Homepage: http://www.oocities.org/elizabeth_barr/
Archive: sure.  Just let me know.
Characters: not mine.  No profit, yadda yadda.
Summary: Ainsley Hayes, the White House and the difficulties of being constantly hungry.

Thanks to Christine, who first told me to watch The West Wing, and then kept at me until I wrote fanfic for it.
 
 

They say there's a Starbucks on every street corner of the USA, and while it isn't true, you can certainly find one within five minute's walk of the White House.

She's always hungry within an hour of breakfast, and there comes a point where her body revolts at the thought of another apple.  So she hangs on as long as she can, and then sprints down to Starbucks for something cold, sweet and caffeinated.  Even in winter, she loves the chill of an iced mocha so cold it gives her goosebumps, and a large frappacino can keep her from feeling hungry for at least another hour.

She runs into Sam on one such trip, and he says something about teenagers, growth spurts and chocolate milkshakes.  He doesn't seem to mean it as an insult, but it reminds her that she feels like a child playing dress up in her suits and neat shoes, and surely by now she should have grown out of the habit of trying to cram every word into one sentence?

She is surrounded by articulate people who seem like conduits for information and ideas.  Conversations become competitions to see who can climb the highest intellectual peak.  She knows that she can hold her own, but she always expects her words stumble out and lose cohesion.  And yet, she can speak, and she can persuade even these highly educated liberal Democrats … but it's the failures that linger in her mind.  She thinks that Toby might understand that, but she finds his agile mind and black personality intimidating, and it's such a trivial thing, and why would he even care?

She has trouble thinking when she's hungry, and she's always hungry.  She knows every café, restaurant, vending machine and snack tray in or around the White House, and she's memorised the menu at the mess.  She eats her lunch before mid-morning, and follows it up with cookies at lunch time.  Terms like "low blood-sugar" run through her head, but seeing a doctor would take time, and that's one commodity the West Wing lacks.  She makes an appointment, feeling like a hypochondriac, but then Sam needs a report, and CJ needs some papers looked over, and Ainsley, if you have a spare minute …

She works in a place where she's not trusted and not completely liked. She's used to having her appearance and her hair and her accent picked apart, but here she has to defend her beliefs as well, and it's tiring.  She believes in the second amendment, and market freedoms, and the protection of the law extending to the unborn, and she's fairly sure that doesn't make her the Antichrist.

She tries to explain that abortion is not a religious issue, but a moral one. She's articulate and thoughtful and intelligent, and she convinces nobody, because these people believe that morality is an individual issue, except when one considers it moral to own and carry a firearm.  She goes to work and fights for the issues she believes in, because she also believes that a good government listens to opposing opinions, and then she goes home and fights with the people who consider her an ambitious traitor.

She says she wants to serve her country, and she works with people who say "God bless America" without a trace of irony.

She's young, blond, slim and beautiful, and she's treated as though that's something to apologise for.  She has Sarah McLachlan CDs mixed in with the opera, and wonders if she's a living cliché.  But of course, she's not, because she's always hungry, and everyone knows that blond, slim, beautiful young women with Sarah McLachlan albums never eat.

She nibbles on a Snickers and follows it up with an apple, and if she can get this report done by two she'll run down to Starbucks and grab another mocha.
 

Feedback and chocolate: elizabeth_barr@yahoo.com.au

Copyright © 2001 Elizabeth M. Barr