**********

“...and I think—“

“Oh, for God’s sake, Toby!”

“And I think we would be doing ourselves a great disservice if we ignored it,” Toby finished, undeterred by Charles’s repeated attempts to cut him off. The man was an ass, and Toby was finished kissing up to him just because he was campaign manager. Toby was ready to explode, and no one, himself least of all, knew what would happen then. Frankly, he was looking forward to it.

“Listen,” Charles said, “I appreciate your concerns, Toby. I do. But you’re putting too much emphasis on what is, in the end, going to be a non-issue. No one’s going to pay any attention to Internet privacy; we need to focus our efforts on Berlin. OK?” The tall, muscular campaign manager stared down the rumpled strategist for a long moment.

“You’re wrong,” Toby said simply, “and I think it could cost us this election, but if that’s how you want to run the campaign, that is certainly your prerogative.”

Charles smiled. He knew Toby Ziegler would never back down further than that. “Thank you, Toby. Now, it’s been a long day, and we have to do the whole thing over again tomorrow. Everybody go home and get some sleep or booze or whatever it is you get to recharge. See you at 9 tomorrow.” The staffers of Georgie Stanner’s congressional campaign rose and began gathering their belongings. “Toby,” Charles called, “can I have a minute?”

Toby swore inwardly, but he smiled and waited for Charles to come to him. Anyone with half a brain would’ve been terrified of that smile, but Charles had never been known for his razor-sharp insight. “I know you only want to do what you think is best for the candidate—“ he began.

“I’m sorry, Charles; I thought that’s what we were supposed to do.”

“You’re not...it’s important that we show a unified team dynamic going into the primary.”

“That’s funny. I thought what was important that we win the primary.”

“Have you seen Jefferson’s staff? They’re like the photo on the Christmas card every time they stand together.”

“I’m Jewish, Charles. I wouldn’t know about Christmas card photos. I do know that if Georgie loses to Robbie Jefferson, it won’t be because of his staff. It’ll be because of her positions.”

“The positions you want her talking about, Toby—“

Toby couldn’t believe they were having this conversation. He believed in Georgie Stanner; he believed she could perform miracles in the US House of Representatives. If Robbie Jefferson got elected he would seriously consider moving to Tierra del Fuego. But all Charles cared about was being more photogenic than Jefferson’s staff, of looking more like they were “in it together.” They worked for the same candidate, didn’t they? How much more together could they get? Meanwhile, a problem was looming ahead of them, and Charles didn’t give a damn. “Internet privacy, Charles. Write down this day and time. Write, ‘Toby Ziegler told me Internet privacy will be the issue of the next two decades, and I didn’t believe him.’ Write that down and come find me in 10 years.” He grabbed his coat and briefcase and headed for the door.

“How about I just come find you tomorrow morning?”

“Yeah. I’ll be here. Whatever.” He stormed out.

At least there was someone at home worth smiling about. His job hadn’t made him want to smile in ages. He pounded his fist against the steering wheel. These morons were running Georgie into the ground, and he wasn’t sure how to counteract that. Relax, he told himself. Get home, and everything will be better.

And indeed, Andrea waited with a kiss at the door of the apartment. “Hello, Lumpkins.”

“Oh, Andi, must you?” He kicked his shoes into a corner of the room and poured himself a bourbon before collapsing onto the couch.

“Yes,” she said sweetly, sitting next to him and rubbing his shoulders. “I must. How was work?”

He groaned. “I don’t want to talk about it except to say this: I’m right, they’re wrong. Of this I am certain. But if I can’t find somebody to back me up, I’m outta there. I don’t know if I’ll to leave or if they’ll kick me out, but if something doesn’t change soon, I’m gone.”

**********

“Carly?” The tall media consultant was standing right behind her boss, but her boss wasn’t listening. “Carly, listen, I’ve been thinking—“

“That’s good,” she said, not looking up. “We encourage that. What were you thinking about?”

“I’m thinking...don’t send me to New York,” she finished in a rush, still kicking herself for being scared.

Carly finally looked at her. “CJ, you have to go to New York.”

“I really don’t.”

“The candidate is in New York.”

“So put me on a different candidate. We do have other candidates, don’t we?”

“You wanted Georgie Stanner.”

“And now I don’t.” CJ felt a flutter in her stomach as she willed Carly not to ask her why.

