I still can't quite grasp the fact that the roses on Donna's desk on Valentine's Day came from me.
I know it's true, but the implications have been and continue to be staggering.
For one thing, Donna brings me coffee now.
Let me explain before you think she's lost her mind. She brings me coffee in bed, and it has yet to be even lukewarm by the time I'm ready to drink it. That's okay, though. Iced coffee would be perfect by the time I'm ready to drink it, but I'm not about to ask for that, mostly because then it would be WATERY iced coffee by the time I'm ready to drink it.
For another thing, the banter is back in the office, and the team of Josh Lyman and Donna Moss is going strong. To wit:
"Donna!"
"You screeched, oh Great Narcissistic One?"
"No, I merely requested your presence in a loud voice."
"You screeched. What do you need?"
I bite back the obvious answer of you, right here on my office couch, right now and instead stick with my original intent. "I need the file about the thing with the man for the meeting."
"You'll have to be more specific. I have 6 files about 6 things here for your 6 meetings with 6 different men."
"Wow. You made it through that without once saying SEX instead of SIX."
"Of course I did. I'm not obsessed with intercourse of a non-verbal nature the way you are." There are major smiles going on in her eyes because we both know that there is not a shred of truth in that statement.
"Yeah, whatever. The file?"
"I repeat: You'll have to be more specific. I have 6 files about 6 things here for your 6 meetings with 6 different men."
We kept that up for ten minutes and 12 seconds, an all-time record for something truly important. Sam and CJ informed us at lunch afterward that our all-time record for something truly insignificant is 23 minutes and 6 seconds. Our public record, that is, which we broke just today with a discussion about steganography, which for those of you who are not as trivia dependent as the woman I love more than life itself is the more general term that encompasses cryptography, invisible inks, and hidden messages. Well, that might actually have been an important one, given that the reason we were talking about it was directly related to National Security, but either way, it was a record-setter.
Thing number three: I haven't had a drink in 8 days.
This is the longest time I have gone without alcohol since my 16th birthday, not counting the time I was recovering from Rosslyn and wasn't allowed to have alcohol. Morphine trumps alcohol, anyway.
So your question – and it's a very good one – is "Why haven't you had a drink in 8 days?"
Simply put: I don't want to screw this up. When I get drunk on my 4 or 5 beers – okay, my 2 or 3 beers – I have a tendency to mess up in big ways. This whole thing with the roses on Donna's desk on Valentine's Day was, at least originally, a major faux pax. That it has turned out to be the single most important turn of events in my life is something for which I can be eternally grateful to God.
The fourth thing that staggers the imagination is that I have been to synagogue every morning on my way to work since the day after Valentine's Day.
Oh, true, most of the time, it's just for a brief prayer and not for the daily service – but it's a major change in my life. Donna has been going to mass, too. Neither one of us has been struck by lightning, either, so maybe God is pleased at the recent turn of events.
And fifth, I haven't had a nightmare of any kind since very early Valentine's Day morning, about an hour and a half after I finally stumbled into bed in the drunken stupor I had created for myself in the wake of what's-her-name's unjust assault on me earlier in the night.
I had stopped having the most frightening nightmares a while ago, but nearly every night, I'd been having at least one that would wake me up and leave me shaking in the night. Stanley has been reassuring me that these are normal and, while distressing, aren't by themselves an indicator that the PTSD is rearing its ugly head again.
But now that I have Donna to cradle in my arms each night as I fall asleep, the nightmares don't come. I am prepared, I think, for the possibility that this is a temporary abatement – but the nightmares have stopped, at least for the time being, and as a result I feel far more rested and refreshed each morning when I get out of bed.
The seventh thing is a little on the depressing side, but it is in its own way the most temporary thing. I can't tell my best friends exactly why it is that I'm so happy lately.
Sam has been burbling on for days about his new relationship with Ainsley. It seems that his "dog on a leash" remark impressed her even more than I gave it credit for – and whenever the two of them are together, I feel like I need sunglasses to protect my eyes from the radiance of their smiles. The difference between their relationship and the one that I have with Donna is that Sam and Ainsley work in two different departments. I am technically Donna's boss, although if anyone objective were to watch us in action, they would, I suspect, be forced to concede as I have in the deepest recesses of my mind, that Donna is really the boss.
That's neither here nor there in this context; politically, Sam and Ainsley can play kissy-face and canoodle all they want and it's a minor blip on the Society pages. Donna and I can't be seen in public together outside of business or it's a scandal of administration-breaking proportions.
Thus, I cannot share with Sam in our mutual happiness.
I think Toby knows, because I think Toby and CJ were together when I called her to tell her that I was about to do something monumental. But I can't tell Toby, because he won't be able to express any of the happiness I think he'd feel. He would yell at me for being stupid and then threaten to break me into a dozen pieces if I hurt Donna.
CJ already knows. Each morning before Donna comes in from mass, she stops in my office and says, "Don't blow it with her, Josh." I solemnly promise not to blow it every morning, too. But that is the extent to which we interact on this subject, even though I know that she would very much like to see it made public knowledge but for the complications it would cause her.
Carol, Ginger, Margaret, and all the other essential people we so unjustly label "assistants" wouldn't hear it from me, anyway – but I do know that they're eating up every word of the stories that Donna is spinning about The Rose King. He's the one that I have given my approval to because he isn't exactly a gomer and he makes her happy enough to be snarky again. His name is Anthony and he ostensibly works at the Library of Congress.
I can't tell Leo, either – although he might know, because CJ might have felt obligated to tell him just as a precaution. Of all the people I wish I could tell, even more than Sam, Leo is the one. He would be so proud of me for finally admitting that I am capable of loving someone more than life itself even though his politically motivated rage would blister both the paint on the walls in his office and my hide.
The eighth staggering implication in all this is that I made love to a woman for the first time in my life last week.
No, no – I wasn't a virgin. Far from it. What I mean is that there was a qualitative difference to…
How do I say this?
I've had sex with a lot of women. It was physically passionate sometimes, but most of the time it was barely more than perfunctory on any level beyond physical need. And since I met Donna, that has been especially true. Especially recently.
When I finally held Donna in my arms and kissed her – I mean really kissed her, not the drunken sloppiness that has passed between us before –I just cannot explain adequately how the whole of my being was involved. Emotionally, spiritually, intellectually, physically, the whole sex thing came together for me. And as we made love the first time, as we fumbled and explored hesitantly and eventually abandoned ourselves to the fires inside, I realized that I am going to make this work somehow.
That is staggering implication number nine, and by far the most staggering. I don't know how, or when, or where, but I am going to marry Donnatella Moss someday.
All because there were roses on Donna's desk on Valentine's Day, and I sent them.