W.W. –Tuesday night
"Would the gentleman prefer to be seated?"
Josh looked at the hostess. Honestly, who talks that way?
"No, the gentleman will wait until… ah." He saw Donna making her way through the crowd, and he understood why she was late.
"You went home to change," he accused her with mock hostility. "That's completely unfair." He took her hand.
"Sorry, I just felt like I needed a shower."
Donna tried to hide the exasperation on her face. It had been a really rough day, and she had just made it home in time to meet the courier for Josh's watch, then grabbed a quick wash. She was able to relax a little once they were seated and had ordered drinks. She noticed that Josh had ordered a coke instead of his usual beer or martini.
"Do you have to go back to work?" She hoped not. They really needed to go over some things before she called her parents.
"What? No, why?" He smiled a wicked smile. "Do you have plans? You were placed in charge of plans, as I recall."
"Josh, you're awful. I meant you aren't having a beer." She took a sip of her cosmopolitan.
"Well, all the changes, all the talk today about moving on, moving out… it made me think." He paused for a sip of coke, and she laughed at him. "That, plus your very subtle tuna fish maneuver today."
Sorry about that," she said with a complete lack of remorse. "So, a pensive Josh Lyman, that's never a good thing."
"No, really. I'm getting, well, older, you know. It's easy to drink, and to eat burned cheeseburgers and fries all the time when you know your job stress is going to kill you one day anyway."
"Josh, don't even kid about that." She put her drink down and gave him a long look. "Did someone say something to you today?"
"No, Donna. But think about it. By the time we're moved and married, I'm going to be forty. I was in my thirties when my father died, and it was terrible. I just started imagining what it would be like for our kids if I dropped dead at fifty with a heart attack or something."
"This isn't going to be one of those things where you go on a big kick, then I have to nag you after a week, then in two weeks you're begging me to stop nagging, is it?" She favored him with a little smile. "Need I remind you of the infamous chocolate cheesecake incident?"
"Chocolate- Hey!" His eyes grew wide with mock fear and he dimpled as he flashed a smile at her. "We agreed, a solemn vow, what happens in Brooklyn campaign stops, stays in Brooklyn campaign stops!"
The waiter came to take their order. Donna had completely forgotten she was supposed to be looking at her menu, and told Josh to order first. He started to snap out his order with characteristic precision.
"I'll have the prime rib, burnt. Loaded potato and… um, actually, give us another couple of minutes, would you?" He opened his menu and glanced at it with a frown.
"This is serious." Donna was looking at him with concern. "You're actually serious?"
He put his menu down and reached across to take her hand. "Listen, Donna. I don't need to tell you I am stubborn, and I love almost nothing more than giving in to a good temptation when it comes along. But there are two things I love more, winning, and you. Not in that order, of course."
"Of course," she nodded seriously.
"I know we're going to have problems, it's just too much to expect that everything will suddenly go smoothly in our lives, when you consider our track record. You're going to get mad at me, and I admit some part of the time I may even deserve it."
He broke off for moment, successfully smothering a smile that had threatened to ruin his delivery. She bit her lip to avoid laughing and waited for him to continue.
"I think the next part of our lives is going to be a lot about compromise, and I want to start by not having you worry every time I sit down to eat. Nothing radical, just more, um, moderation."
"Because you love me." She squeezed his hand.
"Well, yeah." He lifted her hand to his mouth and brushed his lips across her knuckles. "Does that work for you?"
The waiter picked that moment to reappear, like they do.
"Okay, I'll have the small filet, burned black, and the salad with bleu cheese crumbles."
"Loaded potato with that filet?"
"No, give me the asparagus if it's really fresh, with the hollandaise on the side please."
"And the lady?"
Donna pursed her lips for a second, then said, "I think I'll have the same, but make it medium rare, please?'
"Of course. I'll get those salads right out."
"So, what did Mike Casper want to talk to you about? Anything important?" She knew that Josh and Mike had met before they entered public service, but she didn't have any real sense of their relationship. Men, she realized, just don't talk about that kind of thing.
"Nothing. It was just this, nothing, really." He had that trying-not-to-look-guilty look, but she didn't really want to talk about that anyway. She had more irritating fish to fry.
"Okay, Josh, so what did you need with Amy today?" Donna tried really hard to make that sound casual.
"She was working for Johnson a few months back, when the Senator made some comments about the lack of diversity in senior party positions. I wanted to feel out her support on bringing Joey on board." He looked at Donna suddenly. "Why? What did you think?"
"Oh, I don't know…" She hung her head. "I guess I was being insecure. No offense, Josh, but that woman always grated on me."
