I can honestly say that my relationship with Josh is now the worst kept secret in Washington DC because I am fairly sure all of Madison Wisconsin and about half of Tulsa Oklahoma now know we're married. You see, my mother got around my insistence of not putting a wedding announcement in the local paper by inviting my entire extended family and nearly every person I have ever met that still lives within a 50-mile radius of my childhood home to the wedding. All expressly against my wishes. As my father explained the rationale to me, at least now they won't think the baby is a bastard. I should have done the damn invitations myself. At least then my ex-boyfriend and his parents wouldn't have been on the invite list. Yes, you heard me right, I just introduced Josh to the entire Briggs family. They've been family friends for years, and although I'm sure my mother recalls Freddy and I having a little bit of a teenage crush on one another, I'm now certain she doesn't know it was good old Freddy who took her daughter's innocence behind the canoe shack on a shared family vacation when we were 16. Josh, however, does know, and that was a nuclear war narrowly avoided thanks only to the blessing that they don't let Josh have the launch codes.
Frankly none of my mother's actions surprised me, but they did did infuriate me. However, I was surprised that the wedding actually went pretty well. It wasn't the Ritz, but a ceremony at my parents' church is what I had always envisioned for my wedding - when I was in high school that is and actually had time to think about weddings. When enticed with an open bar and few other entertainment options, wedding receptions at the VA Hall are big events around here so of course, nearly everyone invited showed up to the reception, plus a few more. (My cousin waived off explaining the attendance of her children at an adults-only reception with an indignant, "The baby's still on the tit, I couldn't just leave him.") So, I now find myself quietly seething with a forced smile as I navigate through the throngs of my cousins and high school classmates who are simply playing lip service by asking what we do for a living and what we've been up to. When answering that question we've been vague at best. I doubt any of them know who Josh is by his name alone, and it's not like I went from table to table introducing him as the Deputy Chief of Staff to the President or as my boss. Not that I think most of them would care. This weekend in the "real" world has been a reminder that not everyone is so easily offended without political pundits to whip them into a frenzy.
Of course, I kind of knew this already. About a year ago Josh's mother had told all of her friends that we were together, in whatever capacity she had interpreted Josh and I as being together at the time since we'd never told her and really hadn't much defined it ourselves. At that point, just after I had all but moved in with Josh in the wake of Rosslyn, we had barely graduated from a series of encounters to address a physical need, much less a full romantic relationship.
As it turns out, none of her friends were at all disapproving of the fact that Josh was sleeping with his much younger secretary. She told me this over a glass of wine and pumpkin pie after Thanksgiving dinner while Josh was doing the dishes (yes, he can be domestic if it involves avoiding woman-talk and motherly nagging).
In fact, among Mrs. Lyman's friends, our physical relationship was accepted as a perfectly normal thing to do. One of them even remarked that she met her husband when she started working as his secretary. The thing they seriously disliked, though, was the fact that we were pretty much living together and weren't married. So, the news that we'd set a wedding date, very quickly followed by the news that we were giving Mrs. Lyman her first, and hopefully not her only (her words, not ours), grandchild was met with significant jubilation on her part.
She even invited a few of those friends to the wedding, along with Josh's aunt and a cousin I didn't even know he had. Only the friends were able to come to the wedding because of the short notice, but, oddly to me, they've been a reassuring presence. A reminder that not everyone sees our relationship as a political mistake.
They were also helpful with bringing around Sam, who Josh apparently had to peel off the ceiling when told the real reason for his visit to Wisconsin with Josh. For some reason that made me feel proud. Proud that we had so successfully kept our relationship under wraps and out of the office. I can't say we are the picture of professionalism, but if we fooled Sam we at least succeeded at something.
That is until now, because Sam, having taken full advantage of the open bar, has cornered me near the coat check and is interrogating me in a manner that is quickly becoming antagonistic. It's a good thing most of our other guests have equally over indulged because none of them seem to care about the way he is flapping his arms at me as they stumble out the door for fresh air or a cigarette.
Since I am used to histrionics like this from Josh, I have pretty much tuned out most of his rant which is now going on about 5 minutes, but it's his grand finale that finally raises my hackles enough to cut in.
"And seriously, how reckless and stupid could you be to not be using birth control while you were carrying on these assignations!" Sam practically spits out the last word with venom.
I like Sam, I really do, and I appreciate how he is taking Josh's side here since Josh was his friend long before I even knew either of them, but I don't like what he's insinuating. I know he thinks he's speaking for the administration by castigating me for this whole situation that he firmly believes will reflect poorly on the president. But seriously, 'Hello Pot, I am the Kettle. Who are you calling black?'
It's like ever since he got into trouble for carrying on his relationship with the call girl he's made it his goal to defend men who get called out on the carpet when they do stupid things.
Not to say I wasn't party to this particular stupid thing, as they say, it takes two to tango, but that's just it, it takes two to tango. Josh is equally liable. Maybe more so depending on who you ask. My mother still thinks he took advantage of me. I don't agree with her, but I can see how the relationship looks problematic from her perspective.
Sam seems to be taking the other tract so it is now time to disabuse him of his newly formed thesis about our so called "contraceptive accident" before it becomes a full-blown conspiracy theory.
"Sam! Sam! Hold right there." I yell. Once I have his attention, I lower my voice. "Where the hell do you get off blaming me for this? This was not some plot to trap Josh or some clandestine affair, neither of us were married, we were both consenting adults and yes, we both took sex ed. They call it an accident for a reason. Something that has happened to couples, including many here tonight, since the beginning of time. So you can get off your soap box right now."
Sam pauses and I see my words start to sink in. He had been poised to keep ranting, but instead I see him blow out the breath he was holding so I continue, more gently this time.
