Title: The Rose Garden Conspiracy part 2
Author: Madeleine Mitchell Carr
Email:
Rating: PG
Subject: Josh/Donna, Sam/Ainsley (sort-of, in a very twisted way…)
Spoilers: Five Votes Down/Season 2 up to and including The Leadership Breakfast
Disclaimer: All the characters herein are the legal property of NBC and Aaron Sorkin esq. Sue me not, fair Sirs, as my pockets are empty and I do but dally awhile with these fair mortals and will return them intact, anon.
Summary: A stolen memo, a meeting in the Rose Garden and the IRS. A mystery is afoot. Does it have something to do with Josh's missing coffee mug? And what is CJ hiding in her office? Why is Donna in Ainsley's cupboard with Sam? Just another 'normal' day at the West Wing…
Gratuitous Author's note: All rose names mentioned in this and any proceeding chapters are real. I know 'cos I looked them up. So there.
Part 2 - Donna POV
I can't believe I let Sam Seaborn talk me into this.
The next time this happens, and I deeply and sincerely hope that it never does, I'm just going to suffer the humiliating consequences - dignity and peace of mind be damned! Anything has to be better than lying on damp grass with a paranoid and childishly excited White House senior executive breathing in my ear.
Um…that sounded bad even to my ears.
To clarify. I Donna Moss, Deputy Deputy Chief of Staff, am at this moment hiding in the White House Rose Garden, spying on a Republican lawyer whom the Deputy Director of Communications suspects of stealing a potentially incriminating memo.
Oh Gods, that sounds even worse
I am also…ow, ow, ow, OW!…AGH!…Dammit. I am also being attacked by a very prickly and vicious specimen of the genus Rosaceae. According to the faded label on its stem that I can't help but notice as I attempt to untangle it from my hair, it rejoices in the name, 'Just Joey'.
Huh, figures.
And my day started so well…
I had bounded into the West Wing, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed at precisely 7.17am. I was there ahead of Josh, as usual, but today it was deliberately planned. Why? Because today was going to be a new start, today a new and improved Donnatella Moss was going to emerge butterfly-like from the shell of her previous self. I was going to be serene and impervious. I was going to be efficient and witty. I was going to be fulfilled and happy and gomer-free. I was going to be…
Well, you get the point.
Suffice to say, I had a plan. It was a good plan. It was a healthy and wise plan. It was a Master Plan that was going to rejuvenate my life and set me free from…
Anyway, the PLAN had been formulated over three beers, a pint of Chunky Monkey and a conversation with my deeply cool girl-friend, Delilah. Not the most auspicious of starting points for a life-changing master plan, I'll grant you, but it was Delilah who inspired it, and Delilah was the most 'centred' person that I knew - which was why I had chosen her to advise me on my…little problem.
My 'little problem', little being the operative word, was that I seemed to have developed a small, nay tiny, even minuscule, crush on my boss Joshua Lyman. This crush was so minute as to be virtually non-existent, but it was disturbing me none the less. It was a pretty stupid thing for me to have done and I am not usually stupid. In fact, it almost made me wish that I had bothered to read the 'Handbook for the Modern Girl' that my Great-Aunt Letitia had bought me for my tenth birthday as that worthy publication no doubt covered such an eventuality in the chapter entitled, 'Things Which Are Not A Good Idea'.
But, of course, I had hidden the book in the deepest and darkest corner of my closet, which is no doubt why the ghost of Great-Aunt Letitia was cursing me from beyond the grave. It all started after Josh got shot and I spent 3 months caring for him. Letty's vengeful hand must have reached through from the after-life and twisted all my perfectly natural emotions of pity and empathy for a suffering fellow-human into some kind of bizarre reverse-Florence Nightingale Syndrome. I can only assume that when Josh was diagnosed with PTSD at Christmas, my sad state of delusion was further exacerbated by my response to his vulnerability combined with my deep-rooted lack of self-worth and desperate desire to be needed.
That's what Delilah said, at any rate. She is a very wise woman.
