"You know," Alex started unceremoniously, "not quite nineteen years ago I would have been sitting in one of these seats, wearing a uniform very much like yours."
She paused for a second and the group of grade seven students wasn't quite sure how to react. This was their government class and their teacher had prepared them to sit quietly and listen to the Congresswoman who was going to come and speak. Somehow, Alex wasn't quite what they had expected. "That said, I'm not going to stand here and give some incomprehensible speech about the vital work that we do. Instead, I'm going to talk about whatever you want me to talk about."
The teacher started. This wasn't what she had prepared the class for. And of course, it had to be the class clown whose hand instantly shot up into the air, a grin on his face. Expecting the worst, the teacher groaned softly as Alex called on him.
"Yeah," he stated boldly, "I've got a question." The teacher tried to brace herself but it was difficult because anything could come out of his mouth. "Why do the New Hampshire primaries matter so much?"
"Why are you so nervous?" Ted Keegan asked, pausing in the doorway of Jack's office. "I can hear you pacing from down the hall. You're worse than you were the night of the New Hampshire primary with Merrell for goodness sake."
"You really don't want to know, Ted," Jack mumbled, still stalking back and forth across his office.
"You're telling me that I don't want to know why everyone's running scared, you almost made one of your interns cry, and you're wearing a groove in your carpet?" Ted questioned. "Are you sure?"
Jack sighed, coming to a stop. "I almost made an intern cry?"
"You almost made Harrington's niece cry," Ted amended. "And it's only ten o'clock."
Jack reached up a hand to rub at the bridge of his nose. "Please tell me that I hired another Harrington while I wasn't paying attention."
"Nope," Ted reassured him. "Susanne Harrington, daughter of Roger Harrington whose brother is…"
"Whose brother is William Harrington, who is, aside from Donna and the Whip, the most influential Democrat currently sitting in the Senate," Jack finished with a groan. "This day keeps going from bad to worse."
"Send her flowers," Ted advised, coming into the office and perching on the edge of Jack's desk. "That seemed to work for Mr. Lyman."
"Josh," Jack corrected unconsciously. "Mr. Lyman makes him feel old."
"I've met the guy three times; he's the Wayne Gretzky of the DC political scene. I think that I should be calling him Mr. Lyman," Ted maintained. "Now why are you so wound up?"
"No reason," Jack answered, resuming his pacing from where he had left off.
"No reason? No reason at all?"
Donna stood with her feet planted and her hands on her hips, watching her husband nearly bouncing off the walls of his office. Somehow she didn't quite believe him when he assured her that there was absolutely no reason for his hyperactivity.
"Nope," Josh grinned happily, looking like he wanted to twirl in his chair.
"Josh," Donna warned. Joan and Noah knew that tone and they knew that it was best to co-operate. Josh knew it too, but he had too much nervous energy to listen.
"Donna," he called back to her, echoing her tone.
"I'm going to stand here until you tell me what's going on. And then you'll miss not only your lunch with Jack, but also your meeting with Harrington that you've been dying to go to all week," she threatened, shifting her position so that she was leaning up against his doorjamb.
"You've got committee meetings today," Josh responded happily, knowing that he had the upper hand.
"Your meetings are first. My morning committee meeting was cancelled because Weston and Chow were due to present position papers and they both have the flu," she countered easily. Josh deflated a little.
"Donna," he said, whining this time.
"You know that doesn't work with me, Joshua."
"I can't tell you. I promised."
"You promised who?"
"I promised Chris Wick that I'd go over the education reform package with him," Alex answered, picking up her pace as she looked at her watch. "I was supposed to be there five minutes ago."
"You've still got Mr. McCosham penciled in at eleven."
"My office or his?" Alex called back over her shoulder to her assistant, not waiting for the answer as she rounded the corner and ran smack into someone.
"Oomph," was all she got to identify the person with. Well, that and a face full of the soft cotton of their very blue shirt.
"I'm sorry," she apologized, stepping away and looking up to see who she had collided with.
"Fancy running into you," Chris greeted her with a smile.
"I'm sorry I'm late," they said together.
"I thought we were…" they started in unison.
"Are you trying to do Abbott and Costello?" Chris asked, laughing, "Because I sure wasn't."
"Neither was I," she assured him. "Now, where are we going?"
"Your office is closer."
"You mind if we go find something to eat? I was planning on grabbing something after we were done, but Jack seems to have penciled himself in," Alex explained.
"I know a little Italian place down the street that keeps a room set aside for people from the Hill," Chris answered. "They make the best rosé sauce you'll ever taste. You need to go back and grab a coat?"
"I'm fine. You?"
Chris shrugged as if to say 'if you can take it, so can I' and started toward the exit. "I bet Jack's going to jump all over you on 467; they're still short five votes. He was in trying to swing me yesterday."
Alex sighed. "He should know by now that I'm not going to vote for it. We need more money spent on health-care, not less."
"I couldn't agree with you more," Chris replied. "He argued that with the rider that got tagged onto 634, the money's going to be there; we just have to pass 467 to cut off funding to labs that haven't produced anything worthwhile in the past three years."
"It took a lot longer than three years for them to cure smallpox," Alex pointed out. "I think we've got to keep the funding where it is AND increase the funding everywhere else." She shrugged. "He's tried this eight times before; if he wants to try again, he can be my guest. But it's not going to work."