Disclaimer: The characters of NBC's 'The West Wing' are owned by Aaron Sorkin and NBC, not me. If you want to pay for this, pay them, you fool.
Author's Note: This is rather longer than any other Annie Wright story so far, but it's all necessary to the continuing saga of Senator Joseph Marles, D-Arizona. Well, that and character development:) More thanks to my faithful (?) readers/reviewers, who've hopefully stuck around waiting for this. Sorry about the delay. Enjoy.
The Morning After
By BJ Garrett
"I didn't think you'd be in this morning," Sam says from behind me.
Technically, I guess I am here, but I'm not really doing anything. Just sitting in my nifty swivel chair, hands on my knees, staring at my computer, which isn't even on. "Why wouldn't I be here?"
He pauses. "It's not going to go away, Annie. It's not like admitting adultery or a smidgen of real estate fraud. The story won't die--they might try to impeach him."
Oh. He thinks I'm trying to pretend last night didn't happen. I turn around and face him. "I know that. But why wouldn't I be here?" I wave my hands above the walls of my cubicle. "Everyone else is here. Did CJ or Toby call in sick today? Did Leo?"
He crosses his arms and looks at me from hooded eyes. "No."
"Exactly." I'm about to spin around again and turn my computer on indignantly when he leans over and puts a hand on the back of my chair. He's very close--I can smell his aftershave.
"Come with me," he says quietly with a little smile.
Um. What does one say to that? "Okay."
He lets go of my chair and leaves the cubicle, waiting for me. When I'm standing beside him, he puts an arm around my shoulders and leads me around the corner past his office. A blank door greets us.
"Have you been here before?" he asks.
"Of course I have. It's a paper room, Sam." A paper room in the sense that inside it there are towers of boxes of paper, every shade, size, and glossiness one could imagine.
Still smiling that little smile, he opens the door. He pulls me inside and opens the blinds with a rattle, illuminating the dim room. It's about the size of a small walk-in closet. Or a full bathroom--separate shower stall and tub, two sinks...you know. He puts a hand on one of the boxes. "It's supposed to be an office."
In a disinterested tone I reply, "Really?" I want to hop up and down like a cheerleader.
"Yep." He scratches the back of his head as though at a loss. "I just don't know who we could give it to. It's really a junior speechwriter kind of office..."
He's playing with me, and I'm lapping it up like a puppy. Sounding more like a cheerleader, I reply, "Really?"
He nods and grins. "Know any junior speechwriters who could use an office?"
I smile shyly and cross my arms. "It's mine, isn't it?"
He shrugs and hefts a box. "Get rid of the paper, and it's yours."
I stare at the box. I know those things. They're bloody heavy--probably weigh as much as I do. Shaking my head, I say, "I'll keep my cubicle, thanks."
The box hits the floor and he grabs my shoulder as I turn to go. "Just kidding," he says quickly, "I'm just kidding. I've already arranged to have it moved downstairs."
Looking up at him, I smile. "I know you're kidding."
He grins again and lets me go. We grin at each other for a few seconds, and he says, "Move in today."
"Okay." If he asked me to go assassinate the head of CNN right now, I'd do it. He's probably thinking about it, too.
"Okay."
Happy in that simple way I often fear is left in my childhood, I add, "I'm doing important things now, aren't I?"
The grin disappears from his face, kicked to the sidelines by confusion. "What do you mean?"
I walk around the little room, touching the boxes, as I explain. "You and Toby are now extremely busy with the connotations of last night. So busy, in fact, that there are some things which you don't have enough time to do, but are still very important. I'm doing those things, right?"
After a second, he nods. "Yes. You're weird."
Since I'm hugging a tower of paper, I must agree. "Yep."
Shaking his head, Sam goes to the wall that this office shares with his and knocks on it. "We can get connecting doors."
"Why on earth would we want to do that?" What would be the point of getting your own office when you end up practically sharing it with the guy next door anyway?
He shrugs. "We can leave it open and talk and throw files and stuff. Or we could get a glass wall."
Some people's idea of a good time.... "And you say I'm weird."
Then Josh walks past and yells, "Sam!"
Sam goes, with a little look over his shoulder, leaving me standing in my office. My office.
What a warm fuzzy phrase. My office.
I'm still standing in my office when Patrice comes in, probably looking for paper. "Hi, Annie. What are you doing in here?"
I grin and hug the paper tower tighter. "It's my office."
"It's a paper room, Annie." Patrice won't think I'm weird, because she knows she's weirder than I am.
I shake my head. "Nope. Because of last night, Sam decided I should get an office. I'm doing important things now."
"That senator thing isn't important?" Patrice asks incredulously. I must admit I was very excited about Senator Marles. I am excited about Senator Marles.
"Well, yes, but I mean important things that will be on the news. Maybe I'll even get to write for the President."
Patrice's eyebrows go up. "Wow. Mr. Seaborn told you that?"
"Not in so many words...."
She giggles and takes a sheaf of fluorescent pink high-gloss paper in 11x17. Suddenly, she sobers, looking at the paper. "How are you?"
"I'm okay. You?" She shakes her head, causing me to have an uncontrollable urge to relinquish the tower and hug her. Which I do.
Quietly, she says, "I was there, in that room. It was awful. They were so mean...and I had to give them coffee and bottled-freaking-water. I guess you were backstage with the Chosen Ones."
I feel like such a traitor. "Actually, Sam told me to go home yesterday afternoon."
She pulls away and looks at me with slit eyes. "You left?"