“CJ, why?” So much for creative visualization. CJ looked sheepish, and Carly frowned. “Is this because — Evan, have you been scaring CJ with Toby Ziegler stories?”

Evan didn’t bother appearing. His disembodied voice floated to them from his broom-closet office. “It’s important she know these things, Carly.”

“What things, Evan? Things you make up to frighten people? Honestly, I don’t know what your problem with him is.”

“He yelled at me.”

“Bravo for him,” Carly muttered. She turned to CJ. “CJ, we don’t have time for you to be scared of Toby Ziegler. We don’t have time for you to be scared of anything. He’s a brilliant man, essential to getting Stanner elected. Yes, he can be difficult at times, but only when people are being stupid around him. Show your intelligence and don’t let him bullshit you, and you’ll have no problems with him. OK?”

CJ nodded, trying to appear more confident than she felt. “OK.”

“You’re sure?”

“I don’t have time not to be.”

“Good.” Carly turned away and went back to work, clearly expecting CJ to do the same.

“You’re sure I couldn’t go to Nebraska instead?”

“Work,” Carly growled. “Your plane leaves in 10 hours.”

CJ walked back to her desk. What was she afraid of? She had handled brilliant, arrogant men in her life. Why should Toby Ziegler be any different?

Because he mattered. Other patronizing geniuses she’d dealt with had been stuck onto her life like useless appendages. Professors she could ignore if she read the material and zoned out in lecture (which she did an alarming amount of the time in college), co-workers in departments at other ends of buildings, campaign staffers in other states. Her trip to New York would mark the first time she couldn’t avoid the self-absorbed egghead, and she wasn’t sure she could handle it. More precisely, she wasn’t sure she wouldn’t end up taking Toby Ziegler to the cleaners, and from what Carly said, they needed him in one piece.

CJ stared out her office window. She could always just not get on the plane.

**********

CJ had been standing in this doorway for fifteen minutes. She was attending to the heated debate going on so she could acquaint herself with the status of Georgie Stanner’s campaign and the issues that were of interest to the staff. But mainly, she was steeling her nerves to face Toby Ziegler.

That must be him, she thought, the short man starting to go bald at the top, starting to look like a man who slept in his clothes every night — or one who didn’t sleep at all. The one with the passion, the fire — the one who was right.

“We cannot, cannot, cannot allow Jefferson to drag her into the abortion discussion!” he shouted.

“Why the hell not?” The taller, more athletic-looking guy he was arguing with looked incredibly annoyed by Toby’s very presence in the room.

“He will bring up—“

“Great! Let the people know she practices what she preaches.”

“God, Charles! What cliché-riddled turnip truck did you fall off yesterday? You can’t put a candidate for the Unites States House of Representatives behind a podium for a debate and have her say she’s proud of having had an abortion. Especially not up here in the sticks of New York. To say nothing of the fact that travelling this road will put her so far away from her campaign message she won’t be able to see it anymore.”

“And what’s so wrong about—“

“No, he’s right.” Four heads swiveled instantly, and CJ dropped her eyes to the floor in search of the trapdoor. No, she scolded herself, you have to be a grown-up now. I know it sucks, but 22 was really the maximum number of years you could hide in school. “If Georgie is sidetracked by any question relating to abortion, she—“

“I’m sorry. Who are you?” It was Toby, not Charles, who interrupted her, and oddly, he looked even more pissed than Charles did.

“CJ Cregg.” He showed no comprehension. “From EMILY’s List.”

“OK.” He still had no idea.

“EMILY’s List,” she repeated. “Early Money is Like Yeast. It helps raise the dough.”

“I’m sorry, I still don’t—“

What else could she say? “Early Money is Like Yeast. It helps raise the dough.”

“So you said. If you’d like to make another attempt at hideous acronyms, try one for 'Go away, please.’”

CJ didn’t move. She couldn’t have if she tried. This man...this asshole was a thousand times worse than Evan suggested. Tears formed somewhere inside her, but she refused to let them come up. She forced herself to hold her head up and stare at the slimy insect who was trying to push her around just because — why, exactly? Jealous of her height? Her hair? Who the hell did this clown think he was?

