Disclaimers: The West Wing and all the familiar faces belong to the creative genius of Aaron Sorkin and to his gifted team of producers and writers. I've borrowed them because they're wonderful characters whom I would love to have as friends if they were real, but since they aren't, I'll just play with them for a little while before I return them to their rightful owners.
This is the sixth in the Roses series, which includes Afterglow, The Leash, At the Pleasure of the President, and The City by the Sea as well.
*****
Let it be known henceforth and forevermore that I, Tobias Ziegler, hate Valentine's Day. I am not alone in my dislike of this incredibly sappy excuse for women to demand extraordinary attention from the men in their lives for a 24-hour period. Some women dislike it, as well.
To be absolutely proper, I know of exactly one woman who dislikes Valentine's Day as much as I do. She did 20 years ago and she does now. In an odd twist of fate, we have been in daily contact with each other since just before Valentine's Day, 1998; today being Valentine's Day, 2002, we will be not celebrating our 5th Annual Anti-Valentine's Day Non-Celebration tonight. Before you get all Samuel Seaborn on me and try to parse that sentence, let me assure you that there are an odd number of negatives, meaning that CJ and I will indeed be not celebrating together tonight.
Alas, I cannot say the same for some of my less jaded colleagues. The President has a romantic dinner scheduled with Mrs. Bartlet – which is understandable since they are married. Sam has been prattling on about a date he has tonight; I care so much that I am not even sure of the identity of his companion.. I would care only slightly more if I thought he were tempted to go out with Carol or Ginger, but only because that would be a clear violation of the mores of office etiquette, not to mention potentially scandalous.
And speaking of potentially scandalous…Donna has roses on her desk. If I had to guess, given the tone of Josh's voice when I timed my telephonic interruption of his puerile ogling of his assistant to her opening of the card with the roses, I would say that Josh is not sure that he did not send them. I also base this on the fact that the otherwise overweening Joshua Lyman has not said word one about the flowers that (probably do not) grace Ms. Amy Gardner's desk this morning, something about which I am devoutly convinced he would be crowing were he in full possession of his faculties where women are concerned. As that has not been the case since at least the day he asked Mandy Hampton out the first time, you can perhaps see why I think Josh sent the roses.
Back to the non-celebration that CJ and I are having tonight. We have this down to a science, after years of practice. Assuming that this day remains as deathly quiet as it has been – and yes, I concede that "deathly" may not be the right word, because if death had reared its ugly head in any way, shape, or form, it would no longer be a quiet day – then CJ will leave after she puts the full lid on for the night, go home, don some kind of disguise, walk two blocks to a cab stand, and go pick up the "dine out" order at the 1789 in Georgetown. She will then take our appetizer of Grilled Quail with Sweet Potato-Corn Stuffing, gilled onions, chiles, kumquats, and lime, her Roasted Icelandic Salmon on green lentils and bacon, with parsley potatoes, cabbage, mustard and Pinot Noir sauce, and my Filet of beef bourguignonne in red wine sauce, with onions, bacon and mushrooms to my condominium, where, with any luck at all, I will be waiting scotch in hand after the dreadful meeting I have tonight with Sam and Josh about the Veterans of Foreign Wars speech. What happens after that is none of anyone's business except CJ's and mine.
*****
I will admit to being defensive when it comes to my relationship with CJ Cregg. I will even refrain from using a modifier in front of "defensive" because I know that some would say "slightly" while others might use "very", depending upon his or her perspective. I do know that in the last four years of our close association, I have come to feel about her as I do no one else – and differently than I did for Andi, which was also unique. It still is, but it is different now from when we were married, naturally. CJ and I were attracted to each other when we first met years ago, but I was already dating Andi and we never acted on that attraction. Now that I am unencumbered by a wife or a girlfriend, I find that CJ just has something that I cannot quantify, something that draws me to her as surely as a drowning man to air. Ah, you thought I would say "moth to a flame" or even, breaking the cliché, "junkie to a fix", did you not? No, both of those similes imply that the one moved is attracted to something that might cause harm, or even death. On the contrary, CJ is life to me.
CJ makes me smile more often than anyone else. Ask anyone – including CJ – how hard it is to make me smile and you will know just what a tribute that is. I rarely let anyone see how often she makes me smile; it would not do for the entire staff to know that I smile at the end of almost every press briefing, for example. Even CJ does not know because I choose not to show her how much I enjoy watching her bring down the Fourth Estate on a regular basis. Her concern for Gail also makes me smile even while I tweek her about her pet, although I confess that I would be happier if the goldfish had not been a gift from Danny Concannon. CJ's righteous anger when we – Leo, Josh, Sam, and/or I – leave her out of the loop or do something stupid that she then has to clean up makes me smile, as well, albeit after the fact. The way that she copes with the ugliness that is our life sometimes also makes me smile, occasionally through tears, as when she dealt with Rosslyn, Leo's rehab scandal, and the situation last week with Celia Walton's husband.