What am I supposed to say? "I didn't know what was going on. He told me the weather was going to get pretty bad and I should be home before the storm hit."
Eyebrows raised in disbelief, she says, "Really?"
"Yes, really. He told me to watch Dateline and CNN immediately thereafter. I had no idea why, but it's Sam. You know what I mean."
She does, turning to leave. "Enjoy your office, Annie."
I'm not quite sure if she's being sarcastic or just sad. Following, I say with forced cheer, "He says we're getting connecting doors."
Laughing out loud, Patrice replies, "Why on earth would you want to do that?"
"I haven't got the foggiest," I say, smiling at her back. "It's his idea. We're going to talk and throw files and stuff."
"Get out while you can!" she calls as we separate at my cubicle.
Just what I was thinking.
*
By lunch the paper room has been cleared out, the House Majority Leader still isn't commenting on whether he will seek impeachment, and I have a lovely dark cherry desk. It's from the storage downstairs. As I'm picking up my poor spider plant to move it yet again, Ginger peeks around the corner of my cubicle.
"Hello?"
"Hi! Yes?" I stand up straight, holding the plant in front of myself. I'm pretty sure I look pretty stupid.
Smiling around the bags under her eyes, she gestures over her shoulder. "Toby wants to see you."
"Now?"
"Yes. ASAP," she says, with that subdued glee she gets from saying things like ASAP and PDQ.
"Okay. I'll be there in a minute."
Ginger turns and goes back to her office, calling, "She'll be there in a minute. Now leave me alone!"
After replacing the plant on my filing cabinet, I leave my cubicle and walk into Toby's office. "Yes, sir?"
He mumbles something at the paper he's reading, then pushes it away. "You haven't forgotten Senator Marles, have you?"
Lacing my fingers together, I shake my head. "No, sir."
"Good."
He stops. A silence, which promises to be long, begins. I study one of Toby's posters, trying to make out the political slogans heaped atop each other without being obvious.
Abruptly, he says, "I want you to meet with him, get a feel for what he's going to do."
"What's he going to do?"
Rolling his eyes up at me with that hardened disinterest, he elaborates, "Ask him if he's leaving the party."
"I can do that?"
"I don't know, can you?"
Dammit. I meant, "I can do that. Sir."
"Leo told you not to call me sir," he sighs, shuffling some papers onto his blotter. As I begin to apologise, he shakes a hand at me. "I was just reminding you. Don't stop doing it."
A laugh builds in my stomach, but despite his joke I don't think he's in the mood. So I ask, "Is the appointment already made with the Senator?"
"No, Annie. You can dial a phone, I hope."
"Um, yes, sir. I'll go. Thank you." Mouthing all sorts of self-depreciatives, I return to my cubicle and take my phone to my office. My office. Warm fuzzy.
*
"Senator Marles' office."
"Hello. This is Annie Wright from the White House. I'd like to make an appointment with the Senator as soon as possible, please."
"What would you like to see the Senator about, Ms. Wright?"
What is she, his mother? "It's internal party business. Would you like to speak to Chief of Staff McGarry about it?"
A pause. "No, that won't be necessary. How does eleven o'clock work for you, Ms. Wright?" Whoa. A bluff finally paid off.
"Eleven-thirty would be better, actually."
"We'll see you at eleven-thirty, then."
"Thank you." What a good secretary.
*
The filing cabinet, my swivel chair, and the faithful spider plant have all been moved. I'm in the process of unplugging my computer so it can make the long journey around the corner too.
"You're going to see Marles?" That voice, it's somehow familiar...
"Hi, Josh."
"You're going to see Marles?"
Turning, I'm shocked at how awful he looks. I think he's wearing yesterday's shirt. Possibly yesterday's pants as well. "I have an appointment with him at eleven-thirty, yes. Any special message?"
He taps his fingers on the wall of my cubicle, not meeting my eyes.
"What's up?" I mutter, bending my head to the power bar again.
"What?"
My voice muffled by the desk and the computer tower, I reply, "What about Marles?"
He says nothing. Mr. Lyman is being a mite recalcitrant this morning. "I want to talk to Marles."
Rearing up in surprise, I hit my head on the bottom of the desk. "Shit, shit!" At my expletives, he looks up and enters the cubicle.
"Are you okay?" he asks, kneeling beside me. "Do you need an ice pack? Annie?"
Clutching my head, I look up at him through my fingers and hair. Yesterday's tie, too. His brow is furrowed in concern, hands out, ready to help. Where was this guy three weeks ago? Why did he just look down at me past his coffee cup and ignore my outstretched hand and walk away? Why, oh, why is he looking at me like I'm paralysed now?
"Annie?" he repeats, slowly this time. "Are you okay? Everybody else around here is falling apart, so don't you start."
I really must've hit my head. Now I'm hearing things. "I'm fine," I reply, pushing him away so I can stand and rub my head out of the intimate confines of under the desk. "What about Senator Marles?"
Josh stays on his knee, hands draped over it now. He stares up at me, realising I'm omitting his comment. "I want to talk to him."
"Why?" I ask, bewildered. "What's the difference?"
He stands and paces to the portal of my soon-to-be-ex cubicle. Well, he doesn't pace the three feet so much as walk them in a pacing posture. When he gets there, he props an elbow on the divider and leans his chin into one hand, the other cocked on his hip. "I need to know what's going on inside his head. What he thinks he's doing."
"Yeah," I say, tucking my hair behind my ears and setting back to work on my computer. "That's what Toby told me to do."
"What exactly did he ask you to do?"
