LOOSE LIPS
by ardavenport
"Mr. President." C.J. Cregg sighed. "There was one other item."
President Bartlet looked up from the budget outline for the Commerce Department. They'd ended their late afternoon meeting and she'd just been going out the door.
"A reporter from Newsweek asked about an anonymous quote from a doctor attending the AMA meeting this week that the White House had squelched the sex education report for political reasons." C.J. slowly returned to the place on the carpet in Oval Office where she'd stood during the meeting. Bartlet noticed as she self consciously straightened her gray suit and brushed back a strand of shoulder length brown hair.
He lowered the Commerce Department budget and glanced at the door that Leo McGarry had just exited, going back to his office.
"My wife just spoke at that conference." The President removed his reading glasses.
"Yes," C.J. acknowledged. "The reporter didn't say that the anonymous source came from the first lady or anyone from the White House–"
"Then why was he asking us?"
"Because the report was shelved by the White House, Sir." For half a second C.J. thought about voicing her opinion about that, but she didn't; it was water under the bridge now. "And the anonymous source is supposed to be someone connected to one of the peoples who worked on the report."
"Well, that narrows it down to a few dozen people for us to hunt down and persecute," the President muttered over his desk. C.J. remained at semi-attention. The atmosphere of the Oval Office demanded formality. Especially when one was delivering possibly bad news. She kept her gaze neutrally fixed at her own eye level, just above the top of his head. The sun was going down and golden light poured in over the desk from the rooms's high windows.
"Sir, I don't think that the reporter has any more than an anonymous quote. I think he was just fishing. The First Lady wasn't mentioned- -"
"You didn't mention the First Lady in your denial, did you?"
"No, Sir." [i]What does he think; I'm a rank amateur?[/i] But C.J. wisely refrained from uttering that crack. "I just don't think that there's a story here."
"You got a question about this from a reporter quoting an anonymous congressional source last week."
"It was three weeks ago, Sir. And I checked; Congressman Bruno squashed it."
"How?"
"I believe the anonymous source works in an office in Omaha now."
"Well at least someone in this government knows what to do with anonymous sources." C.J. kept silent. The President still looked like he was looking for someone to shoot and she was still in the line of fire. "OK," he finally sighed. "It's probably nothing."
"Yes, Sir, I'm sure it is. Nothing that is," she agreed, eager to help dispel the moment of tension.
"Thank-you, C.J." he looked up again, dismissing her. She noted with relief that he now looked as if he'd lost the desire to hunt down a target to punish and would settle for punishing himself. Not being overly opposed to any self-flagellation her boss might indulge in, C.J. excused herself from the room, closing the door on her way out.
Alone in the Oval Office, President Bartlet stared at the closed door. Then he looked over at the door leading toward his Chief of Staff's office. He lowered his head and let his shoulders drop. It was after 5 PM. Maybe if he finished the Department of Commerce budget and added the Department of Energy and Education to the pile, and if he could stretch things out with a few late meetings and some phone calls, he might not be able to get back to the residence until well after 9 PM.
* * * * * * * * *
It was actually about 10:15 PM when he reluctantly passed the Secret Service guards outside the residence. His Chief of Staff had figured out what he was procrastinating about and had sent everyone home. There was no world crisis looming to bail him out. His protests that he hadn't retired before 11 PM since he was 12 years old went nowhere. What was the point of being president if you couldn't choose you own battles to hide from? He opened the double doors. The lights were on.
The room was deceptively friendly in warm beige and browns. The staff had put out a bowl of fresh flowers on the coffee table by the couch and chairs. Yellow and white and blue. The only lamps on in the room were by the bed. Abbey was there, half under the blankets, reading.
"Hi." She glanced up at him and then went back to her folder.
"Hi." He tiptoed toward the bathroom, taking his jacket and tie off as he went. While brushing his teeth he rationalized that the reporter's anonymous quote about the sex education report had been nothing of any importance and obviously Abbey didn't know anything about it. So, why should he stir things up? But as he left the bathroom his rationalizations reversed course. She hadn't asked him how his day was or what he was working on past 10 PM when he came in. There had to be a reason for that. He knew he was going to have to ask her about what she'd said at the AMA conference.
