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The First One Hundred Days
Violet
Farewell, farewell to you who'd hear,
You lonely travelers all;
The cold North winds will blow again
The winding road does call...
- Sandy Denny, "Farewell, Farewell"
Saturday, January 20th: Day One
"I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the oath of office..."
Josh hurled a peanut at the television. "Kiss my ass."
Sam shook his head in mock dismay and sat down on the couch. "Waste of perfectly good food."
"Is the show on the road yet?" Toby emerged from the kitchen carrying a beer.
"He's swearing in." Josh leaned back on the sofa and pegged the screen again. "Look at that. He looks like a shaved chimp dressed in an expensive suit."
"With a cheap tie," Sam put in spiritedly.
C.J.'s voice was slightly sibilant over Josh's speaker-phone. "And marionette strings tied to his--"
Josh cut her off. "You don't get to talk."
"Oh, come on," she protested.
"Look, I'm taking a vote, okay? Toby?"
"She doesn't get to talk," he said, leaning against the wall and folding his arms.
"Sam?"
He turned his head away from the screen slightly. "Sorry, C.J."
She sighed in frustration. "Guys, when do I stop getting the cold shoulder? I left a month early. You're acting like I sold state secrets to the Chinese. What's the big deal?"
"You left a month early!" Sam yelped.
"We had to hold Henry's hand the whole last couple weeks," Josh complained. "You left us in the sinking ship. Which makes you the rat. So you can just sit there in California and -- and be sitting in California."
"This isn't fair."
Toby gestured glumly at the television. "That's that."
"He's sworn?"
"Happened while you were bickering. Like most important events in recent history."
"Jesus," Sam murmured.
"That's it, then," Josh said flatly. "There are Republicans moving into our offices. Republicans walking in our hallways and drinking our coffee."
"Shut up," C.J. groaned.
"Republicans in your press room, and don't come crying to me," Josh said to the phone. He looked over at Toby. "Republicans sitting on your couch. Republicans using your keyboard."
Toby smirked underneath his beard. "I may have inadvertently spilled some coffee on that keyboard yesterday afternoon."
"Yeah?" Josh grinned. "I think there might be a screw or two loose in my desk. I'm just saying."
"I know where there's a couple screws loose," C.J. muttered. "Where's Donna?"
"She wanted to go watch the motorcade go by," Josh scoffed. "Maybe she'll throw a banana to the chimp."
"I miss the Mural Room." Sam frowned at the TV. "It's going to be weird, really weird, not walking into the place on Monday."
"Republicans," Josh said again. "Sitting in your chair, feet up on your desk, right now as we speak."
"That's enough out of you," Toby decided. "I give C.J. permission to talk."
"Thanks." The acid in her tone cut through the hollowness of the long distance line. "Look, it's not like this came out of nowhere. We knew there was going to be an election. We knew. Don't do the sad little face, Sam."
"I'm not doing a sad face," he said, wrinkling his nose.
"Of course you are. Just look at it this way." She tried to sound cheerful. "We're free."
"We're free," Josh seconded, tossing a few cashews into his mouth.
"And that calls for another drink." Toby downed some of his beer.
"You're not really mad at me either," C.J. said.
"Nah," Josh admitted.
"You don't hate me; you just miss me."
"We're just jealous of the weather," Sam explained. "We get six inches of ice and you're dancing around in a bikini and a sarong."
She laughed. "I'm wearing an ancient sweatshirt with a Da Vinci cartoon on it. And cutoff shorts with holes in them."
Josh quirked an eyebrow up and glanced sideways at Toby, who returned a glare at him. "Is this turning into one of 'those' phone calls?"
"You wish," she retorted. "Anyway, Sam, you'll be in Carolina soon. Where it's mid-winter and yet the living is easy anyway."
"Leaving me once again to hold this town together," Josh said. "And Toby--"
"We'll see," he said, in a tone that strongly encouraged a change of subject.
"The Commander In Chimp is going to ruin the country for all of us," Josh predicted. "And I alone am escaped to tell thee..."
"You'll be fine," C.J. said soothingly. "And dandy. Let's not get maudlin. It's not like any of us are falling off the world."
"Add to that, if you start getting maudlin, I'm taking my booze and going home," Toby declared.
"I hope you're right," Sam said to the phone.
"I'm always right, just ask Toby."
Toby grimaced dubiously. "That the Hollywood version?"
"Premiering after the Superbowl," she replied. "Tomorrow night. You guys have to watch. You are going to watch, right?"
"I'd rather have my own teeth fed to me," Toby said.
"Okay, well, the hell with you."
"I'll watch," Josh promised.
"I knew you would."
"Of course, I'll have had a lot to drink during the game."
"Hey." Sam grabbed the remote and turned up the volume on the television. "He's doing his speech now."
"...As I begin, I thank President Bartlet for his service to our nation..."
"Go screw your sister," Josh yelled at the screen.
"It could be worse," C.J. said doubtfully.
"Sure." Sam ducked as Josh aimed a peanut at the side of his head.
"Republican droppings all over the Office," Josh said sourly, and settled back to watch the rest of the speech in silence.
* * *
It's not that she walked away;
Her world got smaller
All the usual places, the same destinations,
Only something's changed...