"Find out if he's leaving the party."
He turns a full circle, hands in the air, as he says, "But there's so much more to it. I mean, why did he run as a Democrat to begin with? Why's he gone on this Churchill kick all of a sudden? Why the hell now, of all the times in the past two years there's been to defect?"
Irritated, I throw down the network cable I'm holding and look up at him. "Go ask Toby, okay? If you want to talk to Marles, go ask Toby. It's his assignment. I couldn't care less." Well, really that's a lie. I want to talk to the guy, for exactly the same reasons. But Josh seems a little...intense about it. More intense than he usually is about things he cares about.
"Okay." And he goes. Why didn't I think of that in the first place? Then I wouldn't have this splitting headache and a probable concussion.
*
As I'm hooking up the speakers to my computer in my office, a slouching shadow appears at the door. "Hello, sir."
"Did you tell Josh to ask me if he could talk to Marles?" Toby asks, hands in his pockets.
"Yes." A burst of midi birdsong tells me I've been successful in my audio endeavours.
Toby nods slowly, with that somewhat disgusted expression on his face I've come to recognise as displeasure with his general surroundings and situation.
Great. Just great. "Is there a problem with that, sir?"
He starts shaking his head, in that sarcastically innocent, yet still thoroughly disgusted way. "No, no problem. It's just that Marles will be lucky if he gets out of there alive."
Huh? "Pardon me, sir?"
Turning away, he toys with the latch on my office door. Sam mentioned something about having a plaque with my name and title put on it today. "Have you seen him today?" he asks me conversationally, and without waiting for an answer, he continues, "He looks like hell froze over and then got warmed up again for lunch three days later, and do you know why?" I shake my head mutely, but he's not paying attention anyway. "Because the man who may well mean more to him than anybody else living on this planet, except for, of course, me, whom he loves to pieces, did the political equivalent of screwing over the village idiot for a piece of pizza. He lied to get into office, and it wasn't about some piddly thing like his views on abortion or faithfulness to his wife, it was about his ability to govern. His ability to do what's best for the country with absolute clarity and unerring skill. And he not only lied about it, he got away with it. Until last night. So you're going to go to Josh and tell him he's not talking to Marles. And then you're going to tell him why. Do you catch me, Annie?"
His eyes flick to mine and hold. Numbly, I nod. "Yes, sir."
"I really do like that." He taps my door twice and starts to leave, then turns back. "Do it now, Annie." Then he's gone before I can answer.
I had no idea. I thought no one could possibly have been hurt more than me by what happened last night, least of all the Chosen Ones, because of course they've known all along. I guess I was wrong. I should go talk to him.
I attempt a brittle smile at Patrice as I pass her on my way to his office. She smiles back, and then turns as our arms brush and she realises I'm not really smiling. "Annie?" Her voice fades behind me as I knock on his door.
"He's in CJ's office," Donna says as she opens the door. "I'm doing some straightening up."
Nodding, I turn ninety degrees and knock at CJ's half-open door. "Yes?" she calls. She sounds like she has her feet up and her glasses on. As I push the door open, I find I'm right. I hate it when that happens. Just kidding.
Sitting on the corner of her desk is Josh, sleeves rolled up, a modicum of humanity returned to his face. Probably what's got him cheered up is the prospect of taking apart some middle-aged rancher from Arizona piece by piece and sewing him back together again with barbed wire.
"Hello, Annie," CJ says, smiling. She doesn't look too worse for the wear.
"Hello, CJ. Can I steal Josh for a minute?" I ask, wrinkling my nose and pointing at him as if he were a Yorkie panting for his leash.
She waves a hand at him, saying, "Sure, take him. He's just getting in my way anyhow."
Disengaging himself from the desk, he teases, "Very funny, CJ. We'll see who's laughing when I bring Marles back here on a spit."
I'm about to go out through the front door, ignoring his vivid imagery, when he opens a previously overlooked door and goes through. I look quizzically at CJ, who nods and gestures for me to go. "It's just his office. We've got connecting doors."
"Oh, okay. Do you mind if I ask you about that later, because--"
"Annie! Do you want to talk to me or not? I have a meeting in an hour half-an-hour away. Get a move on."
CJ nods. "Any time."
"Great, thanks," I reply, walking through the connecting door backwards so I don't have to break I contact. As she goes back to whatever she was reading, I turn around and shut the door behind me.
"Please, Annie, don't hurt me," Josh jokes, sitting on the corner of his desk. At my look of confusion, he elaborates, "You look like some Mini-Me version of an Amazon."
Nodding, even though I still don't get it, I fold my hands and say, "You're not going to talk to Senator Marles. Toby told me to do it, so I'm going to. It's my responsibility."
Donna fades from the room through the other other door. Smart girl, I wish I could join her.
Shaking his head, Josh replies, "No. I want to. Don't try that, 'Toby said' crap on me."
With an internal sigh, I realise that getting him off of this isn't going to be nearly as easy as getting him on it was. "Toby doesn't think it's a good idea."
"Screw Toby. What does he know?"
More than you think. I gesture vaguely. "That it's not a good idea." Before he can screw Toby's ideas too, I add, "I don't either. Besides, it's been my thing from the beginning. I wrote the first release on it. And you've got more important things to think about."
"Granted."
Here's a tack. "So why bother with Marles? Why is it worth your time when there are these other, more important things to think about?"
As I watch him digest that, I think I've got him.
"Because he should know that we don't take his kind of behaviour lightly-that we don't suffer traitors gladly."
