Disclaimer: 'The West Wing' and all related materials are the sole property
of Aaron Sorkin, NBC, and various other capitalist strongholds. Fight the
power, but if you want to pay for this, pay them, you fool.
Author's Note: Another delve into the realms of Angsty!CJ. I don't know what's up with Toby in this one, but hey, who ever does?
URL: http://www.angelfire.com/bc2/allcanadiangirl
Marvellous Thing
By BJ Garrett
The first time is this dark-haired girl standing in her doorway, soaking wet, asking CJ if she can use her phone to call a locksmith.
"I lost my backpack--with my keys in it--and the super's not home. Do you mind?"
Bottomless brown eyes peering up at her hopelessly through dripping bangs. Beads of water on an earful of silver.
"No, of course not, come on in."
Before entering, the girl takes off her black leather jacket and shoes, leaving them in the hall. "Don't want to mess up your carpet," she explains with a smile. "I hate it when people drip in my place."
CJ realises the girl must live in the building. "Yeah. I don't really mind. I don't entertain or anything."
The yellow pages make a comforting thud on the hall table. The girl pushes her dark hair back from her face, unknowingly careful not to tangle it up in the crust of earrings.
As the girl bends over the phone book, CJ crosses her arms, curls her toes in her staid plaid slippers. She is dying, inexplicably, to ask the girl how she lost her backpack, which unit she lives in, how long she has lived at the Henry Adams, what she does for a living, where she went to school, what she likes to eat.
"So, how.well. How long have you lived here?"
Running her finger down the page, the girl laughs. A short peal of low bells. "Two years, give or take."
She doesn't look old enough to drive, let alone live on her own. CJ smirks at herself. The girl is probably thirty. "I'm not around much, so--"
"Yeah," the girl says slowly, turning her head to look closely at CJ. "Yeah, you work at the White House, right?"
"Yes, yes, I do."
And it couldn't be a thing. The high-level of flirting she had been working herself up to falls out from under her feet. She uncurls her toes. No thing. She works at the White House.
A bead of water rolls down the side of the girl's face, like a tear.
"Let me get you a towel. You're, um, you're dripping."
Not looking away quick enough to hide a cheeky smile, the girl nods. "That would be great. Thanks."
While CJ pads around the corner to the linen closet, the girl says, "My name's Marv Kenner, by the way."
CJ pauses with her hand on the stack of towels. Gold, sapphire, ruby, emerald. Her decorator is fond of jewel tones. She pulls the blue towel off the pile, upsetting the others in the process. "Marv?" she asks, pressing the closet door shut again before the whole works tumbles out.
Laughing again, the girl peeks down the short hall. One hand holding onto the corner of the wall, periwinkle nail polish. "Yeah. Marv."
"Well, I'm CJ. Hi."
Their eyes meet with shared amusement and cannot break apart. Her small, well-formed fingers curve into the thick terrycloth as CJ slowly passes her the towel.
"Hi. It's nice to meet you," the girl says quietly, unfolding the towel and turning away. She flips it over her short, slick hair and rubs, walking back towards the phone.
"I've seen you on tv a few times, I think. What is it you do, exactly?"
She wants to ignore the question, but that would be rude. There's no thing. Why does it matter if she's rude? Their eyes will never meet like that again. They will never touch. There's no thing.
"How did you lose your backpack?" she replies instead, as if she hadn't heard the question.
The girl fixes wide eyes on her as she emerges from the hall and takes the cordless phone from the wall-mount.
The girl wants to ask again, she wants to think CJ didn't hear the question. But maybe she too realises there can be no thing and blushes, taking the phone.
"I left it on the bus."
It is said with a self-deprecating laugh.
The locksmith is called, the dark-haired girl leaves, casually dropping her unit number as she ties her runners in the doorway.
The swing of her wet leather jacket sends a droplet of water onto the back of CJ's hand.
Closing the door behind the girl, she leans against it, raising her hand to her lips. She licks the moisture off, eyes closed. Imagining the thing that couldn't be a thing.
Then there's the quick eye contact when they randomly pass in the hall. The girl smiles tightly, clutches her Post and a sheaf of mail to her chest, and retreats to her unit, dodging CJ on the stairs.