By the time I had reached the bottom of my second beer, I had worked myself up into an exaggerated state of despair over the whole business, which is when Delilah had come up with the PLAN. The details of the PLAN consisted of a very groovy concept called 'Offering-Up', which Delilah had discovered during a Women's Encounter Group session. 'Offering-Up' enables you to escape the tyranny of oppressive relationships and become a Free-Soul by writing down, and meditating on, all the positive and negative aspects of that relationship and then releasing them into the cosmos in a ritualistic fire.
Well, it had sounded good at 1.30 in the morning, anyway. Some of the finer points of the PLAN may have escaped me.
I must confess that when I reached work the next day, my inner-Rational Donna was cringing a little at my enthusiasm of the night before, but the PLAN at least had the virtue of being pro-active and I had to do something pretty quickly before my hold on sanity crumbled and I started inadvertently being nice to Josh or something equally disastrous. So, after my usual chores of checking and updating his schedule, I settled down with a fresh cup of coffee, a blank sheet of paper and a new pen and prepared myself to write a list. I am good at lists.
I had decided to start with 'positive' aspects, since I figured that 'negative' was easy and would only take me a couple of minutes, and besides, I didn't have enough pieces of paper. I took my new pen and wrote,
'Things I like about Joshua Lyman',
and underlined it carefully with a ruler. I thought for a moment, then wrote,
'I like that he hired me'.
The statement looked a bit strange and stark lying there on the page, but the list was for my eyes only after all and my self-respect balked at the idea of listing all the reasons why he shouldn't have hired me (i.e. My youth, my chutzpah, my relative lack of experience, my total lack of qualifications etc.)
'I like his ability to bring the banter'
Okay, that one didn't require an explanation either. It was turning out to be easier than I had thought.
'I like it when we walk and banter at the same time'
Hmm. I considered crossing that one out as being more about 'us' than 'him', but decided to leave it there in case I couldn't think of anything else to write.
"Morning, Donna"
Josh.
Ignoring the little flutter my stomach gave at the sound of his voice, on the grounds that it was probably the last time it would ever happen, I smoothly slid the list under my keyboard, out of sight, and said,
"Morning, Josh. You don't have Staff until 9 and Bishop cancelled your 8.15 because he has the flu."
He looked a trifle disconcerted, which was kind of cute.
"You mean I have nothing to do until 9 o'clock?"
"I'm not sure I'd characterise running the country as 'nothing', but what you will, and all that…"
"You know what I mean."
"Not often, fortunately"
He grunted at me, his ability to 'bring the banter' not at its best at 7.30 in the morning, and wandered off towards his office. I watched him, my hand poised to retrieve my list and I had to snatch it back again when he turned at the doorway and said,
"If I'm going to be stuck here all alone for over an hour, you could be a kind and understanding assistant and bring me coffee…"
"Only in your dreams, Lyman."
"Okay"
The door closed behind him, and I wrote,
'I like that he likes that I never bring him coffee'
Not a very felicitous sentence, as one of my College Professors would have said, but I could always type up the list later and run it through a grammar check. I could add bullet points.
"Watcha doing?"
I jumped as CJ loomed into my eye-line and my hand moved spasmodically thrusting the list under a pile of files. It was starting to look a little crumpled.
"Oh, Hi CJ"
That woman can move around as silently as a cat sometimes. It's kind of scary.
"Hi Donna. You okay?"
"Um…yeah, I'm fine. I'm er…doing stuff."
Nice save, Donna…
"I can see that." CJ said pleasantly before sashaying off to her office. She sees a bit too damn much for my liking sometimes. I watched her suspiciously for a moment in case she decided on a bit of taunting, but she never hesitated as she opened her door. As she did so, a faint, strange, rotten kind of smell wafted towards me. CJ must have noticed it too because she halted suddenly and looked worried.
I had opened my mouth to call out to her, when she made a sound that can only be described as a squeak, glanced around her furtively, dived into her office hurriedly and shut the door with a bang.
