W.W. –Tuesday afternoon
"C.J., do you have a minute?" Donna was holding a briefing memo in one hand and a watch in the other, by the end of the strap.
"Surely, Donna, I can take a second." She'd been feeding Gail and getting her thoughts in order for the afternoon briefing. It was as close to down time as she had during the news day. "What's on your mind?"
Donna sat on the couch, but she didn't relax.
"They want me to do a budget proposal for my office." She waved the memo.
"And what's the problem?" She wondered if Donna realized she was holding a broken watch as though it were a piece of spoiled fruit. She seemed to have forgotten.
"I've never done anything like this. Josh is the one for planning and strategy. I keep looking at the blank page and I don't know where to start. It's like the SAT and I forgot my number two pencil."
"One million dollars," C.J. said immediately.
"What?"
"Your blank piece of paper- put one million dollars across the top. That's how we used to budget for campaign offices. Take any big number, write it down." She smiled at the memory. "Then you spend your budget. If you have everything you've ever dreamed of, the number's too big. Cut it in half or whatever and try again."
"What if it's not enough?" Donna seemed to be relaxing a little, since she wasn't sitting ramrod straight anymore.
"Then add more, and start cutting things you can live without. When you have a number that gives you everything you need, and a couple things you want, add ten per cent and round up. There's your budget."
"That makes so much sense. I can spend a budget- we do it all the time. And I know I can picture what I'll want and need. One million dollars. Thanks." She smiled and put her hands in her lap. She noticed she was still holding his watch. "Oh."
Toby stuck his head in the door. "C.J.? I needed to get the language to you for Quebec. Donna." He nodded to her. "Why do you have Josh's watch?"
"The strap broke. He wants me to call a guy, but I'm trying to convince him to let me replace it." She looked at it. "It's kind of heavy, and it keeps awful time."
"It doesn't really suit him," C.J. agreed.
Toby looked at them both, his slightly smug and slightly sad expression so utterly typical. "You don't know? How is it that neither of you know?"
"Know what?" Donna was looking at the watch a little more closely. On the face it said "Huber" and "Chronograph" and on the back… "B.L."
"It was his grandfather's. His father brought it here when they came from Europe."
Donna almost dropped it. She laid it carefully onto the folder in her lap and just looked at it. She remembered the first time she'd seen it.
"He brought it back after the funeral. During the first election. I should have realized." She looked at Toby. "But, it doesn't work. I know he kept it, and I can understand why, but it doesn't work. Do you know anyone who could fix it without, you know, doing anything to it?" Her eyes were drawn back to it.
Toby shook his head. "I asked him about that. No one in DC would do that kind of work any more. They wanted to replace the workings, and he wouldn't let them. Original parts, it's like getting into a nightclub: you have to know the guy who knows the guy."
C.J. sat up suddenly. She grinned, her "about to do the jackal" grin, and extended a hand to Donna. "May I?"
Donna carefully and deliberately handed her the watch, holding it with both hands like a baby. Or a stick of dynamite. Maybe that was redundant.
C.J. looked at it, and carefully laid it on her desk and started making notes about the markings on the watch. "I know a guy," she said.
"So, you'll let me know?" Donna stood up and looked at her own watch. "Hell, I have to get back. Josh's 2 o'clock will be here. C.J., you'll let me know what you find out?"
"Absolutely. And Toby? Nice catch." She winked at him. He mumbled something about the Quebec language and shuffled back towards his office.
"Carol? I need the number for Marco Arlens. He's an horologist in Paris."
Carol leaned in and gave C.J. a look. "Is this a test? I mean- you don't expect me to have any idea what an horologist is, do you?"
C.J. looked at her. She put her hands on her hips. "H-o-r-o-l-o-g-i-s-t. The Paris in France, not the one in Texas, in case that was next."
Carol shook her head and pursed her lips.
"It wasn't. I'll let you know." Carol went back to her desk.
C.J. looked at the watch on her desk again. "You're a long way from where you started out, aren't you?"
W.W.
"Leo?" Margaret was hanging back a little bit. Since Leo had appeared at his desk with a band-aid prominently featured on his nose, she'd been more than a little hesitant to interrupt him.
"Yes?"
"Donna asked me to tell Josh his 2 o'clock is coming over."
"Great. Show them in, please." He looked down at the notes he'd been reviewing from Josh, then called out without looking up, "And Margaret?"
"Sir?"
He grinned an evil grin at her. "Let's try not to throw anything. These people are our guests."
She blushed and closed the door with a rapid nod.
Leo turned to Josh. "We have the Secret Service, the Redskins' defensive linemen, and Margaret, throwing magazines the size of a small phone book."
Josh looked at him, and then back at the door she had left through, and back to Leo.
"Oh. Yeah, with the thing." He blinked. "Your nose, and the, the thing."
"What's with you today? You were focused like a laser this morning, but since lunch you've been all over the place."
Josh winced and shook his head. "It's probably nothing, but I had this meeting with, I heard there was this thing about- Never mind."
There was a knock at the door and Margaret announced, "Leo, Josh, they're here."
Josh looked relieved. "It's nothing Leo. It's not a thing."
"Okay," Leo looked to Margaret as he stood and buttoned his coat. "Send them in."
"Right this way," Margaret said, standing aside.
"Leo, Josh, it's good to see you," said Kenny Thurman, following a smiling Joey Lucas into the room. He was using his translator pitch. It was usually quite easy to tell when he was speaking for Joey and when, on rare occasions, he spoke for himself.
"Joey, Kenny. You look well. Come, sit." They made chitchat for a moment and settled into Leo's office.
Margaret closed the door and went back to her desk, still stinging from Leo's earlier teasing. She had pulled up an ASL website and was reading about basics of American Sign Language. You never knew when something like that might come in handy.
