The overstuffed easy-chair was the most comfortable seat she'd had in weeks, but it still reminded her of her usual window position on the Santos plane.
After fifteen minutes of sitting in the unfamiliar quiet, staring at windy tree limbs and scudding October clouds from the fifth floor of the Capitol Grand, Donna decided that it was time for shower and bed. Wherever Josh Lyman was, he wasn't knocking on her door, and there were too many unknowns to sift through to make further figuring worthwhile.
Most likely, Josh had simply been taken aback that she'd made an unambiguous gesture in public. Slightly overdrawn, true, but nothing else was getting through. And Edie was just being helpful as ever, assuming she was saving Donna a trip back downstairs after forgetting her key on the table. But she'd seen his face, and knew the message was received.
So why didn't he call?
She surged to her feet, impatient, and glared at her cellphone as she walked past the anomymously white standard-issue desk into the anonymously white standard-issue bathroom.
She unzipped her toilet bag with a hard tug and began rummaging. Chamomile shower gel was made for nights like these.
Maybe she should give him the benefit of the doubt. Days on the campaign trail were long, brutal, and mentally and physically crushing, in any time zone, and she could hardly fault him for not wanting anything more complex on his plate. She knew it would take time, but how much? And what on earth did he want, really?
She doubted he was even aware of the mixed messages he sent her every day. I miss you like crazy. I'm still mad as hell at you. I'm in over my head, help me. You're the only one I trust. You left me. I'm seriously impressed. I'm seriously turned on. We can't do this. I want you and to hell with everything else. Busy now, sorry. Political messages he could whittle and spin to a fine point in his sleep. Personal, not to say romantic messages, were a foreign language for him, occasionally emerging broken and sputtered in abject need.
Maybe it was enough that they'd both been semaphoring like mad that they were just overjoyed to be close together again, seeing each other every day, having each other to depend on. And truly, one hot unscheduled kiss (Oh, God. It's you. It's you.) tragically interrupted, wasn't much grounds for an invitation to come up and see her sometime.
About a dozen unnecessary, carefully concealed little touches and glacier-melting looks between them, since then, made her believe differently. Despite everything.
Maybe he was consulting counsel right now, she thought, smiling grimly into the bathroom mirror as she dragged a comb through her hair. Forming a contingency plan and fixing plausible deniability on the matter of all outstanding and future sexual overtures by one Donnatella Moss of Madison, WI. Establishing proof that she had, in fact, pounced on Mr. Lyman while he was still disoriented and half asleep, and had responded to his congratulatory, collegial embrace in an untoward fashion.
She was combing out hair by the bucketload, something that hadn't happened since she left Wisconsin and Roy the second and final time. At least she wasn't having crying jags. When this was all over, she should call Marcie again and set up some appointments; meanwhile she should pick up some more B12 and try to remember to do her long deep breathing in the shower and on the bus.
If she was experiencing symptoms of chronic stress, she couldn't begin to think how Josh was faring. His trousers hung too loosely, and he scrubbed at his eyes when he thought nobody was looking – both side effects of the Venlafaxin, which was a relief, but he probably wasn't taking any further care of himself beyond a pill with his first coffee of the morning.
So far, his yelling had stayed within acceptable limits for the army captain of a dark-horse Presidential campaign. Maybe she should remind him about his breathing exercises, though.
She'd wanted to simplify things for them, and provide, at least, a foundation for them to pull each other through the campaign and beyond. Not through sex, necessarily, but if they were headed that way anyway, even with all the forgiving and talking that still needed to happen, why couldn't they agree to figure it out together instead of apart?
Why, why, why? It wasn't that easy and she knew it. She had been precipitate and Josh was probably going to stay up all night working on Santos' Defense Spending plan because of it.
Who was the bigger idiot tonight?
