It started out innocently enough. Josh was trailing after Ainsley who was on
her way to Sam's office. Apparently they had agreed to go to lunch, and Sam
was now fifteen minutes late. Fifteen minutes for someone on the President's
staff really wasn't that big a deal - especially when it was an informal lunch
with a co-worker. But for Ainsley, it was close to a total catastrophe. Where
the woman put all the food she ate was a complete mystery to Josh, but he knew
she was going to give Sam a really hard time and he, for one, didn't want to
miss that. Hey, just because he loved the guy didn't mean he couldn't enjoy
watching him get his butt kicked by a girl - a blond, Republican girl at that.
When they arrived at Sam's office, the door was closed but the blinds were
open. They could both see Sam organizing paper on his desk. Josh knew that
meant that he was struggling with something he was writing - he only organized
paper when he was thoroughly frustrated with himself. But of course that was an
observation he couldn't easily share with Ainsley -- she knew, but flaunting it
in her face was something he and Sam had agreed not to do, so he wisely kept
his mouth shut. He would only wish that he could have remembered that
particular resolution a few moments later when, for reasons he would never
understand, he helped Ainsley harass Sam and accidentally let the entire junior
staff in on the status of their relationship. Though Sam continues to argue, to
this moment, that it was no more an accident than the Mary Marsh incident, or
the going to Laurie to get something on the Republicans fiasco.
Ainsley opened Sam's office door without knocking, "Sam!"
Sam was startled by the sudden intrusion and papers went flying in every
direction. He immediately began collecting them - sorting as he went. "What do
you want, Ainsley?"
"We were supposed to go to lunch, Sam. You're now almost twenty minutes late,
I'm hungry, and you aren't doing anything important," Ainsley whined. Well, she
really didn't whine, but the North Carolina twang made it sound like a whine to
Josh the Northerner and Sam the Californian.
Sam looked at his watch and gave Ainsley a vaguely distracted look, "Oh, sorry.
Let me just finish this and we'll go, okay?"
Ainsley gave him a disgusted look, "All you're doing is straightening files,
Sam. That can wait until after lunch."
"I wouldn't be straightening the files if you had knocked like a normal person
does when confronted with a closed door," Sam fired back.
"Sam, I saw you before I opened the door. You were straightening files
before I opened the door. You have to be the most obsessive person I've ever
met. I mean you were going to lunch - not leaving for the duration - why did
you have to straighten them before you left?"
Sam put the papers down with a sigh. He wouldn't get anything done until he
went to eat with Ainsley. She would just stand in his office and nibble at him
until he wanted to kill himself. He slid an arm around her shoulders and turned
her toward the door, "Let's go feed you." When they got out of his office, Sam
was somewhat surprised to see Josh lurking right outside the door.
Ainsley wasn't finished with Sam, though. "I have never met someone who is so
completely anal as you. I mean people always think I'm organized, but you take
it to whole new levels."
Sam rolled his eyes, "Yeah, well. As unbelievable as it might seem, I think
better when things are organized."
"There's organized and then there's organized, Sam. You're obsessive. You're
anal. I bet you have your spices organized in alphabetical order and your sock
drawer color coded."
"Actually, his sock drawer is a mess." And there it was - Josh had opened his
big mouth and out came an unbelievably incriminating piece of information.
Now, he could have covered for it - they had been friends forever, and it was
conceivable, though weird, that he could have seen Sam's sock drawer at some
point, but his brain must have gone on vacation - at least that's what Sam
argued based on what happened next.
They had only made it as far as the bullpen where most of the junior staff had
congregated for what Josh only assumed was their mid-day gossip fest (no one
ever said that he was particularly politically correct - he made what could
only be called stupid assumptions about the female staff all the time - he just
didn't usually feed their habit as he was about to do).
Ainsley stopped, hands on hips while she stared at Josh, "How do you define
mess?" Given Josh's well-known proclivity for chaos, this could prove to be
very interesting - not to mention useful information to use against Sam at some
as yet unspecified later date.
"Well, you know. The way most people do - a mess," Josh said completely
unhelpfully.
Sam saw the vague possibility that he could stop this runaway train of a
conversation before it got any worse, "Nice circular definition there, Joshua.
Now we know why you don't write speeches, huh?"
But Ainsley was like a dog with a bone, she was determined to get to the bottom
of this intriguing image that was Sam and his sock drawer. "Josh, I'm serious.
I mean are you talking mess for you or mess for Sam? 'Cause I would imagine a
mess for Sam is still way more organized than you would ever be."
"I mean a mess for me - it takes him like ten minutes to pick out socks in the
morning."
And there it was again. Normally, Josh was the more observant of the two of
them, and so he would have noticed the stunned silence that followed his
statement. This day, however, he was utterly oblivious to what was going on
around him because he was getting a rare opportunity to have some fun at Sam's
expense - with Ainsley, the one person he knew, aside from himself, who could
totally embarrass Sam without half trying.