That was pretty weird behaviour, even for CJ, and I debated with myself for a moment if I should make my way over there and offer a bit of sisterly assistance for…whatever it was that made her squeak. However, Josh chose that moment to re-emerge from his office, 'Master Politician' coffee mug in hand, and I was forced to move some files around busily in an attempt to further conceal the half-hidden list.
"I'm off now to get my own coffee now, thus kindly and generously saving my busy assistant time and energy", he said proudly, waving his hand in the direction of the coffee machine.
"That's a good boy", I offered, encouragingly.
"I live, but to serve" he replied, and smiled.
Once he had retreated back to his office, I extracted the list, smoothed it with my hand, and wrote,
'I like his dimples'
Not bad. Short and to the point. The 'positives' were adding up nicely. I should be able to have a nice blaze going when I got home.
The next ten minutes passed quietly and in between legitimate tasks, I managed to add 'I like his passionate commitment to his job' and 'I like it when he leans against the wall' to my list. I had just finished writing, 'I liked the book on Alpine Skiing, but would have preferred it if he'd bought me skis', when I noticed Toby striding towards me and I was forced to hustle the list out of sight again. He looked pretty grim, even for him and there was a kind of tautness about his mouth that hinted at a larger demon that his usual brand of free-floating frustration with the stupidity of the world.
He stared at a point over my left shoulder and muttered tersely,
"Is Josh in?"
"Yes"
"Okay"
He took a deep breath as if preparing himself for a dive into deep water and half-heartedly straightening his shoulders, went into Josh's office. I started at the closed door for a moment, then lifted up some files, unwrinkled my list and wrote,
'I like that Josh's friends feel they can come to him in times of trouble'
I chewed on the end of my pen thoughtfully and added,
'as long as they don't upset him'
I wondered for a moment if that qualifier wasn't a bit too revealing of my feelings, but decided that my concern was a very natural one for an assistant to have for her boss. I was all right to care for your boss, wasn't it? It's just that I wasn't convinced of his ability to cope with any more stress at the moment and he was so good at hiding his problems, that perhaps his friends didn't realise quite how vulnerable he was.
In other words, I was racking my brains to come up with a way to get into that office and find out what was going on with Toby. As a good, efficient and caring assistant should, I mean, it was practically part of my job description.
My guardian angel must have heard my thoughts because about 15 minutes later, Congressman Wick telephoned demanding to speak to Josh. I put him on hold and practically leapt for the office hoping that there was nothing ominous going on behind the closed door.
Toby and Josh were staring at each other without saying a word. Toby looked depressed and Josh…well, let's just say that I've seen road kill look less stunned than he did at that moment. I played my efficient, yet ditzy assistant role to the hilt, pretending I hadn't noticed the 'atmosphere', but when Josh shouted at me about the coffee thing, I was hard pressed to keep a bland expression on my face. There is no doubt that Josh is a shouter, but mostly he does it for effect; his yell of 'NOT ENOUGH!' was involuntary and the sound made my heart sink to my shoes.
He immediately looked sorry for it, but before I could formulate any sort of response, Toby had dragged him away. Josh looked stressed and confused by Toby's actions, which to my mind was not a good combination. He hadn't been stressed and confused before Toby spoke to him, I knew that much, so once I had fobbed off Wick with a half-promise of seeing Josh later in the day, I zipped off to pump Ginger for the inside story on her boss.
Primed with a chocolate doughnut, Ginger was more that willing to gossip, but she actually knew only a little more that I did – that Toby had received a phone call (an internal one, she had guessed, by listening to the ring tone), and had spent the next five minutes swearing quietly at thin air. She had no idea who had spoken to him or what it was all about. I was disappointed in Ginger; she is usually the best assistant-spy among us.
So, a doughnut poorer and none the wiser, I wondered back to my desk resolving to add, 'I like that he tells me important things' to my Josh list. It was a testament to my state of mind that it took me a good five minutes of shifting files about before the truth finally dawned: the list was gone.
My 'Things I like about Joshua Lyman' list was gone.
GONE, I tell you.