She had to keep her head completely in the game. AP and Reuters, even the BBC and Canadian Press were calling 2006 the closest US election in decades, and she could count the dependable states on one hand. She was doing well, developing her role as Spokesperson as the need grew, but she wanted to be more proactive. She and Lou should test-film some segments on the occupation of China and Kazakhstan in advance of next weeks' conferences and scrums, if the rumors of increased action were true.
CJ wouldn't tell her anything that wasn't already in the news, though she occasionally phoned her with her illicit critiques of her work now and then, generally reminding her that the press trusted her, and that couldn't be taught. She needed to capitalize on that. Make sure to seem warmer and less careful. The face of the future, of hope. Unlike Vinick's polite, coiffured, pearl-toting spokesdroid.
Donna sighed, watched a handful of fuzzy blonde combings drift from her hand into the toilet, and began undressing.
She was tangled in her pantyhose when Josh chose that moment to phone. Nobody else called when she was stuck in her underwear, or standing on a chair changing a light bulb, or had just sunk up to her neck in the bath, or fallen asleep. Nobody but Josh.
"Hey." She hobbled over to her phone, tried to sound casual, and winced.
"Hi. It's Josh."
"Yes. Josh. Hi." Tug. Rip. Shit.
"You – ah, you left…Edie was too quick, she thought you'd just forgotten your, your key, and I was just…I tried to…"
Oh. Either the evening had just gotten rosier, or Josh was a nervous wreck.
"Josh, are you stuttering?"
"I am, yes, a bit. But I'm – I'm okay."
She got it. There was a pause.
Donna sat on the edge of her neatly-made, empty, large, cold bed and smiled. She was tempted to ask if their relationship was about to change, but stopped herself. If he was tripping over his words in his attempt to be clear, if he wasn't filtering his responses through frat-boy backchat while the other 99% of his brain clicked away on key messages and tracking polls, this might just work out.
"Was it too much?" she asked softly. "Tell me, Josh."
"No! No, I was…I am…I'm flattered, just a bit shocked, but not really, and I'm…making a total hash out of this. Can I start again?"
"You want to come over?" she asked automatically, just as she'd done a hundred, a thousand times before, from her apartment, from hotel rooms all over the country.Come over and let's scheme, let's plan, let's talk till the sun comes up. Only, this time there was a key involved, an offer laid down. She bit her lip.
"Donna, it's not that I don't want to. God, I want to. You gotta know that's not it."
She slumped. "Okay."
"It's just all so crazy now, and we're so close, and it's – you're too important, Donna. Believe me, I'm amazed I'm not right outside –"
"You're not? Why aren't you?" she managed. He deserved something for that.
He chuckled sleepily down the phone and her ear got warm and tingly. "'Cause I'm in bed," he replied, answering several of her unspoken questions with a smile in his voice. "Because it occurred to me maybe it was a good thing Edie was too quick, because I wouldn't have had time to think. Donna, you just threw me for a loop for a second. I know it would have been…but our timing's been way off for the past, I don't know, year. We just got back to being us again, sort of, and then I was an idiot after…this morning, and I really, really– " he swallowed.
I can't lose you again, either, she thought back at him. And wasn't that, in all honesty, what had propelled her to make the jump herself?
"Yeah, my timing probably wasn't the best, either," she admitted.
He gave a short laugh. "I'm just saying let's not not get into this now, okay?" he asked, sounding so like her old Joshua that her throat tightened. "Just a little while. Can we do that? My head's in a million places. You don't have a job lined up somewhere far away as soon as the campaign's over?"
"Josh, as soon as the campaign is over, and I mean as soon as the campaign is over…"
"You know what? How about we both just sleep on that."
"Okay," she grinned. "I'm pretty used to that by now."
"You're slaying me here, you know that."
There was a moment when she could have whispered, "Joshua, come over." and he would have. He wouldn't wait for the elevator and he'd be walking through her door within two minutes.
"Goodnight, Joshua," she said.
"Goodnight, Donnatella."