Toby Ziegler belongs to Aaron Sorkin, John Wells Productions, Warner Bros., & NBC. Lyrics are by The Beatles and the Velvet Underground. Standard disclaimers apply. Please send feedback.
The Radio Does Play
Violet
In the living room of the apartment they share, Toby is teaching his wife to dance.
It is ridiculous, because he's never liked dancing. But Deborah mentioned maybe taking ballroom dance lessons, and he countered that he already knew how. Which is true. One afternoon, when his sisters were teenagers, just starting to date, their mother decided they needed to learn the classics. Out came the big-band records, and Toby was coerced into playing the escort. Glen Miller sang from the scratched vinyl. Tovah watched her children circle dutifully around the living room of the apartment in Brooklyn. They almost started to enjoy it, until someone toppled a lamp over and they all got scolded to bed.
That was in the mid-sixties. In the mid-seventies, he remembers the lesson.
"We don't have any Glen Miller," he tells her, looking doubtfully at the contents of their record cabinet -- her record cabinet, really. In the ten months since their wedding, he's added very little to its contents.
"I could put on the Beatles," she offers, smiling playfully.
"Or you could, you know, push me out the window."
"Don't tempt me."
He gives her a mock stern look. "You can't dance to the Beatles."
"Sure you can. What you can't do is hate the Beatles. They're the voices of--"
"Someone else's generation. Do you want to learn this or not?"
"Not if I have to listen to your mom's music."
He throws up his hands in surrender. "The radio?"
"It's a deal." She flips it on. It sings:
...And in my hour of darkness,
She is standing right in front of me,
Speaking words of wisdom--
Let it be...
"No," Toby says quickly. "No, no, no."
"But it's fate," she teases.
"Not mine," he argues. "I'm not giving into that."
"Fine," she says, pretending briefly to pout. She changes the station.
...You know, those were different times,
All the poets studied rules of verse
And those ladies they rolled their eyes--
Sweet Jane,
Sweet Jane...
"Does this meet your standards?" she asks.
"Sure." He beckons her to him, takes her left hand in his right and lets his other hand rest lightly on her waist. "It's all in counting along with the rhythm. One... two... three... ow. That used to be my foot."
"Sorry!"
"You weren't counting along with the rhythm," Toby reprimands her.
"I don't hear it that way," Deborah protests. "I hear it differently."
"How can you hear it differently? They're only playing the song one way."
"Music shouldn't be dissected." She looks thoughtful. "Music is like good poetry. It's more than the sum of its parts. If you just pull it to pieces and go by the numbers, you kill it."
"Maybe. Maybe. But how else do you find the beat and dance?"
"You feel it." She drops his hand and slides her arms around his neck. "I should be the one giving this lesson."
"Definitely." He hooks his fingers into the waistband of her jeans, pulling her closer. The Velvet Underground continues to play.
...And both of them save their money
When they get home from work,
Sittin' down by the fire
Oh, the radio does play...
"See, now you're starting to feel it."
He smiles into her hair. "Yeah."
"On the other hand, this would probably get us thrown out of your average grand ballroom."
"Well, what exactly did you want to learn?"
"You know that part in The Sound Of Music where--"
"I've never seen it."
"You've never seen it?" She pulls back a little. "You've never seen The Sound Of Music, you don't like the Beatles -- I live with a cultural hermit."
"Yes. Are you complaining?"
She tilts her head back and laughs. "No."
... But anyone who ever had a heart
Wouldn't turn around and break it,
And anyone who ever played a part
They wouldn't turn around and hate it--
Sweet Jane,
Sweet, sweet Jane...
Kissing the hollow of her throat, it occurs to Toby that this can't be real. This dancing lesson, and this conversation happened, he's sure it did -- but it was before they were married, in her college apartment, and her annoying roommate ruined it by showing up at the wrong time. It didn't happen this way -- it is impossible.
He looks up and starts to say so. "This isn't--"
"Shh," she interrupts.
"This wasn't how... You. You aren't..."
"Shh."
She puts her hands on his face, covering his mouth, stroking his beard -- which he shouldn't have yet, in 1975. And he tries to say so, but she won't let him speak.
"Just feel it," she instructs him, and he's terrified by the implications of all this. All at once, it dawns on him that she's going to die, that on some level he's already lost her, but there he is, dancing with her, and tasting her fingers, and watching her eyes laugh--
--And abruptly coming awake, knowing it wasn't real.
His breathing is too shallow, and he is sweating, flooded with adrenaline. He's acutely conscious of the mattress under him, the sheets over him, and the fear. But it was a dream. Time folded in on memory and turned it into something false, but it was only a dream, thankfully, nothing more.
He sighs deeply, runs his hand over his face, and wipes his eyes. Then he turns to see if Deborah is awake, to tell her about the crazy dream.
She's not there.
She's not there, and his heart locks into a fist in his chest.
She's not there, his mind says, so rational and calm that it's the next thing to hysteria. Of course she's not there. It's not 1975 anymore, it's the next millennium, and she's been gone seventeen years.
She's not there, and her death hits him like a hammer blow, like it's something new. He tries, but is not capable of convincing himself that it's only sweat in his eyes, not tears.
Seventeen years, he thinks. She's been gone longer than they were married, longer even than they knew each other. He doesn't think of her that much. He certainly doesn't talk about her. Among his friends, Leo knows, because Leo knows everything. He dropped C.J. a hint once, and he assumes she's connected the dots. But hardly anyone knows. No one needs to. It's his history.
But it is never only a dream.
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