Take A Chance on Me Part IV
by: Raye
The days droned on and yet there never seemed to be a moment to call. Never enough time to really get into it. In his mind, it was really only a little bit of fear... it was that he knew that the next time they were close enough to talk it was going to happen.
"Josh? You got those numbers for me?"
He dragged his gaze away from the phone and looked right through Toby. "Numbers."
"Snap out of it, Josh. The President is asking for the numbers."
Shaking his head, Josh cleared his vision and nodded. "Yeah... yeah, I got them."
Toby wheeled around. "Then let's go."
It took a beat for his reaction. " 'kay." His fingers nearly curled the paper as he picked it up off the desk and jogged to catch up to Toby.
"I don't know where your head's been, Josh. Everyone's noticed... CJ, Kate, Leo... it's like you're not really there in the room even when you're talking."
A wisp of color washed over his skin. "I guess."
Toby tossed him a look. "You guess? That's what I'm talking about, Josh!" Toby's voice drew curious stares from staffers, but Josh moved through the room as if it were an empty hollow. His eyes blank as he moved through the familiar halls.
A hand closed over Josh's arm and Toby swung him around.
"What?" Josh's eyes narrowed in irritation. "What?"
"That's the problem, Josh... I don't know what's going on in your head and I don't think you know either. So I'm going to tell you something and I'm saying it not just because we need you 'here' for this... but as a friend. You need to pull your head up out of your ass and get it together."
He didn't wait for an answer. Toby grabbed the papers out of his hand and headed for the Oval Office on his own. Josh watched him go and the funny thing was... he didn't care.
Truth was he didn't care. Not about that... not right now... not when there was something else that he needed to do, something infinitely more important.
It was there in the back of his mind, a niggling little thought... a strange feeling... that everyone knew something he didn't. Okay, so it wasn't everyone... just the usual suspects. Sure, when Toby wasn't trying to wring his neck he was giving him odd looks, like he'd misplaced something.
Leo was constantly trying to keep his attention away from... something... and CJ... CJ... if she gave him that sappy 'awwwww' look one more time he was going to run screaming through the west wing in Sam's foul-weather gear.
He stalked past Ginger, Carol and Margaret in the hallway and their laughter disappeared like a guilty man at a crime scene. Instantly and ominously.
Inch by inch he swivelled around and nailed the three amigos to the wall with a glare. "Tell me."
Ginger and Carol sent sidewards glances toward Margaret who had the nerve to give him a blank look. "Did you need something, Josh?"
"Tell me."
"Tell you?" Carol seemed to have found her voice, but her smile didn't reach her eyes.
Josh wasn't impressed. "The three of you look like you're about to cut and run and all I asked was a simple question." His fingers bent and contorted into claws as if he was going to rip something to shreds. "So, I'd really appreciate it if someone," he raised his voice and met every eye in the room before he returned to the three assistants that had garnered his ire, "I'd really appreciate it if some... one.. would tell me what it is that all of you seem to know... and I don't!"
It would have been comical if he wasn't at the edge of frustration looking down into the abyss.
They ran.
Scurried away like mice before the cat.
Carol swept past his shoulder, Ginger went to the left... ducking behind a shield of pages caught in the headlights, but it was Margaret. Margaret whose guilty look held his attention. He wanted to talk to her and so, he followed her through the door and leaned over the front of the desk fingers tense and tented on the cluttered surface.
She busied herself shuffling papers and filing things in the sliding drawer at the bottom of her desk. She peered up at him from a near crouch, "Oh, Hi, Josh... did you... need something?"
His head bobbed up and down in a recurring nod while the seconds ticked away and so did his patience. "Spill. It." He raised a single brow, enjoying the tension it created in his temple. It distracted him from other dark and dangerous thoughts. "Now."
"Oh." Her mouth paused in a nervous little circle as she searched for words. "That."
He gave a little chuckle and she almost smiled in response. Her shoulders relaxed and she straightened in her seat.
WHAM. His fist connected with the hard wood top of her desk and papers slid into knick-knacks, scattering them with the impact. "Now, Margaret! Tell me what I want to know... I-"
the TV crackled and flared in the background
"Excuse me, Excuse me, Miss Moss!" The insistent voice of a reporter slammed through the red cloud in his head. "Do you have a comment?"
"What?" He shook his head to clear it.
"Comment?" Her contralto timbre quivered a bit. "About?"
"Is the first lady insisting that the President resign his office after the Talks in China?"
"I don't see what-" She was cut off by another voice.
"Really, Miss Moss, you can't expect us to believe that the first lady has no comment on the issue."
Josh felt his elbows buckle and he sat on the edge of the desk as he turned toward the TV in front of Margaret's desk. There on the screen was the woman he hadn't been able to get off his mind. Donna, in a burgundy turtleneck with a long graceful gold chain curving over her shoulders, the ends of her hair grazing her shoulder, the camera captured her pale complexion marred by confusion and uncertainty.
Josh bit out the words. "Damn it."
"The first lady, Miss Moss, we're waiting for your answer."
Josh reached out a hand. "Give me the phone, Margaret."
"We're waiting."
The line clicked in his ear as a disembodied voice barked, "Pressroom."
"Look, this is Josh Lyman I want to talk to someone down there that can get the reporters to.."
"Josh?" Margaret's fingers curled around his arm, pushing in through his dress shirt and suit coat.
He covered the mouthpiece with his hand and turned his gaze toward her. "What?"
"Josh, look." At her insistent tone, Josh peered up at the screen.
There was a change in the way she stood. A subtle shift of her expression. Her shoulders squared as she took in a sustaining breath. "I'll answer your questions... all of your questions, when you allow me a chance to answer."
That got a soft chuckle that was audible on the air. A reporter beside her openly smiled even as she held up a hand-held recorder to catch the answer.
"Now, as to your earlier question. I can honestly say the First Lady has not discussed that topic with me, so as much as I know you'd like me to give you something to put in the papers or on the air tonight, you're going to have to settle for the standard 'no comment.'"
Josh felt the corners of his mouth twitch as a particularly tenacious reporter pressed the issue. "Come on, Miss Moss, 'No Comment?'"
"I can't give you something that isn't there. I really think you'd be more interested in an accurate statement than one that's given to you just to get you off my back."
The reporter's cheeks turned pink and she sank back into the crowd as the camera panned back to Donna who flashed a confident smile. "So if that's it for now, I'll confer with the First Lady and we'll have statements for you shortly."
The image shifted to a news story outlining shopping trends at the Nation's malls and Josh found himself staring into space. The phone held a piece away from his ear blurted out a few staccato noises. "Hello? Hello?" The voice crackled as Josh handed the phone back to Margaret.
He stood up and in his mind's eye he read the bottom of the screen for the first time.
Donna Moss - Chief of Staff for the First Lady
The smile that played across his lips was one of discovery and pride. Chief of Staff... Not bad... not bad at all.
Margaret cleared her throat. "Now you know."
"Excuse me?" He struggled to focus on her words.
She spoke slowly, sounding out the syllables. "You wanted to know where she was. Now you know."
"Yeah." He felt caged somehow. Tied the ground when all he wanted to do was go. He knew where she was and he wasn't going to let the opportunity pass him by. Not this time.