It's all conjecture, she notes, stepping slowly down to the street, dropping her feet to the stairs heavily. Although it would have been perfect.
It would have been perfect, because they live in the same building. There would have been no incriminating photographs or eye-witness accounts of evening entrances and early-dawn exits, clothes unchanged, hair rumpled, face un-done but glowing with that glow that things give.
It would have been perfect, she thinks wistfully as she knocks on the girl's door, a pint of Ben & Jerry's Cherry Garcia in one hand and a bottle of Merlot in the other.
It would have been a perfectly marvellous thing. She grins to herself at her pun.
"Hi," the dark-haired girl says as she opens the door.
She is wearing a black silk robe. The tie is dangling, the ends puddling on the hardwood floor. She is backlit, and the shadows thrown tell CJ the girl wears nothing underneath.
"You girls move fast these days, don't you?" she asks, holding out the ice cream and wine.
Not attempting to hide her cheeky smile this time, the girl winks elaborately. "We move as fast or as slow as the situation requires," she replies, accepting the gifts.
"Come in, take your coat off."
CJ is not wearing a coat, and she chooses to hear the invitation as 'take your clothes off.'
Later, CJ recalls that they don't talk very much when they're alone together. Like talking is something they can do when they have to pretend to be normal, outside the building, when they don't have to seize every moment to caress and kiss and move together in the darkness.
They go out for dinner at non-intimate restaurants. They 'run into each other' at a bar near the Capitol; CJ introduces her to Toby and Josh. Sam is meeting with the campaign staff.
Talking is something they do around others, to mask the way they look at each other without meaning to, the way CJ opens the girl's beer for her, watches closely when she gets up to leave.
"I've got a meeting in the morning," she says regretfully, pulling her black leather jacket over her arm, hoisting her new backpack higher on her shoulder. Silver earrings and bracelets and fasteners gleam in the warm overhead light.
They all nod commiseratingly. No doubt they have meetings too, but now is not the time to think about work.
CJ's fingers curl on the table as Josh asks, "What do you do, anyway?"
Two green bottles stand naked in front of him, their labels coiled on the scarred tabletop like apple peels. He has a delicate system.
With a discordant laugh, the girl shakes her head. "I'm in graphic design, mostly."
Josh nods, gestures up and down the girl's figure. "All the black, yeah."
The girl rolls her eyes at CJ, smiles graciously at Toby. "Yeah. It was nice to meet you both," she says instead of goodbye, disappearing into the crowd. Polo shirts and sweaters cannot obscure the aura of suitedness that hangs over these people.
Toby shifts in his seat. "Graphic design." Lifting his glass, he adds with raised eyebrows, "Mostly."
CJ gives him an annoyed look. "Yeah. Graphic design, mostly. What's your point?"
He shrugs, swallowing, licking his lips as he puts the glass down. "Nothing." The bottom grates on the table as he turns it slowly. "Nothing whatsoever."
Looking out the foggy window, CJ nods at the girl's shadow as it jaywalks, adding a little hop as she avoids being run over by a cab. No thing.
She watches the girl dress at six am, belting her baggy black slacks, pulling a huge charcoal sweater on over her lacy pink bra.
"Keep 'em guessing," the girl says of her underwear, with a wink, carefully picking up the first hoop for her ear.
While the girl was sleeping, CJ had leaned over her, counting the earrings lined up on the night table. Thirteen: four studs, nine hoops. All silver. She counted again, mouthing the numbers. Thirteen. After checking a third time, she fit the palm of her hand over the smooth pale skin of the girl's shoulder and curved her body around the girl's back, pressing her nose and lips to the back of her neck, loving the silky blackness of the hair against her cheek.
At six am, she watches the girl put the earrings back in, watches her knot her trouser socks together and put them in her pockets, watches her slide her feet into thick black shoes, watches her shoulder her backpack and take a last stock of the open bedroom.
"Well," the girl says lightly, coming up to the other side of the breakfast bar. "I'll see you later."
CJ nods silently, dispassionately, and goes back to her grapefruit.
"Okay, then."