He nodded. "Yeah, me too, actually. She's not a bad person, but she plays rough."
"You play rough, Josh, but you don't screw over your friends." She arched an eyebrow at him. "That's why having Joey Lucas around wasn't nearly so upsetting, once I got used to it. She plays fair."
Their salads arrived, and Donna asked for a glass of tea. Might as well follow Josh's good example, strange as that thought was. She snuck a glance at her belly, and wondered what affect half a cosmopolitan might have if she was pregnant. Probably none, she hoped belatedly.
"Amy had some ideas about you and me that made things, um, difficult." Josh speared a bit of carrot and examined it suspiciously. His father had called salads 'rabbit food' and refused to eat them. Of course, his father had died in his sixties and Josh wanted to better that mark. He ate the carrot. It wasn't actually all that bad.
"She thought I was in love with you. She asked me once. I was so shocked I didn't know what to say." Donna felt better, telling him that. It had been a very awkward moment.
"Well, she told me today she was sure I was screwing my secretary, which put us all off on a bad foot to start with," Josh said around a mouth full of celery and bleu cheese.
"She, she said what?" Donna stopped with a piece of lettuce half way to her mouth.
"Yeah," Josh said, methodically working on his salad. "She said she couldn't decide whether she was more upset as my girlfriend, or as a feminist. I think that's a pretty good indicator right there that the relationship was doomed to failure, don't you? Can't possibly say that I'm sorry though. I like things now infinitely better."
"She thought you were screwing your secretary?" Donna was trying to keep her voice down and succeeded only in hissing a sharp whisper that could be heard at every adjoining table. She paled except for two bright red spots that appeared high on her cheeks. Her voice, however, did return to a lower and less distraught tone. "Why did she think that? Did you say something that would make her think that?"
"Donna, think for a moment. I was not screwing my secretary. Ever."
"I know that, Josh. But why did she, I mean, what on earth would make her say something like that?" Donna's white-knuckle grip was threatening to bend her salad fork.
"Well," he reasoned with a calm that she found maddening, "I wasn't screwing my secretary, but I was falling in love with my assistant. You can understand her confusion, right?"
"You-" She took a quick gulp of tea. "You were falling in love with me?"
"Yeah. I'm sorry." He frowned a bit. "I thought I'd made that pretty clear."
Their entrees arrived, and they made more relaxed conversation. Donna discussed the things she wanted to talk about with her parents, and they wondered when they would have time to actually do all the things that were adding up on their schedules.
"We should invite them down this weekend, if you want," Josh suggested while finishing his steak. It was a small puck of charcoal with a vague resemblance to meat, which to him was nearly perfect.
"My parents? Come here?" She pondered the idea, as incredible as it seemed. "Well, I suppose they could. I don't know if there's enough time to get them a decent travel deal."
"Donna, don't worry about that. Tell them to come down, um, our treat."
"I don't have that kind of money, Josh, and breaking my lease and everything, my budget is crazy this month as it is."
"Tell you what, you're a lot better than me at handling these kind of details, right?" He waited for her amused nod. "Excellent. I'll give you a budget for both of us, and you make sure we get though this month. Then we'll sit down and work out long-term plans, okay? Easier for everyone."
"Well, I feel bad Josh. I don't feel like I'm contributing my share." She was fidgeting with her napkin.
"Donna." She was still looking in her lap. "Donna Moss? My dad was a partner at a very successful firm. He didn't, even with the chemo and everything, he wasn't sick long enough to dent their retirement money. Mom went to Florida on the insurance settlement and I'm sure she had money left, since she insisted on splitting the money from the house in Connecticut with me. The only way I'd accept it was if she'd let me put it away till I met someone worth buying a house with."
"What are you saying, Josh?"
He took a pen out of his pocket and wrote a number on a piece of paper. He slid it across the table. She took it and looked at it for almost a minute.
"That's a nice down payment, something cozy, a starter home." She started calculating in her head. "But we'll still need a lot of work to really get settled."
"Donna, no. That's your budget. For this month, for whatever comes up, so you won't worry." He didn't appear to be joking.
"That's for this month? You're scaring me."
"Everything my grandfather and my dad left me, whatever mom gave me from the house, it's been in a blind trust while I worked in DC. You know, dodge those wonderful federal disclosure forms every year." He thought for a minute. "Now I've resigned, it should just be a few weeks for the papers to go through."
"You're rich? I mean, rich, too? Sexy and powerful I already knew," she said amazedly, with a nervous laugh.
