the F Street entrance on the north side of the hotel; Southerners made their entry on the Pennsylvania Avenue side, the south entrance. They were assigned to different floors in an effort to keep the peace.

From the marble, crystal, and mahogany of the ornate lobby, to the intimate alcoves of Peacock Alley, the Willard Hotel is a Washington character all by itself. It seems to breathe stories and at the same time attract the kind of modern traveler who enjoys a grand, almost European experience.

Since the first night a hotel bed was sold on this corner of real estate, things of importance have happened in connection with the Willard. There’s something almost mythical about the place. Edward Chase knows the feeling well; he was here before Henry Willard acquired the property and turned it into the place to see and to be seen. Sometimes he misses the days of the presidents leisurely strolling over to enjoy a glass of brandy, but the Secret Service would never allow that now. He doesn’t miss the days of packing in the people three-to-a-bed, though. His sensibilities are much too refined for that. No, the modern Willard is a place he is proud of. If only he wasn’t so busy taking care of details. Perhaps one day he won’t have to spend his days looking back.

C
HAPTER 3

TOM KELLY

“Honestly, if this traffic jam is caused by another motorcade I’m going to start thinking there’s a conspiracy with the oil companies to ensure more fuel consumption. I don’t know how you tolerate this traffic,” remarked the frustrated passenger in Baahir Anand’s taxi.

Tom Kelly wasn’t usually so impatient but he had landed at Dulles after a whirlwind eight-day business trip that had taken him from Los Angeles to London, to Geneva, to Abu Dhabi and now here to Washington. He wasn’t even sure what time zone he was in or what day it was. On top of that, his production coordinator, Lily, had booked him into Dulles instead of Reagan so he had just endured an hour and a half of stop and go traffic on top of the delay he had in Boston for his layover on the flight back. Now the sun was going down and all Kelly could think about was a hot shower and a warm bed. At least he’d be staying in style in Washington. This part of the trip was all about the investors. It’s the part of independent filmmaking he dislikes the most but after seeing the extraordinary locations he wants to use for shooting over the past eight days he’s willing to grip and grin if it gets the money in the bank. The photos he took, especially in Abu Dhabi, should definitely seal the deal. And he needs this deal.

At forty-two, Tom Kelly has long since given up the dream of being one of those producers who makes it rain. He’s not Jerry Bruckheimer or Brian Grazer or any of the big names
who can get a studio to green light a project over the phone. At thirty, he thought he was on his way. By thirty-five, he thought he’d missed the boat entirely. At thirty-eight, he made his first indie film,
By Way of War
, and it made him the toast of Sundance that year. He rode that wave to Hollywood and the hype lasted all of three weeks. Sure, the critics loved it and so did the audiences in Park City, but with no big names in the credits he couldn’t get wide distribution. Still, it got decent play in art-house theatres and in limited release in large markets and he made enough money to try again. The second time around he knew a big name would help get him onto more screens so he bet the farm on a deal with one of the industry’s hottest properties. The actor was young, universally referred to as “hot” by women, and reasonably talented. He had more magazine covers and Twitter followers than pretty much anyone else and his appeal was extremely wide. The audience’s appetite for him was insatiable. As it turned out, his appetite for underage girls and heroin was equally insatiable. When word reached Tom Kelly that his star was not only in rehab but also planning to avoid charges by “concentrating on his recovery out of the country for the next year,” Kelly frantically searched his contract for the one thing that had been left out by his cut-rate lawyer: a morals clause. The star was gone, the money was gone, and Kelly decided his career had gone with them.

