Fake Plastic Trees
(Three Tales of Ainsley Hayes Or How She Came to Hate This Administration)
Fandom: The West Wing
Disclaimer: They belong to Aaron Sorkin. For real.
Characters/Pairings: Ainsley/Sam, Ainsley/Josh, Josh/Donna
Rating: R
Word Count: 3292
Summary: It wears her out. It wears her out.
Author's Note: This fic takes place sometime during Season Two and ends with the second season finale. It's told from three different points of view at three different points of the story. I think that's all there is to know. Oh, and the song used is, obviously, "Fake Plastic Trees" by Radiohead. Go listen to it. Now. Enjoy!
( Her green plastic watering can, for her fake chinese rubber plant in fake plastic earth that she bought from a rubber man, in a town full of rubber plants just to get rid of itself.
And it wears her out, it wears her out
It wears her out, it wears her out.)
Ainsley Hayes was born on a sunny Saturday afternoon, where, despite the fact the hospital was in North Carolina and the entr'acte of the month of May was upon them, the temperature dipped below forty degrees.
At the age of five after her town's annual Fourth of July parade she told her mother she was going to be the president one day. She laughed and said, alright, I'll watch. Ainsley didn't find anything particularly amusing in the statement and when she was nine she learned how a bill becomes a law courtesy of song and dance on the television screen.
She was a cheerleader in high school, but she doesn't tell people that, because paired with the blonde hair and the big eyes it's just a little too cliché and she imagines that any respect at all she has managed to achieve will just slide back down a little and they'll picture her waving pom-poms in the air and an insipid smile on her face as she chants go, fight, win.
Her first boyfriend was the son of a senator with the word entitled echoing off his every word and action. She lost her virginity at seventeen, after the prom, like a John Hughes movie playing out without Molly Ringwald, a soft rock soundtrack and the promise of a happy ending.
She's not a feminist now and she wasn't a feminist then but she went to a school with that kind of reputation and she wore a nametag that said pariah on it. She was southern and conservative and she didn't fit in, but she never had a problem with that. She would just argue with them, proving her point in a melodic kind of way that was almost difficult to disagree with, the words flowing almost hypnotically from her lips. The school's debate team was undefeated.
(She got into Harvard Law School because of her last name and her father's connections. She doesn't care to think about this and lies instead, spouting off collegiate achievements like they might actually mean something.)
She graduated college and was sipping congratulatory champagne when her aunt approached her. Hands on her arms and smelling like Estee Lauder's tacky half sister she asked what's next for the pride and joy of the Hayes family. Ainsley told her Harvard Law and she could hear the 'tsk, tsk' emanating off the woman.
She told Ainsley that she was too pretty for law and better yet for politics and she should do something else, something more practical and maybe settle down with a nice man.
Ainsley leveled her with a stare and all but sang the reasons why she was better than that, why she was ready for this.
Years later she walked onto the set of Capital Beat with her heels clicking a tempo that sounded something like disapproval. They all looked like her aunt; they all looked condescending and doubtful.
This time she didn't have to give them a single reason why she was there. Her argument regarding an education bill did the trick instead.
She imagined that if she were ever to work for the White House there'd be a Republican behind the desk in the Oval Office and tax cuts would be on the menu as opposed to hikes.
Leo McGarry offered her a job and she wanted to say no, wanted to tell the man that it wasn't supposed to go like this and that she wasn't supposed to work with and work for men like himself, that this wasn't part of the plan. She was supposed to rip these people apart and knock them down a peg or two or twelve on national television and in scathing articles; she wasn't supposed to be on the inside. She wasn't supposed to be one of them.
Instead she watched the President of the United States break news of heartbreak and overthrow to an African president and she found herself transfixed, she found herself understanding for the briefest of seconds why people cheer and why people yell when they hear the name Bartlet and why and how words like heroic and great and brilliant and kind were attached to this man and his administration.
She said okay, yes, she'd work here and they led her down a stairwell into only what she can call hell, all hot and noisy and utterly bleak.
This really should have been her first clue.
She gets into a rhythm. She does her work and she does their work, and she finds herself slowly getting to know these people the rest of the country only recognizes courtesy of C-Span and CNN and bad parodies on Saturday Night Live. CJ is too serious and bound to break eventually. Toby's sense of humor got lost somewhere in an almost burgeoning onset of alcoholism and the president's idealism is bound to get him in the end. Sam is kind of sad in his earnestness and Josh is supposed to be some kind of hero because he got shot and managed to live.
They're not what she expected them to be.
She crumples the paper into a ball, tossing it without much energy behind it, and shuts her computer down.
Sam offers to buy her a drink after work. She declines.
Josh perches on Donna's desk and Ainsley leaves a memo for Sam. They talk about gasoline and the price of oil and men that blow themselves up in the Middle East and polar bears waiting on some reserve in Alaska.