- R.E.M., "She Just Wants To Be"
Friday, February 9th: Day Twenty-One
So it was Los Angeles.
For C.J., Washington had always been a place of questions, the ones that were relentlessly fired at her and the ones she was endlessly contemplating. Los Angeles was an answer, a closed circuit, a law unto itself. It knew where it stood, even when it didn't stand still. It made her feel older, even as she dropped five years when telling anyone her age.
It was easy to sit in a script meeting and kick around the politics. It was so pleasantly meaningless to discuss the census or funding for genetic research or states of emergency with a group of writers. Writers who wrote stories with endings and smooth edges. It was easy to tell them stories that way, about Ainsley's office and the dozen times Josh fell down in the halls, about poker games and one-liners and the cafeteria and, sometimes, the Oval.
She gave these moments to them, gift-wrapped and ready for the world. It didn't cost anyone's life. No one argued with her version of the truth; no one asked her to compromise anything she believed. No one asked her to lie or to pretend she knew more or less than she did.
No one yelled at her, except Josh on the phone, on Wednesday nights at one AM his time and ten PM hers.
"It's really not," he had said. "That cute."
"I remember," she'd told him, leaning back in her deck chair to peer at the sky through the smog, and picturing Josh balancing the phone between his shoulder and his ear.
"Like, I never tripped and landed on top of a female ambassador," he'd said.
"Jake isn't based on you. And considering that you once lit the place on fire--"
"Only a very little bit."
"Every little bit counts," she'd said. "It's not supposed to be a mirror. It's supposed to be a satisfying ride for an hour."
"It's not bad," he'd said grudgingly.
"They try." She knew they did, all the writers and actors and cameramen and the ones whom she didn't even know what their jobs were. "They work hard and they want it to be good."
"Okay. But it's too easy. It always ends too neatly."
"I know."
"And 'Hail to the Chief' is a dumb title. And Victor Garber..."
She'd rolled her eyes. "I actually have heard this a million times, you know."
"He's Canadian!"
"He's an actor."
"He's a Canadian actor."
"One million and one," she'd sighed.
Josh had chuckled. "Hang in there. It's a decent show."
She had said goodnight and hung up the phone. It was a decent show. So they told her, so the ratings said, and she thought so when she watched it, which wasn't every week. Most of the time it hurt to see this ghostly play, and hear a line or catch a look, and think back. She only did it enough to keep in touch.
The day that Entertainment Weekly came out with her show on the cover, Sam sent flowers and a card with a phone number in his neat handwriting. She called and discovered it was the Ritz in Boston. The desk put her through.
"The Sam Seaborn world tour continues," she said to his hello.
"Lock up your daughters," he said, in a tone that made her see his smile. "How are you?"
"I'm sunny. How about you? I thought you were staying at Duke a little longer, opening minds at your alma mater."
"They got tired of me. I wanted to see some snow." Sam sounded a little wistful. "A couple weeks, I might regret it."
C.J. lay across her couch on her stomach and studied the petals of the daisies he'd sent. "Have you seen Leo while you've been in town?"
"We had lunch last week. He's not doing a very good job of being retired. Josh says he calls him every couple of weeks to tell him how he's screwing up the party. Have you talked to Josh lately?"
"Sure."
Sam hesitated noticeably. "Have you talked to Toby?"
"Not lately," she said, and they both knew it meant not at all.
"He's in New York," Sam told her tentatively. "Not doing anything official yet."
"Are any of us?"
"We all are," he said. "Josh is on the Hill, I'm talking, you're in television. Hey, I caught the show the other night. It was pretty good. The writing and acting and all."
"It's doing well, huh?"
"Yeah. You have a Canadian guy playing the President, you know that?"
She changed the subject. Later, she drove to the beach to watch the sun go down. There were sirens and sunshine and sweat, beautiful sunsets and beautiful people. It wasn't her favorite city in the world, but it wasn't asking too many questions yet. She did understand why Sam found it easier not to stay in one place, and wondered if he'd keep up the academic hobo act for long. She wondered how much Leo missed living and breathing his job every day. She wondered how Josh was adapting to seeing the Presidency from an outsider's distance, an enemy's standpoint.
She was in Los Angeles. She was in television. She did not allow herself to wonder anything more.
* * *
Sam put the phone down and looked around his hotel room. Apart from the frost on the window, it was nearly indistinguishable from where he'd been staying in North Carolina. They'd always blurred into sameness for him, these rooms with dull mirrors and beige carpets and prints on the walls that matched the bedspread.
He was too hot; the thermostat didn't work properly and he couldn't turn off the radiator. He tossed his shirt and slacks across the striped armchair in the corner and sat back down on the bed, picking up the phone again. Josh's new office number was already becoming an automatic pattern for his fingers.
Donna answered it. "Hel-- oh, damn, hold on a second." There was a thud in the background and a muted squeal of pain, then a rustle as she picked up the receiver again. "Josh Lyman's office."
"Hey. Having a little trouble there?"
"Oh, hi, Sam. Yeah, just... one minute..." Her voice was warm, but oddly far away, and he guessed her hands were too full for the phone. "I spent all that time getting his stuff in order, and he throws it into boxes like a toddler putting toys away."