A hideous thought occurred to me: if it wasn't where I left it, where was it? And more importantly: HAD ANYONE SEEN IT!?
AGH!
The next five minutes passed in a hideous blur as I frantically went through every file on my desk in a positive blizzard of paper. I was practically hyperventilating with anxiety and I think that I was whispering 'no, no, no…' under my breath like a very demented person. I kept on searching, but the icy pit in my stomach was telling me that I wasn't going to find it on my desk anytime soon. I knew exactly where I had left it and there it was left no longer.
I felt the slow burn of impending humiliation on my cheeks as I changed tack, ignoring the files scattered around my desk like confetti, and retraced my steps from the last ten minutes. I might have inadvertently picked it up and dropped it, it could be anywhere around the bullpen, lying around in plain view for anyone to read. They could have all read it ALREADY!
I wasn't sure who I meant by 'they', but my mind was in such a state of panicked dementia, that I was more than ready to burn down the entire White House rather than let anyone get the slightest passing glance at what I had written down. As I skirted around furtively, garnering some pretty strange looks, I was relieved to find that no-one appeared to be smirking or sniggering, but that was small consolation for the nasty jolt I received when another thought occurred to me.
If I'd left the list on my desk as I had first thought, and hadn't dropped it anywhere, how could it be missing? Unless…somebody took it. Deliberately.
I felt quite sick and dizzy and was forced to lean against the wall next to Josh's office door. Nobody was standing around waving a bit of paper and laughing, so it was a pretty good bet that the joker who had taken it was keeping the information quiet. For the moment. I think that I even let out a groan of despair, at the knowledge that somebody, whether friend or foe (and I wasn't sure which was worse), had evidence of my sad and delusional state of mind in their hands. My inner thoughts were in someone's possession.
Ick. Nasty thought.
I could think of no good result from this at all. The repercussions could be fairly mild, such as months of humiliating verbal torture. But if someone who didn't like Josh got hold of it? If my poor innocent little list was seen in different light? Well, it would not just damage me, it would damage him.
For a moment, I almost succumbed to the stress of the last ten minutes and started to cry, but I retained enough strength of mind to stagger off towards the rest rooms. My 'no, no, no…' mantra had become 'stupid, stupid, stupid…' with the occasional 'idoit!' thrown in for variety. I had to stop and bang my head against the wall of the corridor a couple of times just to stop it from exploding from the effort of surpressing the screams. Even if no-one had taken it after all, or it was simply lost, I knew that I would never have peace of mind again. It would be out there somewhere. Ticking like a bomb.
I slapped the palms of my hands against the wall, banged my forehead against it a couple more times, just for good measure, and resolved that I would never, ever again listen to Delilah's advice. I would never, ever write another list. No, scratch that, I would never, ever WRITE anything again. In fact, I was going to lift my head up in a minute and find every single pen and pencil in the White House and burn them to a crisp in the nearest fireplace.
Except the fireplaces were all sealed.
AGH! (Bang, bang, bang…)
"Donna? Donna! Are you all right? What's the matter?"
I stopped banging my head against the wall, but stayed where I was because I recognised the voice.
Sam Seaborn.
I knew that I probably looked a bit of a wreck and Sam is pretty good at reading people. In fact, he's very good at it. If pushed, I would have to say that he is a kind, caring and sensitive man (except when he's being stupid or anally retentive), which is why I didn't want him seeing my face. He is also a blabbermouth of the first order.
I felt his hand against my back and a shadow fell across my face as he tried to peer more closely at me. I shook my head slightly so that my hair hid my expression better.
"Donna?"
"Nothing's wrong, I'm fine!", I said, as brightly as I could muster.
"Oh. So the head-banging thing was for fun?"
"Yep"
"Well, far be it for me to judge, but I suspect you're not telling me the truth on that one."
Go to the top of the class, Mr. Seaborn
"Is it something to do with…Josh?"
What? Why would he ask that?