"You know, it's illegal to run out of gas in Ohio," Donna remarks, all mock-stuffy-know-it-all, pen in the air, looking up at Josh.
"So, what, after they tow your car away they slap you with handcuffs and a matching fine?" His eyebrows arch in some kind of comic half-attempted incredulity and Donna shakes her head.
"I don't know. I just know that you best keep your eye on that fuel gauge thingy, because it's against the law to run out of gas."
"That's right. You're from Wisconsin, not Ohio. The whole Midwest…kind of has that tendency to blur together." Now he's got that smile that tells her and everyone else who bothers to watch that he's kidding, that he's hoping she takes the bait, that this is their shtick and it's phenomenally amusing.
"Joshua, your New England snobbery is starting to show." And they smile like they're in some commercial for Tiffany's or wedding bands or Home Depot home-decorating projects and Ainsley looks away.
It's all TVLand, His Girl Friday, Hepburn-Tracy theatrics that will probably end with someone broken down and sad instead of smiling and kissing over the ending credits.
Ainsley hums a bar of the "I Love Lucy" theme song and heads back down the stairs.
Josh asks her if she wants to join him for some beers. She says yes.
(She lives with a broken man, a cracked polystyrene man who just crumbles and burns. He used to do surgery for girls in the eighties, but gravity always wins.
And it wears him out, it wears him out
It wears him out, it wears him out.)
He thinks Ainsley is a stupid name and comes close to telling her this several times. It sounds like a last name, not a first, and there's nothing remotely feminine about it. He imagines that if he were to tell her this, she would go off on some Southern-fried tirade, explaining her familial lineage and namesakes and Josh really isn't spending time with her because he finds her particularly interesting or even a little tolerable.
It's misogynistic and everything every feminist rails on about. He's only with her (if they get to call it that) because she's blonde.
It's exactly what you think.
She drinks like she never went to college and never bonged beers or drank from a keg. She drinks it with a demure smile and he thinks it's a lie, but he falls into it with his eyes closed because if they're open he'll know exactly who she is and isn't.
Ainsley isn't his assistant. The important thing here is Ainsley is not his assistant. She's a co-worker, but not his subordinate. There is no possible, albeit false, implication of ancient gender roles, dominance and submission in a purely male versus female office performance as opposed to whips and chains and creaking leather.
If he looks at her in the right light behind the shades of a drunken stupor, and if she's sitting down, she can almost look like her. And it's enough. It's enough for now.
She doesn't know him. She doesn't know anything that makes his stomach twist or his cheeks flush with color.
(She doesn't know that two beers is enough to give him a buzz or that four equals drunk or that six is blackout, pass out, violent retching territory. She doesn't know his father is dead and she doesn't know his blood pressure. She doesn't know what he likes to eat on Thursdays or about the Joey Lucas suit. She doesn't know that sometimes he wakes up screaming and the sound of breaking glass doesn't mean a thing to her.)
He finishes his drink and already feels a little tipsy.
He fucks her and he thinks of Shakespeare. It's silly and it's empty and vaguely pretentious, but the hammering of their hips is held steady by a tempo of thoughts of betrayal and knives to the back and kings who kill for power and women who drive daggers through their own hearts.
Her legs feel too short under his hands, his palms itching for more inches to travel.
He groans her name when he comes, slow and drawn out and almost broken. Her name. Not Ainsley's.
If Ainsley thought any higher of him, she would imagine it wasn't anything deliberate.
Donna talks on the phone all morning or scrambles off in search of Margaret or Bonnie or Ginger and Josh finds himself strangely adrift. She doesn't say good morning and there never will be coffee on his desk, but there's not even a fresh pot brewing and he thinks this is defiance on her part, he thinks this is revolt and he kind of thinks he deserves this.
She appears at lunchtime empty-handed and stands in his doorway. She picks a file up off his desk and rests against the doorframe. There is silence and he watches her, waiting for her to speak.
She does.
"So, Ainsley."
She fingers the pages of a file in her hands and watches his desk instead of his face.
"Yeah. Wait, what?" He doesn't know what she means but at the same time he's sure but she can't know that he wandered home at three AM with bite marks on his shoulders and the smell of someone else on his skin. She can't know and she sure as hell can't care.
"You. And Ainsley."
"What exactly are you trying to say, Donna, while, might I add, attempting to use the least amount of syllables humanly possible?"
"Nothing. It's just…you had sex with Ainsley, right?"
He stares at her open-mouthed, slack-jawed, and this would all be kind of comical if it weren't for the subject matter and the look on her face she's trying to hide with a disinterest that just isn't there.
"I'm pretty sure you just crossed an employer-employee line right there," he grits out, telling himself that it's indigestion not guilt twisting up inside him.
She slams the file shut and turns to leave.
"Of course."
"You're pissed."
She shakes her head. "No."
"Yeah, you really are."
She smiles a smile he has never seen from her. He doesn't like it.
"I'm nothing, Josh. I'm nothing."
