XVIII

SATURDAY:

She was woken by the insistent ringing of her bedside phone. Despite a strong urge to ram a pillow over it and go back to sleep, it was second nature to lift it to her ear before she was even fully awake. "Josh, what do you want now?"

"Donnatella Moss, is that any kind of a way to answer a phone?"

She jolted immediately into a sitting position. "Mom!"

"Yes, and you're lucky it was me if you're going to answer your telephone in that uncivilised manner. I could have been anybody."

Not at this time in the morning. Donna glanced across at the alarm clock. Seven twenty-two. Seven twenty-two. On a Saturday, no less. Not only that, but the first Saturday in forever when she wasn't even working in the morning.

"Sorry, mom, I was expecting it to be Josh." Why, why, did she always turn into this meek, apologetic person whenever she spoke to her family?

It was funny how her mother could radiate disapproval down a phone line without Donna even needing to see her face. "And that's how you typically greet your employer when he calls you? Really, Donnatella, we raised you better than that. And what on earth would he be doing calling you at home on a Saturday?"

"He needs me to work some mornings, mom," she explained quietly. And wouldn't Josh be amused if he could see her now, valiantly battling to defend the overtime that she tried every trick in the book to wriggle out of?

"Hmph." Her mother was not impressed. "Really, Donna, you work all hours at that dreadful place as it is. The man's a slave driver!"

"It's the White House, mom!" she objected with a slight laugh. "Everybody works those hours."

"I do wish you would come back home and get a proper job."

Donna pulled a face at the phone, but quickly dispelled it in case her mother could somehow hear it in her voice. "Mom, I have a proper job."

"Some job! You work these ridiculous hours, you never get to come home and visit us anymore, and you spend all your time chasing after that dreadful man, answering phones and typing memos."

"I do more than that, mom." It was the truth; so why couldn't she think of a single handy example to prove her point? "And Josh isn't dreadful. He's just..." Okay, finding something about Josh that her mother might approve of wasn't so easy. "He's very busy, and sometimes he's a little bit... eccentric about how he does things." To put it mildly.

"He's scruffy, Donnatella," her mother said primly, in tones that suggested this was somewhere on a par with being an axe-murderer. "You know what I say about scruffy men. They can't be trusted. A man who can't be relied on to care about his own appearance certainly can't be relied on for anything else."

Ah, pearls of wisdom from Mama Moss. Donna couldn't help remembering that the infamous Dr. Freeride had been impeccably neat and well-presented. Of course, she couldn't bring up that point, because her mother was to this day still baffled as to why she'd throw away a perfectly good doctor over something so trifling as a complete erosion of her self-respect.

And now here it came.

"And when are you going to think about settling down? You're wasting away out there in Washington. Why, the only men out there are journalists and politicians, and we all know what they're like."

It wasn't even worth trying to point out that actually, she knew what a great many of them were like, but her mother had no idea. Her mother would only tut over how poor innocent Donna was so easily taken in by their lies and charm, and urge her to come home again.

"Mom, it's not the end of the world that I'm still single. I'm happy being single." It had taken a while to realise it, but it was true. Single wasn't so bad. It sure beat obnoxious insurance lobbyists and nice Republicans who turned out to be major conflicts of interest. "I've got years and years to find somebody, it's not like I'm on a time limit."

"Oh, you say that now, but it's your birthday on Friday, and you're not getting any younger. Why, when your sister Alexia was your age, she had-"

"-Fourteen kids and a husband with an estate car and his own office, yes, I know." How many times had she heard this speech?

"Really, Donnatella, there's no call to be flippant. This is your future I'm talking about."

"Mom, I have a future," she objected desperately. "I have a great life here, and I'm happy."

"Hmm. Well, we'll see about that."

That sounded ominous. "Mom?"

Her mother spoke briskly, as if she'd already made up her mind and it was inconceivable that anyone might want to argue. Rather like she always spoke, in fact. "Since you persist in clinging to this idea that you absolutely can't come home to see us, we shall have to visit you."