I needed to see his face, because his voice had not held the low-level murmur of amusement that it usually did. I turned my head rather abruptly and he jumped back, startled. As I had thought, he looked rather more concerned than my admittedly strange behaviour would warrant. I really, really wanted to ask him why he assumed this was about Josh, but I didn't want to let anything slip about my little 'problem', either.
Unfortunately, he was silent. There is a very uncomfortable quality to Sam's silences that I had noticed before; people usually babbled at him in an attempt to fill up the void before it dragged them in. He was a kind of human vacuum-powered mind-sucker or something. It worked on me, at any rate because words seemed to be coming out of my mouth without my brain getting involved.
"I lost something." I muttered.
He frowned, "Is it Josh?", he repeated.
I puzzled over that one. Why would I lose Josh?
"I don't carry him around in my pocket, you know." I said, rather offended by the implication.
"Who?" He was still frowning, but puzzled too.
"Josh"
"What about Josh?"
"About Josh being lost."
Honestly, sometimes he has the attention span of a five-year-old.
"You've lost me"
"Oh, I've lost you too now have I? Aren't I Miss Careless today? I'll have lost the White House by the end of the afternoon if I'm not careful."
Bitter sarcasm probably wasn't the best mode to have employed just then, because Sam started to look rather alarmed.
"I don't know what you're talking about Donna, but I'm assuming it has something to do with Josh?"
Damn. When will I learn to keep my mouth shut?
"I saw Josh ten minutes ago", he added, in a kind voice, as though he was worried that I'd start fretting over my apparent inability to keep tabs on the third most powerful man in the country at all times. Not that his news wasn't welcome…
"You did?"
"Yes"
"Where?"
His face darkened, and I'll swear that he was grinding his teeth
"Outside Ainsley's office"
He said her name as though it was something nasty he'd picked up on the bottom of his shoe whilst strolling on the sidewalk. Previous observation of Sam had not led me to believe that he could employ that tone of voice when referring to the Fair Republican, so something was most definitely UP.
"Why was he in Ainsley's office?"
He had been staring at me intently, but when I asked this question, his face fell in disappointment.
"I was hoping you would know"
I couldn't imagine how on earth Ainsley factored into the strangeness going on this morning.
"Why? What happened?"
His face darkened further and he stared at his feet as though uncertain whether or not to say anything. Eventually, he said slowly,
"I don't know, exactly, but I overheard her shouting at him."
"Ainsley was shouting?"
Sam looked quite unhappy.
"Yes"
"Well?"
"Well what?"
"What was she shouting?"
"Some…not very nice things"
"What not very nice things?"
"She…threatened him."
He was practically mumbling and I had to resist the urge to shake the story out of him. I couldn't wrap my brain around the image of Ainsley Hayes, Republican Poster Girl, threatening the Deputy Chief of Staff.
"Sam, you're killing me here. What did she say?"
He sighed, and said reluctantly,
"She said that he was a corrupt and dangerous man, and she was going to bring him down."
"WHAT?!"
While I was still reeling from this unexpected development, Sam had found his voice.
"It was horrible, Donna!", he cried, pacing up and down outside the women's toilet. "I had no idea what she thought…I mean, how could she…? I thought I knew…Why did she…? I mean, I knew she didn't really like him, but…"
"SAM! Stop talking and calm down. I don't understand! Ainsley doesn't like Josh? Why don't I know this?"
I wanted to cry, 'How can she not like Josh?', but I managed to bite my tongue on that one.
He stopped pacing, and cringed slightly.
"I guess he didn't tell you", he said cryptically
"Tell me what?"
"What happened when they first met"
"Josh and Ainsley?"
"Yeah"
"Well?"
"Well what?"
I ground my teeth together so hard, my jawed ached.
"What. Happened?"
Sam looked at me sadly and told me the story.
"Josh had just come back to work after…you know, and he came into the room as I was talking to Ainsley. He was very polite and friendly, so it wasn't something that he did, or anything, but she started talking about how wrong the Gun Bill was and how we shouldn't legislate against people owning weapons…"
He trailed off at my look of horror.
"She did WHAT? In front of him?"
"Yeah."