He shows up at her apartment, drunk. And he wonders, stumbling slightly, if you can inherit the traits of father figures even if biology doesn't connect the two men. He wonders if this is how it started for Leo and if alcoholism tastes the same as insecurities and mistakes and stale beer.
He knocks on her door, harder, and more times than necessary and when she opens the door she looks mad and sad and tired.
"What do you want?"
He kisses her. He kisses her, shock reeling through his system, shock that only intensifies as he realizes she's kissing him back.
They fuck. It's angry and it's quick and he slams her against the wall too hard and she hits the corner funny and moans and her nails leave marks on his shoulders and his neck and his pants are down before they reach her bedroom and he always thought they'd have sex in some kind of slow-motion satin sheets and romance kind of way. Not like this, not this sex on amphetamines, not sex with her on her knees and he behind her, not this disconnect.
He comes before she does and she fucks his hands, silent, and she is facing him now and he can see the anger in her eyes and he's not sure if what they're doing is revenge, penance or some kind of ill-defined truce etched in an unspoken apology. She comes and pushes him away.
He sits at the end of the bed, hunched over, head in his hands. She sits at the head of the bed, sheet around her, half-sitting up, half lying down.
"I don't forgive you," she whispers.
"No," he says. "I didn't really expect you would. I had hoped, but I didn't expect you would."
"Good night, Josh."
He knows a dismissal when he hears one.
The next day he goes to work. He goes to work to find a cup of coffee on his desk. He drinks it and it tastes a bit like the beginning.
She tells him he has a staff meeting in twenty minutes and a phone conference with some guys at the Fed at eleven and that more than fifty percent of people in the world have never made or received a phone call, can he believe that.
He tells her, yes, he can believe that. Yes. He can believe that.
Ainsley drinks tea alone at her desk in the basement. It tastes sort of like the end.
(She looks like the real thing, she tastes like the real thing, my fake plastic love. But I can't help the feeling I could blow through the ceiling if I just turn and run.)
Sam tells himself it's wrong because she's a Republican and he's a Democrat and there's supposed to be some epic divide standing between the two of them. He tells himself it's wrong because of things like front-page news stories, and men that sit on the stand and proclaim they did not have sexual relations with that woman.
He tells himself it's wrong because deep down he knows, he fucking knows though he will never dare to ask, that his best friend has already had her first. And really, it doesn't get any more wrong than that.
They eat seafood together, and he gets the lobster and she gets the surf and turf, and they make fun of her appetite and he uses big words and she uses too many. He's a WASP and she's a Southern belle and they look some kind of photogenic perfection with candlelight and white wine.
He talks about his boat and she acts like she's not impressed. They order crème brulee for dessert and she doesn't share with him. He holds doors and she says thank you and they argue about a crime bill stalled on the Senate floor.
He thinks they call this dating and he's pretty sure they call this romance. He didn't think he'd be this bored.
He sleeps with her. He's not sure what to call it, but it wasn't lovemaking and it wasn't fucking. There were no tender terms of endearment or slow kisses meant to explain emotions they don't name. It wasn't pornstar worthy and there was no dirty talk or contortionist movements on either of their part.
He sleeps with her and he wakes up next to her and it becomes a pattern, a rhythm of sorts. He takes her to overpriced restaurants and she orders too much food and they argue politely and order off the wine list and they return home and they have sex. Her toothbrush appears by his own and eventually there are no more restaurants, it's just them, at his place and it's supposed to feel like something natural.
He writes a speech and she types up memos. She is talking, incessantly, and as his fingers fly across the keys of his laptop the only thing he hears is settling.
Ainsley hears about the MS the same way the rest of the public does: bland newscaster and the words 'breaking news' and a look of mute horror twisting across her face.
Sam shows up in the doorway of her office minutes later and she tells him to go to hell. He thinks he's already there and says okay and leaves her there, alone.
(And it wears me out, it wears me out
It wears me out, it wears me out. )
The president is a liar and Leo, a former drunk. Sam mixes love with understanding and Josh is something sad, lost and pathetic. They're not the men of future history books; they're not the men of legend.
(She gets it now that they're just men, just men not gods and that the White House is as real a place as any other and just because you get to help shape the law that doesn't mean you're above it.)
She calls them cowardly, dishonest and scared. She calls them these things and she means it and maybe that's why it hurts.
Ainsley thinks she'll die in the cold, that she'll die in the South, because when it's cold where it should be warm, when it isn't what it should be, there is no way to grow and you wither and you die.
When there aren't any more hopes in a place you've only ever dreamed of, you know it's time to go.
She leaves the White House in the rain and the press corps waits, hungry, with microphones and cameras. They ask her for a statement and she stands there in the rain.
"They're human."
She tells them that they're human and her quote never appears in the papers and she slams the door of the cab and doesn't turn back around.
She doesn't say good-bye.
(And if I could be who you wanted, if I could be who you wanted,
All the time, all the time…)