Thursday, 6:47am
The next day, after a meager 3 hours of sleep, Josh found an intern standing in front of his office door.
"Um, good morning, Mr. Lyman." The kid said. Donna had said he was 22, but the intern's too big jacket and too big green eyes in his round, carmel colored face told Josh he probably got carded for R-rated movies. "I, um, got a note from Donna that you might need a hand today with her out sick and everything, so I just wanted to introduce myself and let you know that I'm up for doing anything you need."
"Thanks, Justin." Josh grunted.
"Um, Jason." He said. "My name is Jason. But I have a twin brother named Justin." Jason, like all the interns and junior staffers, wore his ID around his neck. He twirled the lanyard back and forth around his fingers, a nervous habit he thought no one noticed.
Josh unlocked his door, flipped on the lights, took off his coat, and started to unpack his backpack, adding to the pile of notes and memos already crowding his desk. Jason hovered in the doorway, just watching.
"Would you like some coffee or anything, Mr. Lyman?" He finally said.
"No." He said. Donna only brought him coffee once, when she thought he was going to get fired. "And call me Josh. Please. Could you get my schedule? What am I doing today?'
Jason retrieved the agenda Donna had left for him, with all Josh's appointments penciled in her perfect handwriting, with color-coded post-its and tiny curly doodles in the corners. "8am, senior staff. 11am, Head Start directors in the Roosevelt Room...um..." Jason read each appointment slowly, almost robotically, staring at the notebook the whole time. He somehow gave too much information and not enough. Donna would've had his schedule memorized, and rattled it off with biting commentary or rambling questions about each of the people he was meeting. She always reminded him which Congressmen had kids and grandkids he needed to ask about and whether the Secretary of Defense rooted for the Mets or the Yankees.
Josh poured himself more coffee and shut the door to his office to haul through the rest of the DOE documents. Just before 8, Sam came to walk with him to the Oval for senior staff.
"Did you sleep in your office again last night?" Sam asked. "You look like hell."
"What?" Josh looked down. His clothes were a little rumpled, maybe, but not stained. He was pretty sure he smelled okay but he hadn't had time to shower. "I went home...for a couple hours. I just repeated the pants, but this is a clean shirt. No crime."
"CJ said your light was still on when she went home at 2. How's the education plan coming?"
Josh sighed. "It'd be faster with another person."
"So use another person."
"The interns are useless." He muttered. He straightened his tie. "And Donna's sick. I'm doing my best to leave her alone for the day."
"Hang on." Sam grabbed Josh by the shoulder at the door to the Oval, and brushed some crumbs from the sleeve of Josh's jacket. The muffin he'd scarfed down in his car. "Golden."
"Thanks buddy."
Sam patted his shoulder.
...
For the rest of the morning, Josh was able to get through eight or ten pages at a time in between visits from Jason.
"Josh, Representative Calhoun wants to have lunch tomorrow about this bill. Should I schedule it? Is that okay?"
"Yeah tell him to call me later."
Fifteen minutes and four and a half pages later.
"Josh, you have a meeting next week with a group from the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. Which is great. You really should meet with them and listen because my brother is diabetic and it'd really help. Is that okay? The meeting? I went ahead and scheduled it."
"Sure. Put it on the calendar."
Twenty minutes and six pages later.
"Josh, Hank O'Conner is on the phone."
He managed to finish the Pacific Northwest memos.
"Senator Newberry is on the phone."
Twelve minutes and half a page later.
"Congressman Jackson is on the phone. And, um, I'm sorry but I can't read your handwriting on these notes I'm typing. What's that line say?"
Ten minutes later and Jason stuck his head in the doorway again.
"Josh, Congresswoman Jordan wants to meet next Tuesday at 4. I'm not sure what about. Is that okay?"
"Hey, Jason?" Josh laid his memo down and rubbed his eyes. "I've got 30 hours to save the future of American education. That's why I have an assistant, is to make my schedule and field my calls. If you don't know the answer to something or you don't' want to put anything on the schedule, just take a message. And let me read in peace. Please?"
"Oh. Okay, sure. Yeah." he shuffled off. "Sorry about that, Mr. Lyman."
"S'okay Jordan." Josh took a swig of his now cold coffee. "Shut the door."
He sighed and looked at his piles. This would go so much faster with Donna. She knew how to use just the right amount of deceptively sweet sass to get people off the phone, and always carried a stain remover in her purse, even when Josh insisted he could take care of himself. Hell, she'd probably have his education data bullet pointed and color-coordinated by now. He squinted at his yellow legal pad.
The door opened again. "Uh, so sorry to bother you again, Josh, but Representative Mitchell is on the phone. He said it's important."
Josh snorted. "What's important? To tell me that I'm sinful for giving poor kids an education when their families can't pull themselves up by their damn bootstraps? To scream nanny state?"
"Um, Mr. Lyman…" Jason stuttered.
"Oh, how dare minorities and poor people get a better education! They might start thinking and having ideas." Josh was talking faster now. "Ideas like voting greed and nepotism and hypocrisy out of office, voting in some people who'd rather protect the wellbeing of kids more than they want to protect some a bunch of fat old men's wallets!"
"Took the words right out of my mouth, Mr. Lyman." Mitchell's deep voice came from the phone.
Josh froze, then glared at Jason.
"I-I should've told you I'd already put it through." He said. He hurried out and shut the door.
Josh picked up the phone. "How are you, sir?"
…..
CJ returned from her 2 o'clock briefing to find Josh sitting on the floor of her office, resting his back against the couch. His suit jacket and a leaning stack of binders sat on the couch behind him.
"You look like a lost puppy dog." CJ said. She stepped over his legs to get to her own desk. He had a laptop perched on his knees, sprawled out on the floor like a teenager playing video games. "Did you get evicted?"
"Needed a change of scenery." he mumbled.
"Avoiding the phone?" She raised her eyebrows at him. "Not as bad as the secret plan to fight inflation, but you're not making yourself a whole lot of friends right now."
"Hey!" Josh said. "How was I supposed to know the phone was on? And it's not like the unholy trinity are my friends anyways."
She shook her head. "For someone so damn smart, you can be impossibly dumb." She sat down at her desk and pulled out her own laptop. "I have a lot to do but you can stay for a bit. We're running a country here, ya know."
"I'm working." he gestured to the stack of binders behind him. "I'm getting close on this Head Start thing. I'm going through the data now and I had Jason hold all my calls for the rest of the day. And then it got too quiet over there."
"Back up." CJ looked up. "Who in the world is Jason? Where's Donna?"
"Sick." he said. "I sent her home around midnight last night."
CJ smiled and took off her glasses. "No wonder you're such a mess today."
"For God's sake, CJ, I'm not six years old!" he moved his laptop and sat up straighter. "I'm one of the best political minds in the country! I don't need a babysitter."
"Calm down, bucko." CJ said. "No one's doubting your brilliance. But you know as well as I do none of us could run the country without our assistants running us."
Josh nodded. "Donna sounded pretty miserable last night." he frowned. "I hope she's okay."
"Give her a call. See if she needs you to bring her dinner. I think that's a phone call even you and James can't mess up."
"His name is Jason." Josh muttered. He gathered his work and left to call Donna.