"What did Josh do?"
"Nothing, really. He just got tense and quiet. But the way he looked at me…"
I could well imagine. I was thinking, 'How could she?' I mean, I don't know her all that well, but she seemed like a decent person, for a Republican, and I'd never dreamed she could be guilty of such insensitivity. However, to be fair, I did think that maybe Sam was jumping to conclusions.
"Much as it pains me to say this, Sam, what she said then doesn't mean that she dislikes him. Besides, even if she did, why on earth would she threaten him? And more importantly, what on earth could she possibly have to threaten him with?"
As I said this, a terrible, paralysing thought entered my brain and refused to be budged.
NO!
Surely not…
There hasn't been enough time, has there? How long ago did the list go missing? Had Ainsley even been there while I was talking to Ginger? Could it have been someone else? Was it just a ghastly coincidence?
"Sam?"
"What? What?"
He must have been alarmed at the strangled note in my voice.
"That thing I lost…"
"You lost something?"
Oh. Perhaps he hadn't heard me the first time.
"Yes, I lost something, which was why I was banging my head against the wall."
"O-kay. With you so far. What does it have to do with Ainsley?"
"Well, the thing I lost, I might not have lost it after all"
"So you haven't lost anything?"
"YES! But I'm thinking that it may have been…well, stolen"
Sam turned a bit pale at my words, possibly he was catching up with me.
"What was it?" he said, hoarsely.
I closed my eyes and swallowed. Perhaps a half-truth would do it…
"It was a piece of paper…a memo! yes, a memo. It was about Josh."
"A memo about Josh was STOLEN?"
Well, when he put it like that, it sounded pretty bad, and he didn't even know what was in the 'memo'. He certainly wasn't going to find out from me.
"What was in the memo?"
This was spiralling way out of control. I could feel words crowding into my throat, but I resolutely clamped my lips shut and shook my head frantically at him instead.
He narrowed his eyes.
"Does that mean you don't know, or you can't say?"
I nodded my head.
"Which one? You can't say?"
Again with the nod.
He started pacing again, but his stride had a different quality to it this time. He looked like Hercule Poirot exercising those little grey cells, or…yes. If I squinted at a certain angle and mentally added a pipe and deerstalker, he could have been Sherlock Holmes. Or I might just have been hallucinating.
"Was this memo about Josh, confidential?"
Oh, my yes.
I nodded.
"Was it", he paused and swallowed in mid-stride, "Could it potentially be damaging?"
Could it? In the right hands, it could damage him, maybe.
Nod, nod. It was like playing twenty questions.
"Was it…personal?"
My neck was starting to ache.
"Yes"
I could see Sam's brain going at top speed, probably going through every icky detail of Josh's personal life that he could dredge up. Goodness knows what conclusions he came to, because he visibly winced a couple of times. Eventually he said.
"Do you think that Ainsley has the memo?"
I noticed that he refrained from saying that Ainsley may have 'stolen' the memo. It all seemed a little far-fetched, but what did I know? I shrugged helplessly.
"We can't take the chance…", Sam began, then suddenly galvanising himself, grabbed my arm and took off at a run for the stairs to the basement.
This action was so unexpected, that I almost got whiplash in my attempt to stay on my feet. My ankles ached as I wobbled after him on my heels.
"Where are we going?"
"We're going to search Ainsley's office"
"What!? Are you mad?"
We hit the staircase and I grabbed the banister and half-slid, half-fell down the steps in his wake. Sam Seaborn has very long legs.
"Sam! We can't do this!"
"Look, in all likelihood, we're way off base with this, but we can't take the chance. We're going to find out the truth because I won't let my friend be treated this way by puffed-up, arrogant Republican."
Wow, he sounded really determined. It was kind of sexy, actually.
We stumbled through a door and headed down the corridor.
"But, I'm sure that Ainsley isn't…", I paused to catch my breath as Sam continued to accelerate.
"I don't know what Ainsley is. I don't know what she's up to. But she's up to something, and I'm going to find out what it is, even if I have to beat it out of her!"
