A/N: After much delay, here is the second installment in 'Mr. Gallo...'. Your patience is appreciated and my account is now open to anonymous reviews. Although I mention it in the next line or two, I'll make it clear: while I wish I had, I did not create, nor do I own, any of the characters, which are the property of Brillstein-Grey Entertainment, Steven Levitan Productions, Sony Pictures Television and NBC, Inc. With that taken care of, here we go...

MR GALLO GOES TO WASHINGTON--CHAPTER TWO

Based on characters created by Steven Levitan

The announcement left the bullpen in silence. The relaxing sound of the magazine's normal operations had disappeared as the employees turned now to look at their boss.

"You're what?" Maya asked finally, after scraping her jaw off the floor.

"That's right. After a lot of careful thought, I've decided that it's time to stop talking about the problems facing this great country of ours and actually do something about it."

The statement placed a confused look on Maya's face. "When did you start talking about them?" she asked.

Narrowing his eyes, Dennis asked, "This wouldn't have anything to do with Donald Trump thinking about running for congress, would it?"

"Certainly not!" Jack looked hurt and for a moment, Dennis actually thought he'd hurt him with the comment, until Jack asked him hurriedly, with a look of sudden concern on his face, "When is Trump supposed to announce his decision?"

"Eleven o'clock." The answer was calm, but inside, Dennis was relieved.

"Good, good. Mine's scheduled for ten."

"I can't believe it," Maya nearly shouted, following Jack into his office, "You're only running for office because Donald Trump is running?"

"That's not fair, Maya." Jack sat down at his desk and looked up at his daughter, who was now standing before him and glaring down, "You've said yourself for years that I should be more involved in the issues. How better than to try to get into a position where I can actually do something about it, regardless of the why?"

"Because you don't really mean it, that's why!" she countered, "Anything you say about the issues would be a lie, because you're only trying to get to Congress to have something that Trump doesn't."

"That's silly, honey. I've never done anything or bought anything in my life just because somebody else did or didn't."

The office door opened and Dennis leaned in. "Jack, there's a Mister Bjorkson from Iceland on line one, something about an iceberg."

"Take a message."

As Dennis closed the door, Jack looked up at Maya, who gave him one of her infuriating, 'so what was that?' looks.

"I'm contributing it to Africa," he told her lamely, "Drought recovery."

"Well," Maya finally said, "I can see I can't talk you out of this. If you feel the need to take something as important as campaigning for public office and make it cheap and petty and personal, then be my guest. Just don't expect me to watch."

With that, she turned on her heel and marched from the office. As she sailed past Dennis' desk, he held up the phone.

"Maya, there's a Cal Berkeley on the line," he told her, "He wants to talk to you."

She walked back and took the phone away from him.

"This is Maya Gallo...Why, yes, Congressman...of course...certainly...around noon? Yes, I'm free...Good bye."

She handed the phone back to Dennis, who replaced it and looked at her. When she didn't say anything, he prompted, "Well?"

"Congressman Berkeley wants to have lunch with me."

"OOH," Dennis teased her, "Maya Gallo, sleepin' with the enemy."

Now she leaned across the desk and put a warning finger in Dennis' mildly humored face.

"Dennis," she snapped, "You leak a word of this to my father, and so help me, I'll tell him about the filthy stories you write and post on the company's intranet."

"You wouldn't," he answered in his usual deadpan voice.

"Try me."

She continued her trip back to her office, then paused, turned and took two steps back towards his desk.

"And just for your information, I don't care how many people vote for it, I will NOT mudwrestle Barbie in Accounting."

Author's post-note: I wanted to thank you for the favorable reviews received so far and I hope this installment lived up to most of them. A couple of suggestions have been made, both of which I have read and will strive to work on. One has been fulfilled, in that my account is now able to accept anonymous reviews. The other, about more detail, more description, all I have to say is...you're absolutely right. It's long been a problem with my writing, and now that I have found a semi-regularly place to practice it, I promise to work on it. You didn't see much improvement in this short chapter I'm afraid,(think of this as the section of a typical episode between opening credit and first commercial break) but I promise to work on it in upcoming installments.