"Higgledy-piggledy?" Sam offered.
"...Okay, is that one of those things you picked up from your mom?"
"Something like that."
"Then I won't argue," she said playfully. "Josh is in a thing across the hall, I can--"
"I called to talk to you," he told her.
"Oh." She sounded uncertain. "Well, how's the Great White North?"
"Great," he said. "I just wanted to touch base, you know."
"It's only been a couple weeks."
"Seems like a lot when it used to be every day."
"It does," she agreed, and paused for a long moment. "Sam, are you okay?"
"Sure."
"You were supposed to do more than just the two weeks at Duke, right?"
It was his turn to sound uncomfortable. "I needed a change."
"You haven't had enough changes in your diet lately?" she said incredulously.
Sam bit his lip and stared out the window. It had taken him the better part of a year to get settled in Washington. An entire year before he got used to the weather, the channels on the television and the rhythms of the traffic. A year before he didn't feel like he was staying in someone else's town. It had taken him more than twice that to make New York feel like home.
"How's Josh?" he asked.
"You know. Moving in, getting used to where all the light switches are. He thinks it's cool that you're at Harvard. I can go get him--"
"No." He swallowed. "It's hot here."
"In Boston?"
"In the hotel."
"Sam..." She started to say at least two things and reconsidered them both. "I really should go."
"Take care," he said, and wasn't sure what he was telling her to take care of. He put the phone down, turned out the light, and lay back on the bed.
Duke had been glad to have him back; he had a standing invitation to guest at Princeton. He had two unanswered messages from law firms in New York somewhere in the morass of mail he was carting around in his briefcase, among letters and job offers from acquaintances and strangers. He closed doors behind him and did not lock them.
At lunch, Leo had listened to his vague plans, nodded, had not seemed judgmental for even a second. But -- Sam tried to picture Leo's face over the glasses of ice water and salad plates on the table. Had there been approval? Had there been disappointment?
He wasn't sure; he didn't or couldn't remember. The room was too hot. Snow was melting against the window. And it was a long time before he was able to sleep.
* * *
Wednesday, February 14th: Day Twenty-Six
In the mire of melting snow and freezing rain, he hadn't noticed that everything was turning pink.
Toby was pleased to note that New York was still New York. It was not satisfying, but gratifying, to be spattered with slush by passing buses. It was good and right to spend too much money on too much wine and too many restaurants. The sounds and the smells and walking in the shadows of tall buildings -- these things were natural. These things were home.
He'd been rattling around in meetings with important people who were offering him jobs and yet seemed vaguely afraid of him. At night, there were bars, or drinking alone in the small, hollow apartment his savings were paying for. He hadn't been paying attention, but one afternoon he came up out of the subway and realized the shop windows were filled with gilded, frosted fluff: crepe paper and teddy bears and arrows. It made him want to throw something through the glass.
There had been years when he'd bought chocolates and jewelry and written small elegant messages inside Hallmark cards. There had been years of silly presents -- he'd once bought a woman a stuffed platypus for reasons that he'd lost to memory. There had been years when Cupid flew entirely under his radar. And there had been years when the sight of a heart-shaped box caused the veins in his head to pulse painfully. This was shaping up to be one of those years.
People wanted to know what he was going to do. Toby had a number of prepared answers to the question. He was going to find some fresh-faced assistant district attorney and propel him to stardom. He was going to resume his losing streak with New York Governors and Senators. He was going to hole up in Manhattan and write obscure legal treatises or the great American novel. He was going to teach, or play the ponies, or take to the streets and push a pretzel cart.
He was pretty sure none of those things were true.
"Although there's a chance I'm serious about the pretzel thing," he told Sam brusquely on the phone.
"Well, you'd be your own boss," Sam replied.
"There's no partisanship in it." Toby stood close to his window and looked out at an undistinguished patch of New York skyline. "You got a buck, you get a pretzel."
"This is a heartwarming side of you," Sam said. "Seriously, what are you going to do?"
"Sam, you know, unless you're possessed by the spirit of my mother, I don't want to discuss it."
"And if I am possessed by your mother?"
"Call Father Damien. Do it now."
"You'll think of something that feels right."
"If I sit under this bodhi tree long enough," Toby muttered, yanking the blinds down.
"Have you been watching C.J.'s thing?" Sam asked hopefully.
Toby kept his voice neutral. "I watch the news, not much else."
"It's pretty good." Sam paused, then added truthfully, "You'd probably hate it."
"Yeah."
"You should watch it anyway." There was a long silence, until Sam finally spoke again. "So. I'd say take care--"
"But you're trying to avoid sounding like my mother again, right?"
"You really have one hell of a set of priorities," Sam said, and hung up almost before the sarcasm could register.
Toby left the phone on the windowsill and trudged into his closet-sized kitchen. It left little elbow room, but enough to pour a glass of bourbon. He stood there and sipped it, leaning on the dusty stove, leaving the lights out. He heard his neighbors arguing through the wall, and supposed his senses weren't quite adapted to the city again yet. He could still hear things he didn't need to hear, still glanced at things he didn't need to see.