That was until one day while visiting friends in North Carolina when he met three men on a deep sea fishing trip off the Outer Banks. They caught few fish that day but the three guys knew they had an even bigger catch—someone who could tell their story. They were retired military guys and each was still wearing the high and tight cut well into his 60s. Vietnam had been the war of their youth but they were career men who had spent time commanding troops in the sandbox during Desert Storm as well. Their trip from the jungle to the desert was the kind of thing little boys dream of when they play with little green
army men. Scott Langdon and Marcus Green had been members of the Army’s elite Delta Force, and Joe Chamberlain was one of the Navy’s fabled SEALs. Chamberlain, “Salt,” as his buddies called him, was the reason they were on the fishing trip that day. Apparently a golf wager had gone his way and saved him from having to attend a University of Tennessee home football game with both Delta men who were diehard fans. Since Neyland Stadium is no place for a Georgia Bulldog, he had insisted they spend a day on the water instead. He was secretly hoping the two of them might get a little seasick along the way. That would have been a bonus for the Navy man.

Instead, the bonus that day was meeting Tom Kelly. Chamberlain had spotted him right away—green around the gills and not very handy with the equipment. He could always tell when there were newbies on a boat. Kelly had listened intently to all the instructions but once the boat started rocking on the swells he seemed to be less interested in fishing and more interested in hanging on to the rail. Chamberlain struck up a conversation with him to try and get his mind off his stomach. That’s how Tom Kelly, the struggling movie producer, and Joe Chamberlain, the former Navy SEAL, came to know one another. Six hours later and back on dry land, Kelly and his three new friends sat around a battered pub table at one of the ubiquitous seafood shacks that line the coast of OBX, as the locals call the Outer Banks. Kelly was feeling much better on his land legs and was enjoying the tales they were telling about their military exploits. He took everything they said with a grain of salt, especially the later it got and the longer the beer flowed. As it turned out, they weren’t spinning yarns. All three men had joined the military as grunts, not one of them ROTC or “college boys,” as they called them. And none were drafted either. That was a point of pride among them. All went willingly to the jungle, swore they’d get their asses of out the military if they were blessed enough to get said asses safely out of Vietnam, then
found that when the time came to hang it up what they really wanted was to go deeper in. And these weren’t just war stories. These men had families and knew the heartache of leaving a wife and children behind, sometimes for more than a year at a time, and not knowing if they’d ever see them again. They had lost buddies on the battlefield and in training, and they’d lost parents and friends back home when they were deployed and couldn’t be there to offer comfort in the last days or say a proper bedside goodbye. Two knew the pain of divorce and one the extreme agony of burying not just a wife, but a child as well. A child who had followed his father into the service and paid with his life in a dusty desert halfway across the world. The more they talked, the more Kelly realized he was picturing their stories vividly in his mind’s eye. He knew he could transfer those images to the screen and that, big names or not, this movie would find its audience. He had some experience working with military topics in his only success thus far,
By Way of War
. He decided this story, these men, would be his last run at the golden ring. Before they parted company that night, plans were being made to put something on paper and see if they could find investors to pay for it. Chamberlain, Langdon and Green were as good as their word and they brought some heavy hitters to the plate with excellent military contacts and decently deep pockets. That was fourteen months ago and Kelly had lived and breathed this project non-stop since then. He had a strong script and some solid, if little-known, talent loosely attached to the project. All he needed now was one or two more benefactors willing to pony up $500,000 each and production could get underway.

Kelly had come to Washington for a meeting that was arranged by Langdon with two potential investors who had all but said they wanted to be part of the film if they felt Kelly could deliver what he promised. They were stalwart D.C. types and skeptical of what they viewed as the liberal Hollywood crowd. This wasn’t going to be some “apologize for America’s strength”
film, not if their money was involved. Kelly knew he had to reassure them he was onboard with his three veterans and that he intended to tell their story in such a way that both the Army and the Navy would likely see a spike in enlistments after its release. This was an American story at heart and he didn’t have any intention of saying otherwise.

Anand finally pulled his taxi to the curb beside the leaded-glass entry to the Willard.
Definitely nicer digs than in Abu Dhabi
, thought Kelly. Lily chose the hotel in an effort to impress the investors with traditional good taste minus any “Hollywood-like” flash. Kelly guessed upon entering the lobby that Lily had chosen well. The bellman retrieved his luggage from the cab and pointed him to the front desk, which was actually in the far corner of the lobby. Before he could get there a distinguished looking gentleman in a well-cut suit stopped him.