All characters belong to Aaron Sorkin, John Wells Productions, Warner Bros., & NBC. The title's from Emily Dickinson, 1129. Standard disclaimers apply. Please send feedback.
With Explanation Kind
Violet
The grand jury has been impaneled.
The grand jury is watchful, blank-faced as the glossy fake oak on the walls. They sit in cheap blue chairs; they can't possibly be comfortable, but in the high-ceilinged room they make no complaints. They shift in their seats, cross and uncross legs, rustling trousers and pantyhose. They take notes intermittently, though some seem to be doing so just to keep their hands occupied. The grand jurors have ordinary human faces, bumpy noses and freckles and frizzy hair, goosebumps raised by the whir of air-conditioning and ceiling fans. C.J. is beginning to hate them.
It seems that she has barely spoken all day. The lawyers do most of the talking, and she confines herself to the appropriate one-word answers. It makes her uncomfortable, because she is used to answering questions with nerve, with confidence, with authority. For this day, too, she has prepared statements, but they are tiny and inflexible. "Yes," she says. Or, "No." Or, "I don't recall."
They say juries are sympathetic to the color blue. But the jury has probably heard it too, and she doesn't want to look too desperate. Her suit is dove gray; the skirt ends just above the knee. She has worn it countless times before and it has never been so uncomfortable. She does her best to sit straight in her chair and maintain eye-contact. She's used to being watched, used to feeling people's eyes and judgments passing over her. It should not be twisting her up so badly, but her insides feel like a taut length of knotted twine.
She's had good coaching; there are very few questions that she hasn't rehearsed with Babish or Ainsley or her own lawyer. They ask about how Leo McGarry and Toby Ziegler brought her into the campaign when she was a virtual unknown with negligible experience. They ask about last year's State of the Union. They ask about her interactions with the Press Corps in general and Danny Concannon in particular. They ask about Rosslyn. They ask about Manhattan, Kansas. And they ask about several of the hundreds of times she has stood in front of the image of the White House and lied.
She gives them the careful answers she has practiced, even when her instinct is to add an explanation. Seven times, they ask whether anyone ever asked her to lie. That's an easy one. Four times, they ask whether she never had reason to suspect the President's condition. That's her least favorite question of all. Each time, there is more irony, more sarcasm, more disbelief. Each time, she wonders how much she believes her answer. Each time, she looks back at the jury as she says no.
A few eternities pass before she can step down. It's hard to believe they're done, hard to believe she's ever done anything but sit still and test the limits of her self-control. She holds herself steady through the reminders that she can't discuss this, that she's still under subpoena and may be called back at any juncture. She holds her dignity as she leaves, holds down the sigh that is nested in her throat.
Her lawyer comes up behind her and touches her arm. "C.J.," she says, "You did wonderfully in there."
"Did I?" She runs a hand over her face. "Am I going to have to come back?"
"Yeah. Probably another half dozen times. But you handled today very well. You're great under pressure."
"I should get that tattooed across my chest," she quips, and pictures it for a second, pictures herself pulling open her shirt like Superman to reveal her crime-fighting motto. "Or maybe not."
The lawyer smiles fleetingly and stops walking along with her. "Feel good about yourself today," she calls. The sigh spreads its wings then, but C.J. lets it fly only when the elevator doors have closed, and she is briefly in a private place.
She could go back to the office. She wants to, but she won't. She's used to being looked at, but she doesn't think she could stand the curious glances and the worried ones and the suspicious ones. She's not allowed to talk about it, so she dreads being asked about it. Of course, she ought to go home but that's the last place she wants to be. Second to last. Instead she drives to a place she isn't supposed to be, at least not right now. She lets herself in with the spare key she's not supposed to use. And then the last of her energy is gone, and she falls apart and falls asleep.
Toby gets home by one in the morning, a bit earlier than usual. He drops his briefcase by the door and wearily sheds his jacket; his tie has long since been discarded. He turns the light on, sees her and shakes his head, frowning. He says her name, says it again louder. She doesn't stir.
His sofa is old and narrow, but comfortable. She's curled up with her face buried in the cranny between the back and the arm and the cushion. Her hands are folded under her neck; her knees bent and ankles crossed. Her jacket is draped over the corner of the couch, but she still has her shoes on. Her breathing is muffled and slow. Toby stands beside her, shakes her arm slightly, touches her shoulder blades with one tentative fingertip as if he expects wings to spring from them. She barely even moves.
Nervously, he shuffles into the postage-stamp sized kitchen, rinses out a glass and fills it with water. He dips his fingers into it as he carries it back to her, and sprinkles a few droplets on her face. She sniffles softly and tries to turn away. He repeats the splashing gesture with a little more water, and speaks sternly. "Wake up."
She does, in one burst, jerking away from him and sitting up straight. "Hey."
"Hello," he replies, setting the glass down on the table.
She rubs the water off her face, blinking helplessly. "I'm sorry." A yawn rumbles through her body like distant thunder. "For, you know, coming in."
"Yeah." He retreats into the kitchen as she stretches out. "Well. Do you want a drink?"
"Sure. What do you have?"
She can hear cabinet doors and the refrigerator opening and shutting in a flurry. "Actually, I have nothing."
"At all?"
"There're approximately three drops of Jack Daniels stuck to the bottom of this bottle," he tells her. "Other than that, nothing."