Or not. "Okay. How is me meeting with him instead of you going to give him that impression?" If he insults me, so help me, I'll--
"Quite frankly, Annie, I don't think you've got the skills to impress upon him the enormity of his actions." Almost subtle enough to get past me. He's asking for it now.
I plant my hands on my hips. "Look, buster-"
"Buster?"
"--I don't know where you get off implying that I don't have the 'skills' to impress my point upon some pissant little senator, but you'd better think again. For example, here's me impressing my point upon some jerk-off from Connecticut who thinks he can take his anger at the President out on afore-mentioned pissant senator just because he's a jerk-off and the senator's only a pissant."
Winded, I stop to take a breath. His eyebrows are approaching his hairline, which is a feat this late in the game, and he's getting mottled around the neck. I'd better finish before he fires me.
"I know how you feel, and I know what you're going through, and demolishing Joseph Marles is not going to make you feel better. It may further inflate your sense of self-worth, and you may experience a lightening of your mood, but the anger will still be there. It will be there, and keep growing heavier, until you tell the person who made you angry that you're angry. So you *are not* going anywhere near Senator Marles today. I will keep the appointment with him, and you will stay here and do more constructive, productive, and calming things. Stand behind your door or something. Okay?"
He's silent for a moment. I've totally done it now. "Did you just call me a jerk-off?"
No use denying it. "Yes."
Rubbing his face vigorously, he hops off the desk and walks around. I follow him with my eyes nervously, hands slowly slipping from my hips to clasp at my waist. "Do you really know how I feel?" he asks quietly, his back to me.
Do I really want to have a heart-to-heart with Josh Lyman? Why not, the day's already gone to pot. "Yes. I, um, I do. I've done this before. My father was a politician and a, a liar. He destroyed me--and my family--without a thought for us."
Shaking his head, he turns around. "The President isn't a liar, he just--"
"I'm not done." He subsides, crossing his arms. "My father, he lied to save himself...it was different. It *was* a piddly thing like adultery or real estate fraud--"
"What?"
"--and he lied about it. He was a coward. But last night I learned the difference between a politician and a statesman. He lied for the sake of the country. The President stood up there and stood up for himself. It was different."
Josh looks down at the floor and repeats, "The difference between a politician and a statesman."
Ignoring him, I continue passionately, "Sam can say all he wants about them trying to impeach him, but it doesn't matter. It's done. I really don't think punishing him is worth the future of our country."
"Write that down."
I'm still not finished, but he caught me off guard with that. "Huh?"
"Write it down. Someday soon someone's going to have to publicly defend the President, and that's what they should say. It's good." He smiles at me. He only looks like hell frozen over, not warmed up, now.
Numbly, I nod. "Okay." I check my watch compulsively. "I have to go."
"Yeah. That meeting thing. Good luck. Give him hell." He picks up some papers and leaves through the other other door.
The noises outside the office filter into my ears. For a moment everything had been as quiet as a late night tête-à-tête. Ten years ago in my family's living room, Dad with a snifter of brandy, talking to some bigwig in a suit with a shiny briefcase. He looks up at me trembling in the doorway, and smiles his true-blue, innocence-is-my-middle-name smile.
'Everything will be okay, Annie. I promise.'
I flee the office just as I fled the living room, slowly. The panic mercilessly tamped down until I get to my room. My office.
Tom the handyman is drilling holes in the door. "What are you doing?" I ask on a gasp.
He looks down at me and grins around a screw. "Pilot holes for your nameplate, Ms. Wright."
"Ms. Wright? What-what happened to Annie-fannie?" I say, smiling shakily, trying to wrest my composure from the jaws of something bad.
Chuckling deep in his throat, Tom starts drilling again. The noise drowns out my half-hearted response laugh. I slip around him and into my office. It already smells like mine. My jacket, my attaché, my spider plant. I need a piece of art. A portrait maybe--the one my mother had done after he left, maybe....
"Are you okay, Annie?"
I spin around to see Sam standing in my doorway. "I'm fine."
Behind him Tom wipes his fingerprints off my nameplate and gathers his tools to leave. Sam turns his head to look at the piece of brass and hooks a thumb at it. "Come look."
Stepping up beside him, I exhale deeply before looking at it. What if they spelled my name wrong? What if it's ugly? What if--
"Cool, huh? Annie Wright, Communications Assistant." He puts an arm around my shoulder, drawing me closer to the plate gleaming on the off-white panelling of the door.
Ugly? That is the most beautiful thing in the world. My name embossed in black enamel on a brass rectangle, mounted to my door with what look like brass upholstery tacks but I'm sure have a much more classy, sophisticated name in the hardware store.
I take another deep breath and smile, crossing my arms. "Pretty cool. What happened to 'Annie Wright, Junior Speechwriter?'"
"Same thing that happened to Annie-fannie, I spose," Tom intones before taking off, whistling.
Sam chuckles and rubs a cuff on the plate, even though it's already spotless. "Now we just have to get on that connecting door."
I grimace. "About that, Sam--"
"Everything will be okay, Annie. Just relax. I promise the workmen won't kill your plant."
Unable to help myself, I laugh up into his smiling face. "I appreciate it. I've got to go. Closet Republican to chew out," I say, slipping from under his arm.
He watches as I throw on my three-quarter-length pleather jacket and grab my attaché. "Good thing you got Josh off of it. It wouldn't've been pretty."
Pushing past him into the hallway, I shake my head.
"It won't be pretty anyway. He's not the only one who's pissed about last night."
