Author's Note: Takes place during the White House Pro-Am.
100 Years Ago
It was another slightly uneventful day in the White House when I noticed that CJ tensed up during her briefing. Danny had asked a question regarding Mrs. Bartlet's preference for a certain man to be the new Fed Chair and it threw her. She seemed to stammer slightly, backtrack and then Danny finally let her off the hook by thanking her and moving on. He could be so chivalrous sometimes, though I doubt CJ would see it that way.
I assumed, because of that question, that CJ would be busy and in and out of her office all day. Just as I predicted following the briefing CJ breezed into her office and picked up her phone quickly.
"Kathy is he in?" she asked.
I'd been in the White House long enough to know that she was calling Sam. When she picked up the phone and talked to Margaret that meant she needed Leo, who I had yet to meet in person. When she talked to Charlie she needed the President, whom I'd also never met aside from his speeches on television, which were quite good. Donna of course equated Josh, although she usually just shouted through the door they shared when she needed him. Talking to Bonnie and Ginger signified a need for Toby, and finally, Kathy meant she needed Sam.
"The gym? Are you serious? He's got a half percent of fat on his body," CJ said into the phone.
"No, I'll track him down," CJ said. "Thanks."
She hung up the phone quickly and was making ready to leave her office when Carol and Donna walked in with a bag of food.
"Did you forget about lunch?" Carol asked as CJ passed her.
"Yeah, there's a thing I'm trying to fix," CJ replied. "Start without me. I'm off to find Sam."
Donna and Carol exchanged a look and shrugged as she left the office.
"I wonder if Josh needs to be in on whatever she's working on?" Donna asked.
"I'm sure she'd have told you," Carol shrugged as she unpacked the salads.
I'd come to find that there were days when the women of the West Wing got together to have lunch. I assumed it had something to do with the fact that many of the staffers were male. The 'girl's lunch' was a way for the women to vent about the men and get some much deserved female bonding time. The lunches were very sporadic, but they always occurred in CJ's office. Sometimes Margaret would come by, which was always fun for me. Her orange hair mesmerized me as she moved about CJ's office. She always had such funny stories too. Leo, though I'd not had the pleasure of meeting yet, seemed to be cantankerous and hilarious all at once.
Today it seemed that only Donna and Carol were joining the 'girl's lunch' and I secretly hoped they'd stay. I got so much good gossip this way. For example, I learned at the very first girl's lunch I'd witnessed that Sam is a boxer-brief kind of guy. Apparently Donna had accidentally walked into his hotel room on the campaign trail while he was in a state of undress. If you ask me she had that memory engrained in her memory, which I couldn't really fault her for.
I had apparently been too preoccupied with thoughts of Sam in his boxer briefs because I realized that I missed the beginning of the conversation. I'd hoped I hadn't missed anything good.
"Really?" Carol said. "Bromide?"
"They slipped it into their tea," Donna explained.
"I thought guy's liked a healthy sex drive," Carol replied as she dug into her salad.
"Apparently not 100 years ago," Donna replied spreading dressing on her salad.
"Do you think it worked?" Carol asked.
"I don't think so," Donna replied.
"No, I mean, do you think the motion of the sewing machine petal was a turn on?" Carol asked.
"I have no idea," Donna laughed as she blushed a little.
"I sew you know," Carol added. "Well, not much anymore, but I used to when we first started working here."
"Oh yeah?" Donna asked. "Do you think there's any truth to the sewing machine myth?"
"It could explain my attraction to Ed and Larry," Carol confided.
"Seriously?" Donna said gapping at her.
"Not anymore," Carol grinned as she blushed too. "But when we first started working here…"
"Well which one was it? Ed or Larry?"
"Does it matter?" Carol smiled.
"Carol they're two totally different people!"
"But they do everything together I just assumed…"
Now it was my turn to blush at what Carol was implying. I'd seen Ed and Larry around before and it was true. They did seem to do everything in tandem.
"You're bad," Donna giggled. She paused for a moment as if she was considering Carol's confession. "So now do you have anything for either one of them?"
"No," Carol shook her head vehemently. "No, not now, but then, who knows? Come on you must have had someone you crushed on in the beginning."
