Please see Chapter 1 for general info and disclaimers.
*~*
With exactly three hours, twenty-three minutes, and twelve seconds left until she would appear on Full Circle, Jenn sat cross-legged on the bed in her room. Lying on the comforter in front of her was the revised list of questions she was going to be asked by Matt Durkin. She'd gone over each of the questions and their respective answers so many times that she was certain she could write them all out by hand off the top of her head.
At around three in the morning, she'd been petrified, convinced she was going to make a fool out of herself and the administration by completely botching her interview. But now she'd moved on to a state of determined confidence. She was going to go on TV, smile pretty for the cameras, and dazzle them all with her eloquence and poise. "Yeah, that's right," she mumbled to herself in a half-hearted attempt to pump up her spirits. Yes, she'd moved on to a state of determined confidence. It was just too bad that the cynical half of her wouldn't shut up and let her delude herself into believing that her interview and everything associated with it would go off without a hitch. As she picked up the list of questions and began re-memorizing the first question, one of the agents standing outside her door knocked and said, "Ms. Erickson? Toby Ziegler has asked for you to join him in his office as soon as possible."
Jenn tossed the list onto the floor with gusto and breathed a sigh of relief. She was so tired of looking at and reciting the contents of the list that even seeing sour-faced Toby was a welcome distraction. "Coming," she called out as she shrugged off the robe she'd been wearing over her T-shirt and jeans and pulled on an oversized gray sweatshirt with the word 'Cal' printed across the chest in big, navy letters.
She flung open the door and stepped out into the hall, still tickled by how the two agents fell into step behind her without a moment's hesitation, as if it was the most natural thing for them to do. She silently led them through various corridors as she made her way to Toby's office. People appeared to be especially busy in the West Wing, with staffers marching through the hallways absorbed in whatever folders or documents they happened to have in their hands. As Jenn watched them whiz by her and around each other, she realized that many of them were probably so busy because of what the President had admitted on national television last night. She was surprised people weren't hissing at her for making their lives more difficult. But she was even more surprised when she came face to face with a tall blonde woman. They were walking in opposite directions down a narrow passageway towards one another and could not avoid making eye contact. The woman smiled warmly when their eyes met, which slightly unnerved Jenn; it was just so much easier to prepare for everyone hating you than for people to be nice and welcoming. Jenn recognized the blonde and vaguely recalled Leo introducing them to each other. She remembered her having a funny name, something Italian-sounding. Isabella? Belladora?
"Hi, Jenn," the woman greeted her as she stretched out her hand. "You probably don't remember me. I'm Donna, Josh's assistant."
Jenn shook the proffered hand and smiled as the name Donnatella Moss flashed in her mind. "Hi, Donna. It's nice to see you again."
"Are you on your way to see the President?"
"No. I'm, uh, going to see Toby. He summoned me to his office."
Donna chuckled knowingly and said, "Yeah, he's good at that."
"So I'm learning."
"Well, I don't want to delay you any further. Good luck this afternoon. I'm sure you'll do fine."
"Thank you."
The two women squeezed past each other and Jenn stopped to look over her shoulder at Donna's back, her blonde hair swishing from side to side. It felt nice to know that someone other than the senior staff (who had ulterior motives of their own for doing so) were rallying behind her.
Toby's door was open when she arrived at his office, so she stepped inside and announced lightheartedly, "Private Erickson reporting for duty, sir."
"Sit," he ordered without bothering to look up from the piece of paper he was reading.
She obeyed and took a seat in one of the chairs in front of his desk. "So, what am I here to do?" she asked, still making an effort to sound happy and hopeful. "Help you devise a plan on how to rid the world of destructive right-wing-ism?"
Toby raised his head high enough so that he could look at her as if she was crazy. "We're going to go over your questions one more time."
Jenn threw her head back and groaned. "I know the questions, Toby."
"You know the questions?"
"Yes. I know the questions and the answers forwards and backwards. And if I was able to do a headstand, I could even say I know them upside-down. I've done nothing but study them since I was given the revised set yesterday afternoon. I really don't need to go over them again."
"So, you think you know them?"
"Yes."
"And you're telling me that you think you'd do fine if you were to go on the show right now?"
"Yes."
"You'd be fine even if Durkin changed the wording of the questions on you or decided to ask you five questions in a row without giving you a chance to answer so that you'd get confused and stumble over your response?"
"Yes." This time her answer came out more as a question than a statement.
"Well, then, let's just go over them one more time for my peace of mind."
"Okay," she yielded meekly.
"Good." Toby dug through a stack of papers on his desk before finding the list. "Pretend I'm Durkin. Ms. Erickson, how do you feel about—"
"Toby, we've got a situation." Ginger appeared in his doorway, a look of foreboding on her face.
"I don't care. Take care of it," he snarled.
"It's Sam. He's having a minor meltdown in the Roosevelt Room. Something about dumping truckloads of manure in there. Maybe you should go check on him."
Toby rolled his eyes for he knew the reference to manure was a comment Sam liked to make when he was unhappy with his writing. "Tell Sam to take a deep breath and get a grip. I'll go over there as soon as I can."
"Okay," Ginger replied, her tone clearly implying that she thought Toby was making a huge mistake. But she left without saying another word.
Toby turned his attention back to Jenn and resumed role-playing. "Ms. Erickson, how do you feel about being in Washington, D.C. right now?"