Who the hell is this woman? Toby tried to return to his argument with Charles, then stopped, realizing the tall woman hadn’t gone away. Then something she said — several things she said — seeped through his brain, and he felt rather queasy. “EMILY’s List?” he asked fearfully. She nodded tersely, as though any further action would have to end with her pummeling the shit out of him. “The girls’ group with the stupid name.” His gaze slid to Charles, who stood regarding him with a satisfied smirk Toby wanted to wipe off — along with the rest of his face. “Someone’s coming next week,” Charles had told him, “from that girls’ group with the stupid name — the one that raises money for pro-choice women candidates.”

And then— “You — you were agreeing with me just then.”

“Yes.”

“And I interrupted you.”

“Yes.”

“And after that I insulted you.”

“You’re off to a great start there, Pokey.”

“Listen, Miss...uh...“

“Uh-uh. I told you my name once, Toby Ziegler. If you can’t remember it, that’s your problem.”

“And yet you’re perfectly aware of who I am.”

“I have been warned about you. Evan Gordon told me all I needed to know.”

“Evan Gordon? He’s still mad about something I did in college. Nothing he told you actually, uh, happened.”

“Maybe not, but I’m sensing the overall tenor of his stories is gonna ring nice and true.” They stood glaring at each other until Charles cleared his throat.

“Listen, now that we’ve wrapped up the abortion issue—“

“Hold on,” CJ protested, “we haven’t wrapped up anything. Toby’s an asshole, but he’s right about the debate. This is ground you don’t want Georgie walking on.”

“I’m sorry,” Charles said, “when I said ‘we’d’ wrapped it up, I meant those of who work for the campaign.”

She stared at him. “Buddy, your best fiscal support came from EMILY’s List. As far as we’re concerned, I am someone who works for this campaign. If you don’t like it, you can shove it, but as for me...I’m sticking with the jackass.”

Toby regarded her with a mix of annoyance and shocked admiration. She shrugged. Charles rubbed his hands together nervously, reminding CJ of the villain of a ‘50s serial after he’s tied another girl to the railroad tracks. “It’s obvious we’re not getting anything else done today...why don’t we pack it in. I’m sure we’ll pick up arguing about this bright and early tomorrow morning.”

Toby was still staring at CJ as though she’d saved his very soul from the clutches of perdition. No, that’s not right, CJ thought. He’s Jewish; they don’t have perdition. Wondering where the hell this particular train of thought had come from, she shook her head and told Charles, “Yeah. Great. I’ll see you tomorrow, then.”

“Miss Cregg,” Charles began, and out of the corner of her eye CJ saw Toby filing her name away for later, “with all due respect—“

“Mr Terrano,” she said, “you haven’t shown me any due respect, let alone all due respect, since I walked through the door. I’m coming back tomorrow. End of discussion. Mr Ziegler.” She held out her hand, which he took automatically. “As strange as it feels for me to say this, it was nice meeting you.”

He licked his lips, utterly uncertain of what was going on. Was she angry? Did she hate him? Was she, in fact, certifiably insane? “Ah, Ms Cregg—“

She supposed she should let him off the hook. “CJ.”

“That’s it. CJ, I don’t know why you stuck up for me back there...or maybe you didn’t; I’m kinda confused—“

“Well, I have to say you were a schmuck of inhuman magnitude—“

“Um, CJ—“

“Yes, I know exactly what that meant. Anyway, it doesn’t matter how evil you are. You’re right; they’re wrong. It seems simple enough to me.”

He started laughing then. A deep, throw-your-head-back howl. “CJ, what are you doing right now?”

She stepped back, startled. “I...I was going to head back to my hotel.”

He shook his head. “No way. You’re coming home with me.” Catching her appalled glance made him laugh even harder. “Not like that. You have to — I need you to meet my girlfriend.”

“Why?”

“Because I told her about you. Yesterday. I told her you were coming soon.”

CJ weighed her options. A lonely night reading bad airport novels in her hotel room or fending off creepy guys in the lobby bar, or an evening with the strangest man she’d ever met and the mysterious girlfriend to whom he’d predicted her arrival.

This was a no-brainer.

* * *

The instant Toby was through the door, he yanked off his tie and kicked his shoes into a corner. CJ removed her shoes as well, then stood uncertainly in the strange apartment. She and Toby had argued the entire way home, and she had started feeling comfortable with him. Now, standing on his home turf with his girlfriend an unknown around any corner, she slipped into old ruts of fear and self-doubt. “Andi!” Toby called gleefully.