Ye Gods. Did he just say what I thought he said? Talk about subtext…
We were approaching Ainsley's door and I was getting seriously out of breath.
"Sam, why are we running?"
He halted abruptly and I had to skid to a stop to prevent myself from crashing into his back. Unfortunately, my three-inch heels weren't designed for skidding and I tottered, overbalanced and fell. I grabbed Sam around the knees as I went down as I really didn't want carpet burns on my nose on top of everything else. He sagged slightly under my weight, and let out a quiet "Oomph!", but managed to stay upright.
"What?" I managed, my mouth muffled by the cloth of his pants.
I heard a door open, and he leapt for the shadows at the edge of the hallway. Still clinging to his legs, I was dragged sideways, managed to roll slightly and ended up half-sitting with my head against the side of his leg. Floundering like a fish in a bucket, I tried to find purchase on the painted wall and hissed,
"Sam, for God's sake! What's going on?"
"Quiet!" he hissed back. "Ainsley just left her office. Give her a minute and we'll follow her,"
"What? NO!"
But, he was off again. My head, deprived of its support, succumbed to gravity, but I managed to twist my upper body and landed heavily on my shoulder. I caught a brief glimpse of Sam trying to sidle along the wall surreptitiously and gritting my teeth in pain and an ardent desire to smash his face in the nearest photocopier, I rolled again, untangled my legs, crawled a few yards and finally dragged myself to my feet, the shreds of my dignity flapping behind me like ticker-tape.
Doggedly, I limped after him. I was no longer sure exactly why we were doing this, but was becoming seriously motivated by a need to catch up to him and hurt him badly. This determination kept me going through a couple of hundred yards of hallway and another flight of stairs, but by the time I finally caught him, lurking by an external door, I was too tired and demoralised to do anything more than punch him feebly in the arm.
He ignored me, too intent on opening the door a chink and peering outside.
"Where's she going?" I panted resignedly; "I don't even know where we are anymore."
He turned to face me, his mouth open in surprise.
"She's in the Rose Garden"
"What? Why is she in the Rose Garden?"
"How the hell should I know?" he said, sticking his head out of the door again.
"Wait a minute…"
"What?"
"There's someone else there. A man."
"What man?"
"Don't know, I've never seen him before. He's got a briefcase. We need to hear them…"
Oh God.
"Sam…"
I put my hand on his shoulder in an attempt to hold him back, when he hit the deck suddenly and started crawling. My faithful friend, Gravity, nudged me playfully and I was forced to fall through the door onto my knees and follow Sam by sheer default. I'll swear he was enjoying himself.
That's pretty much how I ended up lying on wet grass next to the Deputy Communications Director with a rose bush called Joey pulling my hair out by the roots.
I say again, 'AGH!'
I've finally separated my blonde tresses from Joey's prickly tendrils and I'm trying to crane my neck around the cursed shrub to catch a glimpse of the action. Sam's practically wriggling in excitement and I just know he's aching to get closer. Unfortunately, although the concept of a Rose Garden sounds pretty, at the beginning of February in Washington DC, rose bushes are not going to be heading the list on anyone's 'Must Get' list. Sam and I are trying to remain unseen behind a collection of thorny twigs, so attempting to get closer to Ainsley and the mystery man is a big no-no at the moment. In fact, the only cover we're getting at all is being provided by a handy box-hedge which, incidentally, smells of cat's pee.
I'm beginning to seriously question Jackie Kennedy's sense of style.
However, my ponderings on herbaceous borders are halted when I finally make out exactly what Ainsley is doing. She has a piece of paper in her hand. A white piece of paper. She's giving it to the SWB (Stranger With Briefcase), he's looking at it, and…Oh my God…he's LAUGHING.
Beside me, Sam has gone very still.
"Is that…?" he hisses in my ear
"I don't know. I can't tell from here."
The tension is killing me. In fact, if that does turn out to be my list I may as well throw myself bodily onto Joey-the-evil-rose and let her finish the job.