There had been better times in the city, better days to walk the street when everything wasn't lace and flowers. And he was too tired to care what happened next. There was someone who would understand that, who had already seen him at his worst. He was too tired to care if she still had the power to hurt him.
He set the empty glass down in the sink and left the apartment, checking both locks to make sure they caught. Then down the elevator, and he walked. Thirty-five blocks, and Toby barely noticed lights changing, traffic roiling, roses in windows and the cold rain beginning to fall. New York was still New York, and he breathed it in until she buzzed him up and met him in the hall.
* * *
Josh twisted around in the chair that didn't quite suit him yet, scowling at the phone cord that seemed to be constantly in the way. Frustrated, he looped it in his fist and leaned forward, resting his elbows on the desk.
"He's a sad sack, Leo," Josh said. "Shallick's pissing on members of his own party all over the place, with no regard--"
"Yeah," Leo interrupted. "We wouldn't know anything about doing that."
"What?" Josh tried to sound innocent. "I've never alienated anyone in my life. Me with my effortless charm."
"Shallick thinks you're about as charming as a sharp stick in the eye."
"He's misguided."
Leo gave a short, sharp laugh. "You don't get to act like he's inconsequential, Josh, he got the American people--"
"He's a damn dirty ape." Josh put his hand to his forehead in frustration, elbowing several loose sheets of paper off his desk in the process. "Shit."
"Josh."
"Sorry, Leo, I just -- the thing isn't long enough, and I had my notes on 109 in order."
"You'll get comfortable," Leo reassured him. "Took about six months in the White House before you remembered which door went into C.J.'s office and which one went into the hall."
"That never happened."
"Josh, you walked into staff meetings every day talking about how you were going to tie a ball of twine to the door so you didn't get lost."
"It was less than six months." He rubbed his face irritably. "I'm just a little dizzy right now, is all."
"It'll go away."
"Will it?"
"No, I make this stuff up as I go along," Leo cracked. "It'll go away, Josh. You'll find the next big thing in four years and get swept up and before you know it you'll be enjoying your retirement."
"Some retirement," Josh teased back. "You call me up three times a week."
"I'm just making sure you don't get soft. Soft in the head. You gotta stop talking about Shallick like he's a badly-trained puppy."
"He's tearing his own party into pieces."
"Once again, where have I heard that before?"
Josh stretched as much as the phone cord would allow. "Yeah, but when we did it, we did it out of necessity."
"Maybe it didn't look that way from the outside?" Leo suggested gently. "I'll talk to you on Friday."
"Yeah." Josh hung up and put the receiver down hard. He bounced up from his chair and paced around the office. He kept expecting to see guards in the hallways, kept expecting the old glass dividers around the bullpen and familiar faces that did not appear. Except for one. Donna stepped into his doorway and regarded him, her arms folded and an ominous look on her face.
Josh furrowed his brow. "What'd I do this time?"
"Do you know what day it is?"
He groaned. "I never, never know what day it is, Donna. Have we not established that by now?"
"The fourteenth of February. Commonly known as St. Valentine's Day."
He made a face. "Okay, that was an easy one. Now when's St. Crispin's Day?"
"Every year," she said. "Every year you've gotten me something dumb, ugly, useless, or immature. Something that made loud inappropriate noises or had annoying flashing lights. Something with no conceivable value."
"What's your point?"
"It's six o'clock already. Where's my worthless present?"
"I didn't think of it." He plopped back into his chair. "I owe you one of those little cans that when you turn it over, it says moo."
She grinned. "And a little Cupid made out of tape and paper clips. I'm expecting it on my desk before I go home."
"I don't have time for this."
"Make time."
"I don't have time and I really don't have the inclination," he snapped. "And you know, you're not on vacation either."
"You're not cute when you're like this," she said abruptly, and swung out of his office again.
Josh shook his head and tried to straighten some of the clutter and chaos spilling off his desk. For a moment he was tempted to sweep it all into the wastebasket. Then the heading on a tax bill caught the corner of his eye, and he started to read. It was complicated and dry and elaborate, but if he couldn't pretend everything was the same, it reminded him that some things were.
"Donna!" he yelled.
"No," she yelled back.
"You got any paper clips?"
She stalked into the office and dropped a handful of them on his desk without a word, but he thought he saw a smile under the sway of her blonde hair. He didn't feel like smiling himself, so he didn't, but some of the tension visible in his neck and shoulders eased as he shifted in the new chair and looked for his tape dispenser.
* * *
Waiting for the moon to come and light me up inside,
I am waiting for the telephone to tell me I'm alive
Well, I heard you let somebody get their fingers into you
It's getting cold in California, I guess I'll be leaving too...
- Counting Crows, "Daylight Fading"
Tuesday, March 6th: Day Forty-Six
They had invited C.J. to the set several times already. Half of her was worried that she'd be star-struck and wide-eyed when everyone else was displaying cultivated cynicism. Half of her was afraid they'd all realize that she didn't know anything about what they did, and privately thought much of it was trivial. But they invited her, and they were paying her more money than they should, and finally she went.
She started by walking through the set. It was too sleek, too glossy, but there were touches -- the podium in the Briefing Room, the windows in the Oval -- that echoed something. When she squinted and chose not to see the lighting and wiring and flimsy walls, the familiarity became unsettling. She shook it off and followed the crew outside.
