Danny asked, with that insufferable smirk out in full force, if the president thought it was appropriate for his staffers to be out--and I'm quoting--gallivanting.

After making merciless fun of him for using the word 'gallivanting'--and winning appreciative snickers from the rest of the room--I answered that the president does not comment on the personal lives of his staff. Ron Koch from the Dallas Morning News followed up, asking if *I* thought it was appropriate for--You can see how quickly it went downhill.

I suggested that Koch check with the restaurant and confirm that nine people shared three bottles of wine, which averages to roughly 1.3 glasses per person. One and a third glasses, I was sure to point out, over the course of a two-hour dinner in honor of my father's 70th birthday.

They were predictably unimpressed, as the resulting Q&A proved.

Which is why I am not surprised to return to the relative solace of my office only to find Toby standing just inside. I ignore him, tossing my notebook onto my desk in the hopes that he'll wander away and allow me to sacrifice small field mice to Bast in peace.

Toby clears his throat. "I thought that went--"

"Toby," I warn. "Not now. I'm still in kill or be killed mode, and you're the nearest thing breathing."

He tips his head back and looks at me down his nose. "As well as could be expected," he finishes.

I glare at him. "I wasn't drunk."

"Okay."

"I wasn't."

"Do you see me arguing with you?" he asks.

"There was no way to salvage it," I say.

"I know. You did fine."

I give an undignified snort. "Tomorrow's headline is going to be 'Tipsy Press Secretary Denies Drinking Problem.'" The corner of his mouth quirks upwards, and my scowl deepens in response. "It's not funny."

"CJ, it'll be gone the day after tomorrow."

"Which does not seem to be helping me right now," I point out. Then I drop into my chair, muttering, "I should've played my trump card."

"Your trump card?" Toby echoes.

"Never mind."

"CJ--"

"I said never mind."

"You also said--"

"Donna claims I hit on people when I'm drunk, not yell at them while gesticulating wildly," I blurt.

Toby watches me for a moment. "You do."

"What?"

"Do you remember the Fourth of July cookout--"

"Toby," I groan, dropping my head onto the desktop.

"You hit on an old man."

"He was not old," I protest, rolling my head to the side to glare at him. "He was French."

"He was Canadian."

"He was French-Canadian. He had an accent."

"That he acquired while attending primary school in 1942."

"He was fifty, Toby," I argue. "And he was very sexy."

"You find bald men sexy?"

I give him a pointed look. "Well, *some* men can carry that off; look at Patrick Stewart."

"I'd rather not," he grimaces. "And the reason you hit on a senior citizen is that you were drunk."

"Was not."

"CJ," Toby sighs. "Can we not do this?"

"Fine," I nod. "Get out."

"Don't tell the press--"

"Toby, do I look like an idiot?"

"Now or in that picture?"

"Get out!"

Nobody messes with me when I use that tone of voice, and Toby is no exception. He hightails it out of my office, and I yell after him, "You owe me $75 for the cab!"

Donna sidles up to me at the copier and says in a low voice, "Have lunch with me."

I give her a strange look. "Is Bast standing behind me?"

Donna glances over my shoulder. "No, but Josh is within earshot and you know he gets when I eat without him."

"Fair point. Where should we go?"

We settle on a nearby pub and escape unnoticed. Donna leaves Josh a sticky note on her computer, and he calls her cellphone just as we reach the restaurant to--as he put it--place his lunch order. Donna tells him she's not a catering service and hangs up.

I shoot her an appreciative grin. "Maybe this thing will work out after all."

Donna smiles back widely. "It will."

I give her a very suspicious look. "You're not telling me something."

"No, I'm not," she answers quickly. "I mean, I am. Wait--"

"Donna." I use my threatening voice and she looks like she's about to confess to something.

And then our waitress arrives, full of annoyingly inane chatter, and I table The Josh Discussion for later. When we have placed our lunch orders, Donna leans towards me a bit. "I've been doing a little more research."

"On Bast?"

"Yes. And Sekhmet. And curses in general."

"Okay," I nod. "And?"

"And Bast may be a bit stronger than we thought."

I can tell my forehead is doing that apprehensive wrinkle thing that I hate. "Stronger?"

"Well," Donna says, then pauses to take a sip of water.

"Donna!"

She swallows hastily. "Apparently, Bast was sometimes worshipped as the spouse of the god, Ptah-seker-ausur--"

"What?"

Donna rolls her eyes. "It's ancient Egyptian; like I know how to pronounce it!"

"Fine," I say with a dismissive wave of my hand. "Bast married a god."

"There wasn't a ceremony or anything, CJ. In fact, some scholars feel that pairing the female deities up with males was an attempt by Greco-Roman scholars to downplay their influence--"

"Donna!"

"Sorry. In the beginning, Bast was known as the protector of the Pharaoh, and as an avenger. She was called the Eye of Ra--Ra was the Creator, and the strongest of the gods and goddesses--and acted as his personal, you know, hit-person. Ripping out the hearts of the transgressors and delivering them to his feet, stuff like that."