"We. And No, we're not rich. I mean, not Leo rich or Sam rich, but we're going to be okay."
She punched him on the arm.
"Hey, that hurt!" He rubbed his bicep.
"Good, it was supposed to," she said with a tight smile. "Skis wouldn't have killed you?" She started laughing.
He tried to look offended, but he started laughing too. They got their check, which she insisted on paying, saying she was going to bleed him plenty in the next month so he should enjoy one last night of prosperity.
As they were driving to Josh's condo, she looked at him. He caught her looking at him thoughtfully, and he said, "What?"
"That money, from your mom."
"Yes?"
"That was house money, actual grownup, relationship house money… So, you consider me house worthy?" Her eyes were shining, and her voice was low and husky.
"Okay, that does it, I'm stopping the car," he muttered, looking for a place to pull over and kiss her.
"Josh, take me home." He saw the smoldering expression on her face as she continued, "I want to get us both cleaned up, and then I'm going to prove to you that you're making a good investment."
He almost forgot to stop for red lights.
W.W.
"Annie!"
John Moss sat with his PowerBook on his lap, reading glasses on the end of his nose, and a pencil behind his ear. Both sleeves were rolled up and his shirt was unbuttoned. Normally, this combination spelled tax season, but not tonight.
He looked at his spreadsheet and scratched his chin with his thumbnail. He looked around for his wife but she wasn't in sight.
"Annie! Who was on the phone?"
His wife came in from the kitchen, her expression surprised and pleased, if a little distracted. She came and stood behind him, her hands going to work on the tension in his shoulders.
"It was my daughter, calling with an update on that fiancé of hers." The last couple of days had been hectic, trying to get geared up for Donna's announcement and the subsequent planning it would entail. Trying to plan an engagement, a wedding and two interstate apartment moves, all in a short time, was taxing even Annie Moss' organizational skills.
"So, she's your daughter today?" He laughed. Donna was only his daughter when she was doing something her mother disapproved of, like driving to Nashua or moving back in with her ex. "What's the latest from the lovebirds?"
"They want us to come see them, this weekend." She kept right on working at the knot in his shoulders, despite the way he stiffened.
"Now Annie, we talked yesterday. We'll go at the end of the month, and we can get that senior savers rate, like we planned."
Annie hesitated, and then bit the bullet. "Donna wants her father and mother to come meet her fiancé while he still works at the White House, so she can show him off. What's wrong with that?"
"Annabella Moss, I love Donna as much as you do, but if you expect me to be paying for a wedding, and a reception and who knows what else, on short notice, you can't ask me to lay out hundreds of dollars to fly in just a few days."
"John Thomas Moss," she shot back, playing the full Christian name card to prove she was serious, "This trip is a present from our future son-in-law, who very discretely mentioned that he knew you'd want to talk about his plans for Donna's financial security, which I believe was a polite way of saying take the damned money and get down here to see your daughter."
He hung his head. "Damn it, Annie, I wanted to go. I'm ready to go. It's been too long, every day, and pretty soon she's really going to be gone. But that doesn't mean I'm looking forward to sleeping on the roll-a-bed and pretending we're all instant family. Someone has to be the practical one, you know, and it always winds up being me."
She kissed the top of his balding head, where the pale blonde was yellowing to grey around the edges. She loved him, and not least because despite his protests he'd walk across the desert for his daughter. It was just his way.
"I don't think you need to worry about the roll-a-bed, dear. Josh and Donna are getting us a hotel room at the St. Regis, and Donna says she'll see if his mother might make it up from Florida so we can all get acquainted. "
"St. Regis? Sounds expensive. How are they going to manage if he keep throwing money around before they even start their new jobs?" He groused, closing his PowerBook.
"They're being thoughtful, Jack. Donna wanted something nice, and it's only a block from the White House."
"Well, I'm not going to let him pay for everything," he relented grudgingly. "You need to find somewhere to take us for brunch or something. You know, get on the internet or whatnot."
"Yes, hon." She kissed him again, and he leaned up to kiss her back. "I wish I could see our little girl right now, don't you?"
W.W.
Water was splashing back and forth, threatening to swamp the tea candles that ringed the back of the deep tub. With each pitch, the water rose higher and receded lower, like a stop-motion film of the tides.
Jack and Annie Moss' daughter sat in the bathtub, her legs and arms wrapped around a somewhat soggy but otherwise unharmed Josh Lyman. As they rocked, she called out his name. His responses were muffled.
"Josh…"
Splish.
"Josh!"
Splash.
"JOSH!"
And all the candles went out, leaving them panting, chuckling and gasping in the darkness.