Jenn uncrossed her legs and leaned forward in her chair, which was a technique C.J. had taught her to utilize when she wanted to appear alert and engaging. "Well, first of all, I'm very grateful to the First Family for providing me with such a warm welcome. This has, understandably, been a stressful time for all involved and I'm, of course, still grieving over the death of my mother, but everyone has been so kind and thoughtful that there really isn't anywhere else I'd rather be than in D.C."
Toby frowned as he stared hard at the document in his hand. "That's not what's written."
Jenn made a face of exasperation. "I thought it'd sound more natural and less prepared in my own words. I got the gist of the answer right, didn't I?"
"Yeah, let's try to stick to what's been written. Next question: How do you think—"
"Toby, you need to get to the Roosevelt Room now." Ginger's voice was overflowing with anxiety. "Sam's barricaded himself in there with Ed and Larry, and is tearing every piece of paper he can find into shreds and then tossing them up in the air. Ed and Larry are beginning to get that wild-animal-stuck-in-a-cage look."
Toby croaked out a sound that was an odd combination of dismay and disgust as he shoved his chair backwards. "Stay. Don't move," he commanded Jenn as he rushed out of the room.
"I'm not a dog," Jenn muttered in annoyance, but her words fell on deaf ears for both Toby and Ginger had left the area.
Two minutes passed. Then five, and then ten. Growing impatient as well as bored, Jenn rose to her feet and began exploring Toby's office. There wasn't much to see, however, for Toby kept even fewer personal effects in his office than Leo did. His bookcases were crammed full of books, journals, and reports pertaining to topics she wasn't particularly interested in. As she walked behind his desk, a piece of paper with red ink scrawled all over it caught her eye. Glimpsing to her right and left to make sure she wasn't being watched, Jenn leaned down and took a closer look. It appeared to be a draft of either a speech or a position statement of some sort. The topic seemed to have something to do with education and the role of teacher unions, and as scintillating as that sounded, what really drew Jenn in was the split infinitive she spotted in the third paragraph.
Grabbing a pencil from off the desk, Jenn made the correction with a look of bliss on her face. She hadn't intended to do any more than that, but the next thing she knew, she'd grabbed Toby's chair and was scooting it closer to the desk. Tucking her hair behind her ears, she settled into the seat and hunched over the desktop as she began carefully reading the document from the beginning. And that was how Toby found her when he returned to his office seven minutes later.
"What are you doing?" he demanded in a loud bark that caused Jenn's hand to jump and scratch a ragged pencil line across the page.
"Oh, uh, hi," she replied timidly as she scrambled out of his chair and back over to the other side of the desk. "Is Sam okay?"
"He's fine," Toby dismissed, although the obvious concern in Jenn's voice caught his attention. When had those two gotten so close? "What were you doing in my chair?"
"Oh, I was, uh…um… Well, I was just looking around to kill some time and noticed that piece of paper down there. I saw one minor grammatical error, so I thought I'd be nice and make the correction. But then I got to thinking that maybe I could be of help to you, so I decided to do a quick proofread. Sorry if that was inappropriate. I was really only trying to help. I guess I'm just an eighth grade English teacher at heart. Don't have the patience to be one for real, though." She smiled sheepishly at the end of her explanation and hoped Toby wouldn't get upset.
"So, in other words, you chose to snoop around my desk and deface other people's property," Toby stated coldly.
"Deface?!" Jenn rolled her eyes and could feel her stomach beginning to churn with anger. "Oh, c'mon. You can't call it that. I even wrote all my comments in pencil, for pete's sake. And don't even act like I didn't just do you a favor. That speech – or whatever it is – was a mess."
Toby scowled at her as he sat down in his chair and briefly glanced at the document currently being discussed. From his quick glimpse down, he could see a slew of gray pencil markings and arrows intermingling with his red pen scribbles. It looked like she'd managed to do quite a bit of work on it.
Jenn crossed her arms and waited impatiently for the harsh rebuttal she was sure Toby would throw her way. But he remained surprisingly silent. "So, Sam's really okay?"
"Yeah. He's just a little stressed. We all are." His tone clearly implied that she was the culprit for all their problems.
Jenn shuddered and looked away guiltily. "Are we going to continue going through the questions?" she asked as she plopped down into a chair.
Toby looked at his watch and grimaced. He'd spent the thirty minutes he'd set aside for the question rehearsal calming Sam down, and now he was late for a meeting. "Oh, forget it," he huffed. "If you don't know the questions and answers by now, it's too late to do anything about it. Why don't you just go back to your room and pretty yourself up for the cameras."
A series of colorful adjectives ran through her head as she gritted her teeth together. "Fine," she spat out. She stomped out of the office and brought a smile to Ginger's lips when she muttered under her breath, "Damn sexist pig."
When Jenn was out of sight, Toby shook his head in disbelief. "Eighth grade English teacher," he muttered derisively. He flipped his pencil upside-down and was about to erase all of the work she'd put into the speech when he noticed that she'd crossed out half of the second paragraph, moved what was left to the sixth paragraph, and wrote a snappy transition to what had been the third paragraph. Dropping the pencil back on to his desk, he propped his head up with his right hand and read through all the changes she'd made. As much as he hated to admit it, the speech had been a mess. He'd been pulling out what hair remained on his head that very morning as he'd attempted to produce a decent rewrite. And now, after at most fifteen minutes of work, Jenn had managed to produce a pithy, lucid, and charming revised speech that remained true to its original tone. "Huh," he uttered in amazement as he leaned back in his chair and continued reading.