TEASER: Three men in a bar hear "Lady". Joshua Lyman is one of them, reflecting on whatever it is that he has with Donna.
DISCLAIMERS: The characters herein don't belong to me; I've borrowed them from Warner Brothers, Shoot the Moon Productions, Paramount, Bellisarius Productions, and Aaron Sorkin, et al. I promise to return them relatively unscathed and to cherish them as though I made multi-millions on each episode. I also hereby thank the actors who brought and bring these characters to life in their fictional worlds, because they are the ones who have provided the depth and motivations for these dramatis personae. Lady belongs to Lionel Ritchie and whomever holds the actual copyright, which has been very hard to pin down. It's one of my favorite love songs of all time; I hope I do it justice.
RATING: PG-13
FEEDBACK: Always welcome, but spare me the flames, please. We're not THAT cold here in New England! E-mail in my profile or through the review feature in the story pages.
SPOILERS: Everything in The West Wing through "Guns not Butter"; not much specifically in Scarecrow and Mrs. King or JAG except that these are all set in 2003. It is not related to the "Roses" series I posted last year. And yes, I do know that The West Wing and JAG don't exist in the same timeline, but that's what artistic license is all about.
COMPANION PIECES: Lady Amanda, posted on the Scarecrow and Mrs. King page, and Lady Sarah, posted on the JAG page.
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It is a bitterly cold January day in Washington, D.C., and I hurry up the street toward the bar where I have agreed to meet my assistant at 5:00. She's playing secretary at a top-secret intelligence briefing at the Russian Embassy. Apart from the cold, I am hurrying because I do that when I'm miffed. Well, okay, when I'm well and truly pissed off. Which, some would say, is a normal state of affairs for me, but all I do then is point to Toby Ziegler and rest my case that I am not the angriest man in the White House – but that's beside the point just now. I am pissed off at the man at whose pleasure I serve because he saw fit to "borrow" my Donna for this top-secret assignment at the last minute when the man the National Security Council was supposed to provide wound up in the hospital with an abdominal aortic aneurysm.
If only the President hadn't seen fit to throw the word "aortic" into that explanation, Donna herself might have objected. But my Donnatella is very sensitive about anything relating to hearts and arteries, which is both touching and a bit scary since I'm the one who actually got shot, and so when that magic word entered the conversation, Ms. Moss was all over the assignment.
I know from many past attempts that arguing with the President of the United States is a losing proposition in ordinary circumstances. When the need of the President involves National Security, one had better have ready a more articulate reason to the contrary than "Donna's mine" if one wants a prayer of changing his mind. I didn't; Donna went to the embassy and I fumbled my way through the morning with the staff interns, at whom I yelled so frequently and loudly that they soon left me completely alone. As a result, no one dared disturb my funk long enough to remind me that my watch sucks and that I really needed to get moving for my appointment on Capitol Hill with the party Senate leadership.
"The President borrowed my assistant" isn't a viable excuse with Senators, in case you're wondering. Now, in addition to a day without my Donna, I will have a day of said assistant making my life utterly miserable tomorrow because of all the fences she will have to mend on my behalf.
I deserve a beer before I have to face her. Maybe two.
I enter the establishment to find only four or five other patrons there; 4:30 is still before happy hour in government Washington. I opt for a stool about 2/3 of the way down the long main bar, just a few stools beyond a well-dressed, slightly older man who is placing his order with the bartender. As usual, I've forgotten to take my coat off and hang it at the door; I shrug out of it as the bartender comes over with a friendly smile. "Sam Adams," I say, almost with a question mark. He nods and walks away.
I look up to see my closest neighbor looking at me with a quizzical grin. I, the White House Deputy Chief of Staff, give him a friendly wave and wonder if I ought to know him or if he's just another of the millions (Donna would say "tens") of people who recognize me every year.
The bartender gives the other man his drink, which looks to be scotch and soda, then sets my bottle of beer in front of me as the door opens again, and both of us patrons turn as if expecting someone. I think we're both disappointed; the man who a moment later reveals himself to be a commander in the U.S. Navy bears no resemblance whatsoever to Donnatella Moss; from the look on the other man's face, her, too, was expecting a woman.