"You go, girl!" Sam shouts after me as I run through Communications, punching the air with his right fist.
"You go!"
THE END
Author's Note: This is rather longer than any other Annie Wright story so far, but it's all necessary to the continuing saga of Senator Joseph Marles, D-Arizona. Well, that and character development:) More thanks to my faithful (?) readers/reviewers, who've hopefully stuck around waiting for this. Sorry about the delay. Enjoy.
The Morning After
By BJ Garrett
"I didn't think you'd be in this morning," Sam says from behind me.
Technically, I guess I am here, but I'm not really doing anything. Just sitting in my nifty swivel chair, hands on my knees, staring at my computer, which isn't even on. "Why wouldn't I be here?"
He pauses. "It's not going to go away, Annie. It's not like admitting adultery or a smidgen of real estate fraud. The story won't die--they might try to impeach him."
Oh. He thinks I'm trying to pretend last night didn't happen. I turn around and face him. "I know that. But why wouldn't I be here?" I wave my hands above the walls of my cubicle. "Everyone else is here. Did CJ or Toby call in sick today? Did Leo?"
He crosses his arms and looks at me from hooded eyes. "No."
"Exactly." I'm about to spin around again and turn my computer on indignantly when he leans over and puts a hand on the back of my chair. He's very close--I can smell his aftershave.
"Come with me," he says quietly with a little smile.
Um. What does one say to that? "Okay."
He lets go of my chair and leaves the cubicle, waiting for me. When I'm standing beside him, he puts an arm around my shoulders and leads me around the corner past his office. A blank door greets us.
"Have you been here before?" he asks.
"Of course I have. It's a paper room, Sam." A paper room in the sense that inside it there are towers of boxes of paper, every shade, size, and glossiness one could imagine.
Still smiling that little smile, he opens the door. He pulls me inside and opens the blinds with a rattle, illuminating the dim room. It's about the size of a small walk-in closet. Or a full bathroom--separate shower stall and tub, two sinks...you know. He puts a hand on one of the boxes. "It's supposed to be an office."
In a disinterested tone I reply, "Really?" I want to hop up and down like a cheerleader.
"Yep." He scratches the back of his head as though at a loss. "I just don't know who we could give it to. It's really a junior speechwriter kind of office..."
He's playing with me, and I'm lapping it up like a puppy. Sounding more like a cheerleader, I reply, "Really?"
He nods and grins. "Know any junior speechwriters who could use an office?"
I smile shyly and cross my arms. "It's mine, isn't it?"
He shrugs and hefts a box. "Get rid of the paper, and it's yours."
I stare at the box. I know those things. They're bloody heavy--probably weigh as much as I do. Shaking my head, I say, "I'll keep my cubicle, thanks."
The box hits the floor and he grabs my shoulder as I turn to go. "Just kidding," he says quickly, "I'm just kidding. I've already arranged to have it moved downstairs."
Looking up at him, I smile. "I know you're kidding."
He grins again and lets me go. We grin at each other for a few seconds, and he says, "Move in today."
"Okay." If he asked me to go assassinate the head of CNN right now, I'd do it. He's probably thinking about it, too.
"Okay."
Happy in that simple way I often fear is left in my childhood, I add, "I'm doing important things now, aren't I?"
The grin disappears from his face, kicked to the sidelines by confusion. "What do you mean?"
I walk around the little room, touching the boxes, as I explain. "You and Toby are now extremely busy with the connotations of last night. So busy, in fact, that there are some things which you don't have enough time to do, but are still very important. I'm doing those things, right?"
After a second, he nods. "Yes. You're weird."
Since I'm hugging a tower of paper, I must agree. "Yep."
Shaking his head, Sam goes to the wall that this office shares with his and knocks on it. "We can get connecting doors."
"Why on earth would we want to do that?" What would be the point of getting your own office when you end up practically sharing it with the guy next door anyway?
He shrugs. "We can leave it open and talk and throw files and stuff. Or we could get a glass wall."
Some people's idea of a good time.... "And you say I'm weird."
Then Josh walks past and yells, "Sam!"
Sam goes, with a little look over his shoulder, leaving me standing in my office. My office.
What a warm fuzzy phrase. My office.
I'm still standing in my office when Patrice comes in, probably looking for paper. "Hi, Annie. What are you doing in here?"
I grin and hug the paper tower tighter. "It's my office."
"It's a paper room, Annie." Patrice won't think I'm weird, because she knows she's weirder than I am.
I shake my head. "Nope. Because of last night, Sam decided I should get an office. I'm doing important things now."
"That senator thing isn't important?" Patrice asks incredulously. I must admit I was very excited about Senator Marles. I am excited about Senator Marles.
"Well, yes, but I mean important things that will be on the news. Maybe I'll even get to write for the President."
Patrice's eyebrows go up. "Wow. Mr. Seaborn told you that?"
"Not in so many words...."
She giggles and takes a sheaf of fluorescent pink high-gloss paper in 11x17. Suddenly, she sobers, looking at the paper. "How are you?"
"I'm okay. You?" She shakes her head, causing me to have an uncontrollable urge to relinquish the tower and hug her. Which I do.
Quietly, she says, "I was there, in that room. It was awful. They were so mean...and I had to give them coffee and bottled-freaking-water. I guess you were backstage with the Chosen Ones."
I feel like such a traitor. "Actually, Sam told me to go home yesterday afternoon."
She pulls away and looks at me with slit eyes. "You left?"
What am I supposed to say? "I didn't know what was going on. He told me the weather was going to get pretty bad and I should be home before the storm hit."
