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Giselle 
Classification: Post-ep for "Ways and Means" 
Summary: He didn't know how to lift her up, how to make her a creature 
of the air. 

*** 

The story, ironically, hadn't spread to the one person who would have 
found it funniest. While the others were mocking Josh for having 
wanted to be a ballerina, the woman who really had been one wasn't 
playing the Swan Queen or Juliet, but rather La Cenerentola, 
Cinderella, stuck among boxes of the metaphorical cinders of a 
Presidency going up in flames. 

Josh remembered finding out about her hidden talent. The conversation 
had begun in the mess when CJ mentioned that the President was 
attending a performance of the San Francisco Ballet at the Kennedy 
Center. 

"Did you ever dance, CJ?" Josh had asked, knowing CJ's predilection 
for tripping the light fantastic. 

"Not like that. I never had a chance to study ballet." 

"I did," Donna had piped up, gesturing grandly with her styrofoam cup. 
"I started when I was five, and I got to be pretty good. I went to 
Interlochen on full scholarship when I was fourteen, and again when 
I was fifteen." 

"So why aren't you doing it for a living instead of letting Josh abuse 
you?" CJ had inquired while Josh huffed into his chicken salad 
sandwich. 

"By the time I turned sixteen, I was five-foot-ten." She and CJ had 
exchanged knowing, sympathetic glances. "It's one thing to be taller 
than the guys when you're in flats, but on pointe - it was just too 
much." 

Of course Josh hadn't exposed his own preschool peccadillo, not then, 
because they hadn't been subpoenaed and accused and hunted yet and he 
still had some dignity to guard. But today it had slipped, and Sam had 
managed to spread it like a Wyoming wildfire throughout the White 
House. 

On an earlier, drunken night he had seen one of Donna's scrapbooks, 
filled with yellowing photographs of teenaged Donna in fluffy tutus, 
with various crowns on her long, golden hair. Had seen her in blues 
and greens and deepest blacks, but there was one gauzy white gown that 
had emphasized what was, even then, the ethereal sadness in her 
elegant limbs. 

"What's this?" he'd asked, pointing to the picture of her, all alone 
against a backdrop of dead papier-mache trees and styrofoam 
tombstones. 

"Giselle," she'd replied, miraculously tucking those long legs under 
her as she passed Josh a cup of much-needed coffee, and since he 
hated it when people knew something he didn't, he never asked 
about the story. 

"So, Sam," he asked his friend now that it was dark and Donna had 
vanished, returned, and vanished once again in a cloud of gloom, 
"CJ called me Giselle. In front of Leo, she called me Giselle." 

"You really didn't think I could sit on that good of a story, 
did you?" 

"Nah." Josh looked out the window even though there was nothing to 
see but the endless blackness of a DC night. "But who's Giselle?" 

"A Wili." 

"A Whatee?" 

"Josh." Sam leaned back in his desk chair. His face was an unhealthy 
white, his eyes bleary from the reading and writing and 
'rithmetic of impending disaster. "Giselle was a poor girl who 
attracted a prince. He toyed with her affections and when she found 
out she'd been deceived, she died. She became a Wili." 

"And that's where you lost me." 

"Wilis were the ghosts of young girls. Specifically, young girls 
who loved to dance, and even more specifically were jilted 
before their wedding day." 

"Well, that's charming." 

"Not really. So the guy felt lousy and went to her grave, where the 
Queen of the Wilis pronounced that he must die as did all men 
who deserted innocent girls - by forcing him to dance all night 
until he died of exhaustion." 

"This just gets worse and worse." Josh stopped twirling his pen and 
slumped, morosely, with his head in his hands. 

"Not really," Sam said again, in a slightly brighter tone. "Giselle's 
spirit stood by him through the night and he survived." 

"But she's still dead." 

"Yeah, there's that." 

"Great. And people take little girls to see that story?" Josh lifted 
his head. "Donna danced that once. I saw pictures." 

"She still dances, down at the gym. When things get stressful." 

"She must live there these days." 

"Considering what she looked like when she got back from dinner, I'm 
willing to bet she's there right now." Sam got up, stretched, and 
inclined his head toward the door. "I'm going to the mess for coffee. 
Want some?" 

"I'm good. Thanks. But I'll take a little walk." Josh got up and 
followed Sam to the stairs, then headed off in the direction of the 
gym. 

There was a window, glowing with mysterious yellow light, and Josh 
peered inside. Donna was there, in a faded green leotard and pale 
pink tights, her hair done in a haphazard bun with tendrils falling 
around her face like feathers. She was using a dumbbell rack as a 
barre. Effortlessly she extended one leg to the barre and slid down 
and back, bending over until her forehead touched her knee, 
then she stood up and began to dance. 

There was music in her head, or in her heart, for her steps were 
measured and rhythmic as she rose in tattered satin toe shoes. 
Rising, falling, her long, perfect arms embracing the air then 
spreading like birds' wings. So different from workaday, 
awkward Donna . 

As a boy he'd laughed when he and Joanie went to the zoo and watched 
ducks and swans waddling on dry land. "They're not land animals," 
their grandfather had said as he rolled stale bread into little 
balls to throw to the birds. "They don't make sense on land. 
You have to see them in the water." 

And so it was with Donna, whose body seemed utterly graceless when 
she walked but was so, so richly beautiful as the dance continued. 
She was humming to herself as she glided across the floor. 
Deceptively delicate, spun glass with an unbreakable core. The usual 
clatter of toe shoes was absent as she shifted her weight expertly, 
and her slippers whispered against the wood. 

Josh pushed the door ajar, glad that Donna did not hear the creak 
of the old hinges or the slight gasp he made when she took a few 
running steps and leapt into the air, seeming to hang there like an 
ornament for an impossible second. 

She didn't hear him, but she saw him in the mirror, and she let out a 
gasp of her own. Never turning around, she just said his name, 
softly. "Joshua." 

He stood behind her, close enough to feel the warmth from her body, 
close enough to catch a note of her faded perfume through the salty 
sweat. Whatever she'd done tonight hadn't gone well - he could tell 
this from the defeated slump of her shoulders when she stood still 
and became a reluctant, breathless land animal once again. She didn't 
speak to him, just looked into his eyes in the mirror, backwards Josh 
and Donna, them but not really them, the glass reflecting 
only because there was something dark behind it. 

He took a few steps forward and put his palm at her waist. When she 
went onto her toes she was taller than he, and when she leaned against 
him, her arms outstretched, supplicating, he found he could almost 
close his hands around her 
narrow waist. 

For one instant he pressed his cheek into her neck, soft and moist 
against his day-old stubble, and if he'd known how, he'd have lifted 
her the way he'd seen dancers do, but he was even more helpless in 
her element than she was in his. He didn't know how to lift her up, 
how to make her a creature of the air. Instead he gave her a brief 
kiss on the cheek as she lowered her arms and came off her 
toes with a dull thud. 

"Sleep in tomorrow, Donnatella" he whispered into her hair. She nodded 
in silence as he backed away toward the door, and through the 
little window he saw her, a wraith, watching in the mirror as a 
highborn man took his leave. 

*** 
END 
*** 
Hugs, wine, and chocolate to Ryo and Morgan for advice and 
reassurance above and beyond. 

Feedback is welcome at Marguerite@operamail.com.