W.W. –Wednesday
Email, Donna Moss to Josh Lyman:
Dear Josh,
You were right (I know you love hearing that). Any time I want to decry the disorganization of the Democratic Party, all I have to do is think about the night I spent dealing with the United Nations. From my brief meeting with the guys from UNESCO, WHO and the Palestine Mission, I have decided that the UN most closely resembles a French farce performed by Helen Keller. There's a lot of good will and some really good ideas, with no vision, no articulation and no grounding whatsoever.
On the plus side, my trip to Israel does not seem to be going so bad. Leo was able to convince the White House travel office to arrange everything, since we're not really set up yet. I flew Alitalia into Rome, and I'm meeting up with Andi Wyatt's CODEL for the El Al flight to Tel Aviv. From there it's all 4x4s around, I guess, to the West Bank and Gaza.
I met the funniest woman on my flight into Rome. Her name is Kate Harper. She says she knows you, or of you any way. She's going to be taking over as Nancy McNally's aide in a few weeks. You can imagine the stories she must have, right? Anyway, she asked me if I knew what "Alitalia" meant, you know, the Italian airline. She maintains it's an acronym: Always Late In Takeoff, Always Late In Arrival. She was right, but only by about ten minutes. After yesterday it was like being on time. Since we're both going to meet up with Andi and Chairman Fitzwallace, we've decided to sort of hang out on this leg of the trip together.
Well, if I am going to send this before we board the flight to Tel Aviv I better sign off. I will bring you up to date on the rest of my UN meetings later.
Donna
PS- Well, damn. I completely forgot to write about how much I miss you, and how crazy I am to be away from you right now. It's not because you've slipped my mind. More like, I have to really focus on everything else not to spend every second thinking about the fact that in 13 days we're getting married. Plus other things on my mind which I am sure you can guess. Love you, crazy, madly love you. Yours always, D.
W.W.
"Margaret?"
"Yes, Leo?" The tall redhead leaned her head into her boss' office, ready to respond to whatever the latest urgent issue might be.
"I can't find the briefing memo for Judiciary. I was going to go over it with Joey before we head over." Leo was standing, hands on his hips, regarding the neat stacks of memos and papers on his desk.
"I already ran that over to Kenny," she told him. "He said Joey would look at it and be over in time to talk through it before you go."
"You already- Okay then. What about the EPA policy statement on Texas City? I think that Joey will-" He stopped when he saw her expression.
"You already gave that to Kenny to give to Joey?" he fixed his basilisk glare on her, and she blushed. "We're going to have to move your desk next to his or I won't have a piece of paper left in my office, will I?"
"I am sure," she said primly, "that I don't know what you are talking about. If anything, you should be glad that we're working so well together so quickly after Josh and Donna leaving."
"Alright, alright. Just try to knock of that beaming you do when he comes in. It's distracting." He gathered his attaché and prepared to go meet Joey Lucas and her interpreter.
"I do not beam," Margaret corrected him sourly.
"You do beam, Margaret, any time the poor boy enters the room." He leaned against his desk. "Just watch. Tell them to meet me here and I'll take them over."
"Whatever you say, Leo," she beamed, returning to her desk to buzz Kenny Thurman's desk in the DCOS office.
W.W.
Josh Lyman took off his jacket and slung it in the back seat. Even in January, the afternoon on a clear day was warm enough for shirtsleeves. It would take getting used to after Connecticut and DC. He rolled up the sleeves of his blue oxford shirt and frowned at the pale skin of his arms.
"Are you ready, Mr. Lyman?" The young realtor had shown him a number of properties already, but nothing had seemed right. He didn't want another cookie-cutter condo or town house, but he also didn't want a tract house with too much 'character' either. He didn't imagine wither he or Donna would have much time for housework or renovation, and his own experiences with yard work were all 25 years in the past.
"Sure." He looked at the property, a long, narrow lot with the house set far back. Not too much to mow or whatever, surely there were neighborhood kids who still did that stuff.
The house itself was frankly odd looking. What had originally been a sort of shotgun ranch house had been modified with a huge sunroom, enclosed, almost half again as big as the house proper. An office suite had been added as a second story over the garage, and the whole thing had a curious mixture of brick and two kinds of siding.
