Chapter Two: The Pit of Despair
I sit in a chair, watching the late afternoon light reflect off the same window
I broke six months ago. I'm relieved that I don't have the
slightest inclination to do it again. I don't, in fact, have the
slightest inclination to do anything. I'm still wearing yesterday's
clothes, I haven't shaved, and I don't think I even locked my car doors after I
parked. And I don't really care.
It's summertime, so it won't be getting dark for a while. I
can see, all the lovers, all the kids and their parents and all the elderly
couples and their poodles walk under the window. All those happy people.
I've ruined it. I've ruined everything. Donna's not
going to hang around after this latest stunt - who could blame her? I'm
just trying to imagine the future without her, and am failing miserably.
She was with me even before she actually was. Her...her just
flat-out Donna-ness has permeated every part of my life, even the past.
When I think back to the really great moments, like graduating from law school,
I've somehow added Donna to the memory. I wish she could have been there,
to share those things with me.
If nothing else, she would have made
sure I actually _remembered_ graduating. I can just imagine her dusting a piece of lint off my shoulder and
whispering "Do good up there."
Let's just forget about the fact that she
would have been – what? Fourteen?
When I gave up working for a sure thing and followed my heart to work for
Bartlet I really had it easy. I wasn't seeing anybody at the time, so I
wasn't like Sam, who got ditched by his gold-digging fiancée. I didn't
have that grief. But I would have loved to have Donna there with me,
arguing, approving, discussing all the great things we could do for the country
with Bartlet as President.
The clock on the shelf chimes six. It's a mantle clock I
made back in wood shop in high school - it was either wood shop or home ec, and
everyone already thought I was a nerd. So I wisely went with wood
shop. The clock runs well, and is very sturdy - never let it be said that
a Lyman didn't build something to last.
Yeah, I was making that clock when I got this scar across my
knuckles - see it? Donna says I'm accident prone - I guess I've always
been that way. Ceiling tiles, filing cabinets, patches of ice,
poodles, bullets...Donna.
I'm beginning to get really maudlin when someone rings the
buzzer. I can safely say that there's no-one downstairs that I really
want to see. But just for kicks, I hit the button. "Who is
it?" I scratch out.
"Josh. It's Sam."
Great. Sam has just broken one of the major Rules of Guy Friendship.
When your friend has had his heart ground into tiny little pieces, you leave
him alone. For at least two days. Then, after that very important
mourning period has passed, you drag his ass down to the nearest bar and get
very, very drunk.
Although, since I am the third most important person in the
country, and tomorrow is a work day, I suppose Sam is right in skipping to the
end.
I unlock the door. "C'mon up."
He must have run up the stairs, because I'm just turning away when
he knocks preemptively and walks in.
"Hey Sam. Come right in," I say sarcastically.
"Josh. You look like crap."
I run a hand over my chin. "Thanks. You're a
pillar of support."
"No problem. I heard what happened." Sam
looks at the floor and kicks at the carpet, looking vaguely guilty. About what is anybody's guess.
"Who called you? CJ?"
"Yeah." He exhales loudly and then plops onto the
couch. I really have no choice but to follow him. I resume the seat
I've sat in all day, and my back twinges in protest.
"So you're here to help, is that it, Sam? 'Cause no
offense, but I really don't think you have much control over this
situation."
"Sure I do. Operation Moss, remember?"
I look up and scowl at him. "That ridiculous mission
was accomplished. I was able to discover whether my assistant has any
feelings for me, and the answer in case you were still, y'know, not sure – is a
resounding negative."
Sam has put on his 'cheering up' face. I hate that
face. "You don't know that for sure."
"Well, considering the fact that she one, has never told me
she felt anything but friendship; two, practically upchucked at the discovery
of my feelings for her; and three - and this is the good one - is actually
dating someone who is by all appearances _not_ a gomer...I think I can say she
doesn't even like me anymore."
"Who says he's not a gomer? I'd say we still need to gather
more information before we can make a fair-"
"Sam! _I'm_ more of a gomer than Dave Marienetti!
In fact, when I'm out a job in another four years, I _will_ be a gomer.
I'll be just another political shark, circling around Washington. I'm not
much better than that stupid insurance lobbyist."
"What insurance lobbyist...?"
I wave this off. "Doesn't matter. What I'm trying
to say is that I don't really blame her."
My best friend looks a little confused. Probably because
that whole outpouring made a whole lot better sense when I was mulling it over
in my head this afternoon than when it actually came out.
"Don't blame her for what?"
"For hating my breathing guts."
"She doesn't-"
"I saw it, Sam. God, I'm such an idiot!" I throw
the recliner back and stare at the water stain on my ceiling.
Sam shakes his head. "She looked _shocked_, as in,
'Well blow me down, knock me over with a feather' kind of shocked. That
may be a good sign."
Really, the idea is so stunningly ridiculous I turn to him and
smile. "Absolutely. I see that you're right Sam. It's a
good kind of...whatever."