They were filming a scene where the sardonic-but-brilliant spin doctor was chastening her friend, the idealistic-but-conflicted strategist, on a gritty-but-picturesque street that was supposed to look like Georgetown. It didn't, really, not when Burbank was glinting beyond the stoops and sidewalks. C.J. learned quickly that the craft was both more complicated and more boring than she'd expected. It was not difficult to look disinterested when they'd run through the same two pages a dozen times. She sipped coffee, thumbed through someone's shooting script, and answered her cell phone when it rang.
"Hey, Josh."
"You know, I hate when you do that."
"What?"
"Say my name when you pick up the phone. Couldn't you at least pretend you don't have caller ID, you know, for me?"
"No. So how's tricks, sailor man?"
"I'm in trouble." His voice was solemn. "I need your help."
She slipped her sunglasses on and leaned forward in her seat. "What's going on? Are you okay?"
"I'm fine, I just wanted to see if that would still work."
"Christ." C.J. fell back against the chair so hard it wobbled. "Okay, you know I'm going to have you killed, right?"
"Right."
"I mean that literally. There are union people out here, I'm sure some of them are connected. And even if they're not, the guys doing the lighting are awfully big."
"I'll make sure Donna answers my door from now on." Josh snickered. "Where are you?"
"On the set. Watching the same conversation over and over again."
"'On the set'?" he repeated. "You're sounding very Hollywood."
"Must be something in the coffee." She glanced at her watch. "It's the middle of the morning out there. Aren't you busy?"
"Sure. But it doesn't seem -- it's not as much as it used to be, so it doesn't feel like being busy at all, you know?"
"I guess. Having fun?"
"Not really. Are you?"
One of the actors caught her eye and she gave him a convincing smile. "Kind of," she said into the phone.
"This thing's going to be making me pull my hair out all month," Josh mused.
"And you really don't have the luxury," she joked. "What thing?"
"The budget niggling." His tone dipped, sounding dejected. "You didn't know what I meant?"
"I was just checking," she told him uneasily, crossing her legs.
"Sure." It was obvious that he was making an effort to sound bright again. "So, working on your tan?"
"I've got all the time in the world," she said. "Honestly, I don't appreciate the heart attack you almost gave me, but the fact that you're giving me an excuse to look busy and not pay attention helps make up for it. But I know it's early in the day for you, and my phone bill's going to be ridiculous--"
"Sam's getting antsy," he interrupted.
"In Boston?"
"He says it's really hard to drive there. And he says they have terrible sushi."
"What on earth is that boy doing ordering sushi in New England?"
"Latent death wish. Maybe he'll turn up in your part of the world sometime soon."
She liked the idea, and then again she didn't. Of course it would be a pleasure to get to spend time with Sam again. But she wasn't sure what they would talk about, or how much they would lie. "We'll see," she said. "Did you really call just to say hi?
"Yeah. No. Look. I mean, listen. The thing is."
"You know, you're starting to make me nuts, so--"
"Toby and Andrea Wyatt are back together," he blurted.
Her expression did not change; she did not miss a beat. "Yeah?"
"I wasn't sure you knew," Josh continued rapidly. "I mean, Sam said he wasn't sure you'd been talking, or how you'd, you know -- I sound like an idiot, don't I?"
"A little."
"Have you and he talked, or--"
"Toby's my friend," she said smoothly, as if it answered his question. "Don't have an anxiety attack, Josh. If they've worked things out, I'm glad."
"Really?" He exhaled carefully. "I'm supposed to be in this meeting ten minutes ago. People are going to be pissed at me."
"Go."
"C.J.--"
"Josh. Go."
C.J. pressed the button and ended the call. As she slipped the phone back into her handbag, her stomach twisted suddenly. The queasiness hit her, a tide coming in. She screwed her eyes shut, remembering the bagel she'd snagged from the Craft Services table and wishing she'd skipped the cream cheese. She sat very still for a long moment, willing the feeling to pass. Then it didn't, and it was nearly too late. The lot around her blurred and she made a mad dash hoping she remembered where the bathroom had been.
She didn't see the sound supervisor at all until after the collision.
For a few seconds, she sat stunned on the ground, the wind and everything else knocked out of her. The first thing she realized was that she still felt sick, and the second was that everyone was staring at her.
"Oh, God," she managed, hoarsely. "I'm sorry."
The sound guy blinked and dusted himself off. "Well, that was unexpected."
"I ruined something, didn't I?" She looked around, and most of the crew nearby looked away from her. "I think I had some bad cream cheese. I'm sorry."
"It's all right," the sound guy said mildly, helping her to her feet.
C.J. pulled away from him. "No, it's not. I'm the biggest klutz in the world, anyone can tell you that, and I ruined your thing. I'm so sorry."
"C.J.?" She spun around. The director laid a comforting hand on her elbow. "C.J., it's all right. Really. We'll fix it in post."
She stared at him, uncomprehending, and choked on an unpleasant laugh. Then there was another twinge in her belly, and she stumbled the rest of the way to the nearest bathroom, letting the door clatter shut behind her.