Oh no. "Mom-"

"No. No, I won't hear a word against it. Donnatella Moss, you will be with us for your birthday, whatever your slave-driver boss has to say about it. Your sister and I will be flying down on Thursday night. I shall expect you to meet us at the airport."

"Listen, mom, you really don't have to..."

But the argument was already over.

Sam woke up and stretched, sunlight filtering through the blinds to spray across his face.

What happened last night?

Oh, yeah. I did something incredibly stupid.

He sat up, and risked a glance at the other side of the bed. It was empty. Nonetheless, he was pretty damn sure the previous night's events were not just the product of an overactive imagination.

He tugged on his shirt and pants, wondering whether he'd been discreetly abandoned in the wake of a one-night stand. And whether he ought to be glad of that. It would make things a lot less awkward, a lot less complicated, a lot less embarrassing for all concerned...

"Hey."

"Hey." Complications be damned, he couldn't help returning the bright and genuine smile the blond man sent his way as he entered the kitchen.

Steve waved a mug at him. "I raided your coffee, by the way."

"I have coffee?"

Steve took a closer look at the contents of the mug. "Well, now you've got me worried." He swirled the drink around. "Coffee doesn't go off, right?"

"No idea."

"I guess I'll just live dangerously." He took a sip and gave Sam a cautious smile. "So... hey. Nice place you've got here."

"Thanks, I don't actually live here," Sam grinned.

He raised an eyebrow. "It's a front for your secret identity?"

"I was gonna say it's the place I sleep when somebody's using my office, but we'll go with that." The joke reminded him of years ago, when Josh had asked him if Laurie knew who he was. Oh, he was the one living dangerously here...

No he wasn't.

He's not a prostitute. He's just a guy.

A little voice in his head reminded him that there was no 'just' about it when it came to the media, but he ignored it. Why should he care about that? It was all perceptions, smoke and mirrors, like everything else that came with his job.

The silence had stretched on too long, and Steve cleared his throat a little uncomfortably. "So, I, uh, I was wondering. You want to, um, you want to go catch a movie later or something?"

And Sam smiled.

He suddenly realised that this was what had been missing. An outside world, a sense of balance; something, anything, that wasn't a part of his job. Something that belonged to him, not just to the Deputy Director of Communications.

Screw politics. Screw the media. Screw public perceptions. He was getting himself a life.

"Sure, I'd love to."

The phone was ringing again. Josh ignored it.

He was spending his Saturday working, but not at the office. He'd given Donna the day off, but he knew that if he went in, she'd insist on showing up and offering her support. And he really couldn't face any support right now.

He'd screwed up. He'd screwed up big time. Oh, he wasn't about to let Tavestock off the hook anytime soon, but the fact was, it was his own complete misjudgement that had turned the Healthcare Bill into a fiasco. The truculent Congressman had 'given in', and he'd just accepted it? Believed that Tavestock's teeth had been pulled when the financial investigation had brought a whiff of scandal and robbed him of his influence?

How could he ever have been so stupid?

Leo was sending him to this dumb firework fundraiser thing tonight, but Josh knew deep down that it wasn't really a fitting punishment. Leo was constrained; by the promise he'd made one Christmas, by the ties of his old friendship with Noah Lyman, by the realities of sacking a senior staffer under the eye of the world's media.

After a mistake this big, there was no way he should still have a job.

And it wasn't the first. All the huge, glaringly public, embarrassingly juvenile cock-ups he'd made... how many more before he was a political liability?

And who was to say he wasn't one already? What had happened to the tactical brilliance he was supposed to have had? When was the last time he'd truly pulled off something dazzling, something nobody else could have done?

Maybe he'd burned out. Weren't White House staffers only supposed to last about eighteen months before they collapsed in on themselves and lost the plot? Maybe he'd burned out all that time ago, and the others had been carrying him, covering for him out of some misguided sense of loyalty.

Maybe it was time he seriously considered doing the decent thing and resigning, before they were forced to go back on their promises and kick him out on his ass like he deserved.