Disclaimer: Not mine.
Here Now
CJ closed the door to her house with a sigh. She had a day to herself. She walked into the bathroom and started to draw a bath. She smiled and even hummed while she did it. After a moment she exited from the bathroom, wearing a bathrobe and pulling her hair back as she walked through the bedroom and into the outer hallway. She walked into the hall bathroom and went through the medicine chest, but didn't find what she was looking for. She opened a cabinet at the bottom of the sink and found what she was after - a green mud mask; life was good. She started the mask on her face and smiled; finally a day to herself.
CJ walked out of the bathroom and back towards her bedroom when she heard a familiar voice.
"CJ." Toby's soft voice was heard.
"Ahhh!" CJ screamed and looked toward Toby's direction - he was standing in the sunlight of her hallway. "Oh my god, Toby!" She grabbed her chest.
"What is on your face?" He walked closer to her.
"What are you doing here?" She screeched.
"You look like-" He leaned and squinted.
"Toby, what are you doing here?" Her toothy, shocked smile was still processing his presence in her house.
"I let myself in." He motioned toward the door.
"You just let yourself in!?" She was not too happy about this invasion of her privacy.
"The back door was open?"
"My back door is open?" Her voice still squealed.
"Which, by the way is really not a great thing to have with a small child-"
"Thanks for the tip—" she said sarcastically. "The baby's not here."
"Well, with the door open I can see-"
"What are you doing here? You know, other than committing another felony? In my house?"
"Well, actually a crime against—the crime—well, the crime I was convicted of really isn't a-"
"Great, so you're on your way to a set of matched judicial flatware—what are you doing here, Toby! I don't see you for almost three years and…."
"I think the real question is…what is on your face?"
"What?" She figured out what he meant. "Oh. It's a mask, Toby, it's a mask." She looked away.
"To what, scare small children?"
"No!" She looked at him. "It's to cleanse my-Toby, why are you here?"
"To see you." Toby took a step and looked around a wall and around another.
"Why are you looking around?"
"I was looking for…" He looked back at her.
"No one else is here, Toby." She leaned her fingers on her forehead and lowered her head for a moment.
"Danny?"
"He's out with the baby?" she asked as a question, meaning "get to the point."
"Oh." Toby didn't say anything.
CJ wasn't happy with the silence
"WHY ARE YOU HERE?"
"Why are you wearing a mask?"
"'Cause I'm a 46 year old new mother, Toby, with a job and a husband and there aren't many days or hours or even minutes were I don't have someone vying for my attention. So, out of the kindness of his heart, my husband, Danny, decided to take the baby for a day and let me have an afternoon to myself."
"I see." Toby rocked on her feet.
"I was gonna be girly, Toby. I was gonna be girly."
"Okay."
"I was gonna sit in a tub of lavender and listen to Jackson Brown." She seemed to be reliving a moment she was never going to have.
"So, I'm kinda ruining it."
"Ahhh yeah!"
"Okay, I'll go." He turned for the door.
"No, no, Toby. Wait. Wait." She stopped him, seeing she was wrong. " Let me clean this off my face." Toby turned back toward CJ who ran back into the bathroom behind her. Toby walked toward the bathroom as he heard the water start to run.
"Good, 'cause I cannot look at you with out seeing Margaret Hamilton. And broomsticks and…ahhh….tornados." He leaned against the wall next to the bathroom door.
"Isn't it Margaret Hamil?" She asked. The water was heard shutting off.
"What?"
"I said isn't it Margaret Hamil?"
"No….Dorothy Hamil was a figure skater." He was pretty appalled.
"Oh, yeah."
"She won a metal for our country CJ, you should, I don't know…know that."
CJ appeared, clean faced, leaning against the doorframe of her bathroom, a towel in her right hand. "Yeah, because I helped broker a piece agreement between Israel and the Middle East, so yeah, I really don't know enough about figure skating."
"Yeah." Toby said very softly. He didn't look at her.
CJ took a breath and looked at Toby.
"Why are you here, Toby?" She said with all concern.
"I came to see you." He looked at her.
"Yeah, you said that." She knew there was more.
"I…heard you had a baby."
"Yeah." She said with a breath of emotion.
"I wanted to..." Nothing came out of Toby's mouth. He saw a picture of the baby on a small table next to the doorway to the living room. "Is this the kid?" He reached for the picture.
"Yeah."
"Red hair." He laughed.
"Yeah." CJ was very confused.
"No DNA test needed here." There was a small pause and nothing was said.
"I was never mad at you, Toby, I was just disappointed."
"Yeah."
"Why are you here? Now?"
"I'm sorry."
"Three years, Toby."
"I didn't think you wanted to see me."
"Who says I want to see you now, but I'm lookin' at you."
"Yeah."
"You know it hurt me when you didn't come to my wedding."
"I know."
"And it hurt me when you didn't call me when my child was born."
Toby started to walk away. "And it hurt me when you left me in the White House all by myself." Toby turned and looked at her.
"I didn't-"
"I'm having a moment, Toby."
"Sorry."
"I wasn't mad, I was hurt. I wasn't angry, I was disappointed. Just like you were upset Josh went off to work for Santos without you, I was…..you left me alone Toby. You were tired, and you were sick of doing nothing and being nothing—and you left me there. All alone..." She took a breath and controlled herself. She looked at her friend. She had missed him "But, hey, you're here now." She walked toward her living room and when Toby didn't follow she took a step back. "Come on."
"Where."
"To talk." She was direct.
"But after all…."
"Toby, come on."
"I don't…."
"'Cause you're here now." She smiled and she walked into her living room. Toby followed.