She was hovering over the sink, her hair turning limp and stringy around her face, her eyes and nose running, when there was a tentative knock at the door. She raised her head. The sound guy -- she thought she remembered his name was Jeff -- opened the door a crack and stood there nervously, running a hand through his blond hair. "You doing okay?"
C.J. nodded vaguely and drank cold tap water from her hands, washing the sourness out of her mouth. She splashed more of the water on her face. "Stupid cream cheese."
Jeff looked at her, sizing her up, and she looked back. He was blandly, Midwesternly handsome, almost as tall as she was. His expression was open, easygoing, easy to read. He seemed nice. C.J. felt like hell, knew she looked like hell, but he smiled at her.
"I could give you a ride home," he offered, gesturing over his shoulder with his thumb.
She considered him for another moment, then turned to the mirror and looked her reflection in the eyes. It might just have been kindness, but she'd caught him scoping out her ankles earlier and it might have been kindness with potential.
"Yes," she decided, and followed him out.
* * *
"Can it ever be right to do wrong?" Sam asked, resting his hands lightly on the sides of the lectern. "Can punishing the innocent be justified? Can we move backwards and forwards at the same time? We've considered Kosovo, World War II, Johnson and Nixon. We've considered this past administration as well. Let me leave you with this: Effective politicians have to make hard choices. Effective politicians have to get their hands dirty. Political ethics and personal morality are different animals." He scanned the faces of the students that filled the auditorium. "If we did for ourselves the things that we did for our country, we would be great sinners. Thank you."
There was scattered applause, from professors and some of the grad students. Most of them looked thoughtful, though many of them looked bored. Sam squared his shoulders and walked down the steps.
The program director came up and touched his sleeve. "Good show," she said warmly.
"Thanks, Ms. McCloskey."
"Alice."
"Alice. Well, I was going to juggle," he joked. "But I couldn't get the act together in time."
She laughed throatily, in a way that left little doubt that she wanted to sleep with him. She was five or ten years older than him and pretty, he supposed, in a slutty-librarian sort of way; the kind of woman who never capitalized on her looks. She even looked uncomfortable wearing a skirt, but she was smiling through it for his benefit. He inclined his head toward the exit. "I should get going."
"I'll see you at the luncheon," she said, touching his arm once more.
Sam nodded and backed away. He headed toward the door, shaking a few hands along the way, exchanging smiles with people he passed, trying to avoid entanglement in conversation. He was ten feet away from the door when someone tapped him on the shoulder. As he turned, he expected Alice McCloskey, and his eyes were at the level of hers. She wasn't there, and he lowered his gaze a few inches, and nearly gasped out loud.
"Nice talk," Mallory said, crossing her arms and looking up at him.
"Mallory," he stammered.
"Samuel."
He wrinkled his forehead. "I didn't know you were in town."
"I'm spending some time with my dad, now that he has time to spare."
"Oh. Well, if I'd known you were coming today, I'd--"
"You'd have what?"
"--I'd have had an excuse to get out of this lunch thing," he finished weakly.
"You always did know how to flatter a girl, didn't you?" She drummed her fingers on her upper arm impatiently. "So, ask me."
"Ask you what?"
"Ask me what I thought of your thing. I can tell you're dying to. You've got an expressive face."
Sam made a concerted effort not to look interested. "What'd you think?"
"I thought it was well-written, deeply felt and clearly communicated to the audience," Mallory told him. "Which, since it's you, I expected."
"Thank--"
"It was also complete bullshit, which I should have expected too."
"--you." Sam's blossoming smile transformed quickly into a frown. "Well. I'd love to chat, but I have this wonderful lunch to get to."
She shook her head. "It was bullshit, Sam. Do you even hear yourself talk anymore?"
"Years of women yelling at me have impaired my hearing," he said.
"Well, someone obviously didn't yell loud enough. You don't sound like you at all." Mallory sighed. "Or maybe that's what you sound like now."
"You're losing me. What do I sound like?"
"Like you're..." She chose the word carefully. "Embarrassed. Like a little kid who got away with something bad and feels guilty about it."
He felt his face growing hot. "Well."
"You worked in the White House," she reminded him sternly, her eyes snapping. "You fought hard and you earned your place, and you used to be proud of that. You used to stay up all night struggling to get something right or make something happen, and you wrote speeches that were much more productive and significant and beautiful than the things you said today."
"Yeah." Sam stuffed his hands into his pockets. "And a lot of those speeches were full of bullshit, as you so delicately put it. I'm a lawyer, after all."
"And a politician."
"Not anymore."
Mallory flicked a stray lock of hair out of her eyes. "No, I guess not. But you shouldn't -- listen. When I was a teenager, you know, my father drank a lot."
"I know."
"He wasn't easy to live with." Her voice softened. "And I was a pretty angry kid, and I blamed him for everything he did and then some. I started using my mother's last name whenever I met someone new. She used to yell at me when I did it, but I guess she understood the impulse. I got it changed officially when I turned eighteen."
"O'Brien," Sam said quietly.
She chuckled to herself. "It made him so mad when he found out. I was really glad it did. You know, it wasn't until a year or two after he cleaned up that we really started talking. It took a long time for us to get close. And by the time that happened, it would've been really inconvenient to change my name and be a McGarry again. But I always wished -- I always regretted having been ashamed of him, when underneath all his mistakes and his flaws, he was everything he is."