Eyebrows raised in disbelief, she says, "Really?"
"Yes, really. He told me to watch Dateline and CNN immediately thereafter. I had no idea why, but it's Sam. You know what I mean."
She does, turning to leave. "Enjoy your office, Annie."
I'm not quite sure if she's being sarcastic or just sad. Following, I say with forced cheer, "He says we're getting connecting doors."
Laughing out loud, Patrice replies, "Why on earth would you want to do that?"
"I haven't got the foggiest," I say, smiling at her back. "It's his idea. We're going to talk and throw files and stuff."
"Get out while you can!" she calls as we separate at my cubicle.
Just what I was thinking.
*
By lunch the paper room has been cleared out, the House Majority Leader still isn't commenting on whether he will seek impeachment, and I have a lovely dark cherry desk. It's from the storage downstairs. As I'm picking up my poor spider plant to move it yet again, Ginger peeks around the corner of my cubicle.
"Hello?"
"Hi! Yes?" I stand up straight, holding the plant in front of myself. I'm pretty sure I look pretty stupid.
Smiling around the bags under her eyes, she gestures over her shoulder. "Toby wants to see you."
"Now?"
"Yes. ASAP," she says, with that subdued glee she gets from saying things like ASAP and PDQ.
"Okay. I'll be there in a minute."
Ginger turns and goes back to her office, calling, "She'll be there in a minute. Now leave me alone!"
After replacing the plant on my filing cabinet, I leave my cubicle and walk into Toby's office. "Yes, sir?"
He mumbles something at the paper he's reading, then pushes it away. "You haven't forgotten Senator Marles, have you?"
Lacing my fingers together, I shake my head. "No, sir."
"Good."
He stops. A silence, which promises to be long, begins. I study one of Toby's posters, trying to make out the political slogans heaped atop each other without being obvious.
Abruptly, he says, "I want you to meet with him, get a feel for what he's going to do."
"What's he going to do?"
Rolling his eyes up at me with that hardened disinterest, he elaborates, "Ask him if he's leaving the party."
"I can do that?"
"I don't know, can you?"
Dammit. I meant, "I can do that. Sir."
"Leo told you not to call me sir," he sighs, shuffling some papers onto his blotter. As I begin to apologise, he shakes a hand at me. "I was just reminding you. Don't stop doing it."
A laugh builds in my stomach, but despite his joke I don't think he's in the mood. So I ask, "Is the appointment already made with the Senator?"
"No, Annie. You can dial a phone, I hope."
"Um, yes, sir. I'll go. Thank you." Mouthing all sorts of self-depreciatives, I return to my cubicle and take my phone to my office. My office. Warm fuzzy.
*
"Senator Marles' office."
"Hello. This is Annie Wright from the White House. I'd like to make an appointment with the Senator as soon as possible, please."
"What would you like to see the Senator about, Ms. Wright?"
What is she, his mother? "It's internal party business. Would you like to speak to Chief of Staff McGarry about it?"
A pause. "No, that won't be necessary. How does eleven o'clock work for you, Ms. Wright?" Whoa. A bluff finally paid off.
"Eleven-thirty would be better, actually."
"We'll see you at eleven-thirty, then."
"Thank you." What a good secretary.
*
The filing cabinet, my swivel chair, and the faithful spider plant have all been moved. I'm in the process of unplugging my computer so it can make the long journey around the corner too.
"You're going to see Marles?" That voice, it's somehow familiar...
"Hi, Josh."
"You're going to see Marles?"
Turning, I'm shocked at how awful he looks. I think he's wearing yesterday's shirt. Possibly yesterday's pants as well. "I have an appointment with him at eleven-thirty, yes. Any special message?"
He taps his fingers on the wall of my cubicle, not meeting my eyes.
"What's up?" I mutter, bending my head to the power bar again.
"What?"
My voice muffled by the desk and the computer tower, I reply, "What about Marles?"
He says nothing. Mr. Lyman is being a mite recalcitrant this morning. "I want to talk to Marles."
Rearing up in surprise, I hit my head on the bottom of the desk. "Shit, shit!" At my expletives, he looks up and enters the cubicle.
"Are you okay?" he asks, kneeling beside me. "Do you need an ice pack? Annie?"
Clutching my head, I look up at him through my fingers and hair. Yesterday's tie, too. His brow is furrowed in concern, hands out, ready to help. Where was this guy three weeks ago? Why did he just look down at me past his coffee cup and ignore my outstretched hand and walk away? Why, oh, why is he looking at me like I'm paralysed now?
"Annie?" he repeats, slowly this time. "Are you okay? Everybody else around here is falling apart, so don't you start."
I really must've hit my head. Now I'm hearing things. "I'm fine," I reply, pushing him away so I can stand and rub my head out of the intimate confines of under the desk. "What about Senator Marles?"
Josh stays on his knee, hands draped over it now. He stares up at me, realising I'm omitting his comment. "I want to talk to him."
"Why?" I ask, bewildered. "What's the difference?"
He stands and paces to the portal of my soon-to-be-ex cubicle. Well, he doesn't pace the three feet so much as walk them in a pacing posture. When he gets there, he props an elbow on the divider and leans his chin into one hand, the other cocked on his hip. "I need to know what's going on inside his head. What he thinks he's doing."
"Yeah," I say, tucking my hair behind my ears and setting back to work on my computer. "That's what Toby told me to do."
"What exactly did he ask you to do?"
"Find out if he's leaving the party."