He just shakes his head and pulls out a magazine from under a
stack of newspapers on the coffee table. It's a copy of that magazine
Donna's sister writes for. I wonder if Norie realizes how closely Donna's
been following her career. I bet not. Donna's pretty sparing
with her praise, although she shows her pride in other ways.
Here I go again. If I break out any pictures and start to
weep over them, I want someone to whack me over the head with a leg of
lamb. Sam won't - he's too busy talking to the self-help column on page
twenty-three. "Are you going to sit here and mope all day?" he
asks out loud.
"Was that a quote or a question?"
"Josh."
"Well," I reach up and stretch, hearing my back pop and
my left shoulder twinge. "I got here at eleven, it's six now,
so..."
"Let's go," Sam states, dropping the magazine back down
again and standing. "You're wallowing, and it's
disgusting."
"Thanks. I'm not going anywhere."
"Yes, you are."
"I am not."
"_Yes_, you are."
"_No_, I'm-"
"I called Donna's apartment today," he says abruptly.
I stare at him. "You – you – what? What did she
say?"
Sam smirks. The bastard actually smirks! "I'll
tell you over dinner," he says smugly.
I try to come up with a way to concede without appearing
needy. I have to pretend like I don't care what Donna says. I have
to pretend like I was going out anyway. Even though a minute before I had
every intention of taking root in my arm chair. Hmm...
"I'm hungry," I say lamely. "Let's go get something
to eat." It doesn't help that Sam isn't at all upset at having lost that
battle of wills. But instead of re-directing my energies and making him
plead for mercy, I take the high road. I check to make sure I have my
wallet and walk out the door, leaving him smirking in my living room.
The ride to the restaurant is very exciting. For such a
disgustingly nice guy, Sam has an A-type personality behind the wheel.
His black BMW zips through the traffic at such a high speed that I can't even
turn my head to look out the window due to sheer G-force. The car
screeches to halt and Sam performs a neat parallel park. I peel myself
off the leather seat.
"I thought this would make a nice change from all that Chinese
food," Sam comments, locking his car by remote. It emits a Sam-like
cheerful chirp, and flashes it's headlights in farewell. "We
ought to have Ching's Chinese Chow set up shop in the mess. It would save
us the delivery fee."
I don't reply. I'm too busy trying to pull myself together
before entering the restaurant. No amount of willpower is going to make
me look presentable, but hopefully I can at least pull off human. I push
open the stained glass door and shuffle into the warmly lit interior of Tony's.
Me and Donna used to come here a lot after a long day at
work. Sometimes we'd bring a load of files to sort through, sometimes
we'd come just to unwind. It's a great place to unwind. It reminds
me of a place I used to go to when I was in college - open all night, with
cheep food and newspaper for table cloths. It had no delusions of being a
classy place - instead of art work, students would pin their expired driver's
licenses, library cards, and school ID's to the walls.
Granted, Tony's caters to a more adult crowd. For one thing,
it has a bar. Instead of driver's licenses, it has pilfered license
plates and road signs covering the walls. Each table also features salt
and pepper shakers.
Sam goes to the first table and starts to sit down, but I keep
walking. At the back, I find the booth I'm looking for. Hanging
over the table is one of those faux Tiffany lampshades, patterned in round
shapes that are either hot-air balloons or deformed watermelons.
With the ease of practice, I reach up and flick the light bulb once with my
index finger. It goes out like...well, a light, and I relax into the
darkness.
I sigh and rest my head against the wall behind me.
"So," Sam says, sliding in across from me. "I
called Donna today."
"Yeah?"
"She was asleep."
This annoys me a little. "She was ASLEEP? You
drag my ass all the way down here to tell me she was asleep? This
couldn't have come out, oh, I don't know -when you first showed up at my
apartment?"
"Josh, keep it down. People are starting to
stare," he hisses.
"Whoop-ti-do," I tell him. Which just goes to show
how out of it I am, 'cause I never would have said that if I was my normal
lucid self.
"Her room-mate was there," he continues.
"Her room-mate is always there. I think she's
agoraphobic."
"Cammie thinks you should try again."
"Try what again?"
"Telling Donna."
I shoot up out of my chair. "Are you NUTS?"
"Cammie thinks it's a good idea."
"Yeah, well the last good idea Camilla Brown had was buying
those two blood-sucking cats."
"Donna thought you we're drunk."
"Well, of course she - what?"
Sam blinks at me impatiently. "She thought you were
drunk, and it upset her."
"She thought I was drunk...hmm..." The gears are
turning, the ticker-tape is accumulating... "That's fantastic!"
I finally shout.
"What is?"
I realize I've stood up and am slapping the table next to our
booth, much to the alarm of the people sitting at it. I smile nervously
and give their table a few more pats for good measure before returning to my
own. "The solution, Sam," I say, leaning across the Formica
surface. "I've got it!"
He grins. "Really?"
I grin back. "Yeah!"
"Excellent! What is it?"
"I'm going to pretend like I don't remember it!"
His shoulders slump. "That? That's your wonderful
plan? That's one of the worst ideas I've ever heard!"