CJ also turns me on. The Jackal is but an extreme example of this; on any given day, just her walk – or strut, as is often the case – through the halls of the West Wing usually forces me behind my desk, or the nearest closed door, for a minute or two unless I am so focused on a mission that I do not realize that CJ has just passed. That happens perhaps twice a week. That awful I'm Too Sexy song has been under my skin since November; something else from that wonderful day when the Majority Leader bombed The Question also gets me: I really do not understand why the lines "Oh mio, oh my-o, oh Cleveland, Ohio" send me into orbit. Perhaps if I summon the visual…
Oh, yes. Now I understand why. If you do not, watch yourself say those words in a mirror – or, better still, watch someone to whom you are sexually attracted say those words.
Get it? I thought you would. The fact that I have had time to wait for you to get it is indicative of just how quiet this day has been. I am bored and anxious to be away from here, but I still have the meeting about the speech with Josh, who apparently still does not know whether he is The Rose King or not, and Sam, who has yet to say three sentences today without interjecting that he has a date tonight. Which leads me back to my point that what happens after CJ arrives at my house is no one's business but ours.
*****
I never thought that as long as I live I would ever think these words: Joshua Lyman, you are 'da man. Sam and I had been arguing over this stupid speech for 43 minutes before Josh came up with the perfect words to make sure that both the International Relations Committee and the State Department are pissed off at the administration:
We will not tolerate extremism of any kind when it leads to the violation of the basic human rights of freedom of speech, freedom of religion, education, and self-determination. Political, economic, and religious extremism are all equally intolerable and will be resisted by all freedom loving peoples whenever and wherever such injustice arises.
With that, we dissolve to the kind of male conversation that one might encounter in a locker room (without the gory details) and I bid my friends good night, escaping a third degree interrogation only because Josh has just admitted that he and Amy Gardner are no longer together and that takes Sam's attention away from me long enough for me to exit stage left.
CJ arrives at my condo just as I do. I know the person holding the 1789 bags is CJ because I am expecting her; our hope is that anyone else who may be watching will not recognize her easily in the curly blonde wig, baseball cap, baggy shirt, jeans, and big glasses. Her height is, of course, the non-variable in this equation; it is very hard for a six-foot tall woman to shrink herself. She comes inside with me and after she sets down the bags, she leaves me to set out our gourmet dinner and fix our drinks while she goes to the bathroom to remove her disguise.
When she comes out a few moments later, I almost spill my scotch. CJ is wearing her little red dress. I can make out the lines of her garters as she glides toward me; when her hand brushes mine as she takes the glass from mine, I shudder and smile, the smile that I reserve solely for her during these rare times when we are all alone.
CJ has a smile that is mine alone, too; this is the expression on her face when her cell phone rings.
As she fumbles for it in her handbag, I predict who it is and what the subject is. "It's Josh, and he's about to tell Donna how he feels."
She nods and smiles at me when she checks the caller ID, and her voice is tight from withheld laughter as she commands, "Make it fast, Josh." A pause while she listens to the voice the other end, and her face begins to show the strain of swallowing her need to giggle. "Caller ID, knucklehead. It's the 21st century. Now, what do you want?"
CJ gives me a thumbs up as she nods at the answer. "Monumentally stupid or monumentally intelligent?"
"Both," I whisper to her, and her color rises as the effort not to laugh begins to be painful.
"Don't blow it with her, Josh," CJ advises, and waits for his solemn assurance that he will finally get it right with Donna.
I get the sense, however, that Josh does not say that, because CJ gasps in surprise and tries to get Josh back on the other end even after he has obviously ended the call.
"What did he say?" I ask as I watch her put her cell phone away. She is beautiful when she moves.
"Joshua said, 'Be nice to Toby tonight, CJ.'"
I think about this for a moment. "Well, are you going to be nice to me tonight, CJ?" I allow my gaze to traverse the length of her body without hiding my desire.
"What, and change the nature of our Anti-Valentine's Day celebration?" she teases, stepping toward me with a shake of her shoulders.
I toss back the remnants of my drink. "As we do every year."
CJ smiles. "I'm too sexy for my shirt, too sexy for my skirt…"
And I remain firm in my conviction that what happens after this shall be my business and CJ's business and no one else's.