The SWB is now opening his briefcase and (shudder) putting the piece of paper inside. He takes out what looks like a file and hands it to Ainsley. She's opening it…looking inside…Oh Hell, now SHE'S laughing! What is this? The Let's-bring-down-the-government-and-have-a-laugh-while-we're-doing-it-Club?
Sam has started quivering with tension. His face looks appallingly grim and he's muttering under his breath. I can just about catch the words,
"…evil witch…fiend from hell…Mata Hari…femme fatale…" and just about every other vile clichéd epithet that he can lay his hands on.
I think I'm beginning to have an inkling of why Sam is letting this bother him so much.
As I'm straining my ears in a vain attempt to hear the apparently amusing conversation going on across the lawn, Sam touches my shoulder and hisses,
"Let's get out of here."
What? We just got here…
"Why?" I hiss back.
"Because we can't hear them anyway, and I still want to search Ainsley's office."
Who the hell does he think he is? One of the Hardy boys?
But before I can halt his madness (and disclaim any resemblance to Nancy Drew), he's wriggling on his elbows back towards the White House in a pathetic imitation of a Commando. I decide that I would rather go back to Dr. Freeride than make myself look that stupid, so I throw caution to the wind, stand up, and run for the open door.
I hear a muffled exclamation from him as I sprint past, but I don't stop until I'm back in the hallway. Sam bursts through, seconds after me (Ha! So much for the crawling thing), and yells,
"What the hell do you think you're doing? We could have been seen!"
"Don't be stupid Sam, they were too busy giggling like maniacs to see much of anything. Let's just get on with it, already, so I can go back to banging my head against the wall"
He looks like he wants to argue with me, but obviously (and wisely) decides against it. Instead, he turns and heads back up the stairs.
Looking sadly at my tattered pantyhose and grass-stained knees, I trail him back to Ainsley's office. When I get there, he's already started going through the files on top of the filing cabinet. I can only shudder at the number of Privacy Laws he's breaking right now.
"Take the desk" he says tersely
I comply, but only because he's like a dog with bone and I'm too tired to protest. It's not worth it in any case, because after five minutes of rifling, all I've turned up is a half-eaten cream cheese bagel, a box of pecan cookies, half a dozen double chocolate muffins and a packet of Cheerios and can only conclude that Ainsley must be some kind of mutant life-form.
"Have you found anything?" I ask him dispiritedly.
"No, but I…"
He trails off and his face goes pale. I can feel the blood drain from mine as well, because I can hear what he does. Footsteps. From the direction of the Rose Garden.
"Quick" he whispers frantically.
Fast as a snake, he grabs my hand and…stops.
"What do we do? What do we do?"
Honestly, I always knew it was Nancy who was the brains of the outfit. I cast around swiftly, then pull him towards the cupboard on the right-hand wall of the office. We throw ourselves inside.
Ow, ow, ow and ow again. There's not enough room in this cupboard for a small child, let alone two fairly tall adults. There must be half a dozen shelves in here, most of which are poking into various soft parts of my anatomy. Sam is standing in front of me, but there's not enough room left for the door to close as Ainsley's coat is hanging on the back of it. I'm forced to wedge my backside between the shelves and wrap my arms about his neck to bring him in closer; from that position, I can just about manage to reach around his back and wrap my fingers around the edge of Ainsley's coat. I pull. We're in.
Well, this is embarrassing. Sam is an attractive man and all that, but I honestly never expected (or wanted) to find myself in such close proximity to him. I'm sure he's as uncomfortable as I am because he keeps tensing up and trying to create some distance (an impossible task) even though we can both hear Ainsley moving about in her office. I will admit though, he smells quite nice. Sort of fresh and grassy.
I almost yelp in protest however, when Sam jerks quite suddenly, then goes as still as a Mummy.
Voices.
There is someone else in Ainsley's office.
It's Josh.
So help me Father for I have sinned…
I hide my face in Sam's shoulder to stifle a groan, just as my fingers slip from their hold on Ainsley's coat, and the door swings slowly open…
TBC