For whatever reason, I'm still watching the commander and I see when he turns toward me that the leather aviator's jacket is one he has earned the hard way; only now do I realize that the radio is on and that the song playing is "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'". I half expect Top Gun over there to join in, but he merely rolls his eyes as though he's heard the song – and all the jokes – a million times and signals the bartender.
Closer to me, the well-dressed man looks at his watch; I catch sight of his wedding band and am struck by the burning desire that comes nearly every time I meet a married man: I want to rush up to him and demand from him the secret to telling the woman on whose very existence my entire being depends exactly how I feel. And just so everyone knows, I'm not talking about Amy and never even considered her to be in that category, any more than Mandy or Joey. Know how I know? Mandy, Joey, Amy, Donna. Completely different name. Completely lame reason. Really, how do I know that Donna is this woman? Witness my state of being today and the fact that I actually said, out loud, to the President of the United States, that he was taking "my" Donna from me.
The problem is, it's Byzantine with Donna being my assistant and us working in the White House. Like that? It's my 760 verbal at work.
I'm sulking around my Sam Adams now, not paying attention to any one thing but letting the quiet ambient noise settle into my consciousness. What manages to cut through the clutter after several moments is the introduction to the new song on the radio. It's "Lady" by Lionel Ritchie as sung by Kenny Rogers.
I hate this song; it makes me think too hard about all the things I need to say to Donna.
I love this song; it reminds me that someday I will tell Donna all the things I need to say to her, most importantly, that I love her.
Lady, I'm your knight in shining armor and
I love you
You have made me what I am and I am yours
My love, there's so many ways I want to say I love you
Let me hold you in my arms forever more
Knight in shining armor? Not really. It's more like she's my Amazon Warrior woman…Although maybe the whole Cliff thing counts as a knight in shining armor rescuing a damsel in distress. I did it for her; that it happened to benefit the administration was a fortuitous side effect. Nobody knows that. I was so enraged at the situation that no one could have possibly believed me had I bothered to explain it. Even now, I doubt that anyone – especially Donna – would believe that it was reading about her with someone else that made me the maddest, although that she lied – however inadvertently – and got caught in such a sleazy manner also ticked me off.
You have gone and made me such a fool
I'm so lost in your love
And oh, we belong together
Won't you believe in my song?
As for the fool part, see above. I've proven that rather conclusively.
I think it's our song to believe in, really. And there's not a melody, as such. It's more like…well, maybe like that part in "The Music Man" where the salesmen are on the train and they're almost rapping. That's the banter Donna and I have. Who else do you know who could break into a Rodgers and Hammerstein song in the middle of the West Wing and have it make perfect sense in the conversation? Especially the particular song – I mean, really, does "The Surrey With the Fringe on Top" actually make any sense at all?
Lady, for so many years I thought I'd never
find you
You have come into my life and made me whole
Forever let me wake to see you each and every morning
Let me hear you whisper softly in my ear
The irony is that I didn't find my Lady Donnatella. She found me, and by accident at that. God bless Margaret for not turning the rather pathetic, very young looking woman away on sight; bless her even more for seeing that under that exterior was a spine of steel and a heart of the purest refined gold. Her heart just happens to be the piece that had been missing in my own for my entire life, and I cannot imagine what my life would be like without her now that she has been part of it for five full years. I can't really imagine – no, let me rephrase that – I tremble to imagine what it would be like to wake up with her in my arms each and every morning, to have her whisper her love in my ear.
In my eyes I see no one else but you
There's no other love like our love
And yes, oh yes, I'll always want you near me
I've waited for you for so long
See, here's the problem. I don't know for a fact that Donna loves me the way that I love her. I'm afraid that when I look into her eyes and see myself reflected, it's because I want to see myself, not because I'm really there. I would like to think that her little trip at Christmas time with the new Navy guy was just a one-time thing, maybe a step up from the gomers she's been out with previously in preparation for me and for the depths of my devotion. Kind of like Amy was a bit of a practice run at living with a brilliant, challenging woman (as well as a chance to scratch a 20-year old itch, but that's irrelevant). But I just don't know, and so I live in fear that I'll have to live with Donnatella Moss Somebody just to have her near me because she won't want to be Donnatella Moss Lyman – or worse, that I've already lost my chance to even ask because I waited too long.
