Just Another Day at the Office

WRITTEN: May 3, 2000
DISCLAIMER The characters and settings don't belong to me, I'm only borrowing them for a bit of fun. Except for Suzanne. She's all me (literally).
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Post-ep for "Six Meetings before Lunch." This is a story I imagined about the extra who can be seen walking past Josh at the very end of the episode, and what it must be like to be her.

"Hey, Suzanne." Josh Lyman smiled warmly as he passed me in the hall.

In response, all I could do was grin stupidly. Way to be cool.

I ducked into the press secretary's outer office and sagged against the filing cabinet before my knees gave out completely. "Stupid, stupid, stupid," I chanted as I banged my head repeatedly against the metal cabinet. Why does the very sight of that man reduce me to a blithering idiot?

A furtive glance to my right revealed that Carol was looking at me curiously. I stopped the muttering and head banging before she decided to call the guys in white coats. I'm pretty sure she thinks I'm in serious need of help. Then again, she's right.

"Just remembered I forgot to do something for Toby," I offered weakly.

Carol gave me a smile of humoring the crazy but at least she was nice enough not to say anything. I dropped the file I'd been clutching on top of her in box, then fled the office as fast as I could and still retain a shred of dignity.

What did I do to deserve this curse? I love my job, but I am quite sure that working in the same building as Josh Lyman is going to be my undoing. The man is perfect: charming, attractive, smart, witty. And--oh God--when he smiles at you, it's like you're the most important person he's ever met. His eyes focus on you and he flashes those amazing dimples and the rest of the world just melts away. But then he walks off and shines that same smile on Fred the janitor and you realize it's just a gimmick. You're not really special to Josh Lyman; he just has this gift for instinctively making everyone feel like they are. It's part of the reason he's so good at his job.

It's been torture, really. And since he works just down the hall from me, I get the pleasure of taking this emotional roller coaster ride several times a day. How can you be expected to spend your whole day dealing with this kind of pressure and still hang on to your sanity? You can't.

The man could at least have the decency to be aloof, or rude, or unfriendly. If he never gave me a second look, never stopped to chat, never made a point of always saying hi to me, it would really make my life much easier. Damn him and his evil perfectness.

I was so wrapped up in my unhealthy obsession with the deputy chief of staff that I never even saw Larry coming. The next thing I knew we were crashing into each other at top speed.

"Are you okay?" he asked.

"Yeah, I'm fine. God, I'm sorry." Larry was a sweetie. Always pleasant, always friendly, always helpful. You couldn't help but like him. Larry was also desperately in love with Ginger and she didn't even have a clue. There was a lot of that going around.

"No, it's my fault," he said. "I shouldn't have come around that corner so fast."

"I should have been paying more attention and gotten out of your way."

He narrowed his eyes at me. "Are you sure you're okay?"

"Yeah, why?"

"You look kind of dazed."

I shrugged. "That's baseline for me lately."

"Anything wrong?"

"No, I'm fine. I should get back before Toby starts bellowing."

"Okay, I'll see you."

I hurried back to the safety of my desk, sank down into my chair and buried my face in my hands.

Bonnie glanced over. "What's the matter with you?"

"Nothing more than usual."

Ginger gave me a pitying look. "Salt and I were just about to go down to the mess." They'd given themselves the nicknames Salt 'n' Pepa--Ginger was Pepa and Bonnie was Salt. Very cute. "Wanna come?"

I sighed miserably. "Can't. I really need to finish this stuff for the East Asia meetings."

"Want us to bring you something?"

"Turkey sandwich?"

"You got it."

Once they were gone I was able to bury myself in work and forget a certain someone for a while. I really do love my job. I work in the White House Communications Office and aside from the obvious coolness of the White House and all, I love what I do. And most of the people around here are great.