I stare at her for a long moment, which is convenient, because our appetizer arrives. Donna immediately dives into the chips, munching happily.

I'm still worrying about being smote down by a stray cat with an attitude.

"You've got to try these with the salsa," Donna says, pushing the tray towards me. "They're wonderful."

"Could I please get you to concentrate on my fast-approaching death-by-kitty," I ask. Then I grab a chip, because they really do smell heavenly. "Wow, these *are* good."

Donna smiles. "So anyway, what I could dig up indicates that statues or pictographs of Bast almost always showed her with a sistrum in her right hand--"

"A what?"

"Sistrum. A drum or rattle of some kind?"

"Okay."

"And a bag over her left arm."

I shake my head. "How is this supposed to help me? Am I going to play dress-up?"

"No," Donna laughs. "But since you brought it up, the only account I could find of ancient celebrations in honor of Bast describes them as licentious festivals in which women pulled up their skirts while shaking sistra."

"So I should find myself a convenient pole, pull up my skirt, and that'll lift the curse? I somehow doubt it would help my current public image as a drunkard!"

"CJ!" Donna is still laughing. I'm glad someone's finding this amusing. She must sense my mounting irritation, because she manages to contain her mirth. "I was getting to it. The third thing is that Bast was almost always surrounded by small kitten figurines."

I give her an eloquent look. "Kitten figurines?"

"Yes," Donna nods. "Also many temples to Bast had catteries alongside the temples where cats were raised for the Temples; some pilgrims even brought cats as offerings to Bast. So there's definitely a theme."

"Cats are evil?" I volunteer.

"CJ!" Donna says in this shocked tone. "I thought you were a cat person!"

"I was until Bast put me on her hit list."

"That's the other thing. I couldn't really find much about curses. The technical term seems to be hexes or charms."

"Well, now that we've cleared up the nomenclature, can we possibly move on to the reversing-the-curse portion of the discussion?" I ask sarcastically.

"Apparently," Donna says, nibbling on a chip, "you really have to know the details of the curse or hex to reverse it. So I was thinking--"

"That I'm monumentally screwed?"

Donna gives a half-shrug. "Well, that. Or you could just try to, you know, win Bast's favor."

I raise one eyebrow. "Win the favor of a cat goddess who was worshipped 4,000 years ago?"

Donna nods, quite pleased with her suggestion. "Yes."

"And how would one go about doing this?" I ask through clenched teeth.

"I'm not entirely sure," she admits, digging through her small handbag. "But I thought you could start with this."

With a flourish, Donna places a small glass object that, upon closer examination, has been smoothed into the form of a curled up cat. I stare at it in disbelief. "This?"

"This," Donna confirms. "As, you know, a symbol."

"You want me to collect cat figurines?" I demand.

Donna shrugs. "Do you have a better idea?"

I hold her gaze for a long moment before reaching for the figurine. "This is going to end badly. I'm going to wind up the crazy old woman who lives in the basement and talks to all of her cat figurines."

"Well," Donna says with a disarming grin, "that's better than death-by-kitty, right?"

I drive very carefully on the way back to the White House. The last thing I need right now is for Bast to send me a vengeful traffic cop.

When I mention this to Donna, she turns an interesting shade of white and starts explaining the literary mishap that led some modern scholars to believe that Pasht was an alternate spelling of Bast, and the root of the word "passion." She then launches into a discussion of the Latin word "pati"--to suffer--from which "passion" is truly derived. When detailing the different meanings of "passion," she turns bright red and makes a disparaging remark about some British Egyptologist at the turn of the century that she feels is responsible for the whole thing.

I would push the issue--why she blushed, I mean, not about mistranslating hieroglyphics--but I have a sneaking suspicion that there was some serious illegal touching between Josh and Donna this weekend. Bast is the goddess of sexuality, after all, and we've already established that she hates me. Draw your own conclusions.

I just don't want confirmation at this point. I have enough on my plate, what with the hideous, heart-ripped-out-by-vengeful-cat death I have waiting for me.

And so I stick my head in the proverbial sand (or should I say litterbox?), making vague noises of interest until Donna's lecture is interrupted.

By Josh's impatient bellow as we clear the doorway, of course.

I glance over at her. "How does he do that?"

"Do what?"

"Know the precise moment you're within shouting distance."

She's blushing again. "The window," she says finally.

"What window?"

"In his office. You can see people as they're walking up to the building."

I stop in the hallway. "He watches for you out the window?"

"Yes," Donna answers, as if this were a perfectly natural habit. Perhaps it is with these two.

"Okay." I shrug and walk away. "Oh, and thanks," I add over my shoulder.

My office is deliciously deserted; even the phone is silent for once. I am smiling as I enter, closing the door softly to preserve the fragile peace.