Abbey didn't look up from her reading as he circled around the canopied bed to the bureau to change. She was wearing a pair of purple silk pajamas that his brother-in-law had given him for his birthday a couple of years ago. He could not imagine what he could ever have done to convince anyone in the world that he would wear anything like them for any reason. He'd been happily ready to toss them out, but Abbey had intercepted them on the way to the Salvation Army arguing in favor of preserving family unity and even though they were about five sizes too big for her, they were, after all, still made out of silk.
He took out the sweat pants and shirt that he generally wore to bed and sat down on a chair to change clothes. She was going to hate him asking her about the AMA conference. She was going to hate him checking up on her. He would yell. Because she had no business leaking things to the press.
She would yell back. Even though he was right, he'd still have to suffer the penalty.
And how could she possibly endanger the deal they'd made by talking to anyone about that sex education report anyway? It was bad enough that they'd had to make the deal in the first place; but having made the deal you did not make a bad situation worse by going back on it.
He pulled down the sweatshirt and glanced at the bed. Oh, dear God. She was watching him. Waiting for him to throw out the first shoe.
"Abbey."
"Hmm?" She looked back at him over her reading glasses, the picture of innocence. His sense of dread increased.
"C.J. got a question from someone in the press room about an anonymous source at the AMA meeting saying that we'd made a political deal to shelve the sex education report."
"Lilly told me."
"Abbey, you didn't talk to anybody about that report?" he hoped. The pause that came before her answer killed that hope fairly quickly.
"I might have said a few things about it to Doctor Hamblin and Teeza Crosley."
"Abbey, how could you do that?"
"I didn't say anything about any political deals and they didn't even ask. We just had a few words about some things that need to be worked on."
He threw his hands up and irately stood.
"Abbey–"
"Yes, Jed, I talked about it. Five of the people who worked on that report were there. I couldn't just pretend it didn't happen–" She took her reading glasses off.
"Abbey–"
"I didn't say anything in public. We just talked about some problems I had with it at a–"
"Abbey!"
They faced off, he not caring that he'd shouted a bit louder than he'd intended. How could she possibly be so naive? He really had a right to expect better from her on something like this. She stared back at him, her back straight, the lights on the night stands on either side of her.
"How could you possibly think that anything, Abbey, ANYTHING, you would say about that damned sex education report wouldn't get out?" He began pacing in front of the bed, working himself into a fine rage.
"I couldn't just ignore–"
"The only answer to any inquiry, Abbey, is no comment! You know how important this is–"
"Oh yes, it's much more important to placate an ignorant, narrow-minded political faction in Congress determined drag us back to the 50's, because, of course, back then nobody ever got pregnant or - - "
"That is not what this is about! You know what they were going to do to Leo if we didn't give them something." He advanced, pointing his finger at her. "And you agreed to it, Abbey, you agreed. You said that we probably wouldn't have been able to get it into a curriculum anyway, that it was too explicit, so we might as well let the Republicans have it." He repeated the rationalizations that he had heard from her at the time.
"You'd already made the deal before you ever brought it to me. I didn't exactly have a choice."
"So, you'd rather be testifying in front of Congress about Leo's rehab?" He turned his back on her, going back to pacing. "I'm sure they'd love to get you on T.V. TESTIFYING about any of times we dried Leo out, or how well you knew the doctor who first prescribed the vallium, or maybe about you helping to get him into rehab. YOU agreed," he verbally pinned her down. "You agreed that we had to shelve it. And that means, Abbey, that means not talking about it!"
She clutched her folder and glared back at him, obviously not willing to give up any ground event though she had to know that he was right. He broke eye contact first, turning away to contemplate the flowers. Yellow and red and blue.
Now he was faced with one of the monstrous inconveniences of being President of the United States. He couldn't go down to the kitchen or go outside and stand in the snow to work off his anger. The "kitchen" was three stories down and a small army of protectors would snap to attention and follow him as soon as he left the residence.
"Gail and Teeza promised that they wouldn't say anything–"
"Oh, well we all know how far that goes in this town." He circled around back to the bed, sensing victory.
"I'll have Lilly deny it–"
"No, you won't say anything about it. There has already been too much said about this already."
"- - If anybody asks about it," she finished, trying to hang on to a little bit of moral ground.
"No, Lilly or anybody else on your staff won't say anything about this, except to refer it to C.J. This is political and I've got enough alligators on my end of the building without this."
Abbey drew her knees up, resting her folder on them; her face in shadow, she didn't look back up at him. He stood over the bed, waiting for a more suitable concession.