Toby can be a challenging boss, but once you get used to him you realize he's all bark and no bite. Sam's constant cheerfulness pretty much counteracts Toby's grumpiness anyway. And I get to tell my mom that I know the president. He doesn't actually remember my name, of course, but then President Bartlet doesn't remember most people's names. But he's talked to me several times and always remembers that I'm from Texas.

Anyway, I was concentrating so hard on my notes for Sam's meeting that I completely failed to notice that Josh had wandered into the bullpen until he was right next to me.

"Is Toby still at lunch?" he asked. He was leaning against my desk. Practically sitting on it, actually.

I swallowed hard. "Yeah, but he should be back soon."

I tried to look like I was still concentrating on my work. At least I was sitting down so I didn't have to worry about my knees betraying me this time.

Josh's ass was perched mere inches from my hand. If I wanted to, I could reach right out and touch it.

Oh, how I wanted to.

"Sam showed me your outlines for the Medicare summit," he said. "Nice work."

I felt my face redden at the compliment and kept my eyes glued to my desk so Josh wouldn't notice. "Thanks," I said lamely.

"Don't tell Sam I said this," he said, leaning in closer, "but your version was cleaner than his."

Oh, god, I may actually die.

Fortunately, I was saved from that undignified fate by Mandy Hampton, who chose that moment to breeze into the bullpen. "Where's Toby?" she demanded.

"Lunch," I said. Mandy was a real nightmare in purple today. What was she thinking with that suit? She looked like an eggplant.

"When's he going to be back?"

"Probably not for a couple of hours," I replied. I saw Josh raise his eyebrows slightly, but he didn't say anything.

"How the hell long does it take him to eat lunch?"

She was in her usual fine form today. I smiled as pleasantly as I could. "He had some meetings lined up."

"Have him call me as soon as he gets back," Mandy said. "Can you do that?"

Arrogant bitch. "I'll give him the message," I managed levelly.

"Hi, Mandy," Josh piped up cheerily.

She glared at him. "I'll deal with you later." Then she turned on her heel and marched out of the room.

"Yeah, I'll be looking forward to that," Josh said as he watched her go. He turned back to me. "Why'd you have a different answer for Mandy than you did for me?"

"Toby left special instructions for her."

"Ahhh." He cocked his head in the direction Mandy had gone. "You don't like her very much."

"Don't be ridiculous."

"Come on, it's okay. You can admit it."

I just smiled and shook my head. He was totally right, of course--I couldn't stand Mandy--but I didn't think it was wise to be fessing up to something like that with senior staff. Not to mention a member of the senior staff who used to date her.

My distaste for Mandy exists on several levels. First all, she's Josh's ex and yes, I'll admit it, I'm a little jealous of their history together. I can't imagine how she could have let that man get away. She also treats him like crap, which gets my hackles up, and probably has something to do with the reason they're not together anymore. Then again, she sort of treats everyone like crap, which leads me to reason number three: the woman is just a bitch. She always manages to get under my skin. Kind of like a chigger.

Josh laughed, but before he could say anything further on the subject, Toby came back from lunch.

"You just missed Mandy," I said.

"Good." He focused on Josh. "You're on my list today. Quit flirting with my staff."

Josh gave me a sheepish look before following Toby into his office and shutting the door behind them.

It's a good thing, too, because they didn't see me trying very hard not to hyperventilate.

Flirting?

Had Josh really been flirting with me? No, don't get excited. This is Josh Lyman we're talking about, professional flirter extraordinaire. It's just a reflex with him. Doesn't mean a thing.

Besides, everyone knows Josh is secretly in love with Donna, who's also secretly in love with him, only neither of them have a clue. Remember how I said there's a lot of that going around? Don't even get me started on Toby and C.J. and the drama there.

No matter how many times Josh smiles at me or how much it sends my heart into palpitations, it doesn't mean a thing. It's just another day at the office and I'm going to do what I always do--bury myself in my work until the giddiness wears off. Office crushes are murder, people. No wonder we all work such long hours around here.