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SPOILERS:  The Women of Qumar.
DISCLAIMER:  Aaron Sorkin owns these kids. 
SUMMARY:  a girl who couldn't choose between the
shower or the bath - Tori Amos
THANKS:  To Jo for bringing the Molly and the D&L, and
to Morgan for bringing the snark and, of course, the
summary. :)




Of Bubbles Bursting 
Ryo Sen




It was the bathroom that sold her on the townhouse.

Well, the bathtub, to be specific.  The large,
modernly-equipped-yet-artfully-old-fashioned ceramic
bathtub.  Sweet bliss.

She'd had money, of course.  She hadn't owned the
house in Los Feliz--that honor belonged to her
bank--but she'd paid enough on it that the sale gave
her a nice cushion.  The upside was that upon her
arrival in D.C., she'd had enough money to buy a
townhouse in Georgetown.  The downside was that her
new job left precious little time for house-hunting.
 
And so CJ had called Josh's realtor and given her a
price range, basic instructions ("Nothing that's, I
don't know, a primary color or ugly in any way") and
one important requirement ("Find me a bathtub to die
for").

At six feet even, CJ did not fit easily into your
average tub.  Her knees stuck up out of the water,
knobby and cold and covered in goose bumps.  That, or
her entire torso was above water.  Neither situation
being conducive to relaxation, CJ had turned up her
nose at almost three dozen townhouses before she laid
eyes on the opulence of this deep, sculpted, oversized
tub.

She'd made an offer on the spot, which Toby called
hasty and she preferred to think of as decisive. 
After all, the small kitchen and guest room with too
few windows were of little consequence to her; she
couldn't remember the last time she'd cooked at home,
and her next overnight guest had damn well better not
be staying in the guest room.

But none of that mattered while she was engulfed in
bubbles, tension seeping from her frame.  That tub
kept her sane; in the midst of one particularly
heinous day, she'd taken a long lunch (73 glorious
minutes) and fit in a 20-minute soak.  (Though he
didn't know it, Josh owed his continued existence to
that emergency bubble bath.)

Over the years, CJ had perfected the art of the bubble
bath.  First, a tip she'd picked up from Donna, the
best bubble bath was, strange as it sounds, Johnson &
Johnson's Lavendar & Chamomile for Sensitive Skin. 
Second, a glass of wine.  Chardonnay, because the reds
didn't help with her stress headaches.  Third, music. 
Usually classical, sometimes jazz (Brubeck or maybe
Parker).  Fourth, her cellphone.  She was, after all,
the White House Press Secretary, though she sometimes
fantasized during her bubble baths about being a
glassblower up in Vermont.  Perhaps a needle-pointer
(though she thought there was probably a better word
for that occupation; no doubt Toby would know it, but
she'd never ask him) in West Virginia somewhere.  It
was never the same, but the one quality all of her
bubble-jobs shared was a lack of stress.  

Tonight, it was a violinist.  How hard could that be?
she thought.  So what if she'd been unable to master
the piano, despite her "perfect hands"?  The thing had
88 different keys!  A violin had only four strings. 
CJ figured it'd be quite a relaxing life, toting that
small case to various stages and playing beautiful
music for hours.

She sank lower into the tub, noting with an absent
sort of curiosity that her skin was flushed a deep
pink from the heated water.  Of course, she thought,
frowning, concert violinists had to wear formal wear. 
Too binding, she decided, and three-inch heels were
not at all stress-free.

CJ closed her eyes and allowed the water's warmth to
seep into her skin.  Slowly, slowly, her shoulders
began to relax, her muscles soften.  She ran two
fingers lazily across her stomach, just enjoying the
slide of wet skin.  

Maybe that's why she enjoyed bubble baths so much; the
pure sensuality of the heat and the water and the soft
light and the scent of candles and the quiet sound of
water moving, of bubbles bursting.  At some point, she
was transformed from an overly analytical, walking
thesaurus of spin into a full person, aware of her
entire body, her entire mind.  Her stress,
necessarily, melted slowly away.  At least until the
phone rang.

And it always rang.

Tonight it was Toby.

"Toby, I'm busy."

He hesitated for just a moment.  "What are you doing?"
 His tone was almost accusatory, like she'd somehow
surprised him a little and he disapproved.

She considered "accidentally" dropping the phone into
the tub, but figured that instead of shorting out, it
would end up killing her.  "Press Secretary Dies Nude
in Tub" was really not the headline she wanted for her
obituary.

"If I'd wanted to share what I was doing, I would have
said 'Toby, I'm busy crocheting.'"

"Crocheting?"

"I could crochet if I wanted to, Toby." 

"Of that I have no doubt." 

It caught her off guard sometimes, his strange
compliments.  She didn't know how to talk to him like
that, which usually meant she got irritated.  "Why are
you calling me?"

"I wanted to make sure that--"  He stopped, started
again, "that you weren't listening to NPR."

CJ frowned, shifting a little to ease the pressure on
her shoulder blade.  "Is that reverse psychology of
some kind?"

He chuckled, just a little.  "No."

"Okay," she answered, reaching for her wine glass. 
She didn't feel like puzzling him out tonight.  She
really wanted to lie there in her tub, overheated and
floating and a little lightheaded from the wine and
the sweet smell of scented candles.  

"Good," Toby said too quickly.  "I have to go.  I have
a--thing." 

CJ swallowed a fast, nearly choking on her wine. 
"Hold on, there, Toby."  She thunked the glass down
onto the lip of the tub.  "You can't just say
something that odd and then hang up."

"Why not?"

Though he wasn't there to appreciate it, she gave him
an exasperated look.  "Because.  It's rude."

"And since I am the soul of social grace--"

"Toby."

"CJ."