He turns a full circle, hands in the air, as he says, "But there's so much more to it. I mean, why did he run as a Democrat to begin with? Why's he gone on this Churchill kick all of a sudden? Why the hell now, of all the times in the past two years there's been to defect?"
Irritated, I throw down the network cable I'm holding and look up at him. "Go ask Toby, okay? If you want to talk to Marles, go ask Toby. It's his assignment. I couldn't care less." Well, really that's a lie. I want to talk to the guy, for exactly the same reasons. But Josh seems a little...intense about it. More intense than he usually is about things he cares about.
"Okay." And he goes. Why didn't I think of that in the first place? Then I wouldn't have this splitting headache and a probable concussion.
*
As I'm hooking up the speakers to my computer in my office, a slouching shadow appears at the door. "Hello, sir."
"Did you tell Josh to ask me if he could talk to Marles?" Toby asks, hands in his pockets.
"Yes." A burst of midi birdsong tells me I've been successful in my audio endeavours.
Toby nods slowly, with that somewhat disgusted expression on his face I've come to recognise as displeasure with his general surroundings and situation.
Great. Just great. "Is there a problem with that, sir?"
He starts shaking his head, in that sarcastically innocent, yet still thoroughly disgusted way. "No, no problem. It's just that Marles will be lucky if he gets out of there alive."
Huh? "Pardon me, sir?"
Turning away, he toys with the latch on my office door. Sam mentioned something about having a plaque with my name and title put on it today. "Have you seen him today?" he asks me conversationally, and without waiting for an answer, he continues, "He looks like hell froze over and then got warmed up again for lunch three days later, and do you know why?" I shake my head mutely, but he's not paying attention anyway. "Because the man who may well mean more to him than anybody else living on this planet, except for, of course, me, whom he loves to pieces, did the political equivalent of screwing over the village idiot for a piece of pizza. He lied to get into office, and it wasn't about some piddly thing like his views on abortion or faithfulness to his wife, it was about his ability to govern. His ability to do what's best for the country with absolute clarity and unerring skill. And he not only lied about it, he got away with it. Until last night. So you're going to go to Josh and tell him he's not talking to Marles. And then you're going to tell him why. Do you catch me, Annie?"
His eyes flick to mine and hold. Numbly, I nod. "Yes, sir."
"I really do like that." He taps my door twice and starts to leave, then turns back. "Do it now, Annie." Then he's gone before I can answer.
I had no idea. I thought no one could possibly have been hurt more than me by what happened last night, least of all the Chosen Ones, because of course they've known all along. I guess I was wrong. I should go talk to him.
I attempt a brittle smile at Patrice as I pass her on my way to his office. She smiles back, and then turns as our arms brush and she realises I'm not really smiling. "Annie?" Her voice fades behind me as I knock on his door.
"He's in CJ's office," Donna says as she opens the door. "I'm doing some straightening up."
Nodding, I turn ninety degrees and knock at CJ's half-open door. "Yes?" she calls. She sounds like she has her feet up and her glasses on. As I push the door open, I find I'm right. I hate it when that happens. Just kidding.
Sitting on the corner of her desk is Josh, sleeves rolled up, a modicum of humanity returned to his face. Probably what's got him cheered up is the prospect of taking apart some middle-aged rancher from Arizona piece by piece and sewing him back together again with barbed wire.
"Hello, Annie," CJ says, smiling. She doesn't look too worse for the wear.
"Hello, CJ. Can I steal Josh for a minute?" I ask, wrinkling my nose and pointing at him as if he were a Yorkie panting for his leash.
She waves a hand at him, saying, "Sure, take him. He's just getting in my way anyhow."
Disengaging himself from the desk, he teases, "Very funny, CJ. We'll see who's laughing when I bring Marles back here on a spit."
I'm about to go out through the front door, ignoring his vivid imagery, when he opens a previously overlooked door and goes through. I look quizzically at CJ, who nods and gestures for me to go. "It's just his office. We've got connecting doors."
"Oh, okay. Do you mind if I ask you about that later, because--"
"Annie! Do you want to talk to me or not? I have a meeting in an hour half-an-hour away. Get a move on."
CJ nods. "Any time."
"Great, thanks," I reply, walking through the connecting door backwards so I don't have to break I contact. As she goes back to whatever she was reading, I turn around and shut the door behind me.
"Please, Annie, don't hurt me," Josh jokes, sitting on the corner of his desk. At my look of confusion, he elaborates, "You look like some Mini-Me version of an Amazon."
Nodding, even though I still don't get it, I fold my hands and say, "You're not going to talk to Senator Marles. Toby told me to do it, so I'm going to. It's my responsibility."
Donna fades from the room through the other other door. Smart girl, I wish I could join her.
Shaking his head, Josh replies, "No. I want to. Don't try that, 'Toby said' crap on me."
With an internal sigh, I realise that getting him off of this isn't going to be nearly as easy as getting him on it was. "Toby doesn't think it's a good idea."
"Screw Toby. What does he know?"
More than you think. I gesture vaguely. "That it's not a good idea." Before he can screw Toby's ideas too, I add, "I don't either. Besides, it's been my thing from the beginning. I wrote the first release on it. And you've got more important things to think about."
"Granted."
Here's a tack. "So why bother with Marles? Why is it worth your time when there are these other, more important things to think about?"
As I watch him digest that, I think I've got him.
"Because he should know that we don't take his kind of behaviour lightly-that we don't suffer traitors gladly."