"Then you've obviously never heard Margaret's plan to take
over the world," I say, really getting into it. This could actually
work. If I can pull this off convincingly, then everything can go back to
the way it was before. And I can try winning Donna over again at a later
date, with more finesse and skill.
"Josh, this isn't exactly something you can pretend didn't
happen, you know. You've been drunk before, usually around Donna, and
you've never blurted out that you loved her."
"Exactly."
"You're doing this by yourself," Sam warns.
"I hope you realize that. I'll stick by you if you want to burn down
the west wing, but I'm not going to stand by and watch you blow your chance
with Donna."
I grin at him. I am a man with a plan. No, scratch
that. I am _da_ man. "Quit being so dramatic! I've got
it all figured out. I'll go to work tomorrow and pretend like none of
this ever happened, and everything will be okay again. Or at least,"
I amend, "more okay than things presently are."
Our drinks arrive - a Heineken for Sam, a Dr. Pepper for me.
'Cause let's face it, for me, nothing good every comes from me drinking
alcohol. Sam takes a swig of his beer and checks out the waitress as she
retreats; I concentrate on trying to hold a piece of ice onto the bottom of my
glass with my straw. "So," I say idly. "Why was
Donna asleep in the middle of the day? She gets usually gets up at
seven." The ice bobs back up to the surface and splashes me.
"Oh-" Sam makes a vague hand gesture and swallows his
drink. "She and Cammie went on a bender last night. After the
party. She was sleeping it off."
"What?" I stare at him. "Donna went out
and got drunk? Donna doesn't do that. _I'm_ the one who does
that. This is...this is _beyond_ bad! Don't you see, Sam? I'm
driving her to drink!"
"C'mon, Josh. What makes you think it was because of you?
Maybe she went to another party and got carried away. Maybe she and Dave
got in a fight. Let's look on the bright side."
I just groan and let my head fall forward onto the table.
*Thunk.* I am a horrible person. I'm turning the woman I love into
a binge drinker.
After about five minutes of close examination of a few breadstick
crumbs and some grains of salt hidden under the napkin holder, I smell
something. It's probably my over-active imagination, still reeling from a
series of heartaches, but I look up anyway. I can swear I smell Donna's
kiwi-lime shampoo mixed with her lavender hand lotion, wafting like a cool
breeze through the aroma of charred garlic that fills the restaurant.
I must make some strange squawk, because Sam looks away from the
waitress with whom he is now openly flirting and gives me an annoyed look.
"What?" he asks.
I can't speak. I'm having a little trouble breathing, but I
think this is mainly due to the fact that my heart has jumped up into my throat
and is holding onto my trachea for dear life. I just point and stare.
"Oh, fantastic," Sam mutters.
It's Donna. It's a whole lot of Donna. Where did she
get that dress? Isn't it illegal to go out in something like that?
And why is she here? Could it possibly be that she's here to see-
Nope. Crap. There's Davy boy. And there goes my
evening. Give me a second and I'm pretty sure we can also bid farewell to
my lunch. Hopefully Donna and Dave aren't the kind of cutesy couple who
feed each other food in public places. And if they decide to share a
plate of spaghetti with only one meatball....
Oh, the mind boggles.
Sam, the waitress having teetered off to work, slouches down in
the booth. "They haven't seen us," he whispers.
"Nope."
"Maybe we could sneak out the back."
"Are you crazy?" I demand, looking at him. He does
look a little crazy with his eyes peeking up over the table. "We're
not going anywhere. We were here first."
"The age-old cry," he mutters. "But don't you
think that in this case you would be more comfortable somewhere else,
considering-"
"Considering what?"
"Well, you know. What happened."
"What happened? I don't remember anything," I say
staunchly.
"Oh, God," he groans.
I ignore him and watch the couple across the top of my Dr.
Pepper. Dave picks a table right in the middle of the restaurant, when I
know for a fact Donna hates to have her back to the room. He makes a big
production about pulling her chair out for her and then tucking it back in.
See, when I did that for Penny Titherton, right before senior
prom, I accidentally squashed her against the table. I have since come to
the conclusion that the only men who can perform that particular move are ones
who have far too much time to practice it, and far too little strength.
While I am damning Dave as a weakling, Sam is perfecting his 'I
just escaped from Belleview' impression. Namely, he's attempting to use
the reflection in his beer-bottle to see behind him. The impression is a
success, because the flirty waitress takes one look at him and doesn't come
back to take our order. No matter. I am no longer hungry. I
am a man on a mission.
I decide to wait until their food has arrived before embarking on
my 'Deny All Knowledge' crusade. I watch Donna fold and re-fold her
napkin, and laughing at something Dave says. But when he reaches across
and takes her hand, I realize something must be done. I square my
shoulders and slide out of the booth.
"Where are you going?" Sam asks from under the table.
"To fix this."
I swagger through the maze of tables, trying to find my carefree
groove, and getting the feeling I'm failing pretty badly. But what the
hell. Here I am, right behind the happy couple. Let see if I can
remember how to be Donna's _friend_.