C.J. raises a hand to massage the side of her neck. "How'd you let that happen?"
"It's a serious oversight, and one that I can't explain." Toby sits down sheepishly next to her.
Her laughter is hollow and chilling as an open window in winter. "Try flying that one past a team of lawyers."
"Ah," he says, glad she broached the subject before he had to try. "Judgment Day."
"Part one of a series," she says, the laugh dimming to a sour smile.
"Of course you can't talk about it."
"You did go to law school, didn't you?"
"And of course it wasn't pleasant," he adds.
"I'm not dead yet." She tilts her head back and lets her eyelids fall. "I'm just resting."
He nods, not surprised but wishing it was otherwise. "I'm sure you were fine."
"You're sure?" Her eyes snap open. "How do you know I didn't have a nervous breakdown? How do you know I didn't start crying and tell them I drink too much and drive too fast and harbor impure thoughts and once stole a stapler from the office?"
"I don't," he admits, idly twisting his fingers together. "Did you?"
"Not really," she murmurs. "Not this time."
He regards her seriously. "I didn't expect anything else from you."
She acknowledges the implied compliment by letting her tense shoulders slump. "I lied," she says, after a moment.
"You're not supposed to talk about it."
"I wasn't talking about the grand jury. I think." She shakes her head, confused and bitter. "The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. It doesn't exist, does it?"
"It's an abstract ideal," he admits.
"There's this gap, this void..." She trails off, drawing an aimless arc in the air. "Between the things we think we see and the things we let ourselves take in. We never know anything for real, do we?"
"C.J., it's late for one of these--"
"I don't care. I'm going to sit here and have disturbing, dramatic insights into human nature, no matter what time it is."
"Okay."
"We lie," she says, her tone harsh. "We lie by omission and we lie outright, and we lie to people we love and to strangers, and under oath, and to ourselves. We're dishonest. We're liars. And it's not like I was unaware of this, but I've always thought I..." She turns her eyes to him then, and they are clouded and wet. "I thought I was a decent person."
"You're a person," he emphasizes, putting a hand to his chin. "You can't expect to be better than human."
"You do it all the time," she points out.
"I never claimed to be a person," he says, awkwardly forcing lightness into his voice. She rolls her eyes, but some real mirth is returning to them, so he continues, "Was it my stapler you stole?"
"I don't recall," she deadpans.
"Because I've been, you know, hunting around for a culprit."
Her eyebrows arch gracefully. "Shouldn't you be more concerned with the fact that I've been harboring impure thoughts?"
"Is that a mortal sin too?" Toby wonders. "As bad as stealing?"
"As bad as lying," C.J. answers.
There is a roughness in her voice, a desolation, and he knows it is past time for him to kiss her. As he does it, he puts his hands on her shoulders, clasping them tightly as though he could draw the despair out of her with his touch. He says her name, says it again louder. She unbuttons her blouse herself, not noticing the tremble of her hands. He presses her gently back as his mouth moves lower, burning along a path where she can imagine words inked into her skin. She has no prepared words for this, but again her articulations are broken into small, precise pieces. "Yes," she says, and "Don't," and "Don't stop."
He must have carried her to the bed, she thinks later, because she definitely wasn't walking, and the darkness of his eyes consumed her.
"I wore gray for the jury," she says, gazing at the puddle of her discarded skirt and stockings on the floor.
"Yeah?" he replies, in a tone that suggests she might as well be speaking Swahili.
"You don't think it matters?"
"C.J., you could've been wearing a nun's habit for all the difference it makes. No one in that room was going to trust you off the bat."
"Well." She swallows hard. "That's reassuring."
"It's late, what do you want?"
"To be wined and dined," she teases. "Too bad your kitchen is a wasteland."
"And everything's closed."
She thinks for a moment and her eyes widen. "I know where there's a bottle."
"Of?"
"Mid-range Merlot that you'll drink anyway."
He chuckles, sitting up. "Where?"
"In the cabinet above my fridge."
"That's logical."
"Thanks, Mr. Spock." She slides her fingers through her tousled hair. "I was hiding it from myself. I drink too much."
Even in the dimness of the bedroom, he sees the shadows pooling under her eyes and is wounded by them. "We could go over there and find this phantom bottle of bad wine."
"We could," she agrees, lifting her head. "Although I look best with a good dry martini in my hand. With a couple of olives. I could really go for some olives. I wonder if we could find an open supermarket."
He wrinkles his forehead at her. "This is a strange craving."
"Well, I'm not pregnant," she says wryly. "Are those the most beautiful words in the language or what?"
"No," he says. An edge glints in his voice like a knife, and for an instant she feels as if she stabbed him with it.
"Okay," she says cautiously. "So which ones are?"
He thinks of several profound things to say, solemn things that might thrill her or tug out her tears. He voices none of them. "Yankees win," he says.
She laughs, more genuinely this time if not joyfully. "This is only the first of many days that'll be like this. The grand jury will be sitting for a long time."
"Yeah."
"I'm great under pressure," she declares.
"So I've noticed," he says, and grazes the backs of his fingers lightly against her upper arm. Though her expression is still sad, a light is piercing the blur in her eyes. Soon, the smile will come through. And they will go together, and search for olives and wine.
Back to stories
Feedback