I saw a look pass over Donna's face and I assumed that she was going to say Josh. Hell, her crush on him was still in full bloom, but she surprised me.
"Yeah," Donna admitted. "There was a time when I thought Sam was pretty much the living end."
Really, Sam? So I guess I was right about the boxer brief incident being engrained in her head. I smiled in self-satisfaction.
"Who didn't?" Carol said. "It was when I realized that he would always be prettier than me that I dropped the crush."
"No kidding," Donna giggled. "No, Sam was just so nice. I mean, everyone on the campaign was really, but Sam just seemed to take the extra time to get to know me."
"Josh must have known you," Carol pointed out.
"Oh yeah, well actually Josh had this way of sizing me up that was really pretty scary. His powers of perception were much greater back then."
Carol and Donna ate in silence for a moment before Carol began to pick at her food.
"So when did you discover Sam wasn't for you?" Carol asked.
"We became friends," Donna said. "I feel like I could probably talk to him about anything."
"Yeah, because that's definitely a quality you don't want in a boyfriend," Carol pointed out with a laugh.
"No, I know," Donna shook her head. "It was just a little crush. It went away. Sam is more friend material anyway. Hey, whatever happened with Rick over at Treasury anyway?"
I noted how Donna diverted the conversation and I wondered if Donna's crush on Sam went away when she realized that she liked Josh. Even a goldfish like me knows that no self-respecting girl can crush on best friends at the same time. It's simply not done. I hadn't seen Donna and Sam interact much but I saw a friendship between them when I did. I thought she was much more suited to Josh though. They seemed to be able to read each other's minds.
"Rick?" Carol said as I snapped back to attention. "Let's just say his name was really Richard and he picked the wrong nickname."
"Really? What happened?" Donna asked sympathetically.
"Well things probably would have worked out wonderfully if I hadn't found out about his other girlfriend," Carol said.
"Oh Carol I'm sorry," Donna said.
"I'm over it," Carol sighed. "He wasn't really my type anyway."
At that moment, like a whirlwind, CJ came rushing into the office.
"Okay, I've got like five minutes before I have to be in the Oval," CJ said as she walked in and picked up the third, untouched salad. "What'd I miss?"
Carol and Donna exchanged a glance and laughed slightly.
"What?" CJ asked feeling left out. "I always miss the good stuff. Hit me with the highlights."
"100 years ago men slipped bromide into seamstress's tea to quell their sex drive," Donna informed her.
"Why would any man want that?" CJ asked as she shoveled some salad into her mouth.
"My question exactly," Donna replied.
"That's all I missed, seriously?" CJ asked after a moment.
"Donna used to have a crush on Sam," Carol pointed out.
"Hey!" Donna exclaimed.
"Aw who didn't?" CJ asked wistfully. "It's the dimples."
She sighed nostalgically and I got the feeling that at one point CJ really enjoyed looking at Sam across a conference table.
"Carol had a thing for Ed and Larry," Donna said forcefully. I knew immediately that it was retribution for Carol outing her crush on Sam. In my opinion Donna shouldn't have felt ashamed. Carol, on the other hand, should feel much more horror at having that little detail revealed.
"No way," CJ exclaimed. "Which one?"
"Both?" Carol admitted sheepishly.
"Seriously, how do you tell them apart? They're attached at the hip," CJ replied eating quickly.
"I don't know," Carol blushed. "It was just a little crush. We know you've had them."
CJ shot Carol a slightly disapproving look.
"Who?" Donna asked. "Besides Danny Concannon of course."
"No one," CJ shook her head. "I don't have a crush on Danny by the way."
"You just like to trap him in dark corners," Carol commented with a grin.
"You do?" Donna asked. I sensed that this was the first she'd heard of Danny and CJ's little clinches. For some odd reason I got the feeling that it kind of empowered her and her crush on Josh in some way.
"Thank you very much Carol," CJ said pointedly. "No, I don't trap Danny in dark corners."
"Anymore," Carol quipped.
CJ sighed and continued on. "I cornered him in my office a few times, but I'd hardly classify it as dark."
She gave Carol a self-satisfied look. Donna looked at CJ with a look of shock or awe, I'm not sure which.
"So are you and Danny?" Donna asked.