The reply drifted back from the kitchen. “You’re home early, Lumpkins.” Then, severely, “Toby Ziegler, did you get fired today?” Toby growled softly.

“’Lumpkins’?” CJ mouthed.

He shrugged helplessly and rolled his eyes. “I was not fired, Andrea,” he called back, pouring a bourbon. “In fact, today I was vindicated.”

“Vindicated, huh?” The owner of the voice came into the living room, then stopped dead when she saw CJ. “Toby, you didn’t say—”

“No, no,” he crossed quickly and kissed Andi on the cheek. He turned to CJ, his hand still on his girlfriend’s arm. “Remember yesterday when I said someone had to back me up?”

She nodded cautiously. “Well, this is it. I mean, she’s it. I mean...” He floundered, then beamed. “She said I was right! I interrupted her, then I insulted her, and she still said I was right!”

For the first time, Andi smiled at CJ. “Why did you have to go and do that? Do you know how long it took me to get him off his ego, and now you stick him back up on it.” The slender red-head crossed the room and held out her hand to CJ. “Andrea Wyatt.”

CJ shook her hand and relaxed visibly under the warm touch. “CJ Cregg.”

Andi turned back to her boyfriend. “You insulted her?”

He turned red. “I may have...there might have been a thing about EMILY’s List.”

“You’re from EMILY’s List?”

“Yeah.” Andi’s smile widened. “I love you guys. What you did for Benitez in New Mexico was truly inspiring.” She glared at Toby. “’The girl’s group with the stupid name,’” she accused him. “You said that, didn’t you?”

“She called me Pokey,” he said sheepishly, “if that makes you feel better.”

She laughed, rolling the idea around. “Pokey, huh?”

Toby glared at CJ. “That’s going to be my name now. You know that, don’t you? She’s going to call me that from now on.”

“You should have thought of that before you insulted me and my organization.”

“It’s a stupid acronym.”

“I didn’t name it, Toby! I just work there.”

He looked plaintively to Andrea. “Did I mention she called me a jackass, too?”

Andi took CJ’s arm and led her into the kitchen. “CJ! Welcome to our home....”

**********

They pushed their dinner plates aside and leaned back in their chairs, content and contemplative. Toby swirled the bourbon in his glass; it was his second, and from the look he was getting from Andi, CJ gathered that this was impressive restraint.

CJ couldn’t get over the two of them. Andrea was pretty enough to be last year’s prom queen and smart enough to be next year’s...well, whatever she wanted to be. She was a public interest lawyer, taking a week away from her office to research a huge case she’d been handed, but CJ had a vision of Toby one day running the Wyatt for President campaign. Toby was unkempt, cantankerous, and caustic. He was losing hair and gaining waist, his obvious intelligence buried under belligerence and condescension. And despite what seemed like unstoppable career drive, in many ways he seemed lost.

Yet they fit together perfectly. The way Toby stroked Andi’s hair with his right hand while he swirled the drink in his left, and the way she leaned into his hand as he did it. A smile she gave him when he said something nice for once, and the fierce but intimate rap on his knee when he went back to being a schmuck. They were the real-life Beauty and the Beast, and CJ smiled at the passing image of new editions of Grimm Brothers’ fairly tales carrying warning labels that read: “Kids! Don’t try this at home!”

Toby took has hand from Andi’s head, put down his glass, and looked at them. “I’ve decided something.”

“Oh?” Andi asked. “And when did you do this?”

“Just now.”

“OK. What did you decide?”

“I’m quitting the campaign.”

CJ gasped. “Toby! You can’t do that!”

Andi looked baffled. “Toby, I don’t understand. Yesterday you swore if somebody didn’t show up to support you, you’d walk. Now there is someone, and you’re leaving anyway?”

He nodded calmly. “Because CJ showed up.” He turned to her. “You opened my eyes today, CJ. You reminded me that when it comes to this campaign, I am right, and Charles is horridly, disastrously wrong. But he won’t listen. In fact, he goes out of his way to avoid implementing my strategies. I don’t have to put up with that.”

CJ shook her head. Wouldn’t this be a fabulous greeting for Carly? “Toby, you cannot leave this campaign. Carly Akura told me, before I left DC, that you were the key to getting Georgie Stanner into office. I’ve seen nothing to contradict that assessment. She will lose this election if you walk.”