"I didn't take advantage of Josh he didn't take advantage of me and now, as if we needed to prove it, we are married and starting a family. Stop engaging in revisionist history for just a few hours and celebrate with us."
In typical Sam fashion he calms down but keeps rambling as he is working through all of the conflicts he has with this situation. He is talking as if he will have to advise the president on a course of action when at most this won't even come to the attention of the president and will just be a media problem, though one that will cause quite a few headaches between me, Josh and CJ. Why Sam insists on doing CJ's job I will never know, but I let him mutter for a few more minutes before carefully touching his arm to tell him I am slipping away. As I go, I hear him arguing the case with himself and the last sentence catches my attention, "although the whole issue of whether a superior can have a relationship with his assistant that is consensual in the modern understanding is a rich and complicated question." Frankly, it doesn't seem so complicated to me. Josh is an attractive man. Both his body and even more so his mind. Why wouldn't I want him in my bed if he was so inclined to be there. But what do I know?
After leaving Sam, I catch my cousin Angela coming out of the restroom as I am going for the fourth time tonight. Damn pregnancy hormones. The daughter of my father's much older brother, Angela and I weren't close in age and as a result I really looked up to her as a child. She always seemed so sophisticated and I can never remember being so envious as when she got a high school job at a local "boutique."
"Donna Moss, that is simply the best Wonderbra I have ever seen!" She says as she looks down at my dress, which I bought off the rack at a trunk show before I left for Madison. I love the style of my dress, but the seamstress barely had time to finish any alterations and as a result, the bodice is too tight to fit my pregnancy-enhanced bosom and the length turned out too short to wear heels.
Angela then reaches out and gropes me. That's right, my cousin is feeling me up in the bathroom at my wedding reception in a presumed effort to judge a bra that I don't happen to be wearing. Always having been a little insecure about my bra size, I think I too would be a little more enamored with my cleavage if I could breathe a little better.
"Oh, it's not a bra!" She exclaims. I feel my cheeks go pink and I curse the fact that I hadn't yet had an opportunity to see if any of the stalls were occupied and by whom.
"Honey, did you have some work done?" My mouth falls open and I shake my head a little bit, but she doesn't seem to notice.
"If you did, I understand. It's hard to snag a guy as cute as that in the big city without some enhancements. I won't say a word, not a word." She then makes the gesture of zipping her mouth closed and locking it with her fingers, offers me another congratulations and leaves me.
As I rejoin the party, I catch Josh returning from the bar with his fifth beer of the night. At the rehearsal barbecue last night my brothers gave him words of wisdom about how to fit in at a wedding in Madison, seems he is taking their advice and getting well lubricated, something we both will pay for in the morning. It's not what you think, though. For all the hell I give him about having a sensitive system, he really doesn't and, although he spent his time in school studying rather than going to keggers, he can, as Charlie says, "still hang." None of this stops me from keeping track and reminding him of the hangover he will have tomorrow from drinking draft beer from a VA Hall. I wasn't in college long, but I am experienced enough to know that the type of headache that comes from drinking draft beer out of plastic cups at an establishment of this caliber will be as inevitable as it is merciless. Josh will be truly insufferable tomorrow.
But, before I can nag Josh about his beer consumption, my grandmother catches us, more specifically me, by the arm.
"Donnatella, I hear congratulations are in order for more than just the wedding."
I try to smile, but it feels more like a cringe. Grandma has a big mouth. Half the guests will know about our unexpected addition to the family before the night is over.
Turning to Josh, before I can respond, Grandma reaches out for his hand and continues, "Josh, it's good to meet you. I am proud of you for doing the right thing by our Donna. Welcome to the family."
Then she drops her voice into something between a conspiratorial whisper and admonishment, "These days so many young men get a girl in trouble and don't even have enough honor to marry her and act as a father. Donna's grandfather always promised me he would marry me if I got pregnant, at least I had the good sense to pin him down first." She slurs the last few words, pats his arm and then mercifully shuffles off to the bar for a refill on her white wine spritzer.
Josh turns to me with a quizzical smirk and a raised eyebrow. "Well now I know you come by it honestly Donnatella. And I think it's time for another beer," he says raising his plastic cup.
"Can you get me some memory altering drugs while you're at the bar?" I ask absently, my gaze is still fixed on my grandmother who has barely made it past the bar to start hitting on one of my high school classmates. A married one at that.
I am nothing short of relived when the lights come on to signal the end of the party. I am exhausted and my veneer is wearing thin. Josh on the other hand has just finished his 8th beer and is hugging several of his newly minted friends who have invited him to vacation at their lake house this summer. They aren't inviting him because he is a slick and powerful man, they don't even know we work with the president, they are genuinely taken by his personality. Beer makes Josh downright fun. But now the fun comes to an end and, even in his inebriated state, he finds a way to turn them down but leave the possibility open. He's still a master politician even when shitfaced.
When we get to the hotel, Josh no more than crosses the threshold before he passes out face down on the bed and starts snoring. So much for consummating the marriage. I sit down next to him and sigh before working his shoes off his feet. He grunts in what I assume is thanks but doesn't move.
The exhaustion and little indignities of the day finally get to me so I close the bathroom door, start a hot shower and begin to scrub Madison off me. Alas, the festivities are over. I am now no longer a bride, just somebody's wife.
AN: Among the many allusions to other Fanfiction and pop culture in this chapter, Sam's dialog is directly based on comments by Jeffrey Toobin regarding the Clinton Lewinsky relationship. A relationship I would love to see as a framework for a much more angsty version of a story like this. Maybe one day, when I have more time (which will never happen).