Ainsley had come up with another question. "So what's it like Josh? I'm having
trouble visualizing this."
Josh was staring at her like she was nuts, "It's a sock drawer, Ainsley.
What's to visualize? It's a drawer with socks in it."
"Well yes, but I've always imagined that his sock drawer would be color coded
and his socks would be folded neatly - or you know that rolled into each other
thing that the home organizing shows advocate."
"Wait. You've been imagining his sock drawer. You know that's weird right?"
"I don't mean I've spent like hours of my life on it, but sometimes it comes
up."
"How does a sock drawer come up? I mean when?"
"Well, its come up now, hasn't it? I just, you know, sometimes wonder just how
neat he really is where people can't see it. And the most obvious place where
people won't see it is the sock drawer."
Although he was wishing the floor would just open up and swallow him, Sam felt
the need to remind them that he was there, "He is still standing right here,
you know."
"Well, yes, but you aren't particularly necessary for this conversation,"
Ainsley said.
"But they're my socks," Sam said plaintively, then wondered why he would want
to be included in this conversation that had already pretty much outed them to
the junior staff.
"Drive - they're only socks. It isn't like I'm telling her about your underwear
drawer or your night table drawer for God's sake."
Ainsley laughed, "Those drawers are messy too?"
"Well, yeah. He's got the oddest collection of stuff in the night table, too."
"Ooooh, like what?"
At this moment, Josh realized what he was saying and thought better of
revealing anymore, "Oh, you know...stuff."
This was the moment that Cathy chose to speak up, "Hey Josh - is there
something you need to tell us?" Bonnie, Ginger and the rest of the assistants
nodded expectantly. Donna was on the edge of this little grouping looking more
distressed by Josh's accidental revelation than the rest of the assistants.
Josh stared blankly at them as if he had only just realized where he was,
"Like?"
"Like how you would know about the contents of any drawer in what I can only
assume is Sam's bedroom."
It was at that moment that Josh realized where he was, what he had been saying,
and who else had heard him saying it. He was afraid, deathly afraid, of looking
at Sam. No unnecessary risks Sam had said. Somehow he didn't think teasing
Sam would qualify as a necessary risk. He was startled, however, by the sound
of Sam's laughter echoing off the walls of the bullpen. He chanced a look in
Sam's direction and saw that it was, in fact, Sam laughing, "Uh, Sam?"
"You opened this can of worms, Josh," Sam gasped out between chuckles, "now
answer the question."
Josh studied the floor for a moment, perhaps hoping it would accommodate him
better than it had Sam earlier. He then looked up and said, "We're seeing each
other, okay?" Not that he was asking for permission, more that he was asking
them to accept what he was saying and let it go from there.
The assistants all nodded - well, except Donna, who was pressing her lips
together in a thin line, but Josh really didn't notice that, and Sam assumed
that she was upset that she was finding out about this with everyone else.
***Later that evening****
"You outed us over my socks? My socks?"
"You know I wasn't really thinking about it. I was just having fun with
Ainsley."
"And we all know that's so much more important than, oh I don't know, being
discreet," Sam said affectionately.
"Okay, so in retrospect, I could have been a little less forthcoming with
information. But come on Sam, she imagines your sock drawer, don't you think
that's weird?"
"We're talking about a Republican Josh. You didn't already know she was
weird - just from that?"
"Point. So are you really mad at me? I mean I know I kind of blew a big hole in
the whole privacy thing today."
"What privacy? I don't think I have any privacy left. My assistant is sending
me e-mails that variously describe how to organize sock drawers and query the
contents of my night table. I think I could have lived the rest of my life
without e-mail like that," Sam said with a groan.
"I'm sorry - you know I didn't do it intentionally, right?"
"Well, yeah. I know - you got distracted by a leggy, blond Republican girl -
and we know how secure that makes me feel," Sam said with a sigh as he tapped
his password in to retrieve his e-mail. He opened the latest from Cathy and
groaned again, "and its going to get worse, because now Cathy's making lists of
what she thinks might be in the night table drawer. Do you have any idea how
embarrassing this is?"
"I'm sorry, Drive. I'm really sorry. Is there anything I can do?"
"Other than time travel back several hours and not say what you said today.
Nope I can't think of thing you can do to make this better," Sam said with
another sigh. "Look, I'll be embarrassed; they'll make jokes, and we'll all
move on. It'll be fine."
But Sam was wrong. There were a few things that Josh could do to make it
better, or at least to make Sam forget about his embarrassment for a bit, and
Josh proceeded to do several of them in rapidly successive order, and he did,
in fact, make Sam feel better.
And Sam was right - a few days of teasing and most of the assistants found
something else to talk about. Donna still seemed a bit tense around him, but he
chalked that up to no one telling her ahead of everyone else. He and Josh were
fine and everything else pretty much moved along the way it always had.
END