It's now 11:03 a.m. There are still roses on Donna's desk on Valentine's Day, and I still don't know who sent them.
Donna is being more Donnaesque than she has since the whole Cliff thing. I'm taking that as a sign that the roses are a good thing rather than a bad thing, although she hasn't yet revealed anything conclusive to me. Witness:
"Donna!"
She comes into my office with her ever-present notebook and stack of files, and just a hint of a smile around her eyes. "You bellowed, oh supercilious one?"
See? Back to almost normal. "I need the file about the thing."
"It's on your desk. I showed you twenty minutes ago."
"But you didn't tell me who the roses are from twenty minutes ago."
"No, I didn't. And I'm not telling you now, either. Do you need me for something serious or may I go back to being the world's best Deputy Deputy Chief of Staff?"
"Back to?"
Okay, I owe the guy who sent the roses – if I didn't send them, of course – big time. She just gave me one of her trademark sighs and walked out. A week ago, that remark, had I had the courage to utter it, would have earned me a tirade.
It's now 11:06 and I have just about convinced myself that one of three things has happened: A) Donna got the roses with a card that says "Donna, I love you, Josh." B) Amy got the roses with a card that says "Amy, I love you, Josh," and Donna got roses from someone other than yours truly. C) Donna and Amy both got roses from me that said "I love you, Josh."
I'm kind of liking option C, except that the complications of that are far too confusing to contemplate at this point in the day – even though it has been a strangely quiet day. I can't seriously hope that this might be the case, though, because I specifically remember counting my extremities and my organs last night in my drunken stupor as I was trying to justify the cost of the roses that I intended to send to Amy as an apology.
You may have noticed that I've eliminated the possibilities that Amy got roses with a card that said, "Donna, I love you, Josh," and that Donna got roses with a card that said, "Amy, I love you, Josh." This, however much I might wish to think so, has nothing to do with my superhuman powers of deduction. Rather, it is simply because I am still alive at this point in the morning that I have come to at least that much of a conclusion.
Amy probably would have exercised a "Scorched Josh" policy in full view of the White House staff. Possibly the Press Corps, too, if she could wrangle it from CJ, who isn't her biggest fan but might have agreed just to maintain the Sisterhood.
Donna would have been slightly less dramatic. She would have emptied the contents of my office and her desk into one gargantuan heap, then set it on fire. I would then have had a coronary – Sudden Cardiac Arrest, is what they call it now, if I remember the factoids Donna spouted at me months ago. There isn't a very good survival rate from that, even with good first aid, which is one of the perks about working here at the White House.
I wander from my thesis.
Who might have sent Donna roses on Valentine's Day? I suppose maybe that guy who offered her the job with the start up dot com last week might still be wooing her, although she hasn't said anything more about it since her late night rendezvous on the night that Stanley came to see someone other than me.
It's vaguely possible that she is dating someone that I don't know about. However, given that there is absolutely nothing being said about Donna's love life – or wasn't, until this morning – at the water cooler, the coffee pot, or the photocopier (yes, I do know where it is; I just don't know how to use it), I find it unlikely that she is dating anyone.
Don't look at me like that. I thrive on information, and if I can't get it directly from the source, then I'll go where I need to to get it. And in the case of Donna's love life, that means the water cooler, the coffee pot, and the photocopier, because that's where people like Carol, Ginger, and Margaret congregate. If Donna's not talking to me, she might be talking to them.
Speaking of them, it's time for my 11:20 stroll to the water cooler, the coffee pot, and the photocopier.
*****
Well, that did me no good whatsoever. Donna has been as clothed-mouth with the girls as she has with me. But I did find out that the hope I had harbored in my heart – that I could somehow sneak a peek at the card while Donna is at lunch – is dashed before I could even maneuver her into going out for a while. She has the card tucked inside her shirt.
Don't even go there. I wouldn't dream of … well, okay, I might dream of going after the card, but I certainly wouldn't do it.
Amy would kill me. And we've already determined that she hasn't because I didn't send her roses with the wrong card, so I'm not anxious to give her another reason.
I should call Amy. It's Valentine's Day – I should at least attempt to make up with my girlfriend by taking her out.
But she hasn't spoken to me for going on 16 hours now, and even though this morning I could kind of see why she might be upset at me for calling her by my assistant's name while we were working on a position paper, it's not like I screamed "Donna" in the midst of a night of passion. I haven't screamed "Amy" in the midst of a night of passion, either, but we are not discussing that.
Donna interrupts my thoughts. "Josh, your watch sucks."
"We've established that. What makes you tell me that not-so-news at this particular point in the day?"
"You are due in Leo's office for the meeting about the thing in exactly 2 minutes and thirty seconds."
I look at my watch. "Donna, that meeting is at noon. It's only 11:42."
That exasperated sigh comes again, and I am forced to think that it's a beautiful sound which has been absent in my life for far too long. Come on – three months is a pretty long time! "Josh, your watch sucks. It is now 11:58."
I fumble around on my desk for the file about the thing until Donna finds some sympathy for me and plucks it out from under three other files. "Okay, I'm going to the meeting about the thing," I say unnecessarily to my beautiful assistant, who rolls her deep blue eyes at me and shoos me out of my office ahead of her.
"Josh," she calls down the hall as I'm running toward Leo's office and the meeting that I will be late for in 46 seconds, "I'm leaving at 7 tonight."
I stop and turn in mid-stride. For the record, that hurts. "Why?"
"Because I have something to do."
"A date?"
Donna scowls. "No, Joshua, not a date. I have something to do. So I'm leaving at 7."
I should say no, but the eyes staring at me from down the hall have just a touch of desperation in them, I think. "Okay. I'm late."
"Yeah. Go." A smile, a smaller version of the one I saw when she first saw the roses. "Thanks."
I feel good going into the meeting. Donna is back.
But I still don't know who gave Donna the roses that are sitting on her desk on Valentine's Day.