"No," CJ shook her head, though I got the feeling that her response had a remorseful tone. "Danny and I are emphatically not."
"He does have quite the crush on you though," Carol said.
"I think the feeling might be mutual," Donna said perceptively.
"I think," CJ started to reply, but she was cut off by her phone ringing loudly.
CJ tossed her fork casually onto her salad and reached back to pick up the phone.
"This is CJ," she said as she picked up the phone. "I'll see you in a minute Chazz."
CJ stood up and took one last bite of salad before she turned to Donna and Carol.
"I hate to cut this short, but when the President of the United States calls," CJ said letting her sentence trail off.
"You get a reprieve from answering the Danny question," Carol finished for her with a smile.
"Whatever, Mrs. Ed and Larry," CJ smiled as she left the office.
"That is pretty bad," Donna commented.
"I know," Carol said sheepishly burying her head in her hands. "It doesn't leave this office."
"I promise," Donna said with a grin.
I myself, made the same promise, though I don't believe they noticed.
A few hours later CJ had returned from the Oval Office. She seemed a little more worked up than before and I heard her mumbling something about reading a signal wrong. I wasn't sure what she meant and I was having a hard time figuring out. This little game was getting kind of boring. It was boring, that is, until Danny showed up at her door.
"So I came by for my thank you," he said a little cocky as he stood in her doorway.
"For what?" she scoffed.
"Earlier during the briefing," he said sauntering in. "I believe I let you off the hook quite quickly as far as Mrs. Bartlet's unnamed sources were concerned."
"Did you now?" she asked rhetorically.
"I thought there might be some sort of reward for my good behavior?" he fished.
I had to laugh. There were times when his smug conversation could be taken as egotistical, but right now it was just funny. He was hoping that CJ might, how had Carol put it? He was hoping CJ might 'trap him in a dark corner.'
"You're not happy with the knowledge that I appreciate you backing off?" CJ flirted with him.
"Oh I'm happy with the knowledge, I was just hoping there might be something else to be happy about," he replied.
CJ said nothing. Instead she shook her head and looked back down at the papers on her desk.
"Hey, do you sew?" Danny asked changing the topic of conversation slightly.
"Sew? As in clothes?" CJ asked.
"Yeah," Danny nodded.
"No."
"Ever?"
"Never."
"Your mother must have been so proud," Danny replied.
"Growing up with brothers I don't think she had very high hopes for my conversion to normal womanly duties."
"So the rhythm of the sewing pedal wouldn't be a turn on for you," Danny surmised.
"Have you been talking to Donna?" CJ chuckled.
"It seems to be the talk of the water cooler today," Danny said. "But if you did sew and you were working the foot pedal, what are the odds a certain dashing red head would be in your thoughts?"
"Danny Bonaduce?" CJ asked. "I was never really a big Partridge Family fan."
"Funny," Danny replied without laughing.
"I know," CJ smiled.
"So you wanna know my question about the sewing machines and Bromide?" Danny asked.
"Why would any man want to suppress a woman's sex drive?" CJ ventured.
"That's all I'm asking," Danny replied in agreement.
"I really don't know," CJ said. "Now if you'll excuse me I have to go talk to man about talking to a woman about talking to her boss who happens to be married to my boss."
"Sounds complicated," Danny said.
"Yeah," CJ said standing up and walking to the door. "Don't let him get too out of hand in here Gail. Keep the classified documents under wraps until Carol kicks him out."
"You got it," I said swishing my fin enthusiastically back and forth.
"I bet Gail would think about me if she sewed," he said dropping a few kernels of food into my bowl.
"Sorry Danny, but the Starfish Tuna guy is more my style," I thought to myself.
"I think Nemo is more Gail's style," CJ shot at him with a grin as she walked out.
"I'm just as cute as Nemo," Danny mumbled as he brushed off his hands, shot me a smile and walked away.
All the talk of things 100 years ago made me wonder if people had fish back then. Their bowls were probably far less elaborate. For example, right now it appeared that I had something akin to a golf bag in my bowl. I wasn't much for golfing and neither was CJ, but there must have been some significance. I sighed and went back to my swimming. I was certain, that regardless of fish bowls 100 years ago, I was in a far more interesting situation than fish of the past.
TBC