Inside the house was a mad pastiche of decorating styles. Cream-colored Berber carpets, very nice, lead to a cracked tile kitchen floor, and honest-to-god '70s-vintage Astroturf in one room that had been open to the outside before the sunroom was added. Every room seemed to have a different paint color, except for the olive drab trim which did not so much unite the design as frame each new horror.
The realtor stood next to Josh, head hanging and expression apologetic.
"I'm sorry to show you this property, but I promised another agent I'd at least bring you buy. His father owned it before his death."
"The colors finally killed him?" Josh stared, in awe of the riot of design in the house. "I'm sorry, no disrespect, but…" Words failed him.
"I understand," she said. "Here is the property sheet if you want it."
He took it, and first noted the price. The unique nature of the property was not lost on the seller, and it was very aggressively priced. The square footage was impressive, and as part of a recent repair the water heater and heat pump had both been replaced with virtually state of the art new units. Josh thought for a moment about the house, and it's space and layout, stripping away the colors and patterns for a moment and try to see it as a structure.
Large kitchen, room to hang out and read the paper, or put in some book shelves. People like Josh and Donna accumulated books at an alarming rate, and were always skimming off the least important for storage or resale. Josh had books in a storage locker at his condo he hadn't seen since law school, and he knew Donna still had cartons of books she'd moved to DC with under her coffee table in her apartment.
The sunroom was amazing. All it needed was a coat of strong white paint on the currently teal wall. Maybe the little Astroturf room, which opened off the master bedroom, would make a good library, or a nursery, whichever proved to be needed. The skylight there let in some amazing light.
Josh realized he was redecorating his new house. Their new house. He really should consult with Donna, or at least his mom. Someone should see this and tell him if he thought paint and some new flooring would fix this weird assembly of rooms and spaces, but in his mind's eye he saw it, saw it like the potential in the right candidate, like the loophole in a Republican tax plan.
He turned to the realtor and said with a grin, "We'll take it."
W.W.
"Toby! Toby Ziegler!"
C.J. stood, hands on her hips, regarding her colleague and friend.
"Yeah?" His expression was wary, his face showing fatigue and strength and all the things she loved about him, masked over with a wash of stress.
"You told Greg Millovich to jump in a lake? In front of the press?" Her tone indicated this was a poor decision.
"No."
"No?"
"No," he said thoughtfully. "I believe my precise words were that he should fill his pockets with rocks and try to walk across the Potomac, were my precise words, before I would consider his advice on Childcare tax credits."
"You blew off Greg Millovich?" She was shaking her head incredulously.
"The man, C.J., is a hack! He was a hack when he worked for Calhoun, and he was a hack when he worked with the RNC, and he's a hack now. So excuse me, if I don't see the problem here."
"He doesn't work for the RNC any more, Toby. We talked about it at the briefing this morning, and at the Senior Staff you were late to."
"Huck had a fever," Toby said warily. "I only missed a few… what did I miss, C.J.?"
"As part of a bipartisan outreach, Greg Millovich has joined with the office of the Vice President to investigate all avenues of addressing the Childcare crisis in America."
Toby blinked.
"Russell?" he almost laughed. "Bingo Bob brought Millovich across the aisle to try to co-opt Childcare?"
"Which would have been laughable, had you not told him to go jump in the Potomac, Toby." She sighed and moved as if to smack his head. She stopped though, and her hand sank. She looked around at the communications bullpen, and the staffers who were carefully not watching them.
"Toby, draft a statement, carefully clarifying our position. Not yours, the President's position, on VP Russell's efforts to address the issue of safe and affordable childcare for all American parents who require it. Get it to me and go home."
"You know I don't actually work for you, right?" He sort of sidled up to her. "I mean, you can't send me home, or to bed with no supper. You know that, right?"
She sighed. "Toby, I need you to do this, and then I need you to get your head on straight. With Josh gone and Joeys till getting up to speed, I need to be spending more time on big message and less on damage control. I can't do that while I'm worrying about you."
"You're a very powerful and compelling woman, C.J." He grinned, a flash of smile across his normally sour countenance. "You know this, yes?"
She smiled sadly. "You just say that because you know you can't have me, Tobus."
"Hope springs eternal," he muttered, heading towards his office. He'd have to call his former mother-in-law and check on Huck. He'd then have to write something for C.J. Something brief and pithy and suitably apologetic without actually saying he was sorry, because he wasn't. Not to Greg Millovich, or Bingo Bob. C.J.? Yeah, some.
She was a big girl. She could take it.