And then I trip over something lying on the floor. Something that produces an alarming rattle. As a one-time resident of L.A.--the city formerly known as a desert wasteland--I assume the worst and leap onto the couch to avoid a fatal snakebite. Thank Bast I closed the door, because the object turns out to be not a rattlesnake, but a bright blue baby rattle.

I stare at it in surprise before clambering off the couch to scoop it up. And glare at it.

I immediately suspect foul play on the part of the idiot boys, but decide that discretion--and strategy--are the better parts of valor. I will sit at my desk, enjoy the temporary silence, and devise a suitable punishment.

Which is when I notice my new menagerie.

On top of my desk, a small collection of cat figurines stand, sit, and lay. From a cuddly grey and white stuffed animal to a bright blue plastic bath toy, a sweet set of nested orange tabbies to a sleek black sculpted candle, I'd say the idiot boys covered pretty much every feline permutation.

I yank open my office door to call for Carol, but find Josh instead, lounging against her desk. Smirking.

Realizing I'm still holding the damn rattle, I brandish it in his direction. "I get the cat figurines, but why the rattle?"

He gives a careless shrug. "Closest I could get to a sistrum at Toys 'R Us."

"How'd you know about the sistrum?"

"Donna told me."

I narrow my eyes. "When?"

Josh pushes away from the desk, beating a hasty retreat. "I figured with your purse, the rattle, and the figurines, you could do a little number for us. Perhaps Cat Scratch Fever would be--"

The rattle makes a very satisfying noise when it bounces off of his head.

Not surprisingly, Bast soon sends another of her minions to my office to bother me. And this one has press credentials.

"Go away, Danny."

"Is that any way to treat a visitor bearing gifts?"

"When said visitor is a reporter planning on running a story on me being drunk--which I was not--yes."

Danny stares at me. "That was an interesting sentence right there."

"Go away," I repeat.

"Granted, I didn't show up with wine, but still-"

"Danny."

"For you," he says, holding out his hand.

I give him a suspicious look, then reach out to accept the offering. Which turns out to be--surprise, surprise--a small white plastic cat.

I turn wide eyes to Danny. "You are not writing about--"

"CJ, relax," he interrupts with a smile. "You weren't drunk and you're not cursed and I won't write about either."

"Who told you."

"That you weren't drunk?"

I roll my eyes. "About Bast."

"Josh mentioned it."

"Josh mentioned it?"

"Yes."

"Randomly?"

"In a manner of speaking."

I am immediately suspicious. That's reporter-speak for 'absolutely not, but I'm not about to admit it.' "Why?"

Danny tries the innocent face. "Why what?"

"Why'd he tell you?" I demand. "What were you going to write about?"

"Nothing."

"Danny."

"Seriously, I wasn't going to write it."

"Fine. What was it?"

Danny sighs. "I heard something on the scanner."

Oh, god--Bast--whatever.

"Your police scanner?" I ask, my voice louder and higher-pitched than it was mere moments ago.

"Yes."

"Something involving this administration was broadcast over the *police* scanner?"

"Not directly."

"It wasn't directly broadcast or--"

"It doesn't directly involve the administration, which is why I'm not writing it. If you were curious about that."

"Danny, could you cut the cryptic crap?"

He raises an eyebrow at my encroaching psychosis, but finally spills. "Josh, got a speeding ticket. Forty-seven in a thirty."

I stare at Danny, somewhat horrified as things begin to make sense. "A speeding ticket?"

"Yes."

"Friday night."

"Yes."

"Where?"

"Few blocks from his condo."

"And you heard this on your scanner?"

"Cop called in the plates," Danny shrugs.

I give him a look. "You have the plate numbers of senior staff memorized?"

"Not on purpose or anything; I have a knack for remembering plate numbers."

I roll my eyes. "Dork."

"I prefer quirky," he says. "Plus it's an Audi A4; Josh drives a damn nice car."

"So he tells me," I mutter. I will never understand the male fascination with cars. But more to the point, I have a very good idea why Josh was speeding towards his condo. Which would also explain why he was so eager to wave Danny away from the story.

I am going to *kill* them both.

But right now, I have to pretend I'm not about two seconds away from shoving that rattle up Josh's--

"CJ?"

"Yeah."

"You zoned out for a second."

"Long day." I forcibly relax my grip on the small plastic cat, belatedly feeling the sharp edges digging into my palm.

"Right," Danny nods.

"I. Was. Not. Drunk."

"I know."

"You know?"

"Yes."

I can feel my forehead crinkling with skepticism. "How do you know?"

Danny gives me a cocky grin. "You're a lover, not a fighter."

"Get out."

He grins some more. "When you're drunk, I'm saying."

"Out."

"You're not going to thank me for the gift?"

"The tiny plastic cat?"

"It's for the fishbowl. To keep Gail company."

"So the present is actually for my goldfish?"

"Our goldfish."

"Get out."

"Okay."