Lady, your love's the only love I need
And beside me is where I want you to be
'Cause, my love, there's something I want you to know
You're the love of my life, you're my lady
I realize with a start that I've been mouthing the words as I ruminate; how embarrassing is that? No more so, I suppose, than feeling that the well-dressed man closest to me is watching me with a mixture of sympathy and humor, and I am once again sorely tempted to demand from him an answer. But I keep to myself, instead thinking that the answer to my question is simple and it comes, oddly enough, in a duet of the President and Leo's voices: suck it up and tell her because it's killing you not to. Except that knowing her answer might be worse if it's not what I want to hear.
I can't stand this introspection anymore; I tune out the song as best I can and turn back to observe the two men with whom I seem to have struck a silent comradeship. Well-dressed is looking at Top Gun, so I look, too; he's actually singing out loud in a beautiful baritone that would, I believe, bring to tears any woman to whom he sang with its tenderness. Which makes me think that he's singing to only one woman, even if she's not here. It also makes me think that he really is her knight in shining armor, although I'd lay odds that his particular brand of shining armor is either a Tomcat or a Hornet. He's much too confident to be anything but a fighter pilot.
He's also lost enough in the song that only the older man and I turn toward the door when it opens to reveal three beautiful women, laughing uproariously as though they had just seen some man make a fool of himself. I say this because one of the three is Donna, and I've only seen her and CJ laugh like that when one of the three Senior Staff Idiot Boys makes an ass of himself. Most frequently, of course, I'm the one at whom they are laughing; I am thus intimately familiar with that kind of feminine laughter.
The other two, I decide, belong one each to Well-dressed and Top Gun, and it's only obvious which is which by the wedding ring on the left hand of the longer haired brunette. But I'm not curious enough to see what the other, more exotic beauty might do when she lays eyes on the man who loves her – at least, if she's not the woman Top Gun is in love with, then he has rocks in his head – when I know that my Donna's here, and so I leap up from my stool and holler her name as I rush toward the door with my beer held out in toast.
"Josh, you're here early. How many Senators do I have to apologize to tomorrow?" Oh, my Lady Donnatella knows me entirely too well. She knows she's caught me, too; I can see it in the twinkle in her eyes.
I shrug. "Um, maybe nine?"
With that confession, she swipes my beer bottle and downs the contents in three long swallows. "You are cut off. I, on the other hand, need at least two more before I can even begin to think about the real mess I'll have to clean up tomorrow."
I'd be afraid if she weren't giving me her beguiling, blinding smile as she says this. Something propels me to reach out to her with one arm, and as though it were the most natural thing in the world, she steps into my gentle embrace. "Can I take you to dinner to apologize?" I whisper in her ear through her strawberry-scented blonde locks.
Her azure eyes are sparkling with unspent giggles when her gaze meets mine. "We'll consider it a very small down payment," she concedes.
"Okay. What happened to make you laugh when you came in?" Over Donna's shoulder, I see that indeed the exotic brunette is sitting shoulder-to-shoulder with Top Gun; then I realize with a start that the exotic brunette is a lieutenant colonel in the Marine Corps. That makes sense. And now I really want to know what the three women were laughing about. I nudge my silent companion for an answer.
She still looks distracted for a brief moment before she starts to laugh again. "Oh, nothing. Amanda, Mac, and I were just laughing at something that happened at the meeting."
So she spent the day with these women? Well, in that case, I know she's fibbing, but since there's at least a two in three chance that the cause of the laughter is Well-dressed or Top Gun rather than I, I let it go. She's too beautiful standing here in my arms, and the final words of the song drift over us as we hold that charged eye contact we so often deny.
'Cause, my love, there's something I want
you to know
You're the love of my life, you're my lady
"My Lady Donnatella," I murmur, not really caring if she hears me or not.
Donna tips her head up to me and her pouting, berry-brushed mouth is irresistible. I lean down to place a hesitant, shy kiss on her lips. At her look of wonder when I pull back, my heart throbs in my chest and I smile at her with all the force of my love. "We'll consider it a very small down payment."
Fine