Zing
CJ/Toby – Eleanor, this is for you
Rating – Young Teen
Spoilers through end of series
Not mine, never were, never will be, but they consume my soul
Feedback and criticism always welcomed
A little something based on what will be happening any day now in the world of baseball
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Early evening May 28, 2006; the West Wing
"He did it."
CJ Cregg looked up from her desk to see Toby Ziegler standing in her door.
"A three-two pitch to center field, bottom of the fourth, one man on."
"Toby walked over to the couch and plopped down with a sigh.
"The Babe is now number three."
CJ stood up, fetched two beers from her refrigerator, and handed one to Toby as she sat down next to him on the couch. The two friends opened the bottles and sipped several times.
"Did he really say that he was just interested in breaking Ruth's record, that he wouldn't go after Aaron's?"
"I don't know," Toby answered. "And I'm not sure I care."
"Well, they say records are meant to be broken; firsts are meant to be seconded." CJ waxed philosophical.
"I know. It's just that it's one more thing to slap me in the face with the fact that nothing lasts, nothing remains – baseball records, West Wing comrades, brothers - ." Toby sighed again. "At least David wasn't alive to see it."
"David cared about the Yankees as much as you do?"
"Even more. He knew all the records – Babe, Mantle, Maris. Of course, we were just kids that summer of '61 when the boys broke the single season home run record, and following baseball was a rite of passage for a boy in the City. I think the divisions between the teams, and, remember, it was only a few years after the Giants and the Dodgers moved to California, were deeper than any based on religion or national origin.
"I remember how sad David was in April of '74 when Aaron broke the record, but I also remember how upset he was that people were threatening Aaron because of his race."
"I understand that a lot of Southerners were mad that a black man was breaking a white man's record," CJ said. "How terrible it must have been for Aaron's family."
"It wasn't just Southerners, CJ. Hymie Bintmann, lived on the floor above us, I remember him being so pissed. That damned shvartzer'. Over and over, that's what he said. Hymie Bintmann, whose father had a tattoo from Bergen-Belsen on his forearm, who came this close," Toby held his thumb and forefinger a millimeter apart, "to never existing at all because of German hate, hated someone else because of ethnicity. David just couldn't bear it. My brother was so special, CJ. He didn't deserve what G-d gave him to bear."
CJ put her arm around his neck and pulled his head against her shoulder.
"I know, I know. Nobody does, Toby."
Marry me, CJ.
Toby started, then breathed a sigh of relief as he realized he hadn't spoken aloud. Not that the idea was a totally bad one. It was just one that couldn't be put into words for another seven months and three weeks. Not until the two of them were free of this office, not until CJ was no longer his boss. What would she say, he wondered. Surely she knew how special she was to him, how much she meant to him. In spite of Andy, in spite of all the other women, she had never been taken out of his heart.
The last two standing, or rather, sitting, CJ thought. True, there were others, like Cliff and Kate, who came to help. True, there were the assistants and the staffers – Ed, Larry, Bonnie, Ginger, Carol – who had been there since the beginning. But of that initial band of comrades, only she and Toby were left.
They had given so much of themselves for so long – witness their being here in the office on Memorial Day weekend, working on the nation's business – that they would probably go bonkers when the President left office. She could just see her and Toby at their wits' ends, not knowing what to do with themselves, like those married couples who drive each other crazy in retirement.
Married. To Toby.
She supposed it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world. Lord knew that they shared many of the same values. She cared for him and she knew he cared for her. Physically, she knew she could make it work. Over the past thirty years, she had come to know her body, to know what it needed for satisfaction, and to know how to communicate that knowledge to the man in bed with her. She had also learned how to read what a man needed; combined with what she had been taught, she knew she could make Toby happy. Granted she didn't feel that special zing with him, but she probably had used up her quota of zing, between Paul, Danny, and Simon. She had walked away from the first out of fear and from the second out of honor; fate had pulled her away from the third. And maybe zing was overrated. After all, it had been a long, long time since she was twenty and experiencing personal intimacy and caring for the first time, as she had been with Paul. With Danny, it had never moved beyond kissing, and with Simon, only the barest taste. Maybe zing was only for the young.
Of course, nothing could happen right now. If a relationship between a female Press Secretary and a male White House reporter was forbidden fruit, so too would be one between a female White House Chief of Staff and a male subordinate. However, come January 20, 2007, perhaps she and the one friend who had never betrayed her, never let her down, could shift their relationship to a different plane. Who knows? Maybe zing could be cultivated.
In the meantime, she needed to be friend to her friend.
"Toby, the Yankees have survived much in their storied history. I'm sure that there will be new heroes, new records, and new glory for the boys in pinstripes."