The girl's clean voice is dulled by uncertainty. CJ wants to tell her she counted her earrings by moonlight as she slept. To tell her that it was stupid to introduce her to the guys last night, that she has been stupid herself for letting this happen. It wasn't supposed to be a thing.
The big shoes make clunking noises on CJ's tiled foyer, pause at the door as the girl turns back the deadbolt and slides the chain free.
"I'll call you," CJ says, loud enough to be heard in the foyer, she is sure.
The door latch clicks softly as it is closed.
"What *the hell* was that?" Leo asks angrily, slamming her office door. "What did you just say?"
She puts a hand to her forehead, as if feeling for a temperature. Illness would be a good excuse. A better one would be that she doesn't really care anymore, but it would only be an excuse for the thing. "I don't know, Leo. But you're about to tell me."
"We were doing well," he continues, like she hasn't spoken. "Our numbers were going up--up, CJ, up, they were *yeasty*, for God's sake--and then you had to say that. What is wrong with you?"
"I'm pretty sure you're dying to tell me that, too."
"I thought whatever happened with Haiti was fixed, CJ! You said it was good. You said you were fine. You had a sit-out, and then you were fine. But now this. I don't know. CJ, I don't know."
She leans on the sill of her window, rocks once, twice on her heels. Turns back to Leo with a contrite expression. "I don't know either, Leo. I--I'm sorry. Of course I'm sorry. I think it goes without saying that *I'm sorry.*"
He stares at her for a long time.
He jerks the door open and goes out, not closing it behind him.
She sits back on the window sill, watches the hallway outside her office.
The slip is fixed. The Press Corps respects her, they know her, they understand that mistakes are sometimes made, and sometimes by her. But she is coming up to the line she cannot cross with them. She knows when it happens, she won't even notice. It will have become commonplace for her to hit walls and scream at herself in the shower and receive long, disappointed looks from Leo. She won't even notice.
Toby meets her outside the Briefing Room.
"Bruno hired a contractor for the stuff."
"Yeah?"
She doesn't care, but she tries.
"Yeah. Webber Follmer Visual. You know them?"
She thinks for a moment.
"No. Should I?"
There are so many things she should know and doesn't.
She doesn't know how Marv takes her coffee--if Marv drinks coffee--where she went to school, where she was born, if her parents are still together, still alive, if she has siblings. She doesn't know if Marv has ever had a thing before. She knows they have a thing now.
It became a thing when she started wondering why the girl has thirteen holes in her left ear and none in the right.
"No," Toby says, standing outside her office door.
He walks away, and she stares after him.
"I thought, hey, you know, maybe we should stay in tonight," the girl says lightly. "I mean, we *hardly ever* stay in." She sticks her pink tongue out and crosses her eyes goofily.
CJ smiles. "Yeah."
The girl drops julienne peppers and baby corn and mushrooms into a black Teflon wok and stirs them vigourously. Her body on the other side of the island is shrouded in steam.
"Plus, I wanted to cook for you. I never cook."
No. It's always take-out picked up on the way home from work. CJ notes to herself that she means back to her apartment, her home, not the girl's apartment. Even though the paper bags and folded containers always end up in the girl's trash can.
"Yeah."
The girl peers at CJ through the steam, smiling mysteriously. As she turns the heat down, the steam dissipates, and CJ realises it is a nervous smile.
"What's up?"
She shrugs. "Nothing. Here, see if this is tender." A tiny bright yellow cob of corn is held out to CJ with bamboo tongs.
Leaning forward, she blows on the offering, pursing her lips, watching the girl. Slowly, she takes the very tip between her teeth, watching the girl's face flush, her eyes darken from chocolate to coffee.
"I'm not hungry," they say at the same time, and laugh deeply into the steam as they reach for each other.
There are so many threads every day that must somehow be worked together, connected, it is not hard to see how she missed this one.
"You didn't know your neighbour worked for Webber Follmer?"
She looks at Toby sceptically. "Should I have?"
After a while, he says, "No."
"What neighbour?" Sam asks, curious. "What's going on?"
"Nothing," CJ and Toby say at the same time, and then glare at each other.
There are a lot of things she doesn't know, she speculates, jaywalking to the stairs at the Henry Adams. Passing her key through the lock, she scoffs. A lot of things. Too many things. Every thing.
