Week 2: Monday
The rest of the week had gone by fairly quietly. I was still angry with Josh and we only spoke when we had to for that last day and a half, I was glad to be going home for the weekend, something that was unusual for me (I always ended up staying at work over the weekend, God I was turning into a Josh). My mom had her operation on the Friday and she had been fine, it was a success. We just had to wait now and see if the cancer had spread. I was sure it hadn't, or I was trying to convince myself that it hadn't spread, if it had it meant basically that nothing else could be done.
I walked into the office looking fairly awful; I had barely slept that night as today my mom was supposed to get the results about whether it had spread or not. I kept listening in my head to my dads voice on the phone, he sounded so fragile. I wasn't sure if he could take much more never mind my mom. They had been through tough times but they had never stopped loving each other and even now they could still look like a couple of teenagers, holding hands giving each other little kisses. It was how I had always imagined falling in love would be like and I hoped and prayed that I would find something just as beautiful. Yet it was this that was tearing my father apart, he couldn't stand seeing my mother like this, I just couldn't wait to get up there when this was all over.
As I walked over to my desk I noticed that there was a huge bouquet of flowers on my desk, Josh's door was shut and no one else was around. I walked over and looked at the card, as I stared at it Carol appeared behind me,
"Ooh, and who's your secret admirer?" she asked playfully
"It's the President," I said and she laughed as she carried on towards the Pressroom. I looked at the card again; it was from Josh, it said
"I'm sorry about Thursday, please forgive me! I'll never ask for coffee again!" I couldn't help but smile and walked into his office to be nice to him, but he wasn't there. Oh well, I'll thank him later, just then the phone rang.
****
"Josh, how're we doing with Bruckheist and Seligman?" the President asked as he stared at him over his usual collection of papers. They were all in the Oval Office for the beginning of the week meeting.
"Well, it's going to get difficult, they're still not happy. For now, they won't say anything but I don't know how long that's going to last."
"Mmm" was all the President said.
"Sir, we've all been working on this but…" Leo stopped for a second, already Bartlet could tell there was going to be problems
"What?"
"I don't think this is going to go away."
"Why not?"
"Because so far we've been lucky." Sam pointed out, "We've kept people busy with gun control and Mendoza for good or bad has kept the press fairly busy till recently. Now…well I think we are not going to be able to beat it down again."
"Mr. President, the press are not going to let you go on this one." CJ chimed in.
"We can't say anything."
"Mr. President…" Josh started
"I'm sorry Josh we cannot get into this debate because we will lose, and we will lose hard. Am I understood?" he looked up at them all, they looked glum but they understood. "Right what's next?"
"Tony Blair…" Leo started
"Oh, God…what's he said now?"
"He disagrees with our policy in the Middle East, but as usual he put it in the most polite terms as possible, i.e. everybody on the planet got the drift." Toby said, speaking for the first time that morning.
"This isn't unusual, I'll chat with him tonight, ok?"
"Yep." Leo nodded as he turned over to his next page.
"What's next?" the President asked, but before Leo could speak they could all hear the sound of heated voice outside the Oval Office, it sounded like two women shouting.
"What is going on out there?" the President asked as Sam went to the door to check it out, as soon as he opened the door Donna burst through with Mrs. Landingham in hot pursuit.
"Donna!?" Josh asked, shocked by her sudden appearance.
"I'm sorry Mr. President, she demanded to see you and the senior staff." the President looked at Donna, tears were streaming down her face and she looked devastated and furious at the same time, he turned to Josh and saw how desperate he was to go over to her but couldn't.
"It's ok Mrs. Landingham, I'll take it from here." Mrs. Landingham nodded and gave Donna a fairly evil look as she walked out the door and closed it.
"Donna? How can I help you?"
"I just had two phone calls." she looked directly at Josh, "My mother has cancer, she had brain surgery on Friday and we were supposed to find out whether the cancer had spread today, well I did. It has."
"Donna, I'm so -" Josh started but Donna cut him off, holding her hand in the air to stop him.
"But it could be ok, there is a new drug out there, which has been very successful apparently. So things are looking up. But I then got another call, there's a problem. The hospitals HMO will not give my mother the fucking drug which could very well save her life, because and this is the best bit, it would cost them too much!" her voice was high now, almost hysterical.
"Donna, I'm…" the President started but didn't know how to finish.
"No, I don't want to hear that you're sorry, you're the President of the United States, you're the one who's supposed to stop this kind of thing happening, letting patients die in favour of bigger profits. My mother is going to die Mr. President and you are trying to bury the issue. And please don't tell me it's more complicated than that, because it isn't. Either you follow your conscience or you decide to ignore an extremely important issue because you might lose a few points in the polls. I thought Mandy's memo had taught you all something, I thought that you were going to fight these battle, make good on the promises you told us all, that I believed in when I joined the campaign. Or is it just that we're going to fight the battles that aren't too dangerous but just enough to make it look like we're trying. You're President of the United States, your job is to make our country better, not worry about being elected as second time. The whole point of being elected is that while you're there you do something! Don't just sit there burying the big issues and making fools out of us all. I am utterly ashamed to say I work for this administration! You are letting my mother die, and you're letting thousands of others die because you are supporting a system of HMO's which…are money grabbing murderers!" Finally she stopped, but she didn't give any of them the chance to say a word as she fled out the door before they could even begin. Once the door had shut behind her, they sat there half in shock half in shame. All their heads were bowed ashamed to even look at each other, except Josh who was staring at the door, quickly he stood up,
"Mr. President, is it ok if I…." Bartlet waved him off and turned back to his shoes. Josh rushed out the door and left the others to their silence.
The rest of the White House was the same as always, not knowing what had just happened in the Oval Office, he almost ran to his office. When he finally got there, he couldn't see Donna anywhere, he went into his office in case she was there and saw that the bouquet of flowers he had sent were dumped upside down in his bin, and there was an envelope on top of the piles of work on his desk. He slowed down and walked over to his desk and picked up the envelope, it was addressed to him and so he tore it open and began to read. Half way down the page he stopped reading and ran out of the office towards the main exit. He ran out of the building and towards the car park and got there just in time to see Donna disappear in a cab.
Josh turned back towards the building to see Sam walking towards him,
"What happened?" he asked looking concerned for his friend and Donna.
"She's gone." Josh said slowly as if unable to believe it himself.
"I know, I just saw her go."
"No, I mean she's gone! She quit, she resigned, she left. For good. She said she couldn't work with people like us anymore." Josh stared at the floor and slowly walked back inside. Sam watched him for a few moments and then followed.