"There are some people who are still pretty pissed off that we haven't done anything with it. I just wanted to tell them know that there were other reasons for not releasing it. There are almost no teaching materials in this report - -"
"Abbey - -" he groaned. She was trying to save face.
The White House had empaneled the committee to review sex education in U.S. schools soon after he had taken office. The First Lady had added her credibility as a parent and a medical doctor in applauding the project. He had to admit that the report that the committee had finally produced was medically accurate though excessively detailed, making it a perfect target for the conservatives to want to bury.
"You couldn't possibly teach a high school class from it without getting sued," she went on from her place among the pillows. "It doesn't say anything about what you're supposed to do with a teenager, or god forbid, a teacher who 'reacts' to the subject."
"There was a teacher's guide in it," he shot back. The few press questions about where the report had gone to had included inquiries about the First Lady's reaction to the White House's silence about it. Up until now, they had managed to stonewall them.
"Two pages! And all they said was that the girls should be taught by a woman instructor and the boys should be taught by a man."
"What's wrong with that?"
"What if the instructor or any of the students are gay?"
"Now you want to make it complicated. And you're trying to change the subject." He pointed again and advanced on the bed. "Abbey we are done with this. We are done reviewing it. We are done talking about it - -"
"So, we're just going to bury this thing?"
Bartlet raised his hands, not wanting to enlarge the fight. "Until after the elections."
"Well, I guess I just don't see why we can't even quietly discuss it now."
"You tried discussing it and it took exactly one day to find it's way into the press."
"This is ridiculous - -"
"Yes, Abbey, it's ridiculous. It's called politics!"
He stood there in bare feet, in a Notre Dame sweat shirt and drawstring pants, in front his own bed arguing his case before his wife who was seated under the canopy like a judge in a high court. A declaration of ridiculousness seemed entirely appropriate to him. She lowered her eyes.
"I'm sorry, Jed. I guess I should have known better," she finally admitted without looking up at him.
"Yes, you should," he agreed. He stood there a moment, breathing in his victory. She ignored him. Only a little deflated, he went to his side of the bed, pulled back the sheets and blankets and climbed in. He made himself comfortable and turned off the light on his side of the bed.
She picked up her reading glasses and opened her folder again.
"Are you going to be up reading long?"
"Oh, a bit I suppose." She turned a page. "I don't ever remember you complaining about reading in bed before, especially this early."
"Hmph." He rolled over, facing away fr0m her, not willing to be baited into an argument that she might have a chance of winning.
"I didn't know you were such a prude, Jed. How could you cross off the word 'penis' in this thing?"
He opened his eyes, rolled over and sat up. "What are you reading?"
"The report." She turned another page. "You crossed off a lot of words, Jed. I never noticed you having a problem with any of these things before." She sat there, on her side of the bed, the light on the other night stand behind her, and causally continued to read an exceedingly liberal sex manual for teenagers.
Where did you get that?"
"Mrs. Landingham gave it to me."
"Don't you have your own copy?
"I wanted to see your notes on it."
He peered over at the pages, trying to see which part she was looking at. "You knew I was going to ask you about this," he said a bit suspiciously.
"I told you. Lilly told me about it." She sighed. "I'm really sorry it got out, Jed. I thought I could at least discuss it with someone without causing an avalanche." She looked down at the section on the historical development of the relationship between dating and cars in the U.S. She felt her husband slide over toward her.
"How sorry?" he asked, his warm breath on her hair. He nudged close enough to her so that he could tell that under the sheets and blankets, she wasn't wearing the bottoms of the purple silk pajamas she had on. She felt his arm slide behind her back and she took off her glasses. She turned her head toward him. They were nose to nose. His hand caressed her thigh.
"Well, Jed. I told you that the problem with this thing is that you can't real it without thinking - -" He gave her a long, slow kiss; his hand found hers and he claimed her glasses and the report. She pressed closer to him, her hands sliding under his sweat shirt.
"This isn't about thinking, Dr. Bartlet," he said, with a touch of eagerness in his voice.
She slid down on the pillows as he reached over her.
Bartlet missed the night stand with the report and the reading glasses, but he did manage to turn the light out.
* * * * END * * * *
Also posted on tf.n: 23-July-2008
Disclaimer: West Wing is owned by whatever entities own it; I'm just playing in their sand box.