As she opens the door, Marv looks up from her mailbox, the evening Post and a sheaf of mail clutched to her chest.
"The firm I work at was contracted to do the billboards and internet ads for the campaign," she says after a moment, all in a rush, staring blankly into CJ's eyes.
The door swings silently shut behind her. "Yeah."
"I was going to tell you the other night, but everything was so..." she casts her eyes up and down CJ, around the perfect tile border of the entry. Finally she shrugs, the Post bumping her chin. "I didn't want to wreck it by introducing a conflict of interest into an already--problematic, um--"
"Thing," CJ supplies, shrugging too.
The girl smiles weakly. "Yeah. Thing."
The last time is this dark-haired girl standing in her doorway, looking over her shoulder down the hall, watching her brother lug a supposedly two- tonne box of books to the van outside.
"Well, I guess," the girl says, looking down at her hands.
The fingers are splayed wide, as if she is waiting for CJ to put something in them.
"Yeah.... Sure."
She can't think of anything she might have to give back. She doesn't think she owns anything of a value equal to the past two months.
"It's not," the girl begins again, sagging her weight onto her right leg. "It's not. I mean.... I'll see you later."
She turns to go, pushing her hands deep into the pockets of her goldenrod courduroys. She wears no black, her shirt is deep green, and over that she wears a russet sweater. Her runners are white with blue stripes.
Her hair, though, is wet black slate, her eyes are a grimy black mud of pain.
CJ reaches out, fits her palm over her shoulder, feels the unsure warmth of the girl under the sweater, under the shirt, under the sorrow.
When Marv turns her head and meets her eyes, CJ says, "There was no thing."
Marv bites her lip, her eyes begin to dissolve into wide brown rivers.
"I mean, it wasn't a thing. But. It wasn't less than a thing, either."
Rolling her head away in defeat, the girl whipped a hand out, grabbing CJ's off her shoulder and quickly pressing her lips to it.
"Yeah," she whispers, watching CJ's hand fall back to her side. "No thing."
And CJ closes the door, leans against it, presses her hand to her mouth, tastes grape lip gloss and tears.
Feels nothing. No thing.
End.
Author's Note: Another delve into the realms of Angsty!CJ. I don't know what's up with Toby in this one, but hey, who ever does?
URL: http://www.angelfire.com/bc2/allcanadiangirl
Marvellous Thing
By BJ Garrett
The first time is this dark-haired girl standing in her doorway, soaking wet, asking CJ if she can use her phone to call a locksmith.
"I lost my backpack--with my keys in it--and the super's not home. Do you mind?"
Bottomless brown eyes peering up at her hopelessly through dripping bangs. Beads of water on an earful of silver.
"No, of course not, come on in."
Before entering, the girl takes off her black leather jacket and shoes, leaving them in the hall. "Don't want to mess up your carpet," she explains with a smile. "I hate it when people drip in my place."
CJ realises the girl must live in the building. "Yeah. I don't really mind. I don't entertain or anything."
The yellow pages make a comforting thud on the hall table. The girl pushes her dark hair back from her face, unknowingly careful not to tangle it up in the crust of earrings.
As the girl bends over the phone book, CJ crosses her arms, curls her toes in her staid plaid slippers. She is dying, inexplicably, to ask the girl how she lost her backpack, which unit she lives in, how long she has lived at the Henry Adams, what she does for a living, where she went to school, what she likes to eat.
"So, how.well. How long have you lived here?"
Running her finger down the page, the girl laughs. A short peal of low bells. "Two years, give or take."
She doesn't look old enough to drive, let alone live on her own. CJ smirks at herself. The girl is probably thirty. "I'm not around much, so--"
"Yeah," the girl says slowly, turning her head to look closely at CJ. "Yeah, you work at the White House, right?"
"Yes, yes, I do."
And it couldn't be a thing. The high-level of flirting she had been working herself up to falls out from under her feet. She uncurls her toes. No thing. She works at the White House.
A bead of water rolls down the side of the girl's face, like a tear.
"Let me get you a towel. You're, um, you're dripping."
Not looking away quick enough to hide a cheeky smile, the girl nods. "That would be great. Thanks."