“She’ll lose anyway, CJ!” Toby exploded. “I could win it for her. I could win it for her with both hands tied behind my back, but not if Charles shuts me out and resists every idea I come up with.”

“Talk to Georgie,” Andi insisted. “Tell her your concerns; she’ll understand.”

“No, she won’t,” Toby groaned, his head in his hands. “No one’s supposed to know this, but Charles is her nephew. He was campaign manager for the mayor of some dinky little town upstate, and he convinced Georgie he could do the same for her.”

“Mayors of dinky little towns upstate have campaign managers?” Andi wondered.

“My point,” he said, glaring at her, “is that he has no idea how to run a campaign of this magnitude. He’s bungled everything that’s mattered so far. But thanks to our good friend nepotism, he’ll keep the job no matter what it costs us — and it’ll cost us the election.”

For a moment, the three sat looking at each other. CJ tried to fathom what Andi was thinking, but the other woman kept her face impassive. CJ was thinking about what she would have to tell Carly when she got back to DC: “Hey, Carly. Georgie Stanner’s campaign manager is running her into the ground. Toby Ziegler was holding the campaign together with his bare hands, but I gave him the courage to quit. Robbie Jefferson will get the nomination, so everyone who lives in New York should move immediately.”

Andi cleared her throat. “Toby—” He looked up hopefully. If she asks him not to do this, he won’t, CJ realized, and felt terribly alone. “If this is really what you feel you have to do...”

He breathed a sigh of relief. “It really is, Andi.”

She nodded. “All right.”

And then, strangely, Toby turned to CJ. “CJ? Are you OK with this?”

She shrugged. “It’s not my place to say.”

“Of course it is,” he protested. “EMILY’s List kept this campaign running the first month. After the work you put in — and you came here to make sure we were OK, not to...I hate to sound conceited—”

“Really?” Andi couldn’t resist.

He ignored that. “—but she’s sure to lose without me.”

CJ nodded. “I know. But you have to do what you know is right. And the sad fact is, you’d be wrong to keep supporting Georgie given the stances she’s taking now.” She smiled ruefully. “Just do me a favor, would you?”

“Anything.”

“When you tell them you’re quitting, don’t mention me.”

Toby and Andi laughed. “Deal,” Toby said.

“So, what will you do now?” CJ asked. He drank the last of his bourbon.

“Who knows. I’ll find something else. Something better.”

“Toby,” CJ chided him gently, “you’re a professional political operative. Is there a ‘something better’ in that line of work?”

“I don’t know.” His shoulders slumped dejectedly as he poured his third drink. “Maybe not. But I keep looking.”

CJ glanced at her watch, then stood and stretched. “Thank you both for everything, but I need to get going.”

Andi looked at the clock. “It’s so early!”

“I know, but I have to write up my report so I can leave a copy with the candidate—”

“Did you even see the candidate?” Toby asked, the thought that she might not have suddenly occurring to him.

“Yeah. We had lunch today before I came to headquarters. Anyway, my plane leaves at five tomorrow morning.”

“Ouch! I’m sorry.” Andi took a scrap of paper from her pocket and jotted something on it. “Here’s our phone number,” she said, handing it to CJ. “If you’re ever in New York again, or if you just want to talk, give us a call.”

“Thanks.” CJ put the paper in her wallet and handed Andrea a business card. “If you’re ever in DC—”

“Doubt it.” Andi laughed. “Funny as it sounds, given Toby’s job, I’m not fond of politicians.”

CJ laughed. “Well, feel free to call whenever.”

“We will.” Andi leaned over and hugged her. “It was great to meet you, CJ.”

“You, too, Andi.” She crossed to where Toby leaned against an end table, scowling into his drink. “Toby,” she said, “it was wonderful to meet you. Good luck with...quitting, and moving on, and all of that.”

He looked up and gave her the most genuine smile she’d seen from him yet. In that split second she understood why Andrea put up with his shit. Then the smile was replaced by the furrowed brow she had come to know so well in such a short period of time. He shook her hand roughly. “Yeah.”

She crossed to the door and put her shoes on, then stopped and turned back. “And Toby, if you ever find that ‘something better’ you’re looking for, come find me.”

The smile sprang back. “Absolutely. You do the same.”

“Well, OK, but I’m not, you know, really looking.”

“Yes you are.”

And now she smiled, too. “Yeah, I guess I am.”