"I get it."
"My point is, you shouldn't be embarrassed about the hard things, you should be proud of the good things."
"I get it." Sam steeled his jaw. "I never realized everything I was getting into there. And I think I'm entitled to look back now and see it in 20/20, so other people who are considering this life--"
"This is 20/20?" Mallory scoffed. "So you had to compromise sometimes. You think you're the first? You didn't get to wear the white hat every day. You think that entitles you to cross out all the things you did that actually helped people? You used to be sweet, Sam, but you were never that stupid."
He looked at his shoes, the chairs, the architecture; anywhere but her face. "You think I'm stupid."
"I think it's way too soon to pretend you're objective, is what I think." She checked her watch. "And I have to hit the road, and so do you, I guess."
"Yeah."
She took a few steps away, then turned back with a slight smile. "It really was a nice speech. You made people listen and think. If only you were using your powers for good instead of evil."
"Great seeing you too," Sam said curtly. He resisted the impulse to watch her walk away, pushed the door open instead, and left.
* * *
Thursday, March 22nd: Day Sixty-Two
Josh was making a mental list of the angriest people in the world. To keep the length reasonable, he was limiting it to people he'd met. It wasn't helping much.
Henry Shallick had to be close to the top. He was always angry, and he had to be chafing at the difficulty he was having with Congress. Josh grinned to himself, satisfied with the knowledge that he deserved credit for a lot of that difficulty. Shallick was on the list.
So was Toby. Josh hadn't talked to him in a few weeks, and Sam didn't say much about him either, but it was a safe bet that Toby would be angry about half a dozen things at any given moment. Of course, the Congresswoman was probably keeping him to a slow burn, which dropped him a few notches down.
He added a few Senators and Middle Eastern leaders and paused. That comedian Sam had dragged him to see once. Lewis Black. He'd been pretty righteously hacked off. He was in the running, too, and then Josh thought of someone else, a real contender. He considered the election, the last few months, the last several years, and decided. John Hoynes, whatever he was doing at home in Texas, had to be sending the needle into the red zone.
"Balancing the budget?" a voice asked from somewhere behind and above him.
Josh set his pen down. "Hey, Danny."
"Hey." Danny walked around the desk and sat down beside him. "You up to anything I might be interested in?"
"As a reporter or as a guy?"
"As a guy."
"I'm making a list of the angriest people alive." Josh indicated the notepad.
Danny raised his eyebrows. "A list?"
"A roster. Two more and I'll have a baseball team."
"Who's batting cleanup?"
"I'm thinking maybe the entire population of Burkina Faso."
Danny chuckled. "So why the list-making? Isn't that kind of effeminate?"
"It's therapeutic."
"Therapeutic as in relaxing to do, or therapeutic as in actual therapy prescribed by a practicing shrink?" Danny inquired.
"Off-limits," Josh replied automatically.
"'Kay." Danny adjusted the collar of his overcoat. "I heard you've been working your mojo in the negotiations. Heard you might even be turning things around."
Josh leaned back and took in the view of the Capitol building and the cloudy sky. "Shaking my moneymaker."
"I heard you threw a couple hissyfits."
"Sweet little old me?" Josh deadpanned.
"Sweet little old you? When people hear the name Josh Lyman, a lot of words come to mind. But not 'calm'."
Josh shrugged. "When people hear the name Jeffrey Dahmer, a lot of words come to mind, but not 'ice cream' or 'Indian chief' or 'seashell.' This game's easy."
"How're the hissyfits working out for you?"
"We'll get beat eventually," he admitted. "Best we can hope for is, we'll gain some ground in the long run."
Danny nodded. "And so it goes. You gotta love this town."
"Yeah?" Josh tilted his head. "You don't have another place you'd rather be?"
"Nope. It's a place of power and important decisions, and there's nowhere else like this. I love my job, I love the atmosphere, hell, I even love the damn traffic."
He looked thoughtful. "I'm the same way."
"And frankly, I think anyone who comes here and leaves again doesn't have a real appreciation for it. They're missing out."
"Don't let C.J. hear you say that," Josh warned him.
Danny glanced around, waving his hand exaggeratedly. "Oh, hi, C.J., I didn't see you there. Oh, wait, it's because you're not there. She's not here, man."
"I'm just saying--"
"I can keep a secret. Do you know what 'Concannon' means in Gaelic?"
"No."
Danny looked smug. "Well, I'm not going to tell you."
Josh ran his hands over his face. "Cute."
"You miss her?"
"C.J.? Of course. And everyone. I kind of think this place sucks these days, if you want to know the truth."
"Yeah, well, you can't really blame them for burning out and fading away." Danny stood up. "I have a briefing to get to."
"In all seriousness, and you can quote me on this," Josh said. "Doesn't the guy strike you as kind of simian?"
"Around the eyes," Danny agreed. "See you. Have fun with your list-making."
Josh shut his eyes briefly as Danny walked away. He opened them again and stared into the middle distance, at the tourists taking pictures and office workers taking their lunch. Then he picked up his notes and carried them away.