While CJ pads around the corner to the linen closet, the girl says, "My name's Marv Kenner, by the way."
CJ pauses with her hand on the stack of towels. Gold, sapphire, ruby, emerald. Her decorator is fond of jewel tones. She pulls the blue towel off the pile, upsetting the others in the process. "Marv?" she asks, pressing the closet door shut again before the whole works tumbles out.
Laughing again, the girl peeks down the short hall. One hand holding onto the corner of the wall, periwinkle nail polish. "Yeah. Marv."
"Well, I'm CJ. Hi."
Their eyes meet with shared amusement and cannot break apart. Her small, well-formed fingers curve into the thick terrycloth as CJ slowly passes her the towel.
"Hi. It's nice to meet you," the girl says quietly, unfolding the towel and turning away. She flips it over her short, slick hair and rubs, walking back towards the phone.
"I've seen you on tv a few times, I think. What is it you do, exactly?"
She wants to ignore the question, but that would be rude. There's no thing. Why does it matter if she's rude? Their eyes will never meet like that again. They will never touch. There's no thing.
"How did you lose your backpack?" she replies instead, as if she hadn't heard the question.
The girl fixes wide eyes on her as she emerges from the hall and takes the cordless phone from the wall-mount.
The girl wants to ask again, she wants to think CJ didn't hear the question. But maybe she too realises there can be no thing and blushes, taking the phone.
"I left it on the bus."
It is said with a self-deprecating laugh.
The locksmith is called, the dark-haired girl leaves, casually dropping her unit number as she ties her runners in the doorway.
The swing of her wet leather jacket sends a droplet of water onto the back of CJ's hand.
Closing the door behind the girl, she leans against it, raising her hand to her lips. She licks the moisture off, eyes closed. Imagining the thing that couldn't be a thing.
Then there's the quick eye contact when they randomly pass in the hall. The girl smiles tightly, clutches her Post and a sheaf of mail to her chest, and retreats to her unit, dodging CJ on the stairs.
It's all conjecture, she notes, stepping slowly down to the street, dropping her feet to the stairs heavily. Although it would have been perfect.
It would have been perfect, because they live in the same building. There would have been no incriminating photographs or eye-witness accounts of evening entrances and early-dawn exits, clothes unchanged, hair rumpled, face un-done but glowing with that glow that things give.
It would have been perfect, she thinks wistfully as she knocks on the girl's door, a pint of Ben & Jerry's Cherry Garcia in one hand and a bottle of Merlot in the other.
It would have been a perfectly marvellous thing. She grins to herself at her pun.
"Hi," the dark-haired girl says as she opens the door.
She is wearing a black silk robe. The tie is dangling, the ends puddling on the hardwood floor. She is backlit, and the shadows thrown tell CJ the girl wears nothing underneath.
"You girls move fast these days, don't you?" she asks, holding out the ice cream and wine.
Not attempting to hide her cheeky smile this time, the girl winks elaborately. "We move as fast or as slow as the situation requires," she replies, accepting the gifts.
"Come in, take your coat off."
CJ is not wearing a coat, and she chooses to hear the invitation as 'take your clothes off.'
Later, CJ recalls that they don't talk very much when they're alone together. Like talking is something they can do when they have to pretend to be normal, outside the building, when they don't have to seize every moment to caress and kiss and move together in the darkness.
They go out for dinner at non-intimate restaurants. They 'run into each other' at a bar near the Capitol; CJ introduces her to Toby and Josh. Sam is meeting with the campaign staff.
Talking is something they do around others, to mask the way they look at each other without meaning to, the way CJ opens the girl's beer for her, watches closely when she gets up to leave.
"I've got a meeting in the morning," she says regretfully, pulling her black leather jacket over her arm, hoisting her new backpack higher on her shoulder. Silver earrings and bracelets and fasteners gleam in the warm overhead light.
They all nod commiseratingly. No doubt they have meetings too, but now is not the time to think about work.
CJ's fingers curl on the table as Josh asks, "What do you do, anyway?"
Two green bottles stand naked in front of him, their labels coiled on the scarred tabletop like apple peels. He has a delicate system.