Or not. "Okay. How is me meeting with him instead of you going to give him that impression?" If he insults me, so help me, I'll--
"Quite frankly, Annie, I don't think you've got the skills to impress upon him the enormity of his actions." Almost subtle enough to get past me. He's asking for it now.
I plant my hands on my hips. "Look, buster-"
"Buster?"
"--I don't know where you get off implying that I don't have the 'skills' to impress my point upon some pissant little senator, but you'd better think again. For example, here's me impressing my point upon some jerk-off from Connecticut who thinks he can take his anger at the President out on afore-mentioned pissant senator just because he's a jerk-off and the senator's only a pissant."
Winded, I stop to take a breath. His eyebrows are approaching his hairline, which is a feat this late in the game, and he's getting mottled around the neck. I'd better finish before he fires me.
"I know how you feel, and I know what you're going through, and demolishing Joseph Marles is not going to make you feel better. It may further inflate your sense of self-worth, and you may experience a lightening of your mood, but the anger will still be there. It will be there, and keep growing heavier, until you tell the person who made you angry that you're angry. So you *are not* going anywhere near Senator Marles today. I will keep the appointment with him, and you will stay here and do more constructive, productive, and calming things. Stand behind your door or something. Okay?"
He's silent for a moment. I've totally done it now. "Did you just call me a jerk-off?"
No use denying it. "Yes."
Rubbing his face vigorously, he hops off the desk and walks around. I follow him with my eyes nervously, hands slowly slipping from my hips to clasp at my waist. "Do you really know how I feel?" he asks quietly, his back to me.
Do I really want to have a heart-to-heart with Josh Lyman? Why not, the day's already gone to pot. "Yes. I, um, I do. I've done this before. My father was a politician and a, a liar. He destroyed me--and my family--without a thought for us."
Shaking his head, he turns around. "The President isn't a liar, he just--"
"I'm not done." He subsides, crossing his arms. "My father, he lied to save himself...it was different. It *was* a piddly thing like adultery or real estate fraud--"
"What?"
"--and he lied about it. He was a coward. But last night I learned the difference between a politician and a statesman. He lied for the sake of the country. The President stood up there and stood up for himself. It was different."
Josh looks down at the floor and repeats, "The difference between a politician and a statesman."
Ignoring him, I continue passionately, "Sam can say all he wants about them trying to impeach him, but it doesn't matter. It's done. I really don't think punishing him is worth the future of our country."
"Write that down."
I'm still not finished, but he caught me off guard with that. "Huh?"
"Write it down. Someday soon someone's going to have to publicly defend the President, and that's what they should say. It's good." He smiles at me. He only looks like hell frozen over, not warmed up, now.
Numbly, I nod. "Okay." I check my watch compulsively. "I have to go."
"Yeah. That meeting thing. Good luck. Give him hell." He picks up some papers and leaves through the other other door.
The noises outside the office filter into my ears. For a moment everything had been as quiet as a late night tête-à-tête. Ten years ago in my family's living room, Dad with a snifter of brandy, talking to some bigwig in a suit with a shiny briefcase. He looks up at me trembling in the doorway, and smiles his true-blue, innocence-is-my-middle-name smile.
'Everything will be okay, Annie. I promise.'
I flee the office just as I fled the living room, slowly. The panic mercilessly tamped down until I get to my room. My office.
Tom the handyman is drilling holes in the door. "What are you doing?" I ask on a gasp.
He looks down at me and grins around a screw. "Pilot holes for your nameplate, Ms. Wright."
"Ms. Wright? What-what happened to Annie-fannie?" I say, smiling shakily, trying to wrest my composure from the jaws of something bad.
Chuckling deep in his throat, Tom starts drilling again. The noise drowns out my half-hearted response laugh. I slip around him and into my office. It already smells like mine. My jacket, my attaché, my spider plant. I need a piece of art. A portrait maybe--the one my mother had done after he left, maybe....
"Are you okay, Annie?"
I spin around to see Sam standing in my doorway. "I'm fine."
Behind him Tom wipes his fingerprints off my nameplate and gathers his tools to leave. Sam turns his head to look at the piece of brass and hooks a thumb at it. "Come look."
Stepping up beside him, I exhale deeply before looking at it. What if they spelled my name wrong? What if it's ugly? What if--
"Cool, huh? Annie Wright, Communications Assistant." He puts an arm around my shoulder, drawing me closer to the plate gleaming on the off-white panelling of the door.
Ugly? That is the most beautiful thing in the world. My name embossed in black enamel on a brass rectangle, mounted to my door with what look like brass upholstery tacks but I'm sure have a much more classy, sophisticated name in the hardware store.
I take another deep breath and smile, crossing my arms. "Pretty cool. What happened to 'Annie Wright, Junior Speechwriter?'"
"Same thing that happened to Annie-fannie, I spose," Tom intones before taking off, whistling.
Sam chuckles and rubs a cuff on the plate, even though it's already spotless. "Now we just have to get on that connecting door."
I grimace. "About that, Sam--"
"Everything will be okay, Annie. Just relax. I promise the workmen won't kill your plant."
Unable to help myself, I laugh up into his smiling face. "I appreciate it. I've got to go. Closet Republican to chew out," I say, slipping from under his arm.
He watches as I throw on my three-quarter-length pleather jacket and grab my attaché. "Good thing you got Josh off of it. It wouldn't've been pretty."
Pushing past him into the hallway, I shake my head.
"It won't be pretty anyway. He's not the only one who's pissed about last night."
"You go, girl!" Sam shouts after me as I run through Communications, punching the air with his right fist.
"You go!"
THE END