Stepping up to the plate for the most annoyed baseball team in the world, he thought. Number 31, Josh Lyman.
* * *
She had beautiful skin; as far as Toby knew, she always had. Beautiful skin and good hair and eyes, and the kind of mouth that could change almost imperceptibly from sultry to sullen. He'd gotten too good at detecting those shifts, and he knew she was bordering on a pout as the waiter poured their drinks.
"You look good," he told her, reaching for his Seven and Seven.
"No thanks to you," Andi said, as she stirred sugar into her lemonade. "You haven't made it very easy for me to sleep nights."
"I'm an inconvenient person," he agreed.
"You don't have to tell me." She sipped her drink carefully. "So do you have plans for this weekend?"
"I think I'm hosting Saturday Night Live," Toby said. "Been working on the monologue all week."
Andi laughed so dryly that he wondered if it hurt her throat. "Can I be the musical guest?"
"What are you going to do, straddle a chair and sing 'Let Me Entertain You'?"
"Well, you've never complained when I've done it before." She took a roll from the basket in the center of the table and broke it in half. "I'm starving," she announced. "I'm going to consume mass quantities and make you pick up the check."
"Fine." He fiddled with his fork and napkin. "You won't eat everything and I'll finish the rest of it and we'll call it even."
She ate her bread and looked around the dining room. "Our waiter's pretty handsome."
"Are you offering to pay for lunch with nature's credit card?"
"I'm going back to Washington on Sunday night," she said, continuing to ignore him. "You know, before the morons mess up our money too badly."
"If you took all the fools out of the legislature," he recited.
"It wouldn't be a representative body anymore. I can quote Carl Parker too." She tossed her head. "It's true to an extent, I guess. But you always had an annoying habit of assuming everyone is stupider than you."
"Many people are."
"Maybe," she said. "You know, when we split up--"
"You left me," he reminded her without much rancor.
"...Yes. And you threw yourself into your work."
"I didn't throw myself into my work," he said dourly. "I didn't lock myself in a garret and slave feverishly over a typewriter. You watch too many movies."
"You know what I meant." She pointed the rim of her glass at his. "And lately, you drink too early in the day."
He looked into the glass. "Drinking, like painting, has its mechanical and poetical aspects, just as love has."
"Another aphorism?"
"Lichtenberg."
"Well, fuck him," Andi said in a perfectly pleasant tone. "I'm not talking to Lichtenberg, I'm talking to you. I think I know you pretty well, after all. But I never thought you'd be like this."
"Oh, what the hell. Like what?"
"Empty." Her mouth tightened into a narrow line. "Tiresome."
"You're tired of me?"
"I'm getting there," she said bluntly. "You know, there are things I want in my life, Toby. I want to save Social Security. I want equal rights to mean something and I want to lower the number of Americans living in poverty. I also want to buy a nicer apartment with a better view, and I want to meet someone and fall in love again."
Toby laid his hands flat on the table. "I'm certainly not trying to stop you."
"No, you're not. But you're not..." She trailed off, exhaling slowly. "My sister's never liked you. She thinks I'm crazy. My mother thinks I'm crazy, my friends too."
"You are crazy."
"They think we're back together. As does Sam Seaborn, since he had the bad luck to call you at eight in the morning and have me pick up the phone."
There was a hint of amusement in his eyes. "Because you're far more terrible than I am."
"Indeed." Andi smiled ruefully. "But what they think is happening isn't what's happening, is it? We're not--" She stopped talking again as the waiter approached and placed two salads on the table. "Thank you."
"No," Toby stated flatly as the waiter left. "We're not."
"They're sharing a drink they call loneliness," she sang, swirling the ice in her glass.
He speared a cherry tomato aggressively with his fork. "Whatever."
"What, you can quote dead 18th-century wiseasses and I can't quote Billy Joel?"
"Well, I don't know any living 18th-century wiseasses to quote."
"I have pop sensibility. That's how you win an election."
"That's how you win an election," he countered.
She rolled her eyes. "You really are an exhausting person to be around. I think you ought to buy me dessert."
"You haven't even started your entrée yet."
"I'm planning ahead." Andi took a large bite from a cucumber. "We're still very good at not saying much of importance to each other, Toby."
"And other things," he said, gently nudging her ankle with the side of his foot underneath the table.
"And other things. But I know you pretty well. Things were ending with us and you threw yourself into work. And now--" She made circles in the air with her fork. "You're a fucked up son of a bitch, my friend."
"Do your constituents know you have the vocabulary of a sailor?" He watched her polish off some of her lettuce. "And the appetite of a piranha?"
"Those are two of the things they like about me." She set her chin in her hand and ran her left toes along his right instep. "You could take the flight down to D.C. with me. It might give you some kind of inspiration or whatever you need to get out of this thing you're in."
Toby's eyes clouded. "I can't think of many things I want to do less."
Andi's mouth wavered between a smile and a frown, settling into something uncertain, something unfamiliar to him. "Okay, stay here then."
"I will." He tossed the French dressing into his salad. "I like New York."
"More than anything else, I sometimes think."
"Sure." He glowered at the indecipherable expression on her face and gulped the last of his drink. "Sometimes."
* * *
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