With a discordant laugh, the girl shakes her head. "I'm in graphic design, mostly."
Josh nods, gestures up and down the girl's figure. "All the black, yeah."
The girl rolls her eyes at CJ, smiles graciously at Toby. "Yeah. It was nice to meet you both," she says instead of goodbye, disappearing into the crowd. Polo shirts and sweaters cannot obscure the aura of suitedness that hangs over these people.
Toby shifts in his seat. "Graphic design." Lifting his glass, he adds with raised eyebrows, "Mostly."
CJ gives him an annoyed look. "Yeah. Graphic design, mostly. What's your point?"
He shrugs, swallowing, licking his lips as he puts the glass down. "Nothing." The bottom grates on the table as he turns it slowly. "Nothing whatsoever."
Looking out the foggy window, CJ nods at the girl's shadow as it jaywalks, adding a little hop as she avoids being run over by a cab. No thing.
She watches the girl dress at six am, belting her baggy black slacks, pulling a huge charcoal sweater on over her lacy pink bra.
"Keep 'em guessing," the girl says of her underwear, with a wink, carefully picking up the first hoop for her ear.
While the girl was sleeping, CJ had leaned over her, counting the earrings lined up on the night table. Thirteen: four studs, nine hoops. All silver. She counted again, mouthing the numbers. Thirteen. After checking a third time, she fit the palm of her hand over the smooth pale skin of the girl's shoulder and curved her body around the girl's back, pressing her nose and lips to the back of her neck, loving the silky blackness of the hair against her cheek.
At six am, she watches the girl put the earrings back in, watches her knot her trouser socks together and put them in her pockets, watches her slide her feet into thick black shoes, watches her shoulder her backpack and take a last stock of the open bedroom.
"Well," the girl says lightly, coming up to the other side of the breakfast bar. "I'll see you later."
CJ nods silently, dispassionately, and goes back to her grapefruit.
"Okay, then."
The girl's clean voice is dulled by uncertainty. CJ wants to tell her she counted her earrings by moonlight as she slept. To tell her that it was stupid to introduce her to the guys last night, that she has been stupid herself for letting this happen. It wasn't supposed to be a thing.
The big shoes make clunking noises on CJ's tiled foyer, pause at the door as the girl turns back the deadbolt and slides the chain free.
"I'll call you," CJ says, loud enough to be heard in the foyer, she is sure.
The door latch clicks softly as it is closed.
"What *the hell* was that?" Leo asks angrily, slamming her office door. "What did you just say?"
She puts a hand to her forehead, as if feeling for a temperature. Illness would be a good excuse. A better one would be that she doesn't really care anymore, but it would only be an excuse for the thing. "I don't know, Leo. But you're about to tell me."
"We were doing well," he continues, like she hasn't spoken. "Our numbers were going up--up, CJ, up, they were *yeasty*, for God's sake--and then you had to say that. What is wrong with you?"
"I'm pretty sure you're dying to tell me that, too."
"I thought whatever happened with Haiti was fixed, CJ! You said it was good. You said you were fine. You had a sit-out, and then you were fine. But now this. I don't know. CJ, I don't know."
She leans on the sill of her window, rocks once, twice on her heels. Turns back to Leo with a contrite expression. "I don't know either, Leo. I--I'm sorry. Of course I'm sorry. I think it goes without saying that *I'm sorry.*"
He stares at her for a long time.
He jerks the door open and goes out, not closing it behind him.
She sits back on the window sill, watches the hallway outside her office.
The slip is fixed. The Press Corps respects her, they know her, they understand that mistakes are sometimes made, and sometimes by her. But she is coming up to the line she cannot cross with them. She knows when it happens, she won't even notice. It will have become commonplace for her to hit walls and scream at herself in the shower and receive long, disappointed looks from Leo. She won't even notice.
Toby meets her outside the Briefing Room.
"Bruno hired a contractor for the stuff."
"Yeah?"
She doesn't care, but she tries.
"Yeah. Webber Follmer Visual. You know them?"
She thinks for a moment.
"No. Should I?"
There are so many things she should know and doesn't.
