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"No one needs to know…."
By Elaine
Sometimes she feels like disappearing. And that makes her laugh because she isn't the most innocuous looking woman at 6 foot tall without her heels on. And that's in addition to the fact that after the President she's the most photographed member of the Administration.
So she laughs and half curses CNN and the media for being global because there is really nowhere in the world she could disappear to. Yet she knows that the same thing that she curses is indirectly responsible for paying her bills. But sometimes she wonders what her life would be like if she never left EMILY's List. If she didn't give up $550,000 a year because she fell into her pool and Toby never blinked when he said that the then governor was the real thing.
But she knows the answer to her unspoken ramblings.
She knows that she would be miserable. That she would never have gained 2 brothers in Josh and Sam, and more recently, Will. That Leo and the President would become a surrogate father figure to her, and Carol her best friend and sister all rolled into one.
But still, still there are things that they don't know. That no-one knows, except maybe for Toby.
He's the only one who knows that she aced her verbal and English SAT's only to barely pass her Maths. He's the only one who knows that she can read 26 briefings on anything from Ohio agricultural reforms to the newest DOD budgets, but don't ask her to look at a graph because she could look at it for 3 hours and still be no closer to understanding it then when she first laid eyes on it. It was Toby who remembered, even though it was nearly 10 years ago when she first told him. And now, now he brings the graph and a list of notes explaining everything, and he leaves it on her desk and doesn't say anything because it's their secret and no-one else needs to know.
No-one else needs to know that it's only now that she's grown into her body. Only now that she feels comfortable. Because she is every fashion designer's dream: tall and slim. But sometimes she still feels awkward and gangly. And it's a quiet word or a smile from Toby that tells her she's beautiful. But she sometimes forgets and is shocked if she watches herself from an earlier briefing.
No-one needs to know that her respect for the Secret Service went up after Simon was killed. Or that it took her 6 months before she truly admitted that he wasn't coming back. That there was no CIA/Secret Service conspiracy and he wasn't in some jungle somewhere on a secret mission.
No-one needs to know that she's seriously thought about setting up "Claudia's House of Useless Knowledge", especially after the administration ends. Because she knows more useless facts than anyone with the exception of the President. And she thinks that it would be really easy to set a website up on the internet and answer questions. Apart from the small problem that despite e-mail and web surfing she knows very little about the internet. But she thinks she can overcome that, because it isn't such a large problem.
No-one needs to know that in her more introspective moments she thinks of herself as the finished product of a sculpture. Because if Toby and Will sculpt the words it's her who ties everything together and presents it to the world. In words for everyone to muse and ponder over. And although she doesn't always agree with what they write she's glad that she was part of the process.
So no-one really needs to know any of this. Because she's happy. Really she is. But still, still there are times when she would really like to disappear.