"You're ruining my relaxed evening."

He sighed.  "I was trying to keep Bob Edwards from
doing that."

She smiled despite her irritation.  He could be quite
unintentionally sweet sometimes.  "Are you going to
tell me what Bob's up to?"

"Only if you stop calling him Bob."

"It's his name, Toby.  Which is besides the point. 
Are you going to tell me?"

"I'd rather not."

"Toby--"

"Seriously, CJ, don't worry about it."

She drained the last bit of wine in her glass. 
"You're impossible.  You called me in the middle of my
bubble bath to tell me not to listen to--"

"Your what?" Toby interrupted.

CJ eased a lock of hair back into its binding and
tried to come up with a way to convince him he'd heard
wrong.  "Nothing."  Smooth way to extricate myself
verbally from an undesirable conversation, she
thought, good thing I don't do that for a living.

"You're taking a bubble bath right now?" Toby asked,
his voice strangely hushed.

CJ sighed.  "Yes."

"Huh."

"Yes.  I take bubble baths, okay?  I love bubble
baths.  I firmly believe that's why my half of the
species is much less uptight than yours.  Bubble baths
are relaxing, dammit!"

"Sounds it," he remarked.

Determined to prove him wrong, she slouched back down
into the water, sending little shock waves careening
into the ceramic sides of the tub.  "I was perfectly
relaxed until you called with your big, cryptic
secret."

He paused.  "Cryptic actually means secr--"

"Oh, shove it, Toby."

"Funny you should use that turn of phrase," he
commented.

CJ's shoulders snapped to attention.  "Why do you say
that?"

Toby sighed.  "Remember last week when you told me--"

"Hang on," CJ ordered, sitting upright to reach for
the portable radio perched precariously on the
counter.

"Don't bother.  The story's over."

"How did you know I was--"

"I can hear the--"  Toby cleared his throat.  "The
water."

"Oh."

"Yeah."

It was strangely intimate, the fact that Toby could
hear her bathwater as it swirled around her.  CJ was
flushed again, whether from the heated water or the
situation, she couldn't say.  "What story?"

"There's a protest."

"A protest?"

"Yes."

"About the arms deal with Qumar?"

"Yes."

CJ turned that over for a moment, savoring it like a
piece of Swiss chocolate.  "Huh," she murmured.

"Yes," Toby said again.

Something in his voice, something muted, said that he
wasn't telling her the whole story.  

"Hey, Toby?"

He sighed, knowing what was coming.  "Yeah?"

"Did anything I said last week regarding the draconian
treatment of women in Qumar lead you to believe that a
group of sane, compassionate people protesting our
indefensible sale of arms to Qumar would make me
upset?"

"No."

"So there were counter-protestors," she guessed.

"A few."

"And Bob Edwards talked to them?"

"Yes."

CJ considered that.  "Were they pro-military or
pro-Qumar?"

"Mostly the latter."

"Son of a bitch," CJ muttered.  "Toby, tell me--"

"Some were Qumari émigrés who--"

"Excuse me?" CJ interrupted, sitting up again.  She
was so focused on the conversation that she didn't
feel the tendrils of water slipping down her back. 
"Male or female?"

"CJ--"

"Oh, you have got to be kidding me," CJ rubbed her
suddenly throbbing temple with dripping fingers. 
"Qumari women were protesting the protest?"

"Yes."

"On what grounds?" she demanded.

"They feel the sentiment of the protest was
anti-Qumar."

CJ snorted indelicately.  "Ya think?"

"CJ--"

"Toby, anti-American protests in Palestine aren't
about American citizens, not really.  They're about
the objectionable foreign policies of the American
government!"

"I know."  

He did know.  She knew he knew, but she couldn't stop.
 "And these Qumari women--women who are over here
enjoying the freedom to dress how they chose, to
worship how they choose, to assemble, dammit, without
male chaperones and protest the other--Toby, how dare
they--"

"CJ, it's not that simple."

"It is," she insisted.  The magic of the bubbles, the
candle, the wine--they fled, and she was an
ineffectual woman sitting in a pool of rapidly cooling
water.  She slumped back, hissing when her back met
the cool ceramic.  "It should be."

Toby let the silence stand for a moment.  "I know."

"It used to be, Toby," she insisted, her voice quiet. 

"It did."

"Ten years--Hell, three years ago, I would've been
there, Toby.  At the protest."

"I know."

"The original one," she explained, unnecessarily. 
"Not the--"

"CJ."

She sighed.  "Yeah."

"Listen--"

"I've got to go, Toby."

"CJ."

"I know, I just--I've got to go."  She allowed herself
a small, sad smile.  "The water's cooling off."

"Ah."  He was smiling too, she could tell from his
voice.  "The perils of bubble bath-taking."

"Interesting grammar, there, Tobus."

"Go douse yourself in girly lotions or whatever it is
you do, CJ," he answered, understanding the thanks in
her words.

"Yeah."  

They disconnected, and CJ stared balefully down at the
water.  She popped the drain with her heel, grabbed
the bottle of bubbles, and reached for the spigots. 
She needed more wine, but it seemed like too much
trouble.

As the hot water replenished the bubbles, CJ sat back,
closed her eyes, and thought about her dream job. 
Maybe a protestor.  A professional protestor.  She
could help point out all the inconsistencies, all the
inequality in the system.  She could nudge things in
the right direction if she screamed loud and long
enough.

It didn't sound like a stress free job, but she
thought maybe she could get used to it.  In her next
life, CJ decided, she'd be a professional protestor.

THE END

Unbelievably, when I attended a fundraiser for the
Feminist Majority Foundation's anti-Taliban initiative
in Los Angeles in 1999, there were women protesting
outside.  The mind boggles.

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