She doesn't know how Marv takes her coffee--if Marv drinks coffee--where she went to school, where she was born, if her parents are still together, still alive, if she has siblings. She doesn't know if Marv has ever had a thing before. She knows they have a thing now.
It became a thing when she started wondering why the girl has thirteen holes in her left ear and none in the right.
"No," Toby says, standing outside her office door.
He walks away, and she stares after him.
"I thought, hey, you know, maybe we should stay in tonight," the girl says lightly. "I mean, we *hardly ever* stay in." She sticks her pink tongue out and crosses her eyes goofily.
CJ smiles. "Yeah."
The girl drops julienne peppers and baby corn and mushrooms into a black Teflon wok and stirs them vigourously. Her body on the other side of the island is shrouded in steam.
"Plus, I wanted to cook for you. I never cook."
No. It's always take-out picked up on the way home from work. CJ notes to herself that she means back to her apartment, her home, not the girl's apartment. Even though the paper bags and folded containers always end up in the girl's trash can.
"Yeah."
The girl peers at CJ through the steam, smiling mysteriously. As she turns the heat down, the steam dissipates, and CJ realises it is a nervous smile.
"What's up?"
She shrugs. "Nothing. Here, see if this is tender." A tiny bright yellow cob of corn is held out to CJ with bamboo tongs.
Leaning forward, she blows on the offering, pursing her lips, watching the girl. Slowly, she takes the very tip between her teeth, watching the girl's face flush, her eyes darken from chocolate to coffee.
"I'm not hungry," they say at the same time, and laugh deeply into the steam as they reach for each other.
There are so many threads every day that must somehow be worked together, connected, it is not hard to see how she missed this one.
"You didn't know your neighbour worked for Webber Follmer?"
She looks at Toby sceptically. "Should I have?"
After a while, he says, "No."
"What neighbour?" Sam asks, curious. "What's going on?"
"Nothing," CJ and Toby say at the same time, and then glare at each other.
There are a lot of things she doesn't know, she speculates, jaywalking to the stairs at the Henry Adams. Passing her key through the lock, she scoffs. A lot of things. Too many things. Every thing.
As she opens the door, Marv looks up from her mailbox, the evening Post and a sheaf of mail clutched to her chest.
"The firm I work at was contracted to do the billboards and internet ads for the campaign," she says after a moment, all in a rush, staring blankly into CJ's eyes.
The door swings silently shut behind her. "Yeah."
"I was going to tell you the other night, but everything was so..." she casts her eyes up and down CJ, around the perfect tile border of the entry. Finally she shrugs, the Post bumping her chin. "I didn't want to wreck it by introducing a conflict of interest into an already--problematic, um--"
"Thing," CJ supplies, shrugging too.
The girl smiles weakly. "Yeah. Thing."
The last time is this dark-haired girl standing in her doorway, looking over her shoulder down the hall, watching her brother lug a supposedly two- tonne box of books to the van outside.
"Well, I guess," the girl says, looking down at her hands.
The fingers are splayed wide, as if she is waiting for CJ to put something in them.
"Yeah.... Sure."
She can't think of anything she might have to give back. She doesn't think she owns anything of a value equal to the past two months.
"It's not," the girl begins again, sagging her weight onto her right leg. "It's not. I mean.... I'll see you later."
She turns to go, pushing her hands deep into the pockets of her goldenrod courduroys. She wears no black, her shirt is deep green, and over that she wears a russet sweater. Her runners are white with blue stripes.
Her hair, though, is wet black slate, her eyes are a grimy black mud of pain.
CJ reaches out, fits her palm over her shoulder, feels the unsure warmth of the girl under the sweater, under the shirt, under the sorrow.
When Marv turns her head and meets her eyes, CJ says, "There was no thing."
Marv bites her lip, her eyes begin to dissolve into wide brown rivers.
"I mean, it wasn't a thing. But. It wasn't less than a thing, either."
Rolling her head away in defeat, the girl whipped a hand out, grabbing CJ's off her shoulder and quickly pressing her lips to it.
"Yeah," she whispers, watching CJ's hand fall back to her side. "No thing."
And CJ closes the door, leans against it, presses her hand to her mouth, tastes grape lip gloss and tears.
Feels nothing. No thing.
End.