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Then Everything Changed.
Chapter 5
So Donna and Will aren't and have not slept together. While she was away I was impossible for me to keep tabs on her. Not that I have a preoccupation with Donna or her sex life, but her taste in men leaves much to be desired. I won't classify Will as a local gomer but she's light-years beyond his league.
We grab dinner at a Thai place, no joke it's called, Bangkok Delight. Tag line: If it's not a delight someone's not doing something right. Donna brings back 10 spring rolls for the Secret Service. She seems to have a whole new respect for the men in black suits. I guess now since she's one of the people they protecting. We walk back to the hotel, Will's on the phone with who I am assuming is Kate.
"You liked it! Great. No, I can make it rain, but only on Election day and only wherever I'm standing." Donna gives him a wink. Will looks a little panicky like I might beat the crap out of him, which I would do if he ever touched her.
"Hey, Josh Turner Movie Classic Channel is showing "Adam's Rib" tonight. You wanna watch it with me?" Clearly she can tell my confusion. "You do know that TV's have more then CNN, CSPAN and ESPN?"
"Why must you spew filthy lies?" She laughs and hands the Spring Rolls over to the Secret Service as he speaks into his microphone.
"Maple Leaf and Yankee are in the building. Thank you, Miss Moss."
"You're welcome, Jackson."
"'Maple Leaf?'" I ask.
"How do you know I'm not Yankee?"
"Because you're not. Maple Leaf?"
"The Secret Service is trying to be funny." They succeeded. "You coming up for the movie?"
"I still have work to do."
"Do it while the movie is on. Come on. Please?" She pouts. It's worse than kryptonite. I love her pout and her lips. I love her whole mouth area. Deep breathes Josh, don't spend the rest of the night focused on her mouth.
"Sure, I'll be up in a little bit."
A cold shower later I am in her hotel room watching a movie I could care less about. I have files and papers on my lap but I've been reading the same three words over and over again. Two nights in a row, she's taken over the bed; I've claimed the little desk every hotel room contains as my own.
She seems near blissful as she watches the movie. It's a Hepbrun and Tracy film, about equal rights for women. Donna's enthralled with Katharine Hepburn. She thinks the actress embodies everything a woman should be; strong, smart, independent and sexual without overdoing it. What Donna doesn't realize is that she already is Kate. I like Tracy in the movie, because eventually he wins. The problem I have with it is all the games they play with each other. All the manipulation, it isn't it them, it's beneath them. I think that's what bugs me the most.
Donna and I haven't really talked in months. How can I know someone the way I do and never once really talk to her? We didn't speak after Germany, I look out for her but Stanley and his people were who she shared her inner demons with.
I didn't realize how much I missed her until I got her back. Recalling every time our path crossed in the last few months I did get that knot in my stomach and bile made its way into my throat. And yet there she is, again sitting on her bed watching the TV, ten feet away. I've never felt so far away from her.
God I missed her.
"Did you like the movie?" Its over?
"Um, yeah, it was funny." That was vague enough, right?
Silence.
"There's an elephant in the room and I think we should name him." What? Her non-sequiturs never get easier to understand. "Josh, the elephant is huge! Can't you see him?"
"Did I zone out and miss something in the movie?" Then she gives her patented "You're an idiot look."
She's right though; this space between us is being occupied by something. The elephant could be any number of topics.
"Come here." She pats the bed "Talk to me."
"About the elephant?"
"No, it doesn't have to be about that. Anything. How's your mom? Why did you and Toby get into that fight? Did you two make up? Do you think the Mets have a chance this year? Talk to me Josh. I missed you."
I missed you too. Say it out loud you fool! When you say it in your head no one else can hear you.
"You missed me too, right." Damn, can she hear my thoughts?
"Josh." Get naked and pleasure me like no other woman can.
"Yeah." Did my voice squeak?
"Pick a topic."
Damn, she's not getting naked. All of this would be so much easier, if she could read my thoughts. I sit on the edge of the bed not too close I would rather talk about the Mets but since she couldn't care less I blurt out.
"Um...What happened last night?"
"So you can see the elephant." She smiles. I missed her smile. She wanted to talk about this, right? Her smiles fades as she starts to talk.
"Thank you for staying." Her hand is on my leg. Fire. Again with the fire, every time she makes contact with my skin, its on fire. Her bambi eyes watch her hand then make their way up my body, then into my eyes.
"I haven't been sleeping soundly. I ran out of my meds just before the DNC."
She looks away. My hand instinctively moves on top of hers. Her eyes are back, staring into mine.
"Normally, I work myself to sleep or read law books until I pass out."
"Law books?" This is new.
"Yeah, when I can't sleep I read books on law. I've been doing that for six years now. Sam and Will have been loaning them to me."
"I would have loaned you some."
"You would have laughed at me." No, I wouldn't. I would have given you a hard time. I would have teased you. Mocked you, but secretly supported you the whole time, so long as you never did anything with it.
"The law books don't stop the nightmares."
I shouldn't need to ask, but I do anyway, "how long have you had these nightmares?"
She starts to tear up. "Since Gaza."
"Oh." "Oh," that's all I can say to comfort her. This is the woman who has held my hand through every disaster. What a waste of communication skills, 760 on verbal, my ass.
"Most nights I relive the explosion, the flight to Germany, the surgeries. It's the ghosts that are really bad. They haunt and linger long after I wake up."
"Have you been talking to Stanley's people about this?"
"I stopped after when I started working for Russell. I just didn't have time. But they've been worse since I've been on the road. Nothing is the same, no familiarity, you know? The guilt does not help matters either." She has no reason to feel guilty, she didn't do anything wrong.
"What do you have to feel guilty about?" This is when she starts to weep, waterfalls. She crashes into my chest and my arms wrap about her. She heaves and sobs, thankfully she does not speak, because I would not be able to understand her. I can't handle it when she cries, it rips apart my organs, rendering me useless. Finally she speaks, Donna's words kill me more then her tears.
"What reason shouldn't I feel guilty about? I lived! Two Congressmen and Fitzwallace didn't. Josh, I saw him in the helicopter, I saw Fitzwallace's lifeless body. Three great men, who contributed to society and their Country, the few half away around the world to solve new and old problems died. Me, a worthless assistant, I lived."
"Your not worthless. Donna your…" Tell her, say something.
"What did I do with my life? I left the one person who…. I started to work for Russell, he is worse the worthless! Slimy and low, and he would have been our Nominee! Oh, God Josh, could you imagine, President Bob Russell?"
"That's the nightmare that kept me up at nights." I smile. She doesn't, her voice becomes quiet.
"Do you realize how close we came? If Will had listened to me, through out the whole campaign, we would have won."
Now my blood runs cold. She's the political mastermind. She would have gotten Bob Russell elected. It was Will who blew it. She didn't even like Bingo Bob.
"If he had listened, oh God. The idea makes me sick. I got a second chance on life and look what I did with it." She buries her head on my shoulder.
"Donna," I wish I could say more. But all I can do is let her cry. I lie down on the bed and pull her close to me. She's shaking and breathing hard. Months of angry and guilt come flooding out with her tears.
I've never seen her this bad. Once after the shooting I heard her cry like this, while she was taking care of me, she was in the other room and I couldn't move from the bed. It was one of the first times I longed to hold her, tell her everything would be fine. But I couldn't.
I feel even more useless now than I did then.