"We can't blame him for everything," Jeff protested with a sigh. "He's doing the best he can."
"We can't blame him for everything," Sarah admitted, sinking back down onto the barstool and gulping down half her drink. "But can we at least blame him for this? Come on, please let me blame him for this."
"Well, if I knew what we were blaming him for this time, I might agree to let you," Jeff told her, tossing back the rest of his drink and motioning for another. "You never know, I might even want to take credit if we're blaming him for something good!"
"Blaming him for something good?" Sarah laughed. "Isn't that a contradiction in terms?"
"Not when you're talking about a Lyman it's not."
Jack poured himself a cup of coffee, hoping that the caffeine would do double duty, both waking him up and relieving his hangover. He had had a few too many drinks over the poker game the previous night and while, he had enjoyed the drinks very much at the time, he was regretting them now. Still, he couldn't help but wince, very gingerly, as he imagined how badly Josh must be feeling. Donna hadn't guarded his 'sensitive system' as diligently as she usually did, and Josh had tried his hardest to match Toby drink for drink.
Draining his first cup, Jack poured himself more coffee, noting the strange silence that had settled over the house. He figured that Alex must have taken the kids somewhere because when he had finally managed to pry his eyelids open, her side of the bed had grown cold long ago. He was grateful because, as much as he loved his children, he knew that if they had been in the house, he would have been out of bed hours earlier, hangover or not. Such were the joys of parenting.
Determined to take full advantage of the rare moment of solitude, he wandered toward the living room, eagerly anticipating the chance to savor his coffee over CNN, with the volume kept sufficiently low, of course. But he was surprised to find Alex sprawled on the floor, sifting through the massive amounts of paper that Toby had left with her.
"Finally out of bed?" she asked brightly, grinning up at Jack and making no effort to keep her voice down.
Jack winced a little, motioning for her to be a little quieter. "You haven't hogtied the kids out back or anything, have you?"
"CJ and Toby were kind enough to take them off our hands for the morning," she informed him.
"Toby?" Jack repeated.
"He agreed on the condition that I was to spend the morning making a short list of names for several key campaign positions," she explained with a grin. As much of a soft spot as he concealed, Toby would never have volunteered to care for the three energetic children that early in the morning unless there was something he wanted as an end result. And that list of people, they needed desperately.
Jack nodded his understanding, crossing the room to sink down onto the couch. Leaning back, he lifted his feet onto the coffee table, only to have them swatted back down by Alex as he disturbed one of her stacks of paper. "How short is this list?" he inquired.
She shrugged. "I've already been through these two piles," she answered, gesturing to the stacks at her right. She hadn't made a significant dent in the sheer mass of information that Toby had supplied.
"And you've been at this for how long now?"
"A couple of hours."
Jack sighed and reached for the top few legal pads in the stack he had bumped with his feet. "Why don't you tell me what we're looking for?"
"I wish that I knew," she laughed. Then she grew more serious. "Just keep an eye out for anyone that catches your eyes, for any reason at all. Toby and Josh have already culled anyone they don't think has the experience or knowledge to help somehow. And Toby and CJ pared it down even more after we talked yesterday. Now we're down to a list of people who can help us run the kind of campaign we want to run."
Jack's eyebrows went up as he looked around at the number of pads still remaining, each one representing a potential staffer.
"After all of that, there's still all of this?"
Toby looked surprised that the hundred or so names that they had been left with that morning had only been reduced to about forty. He had obviously been expecting a short list that was considerably shorter.
Alex sighed. "These are the ones that we felt we had to take a closer look at, for one reason or another. But, if you've noticed, we did split them into primary candidates and secondary candidates for each position."
"We even managed to come up with a list of primary, primary candidates," Jack quipped. "Primarily, I figured that it made sense, seeing as how our primary purpose in this is to win the primaries."
"I liked you better when your hangover was still too bad for you to make puns like that," Alex groaned. "Why don't you go help CJ look after your kids?"
Toby waited expectantly, although not very patiently, for a moment. Then he growled, "I didn't spend the day being confused by your daughters and cross-examined by your son for you not to tell me who you're looking at!"
"Cross-examined by a three-year-old?"
"Damn kid wouldn't stop asking 'What that?' unless it was to ask 'How come?'" Toby grumbled affectionately.
Alex laughed. "Welcome to our lives, Toby."
"And I would assume that as a welcome gift you're going to give me those names?" Toby groused. "Or do I have to resort to threats? Because you know that I will."
"I also know that you won't carry through with them."
"Oh, really?"
Her only answer to that was a confident nod. "But, in thanks for all of the work that you've done compiling people for us, I'll tell you anyway," she told him with a grin. "Since you haven't gone to help CJ, you might was well take it away, Jack."
"Why do I have to act as Vanna?" Jack whined.
Alex shrugged. "You're the one who wanted to marry me."
Toby cleared his throat impatiently. "Whose neck do I have to wring to get those damn names?"
"Like we've been discussing, we can either move people over from my office onto the campaign, or we can start from scratch," Alex started.
"If we've been discussing it, then there's no need to re-iterate, is there?" Toby interrupted. "Just give me the names."
"Patrick Cohen."
"Studying for his PhD at Berkeley, specializing on women in government," Toby listed. "He probably won't be available until at least December, probably not until April."
"Thank you for the in depth commentary," Jack commented dryly. "That Coles' Notes version would have been appreciated on the top of the legal pad full of his information."
"Next," Toby demanded, glaring at Jack.
"Sarah for Communications and Jeff for Press Secretary."
There was only a terse nod from Toby. There was no yelling, so it was obviously a sign of approval, even though the two of them hadn't rated mention on his legal pads. It had, after all, been an almost foregone conclusion that the two of them would have places with the campaign, if they wanted them. The only question had been where.
"Richard Herzberg."
"He just landed a position with Randolph and Deason," Toby noted, naming the one of the top public relations firms in San Diego. "I've hope you've got a backup because you'll never get him," he stated firmly.
"James McNamara."
"McNamara?" Toby repeated, eyebrows rising to his non-existent hairline. "Josh managed to pull Sam away from Gage-Whitney, but there's no way that you are going to get McNamara. Who in their right mind would give up a six figure salary to come and work for nothing for an unknown…"
Alex just shrugged.
"So, let me get this straight," Toby said, passing his hand over his eyes and down over his beard, "you've got names for the big five positions, three of whom you've never met before. Of those three, two have jobs at well-known firms and one isn't out of school yet. And the two you do know might say no."
"Well, it doesn't sound very hopeful when you phrase it like that," Alex replied, grinning.
