Political Hotshot with a Lucky Rainbow Skydancer My Little Pony

"Hello?"

"Janey, is that you?"

"Mmm."

"Has someone smacked you in the face?"

"No. I'm just a bit sick."

"How sick?"

"Oh you know…"

"No, Janey, I don't. How sick are you?"

A pause. "I think I have a fever, and I'm feeling quite rough, but I'll be fine. Really Liz…"

"Have you taken anything?"

"I don't think I have anything to take. I forgot to re-stock after I gave it all to Steve when he was ill."

"You're too nice. Can't he go out and get stuff for you?"

"He's busy. We're all pretty busy right now. There's a big event coming up at the end of the week and I need to be there, and so everyone's going a bit mad."

"Honey if you're so sick you can't get out of bed, what good are you going to be?"

"It's fine, really Bethy, I'm fine."

"You haven't called me that in ages…"

"Yeah, well…"

"…not since you had pneumonia. Jane! Do you have pneumonia again?"

"No, I'm fine. It's just a fever. Maybe a touch of flu, I don't know."

"And are you stuck in bed?"

"No. I worked all morning but then I…"

"Then what?"

"I kind of collapsed, a bit… but I'm fine…"

"Where are you staying?"

"Bethy, you don't need to come."

"Where?"

"The Drake, in Chicago."

"OK."

"I'll be fine. I'll just sleep tonight and tomorrow…"

"You'll be fine? Yeah, OK. Well if you got sick because you wore the stupid thin jacket in October, in Chicago, then I'm blaming Mom."

"I'd think my wearing that jacket in October here, was probably more my fault than anyone else."

"It was that wasn't it? I told you…"

"I was sick already. It was my own stupid fault." Another pause. "Beth, I think I need to go."

"Are you going to throw up?"

Yet another pause. "I don't know."

"Sheesh, Jane. You're an idiot when it comes to being sick and I am definitely coming up there."

"Seriously. I'll be fine."

"Yeah, after a blood transfusion."

"Lizzie…"

"OK. Well get some rest. I'll talk to you soon."

"You're not coming are you?"

"I'll promise nothing. Make Steve go get you some medicine, all right?"

"Yeah, maybe."

"Jane, you are the worst patient ever." She pauses. "I love you."

"Me too. Speak to you soon."

"Yeah OK. Bye."

"Mm. Bye."

"What kind of retarded political mind gets her sister to come and look after her? What is she, six?"

Caroline is picking at a salad in the largely deserted restaurant. Unhappily, despite the fact that there were many tables free, many far, far away from me, she sat down here, and launched into a scathing attack on Jane Bennet. Not for the first time.

"From what she said" I manage, between my sandwich and reading briefing notes, "it sounds like she told her not to come."

Caroline rolls her eyes. "OK. Like she really said that."

"It's what Viv said."

Caroline scoffs, and then turns to examine the piece of avocado speared on her fork. "Does this look fresh to you?"

It feels like I've had a constant headache for weeks. Even the slightest exposure to Caroline brings on a stabbing pain in my eye. Resisting the temptation to pelt her with bread rolls, I look. It is indiscernible from every single solitary piece of avocado that I've ever seen. "I don't know." And I don't care, but according to Charles, this isn't the answer to anything Caroline asks. Apparently we have unresolved sexual tension. Apparently I might have to kill myself.

The knock at the door is followed by a groan, the sound of stumbling, and then finally the emergence of Jane, dressed in the bottom half of her beautiful navy suit, the top half of her pyjamas and Yale sweats. Disgustingly, she still somehow doesn't look all that unattractive.

"Hey there, Fozzie."

Jane winces, and leans in the doorway. "I thought I told you not to come."

Lizzie shrugs. "I thought you sounded like you were six again."

She frowns. "That's no way to speak to a political hot-shot."

Lizzie shoulders her bag, and grins. "Yeah? Do many political hot-shots travel with their lucky rainbow-skydancer My Little Pony?"

Jane smiles, and rubs her forehead. "Yeah, well…"

Lizzie laughs and pulls her in for a hug. "You look like death. Come on." And she pushes her back into the room.

"Is she paying for her own room here? She had better not be leeching off of us!"

Caroline is still at it. Charles has arrived, and he shoots me an unreadable look. Then, he turns back to Caroline. "No. She's got her own room. One of the few that we haven't taken over."

"Well…" Caroline sighs, and turns back to prodding the few now limp pieces of lettuce left on her plate. "Did you see her? In the lobby, with her hair and jeans? She looked like she'd hitch-hiked her way here. Does no one know how to travel anymore?"

Charles is fighting his ever present battle of sticking up for one person whilst not slamming Caroline. He frowns. "She did come by bus. I mean, it's pretty hard to look fresh as a daisy after, what, eight hours?"

"It's more like ten" I mutter, trying to finish the briefing notes, failing spectacularly.

"See?" he says. "Ten hours. That's a hideous journey."

Caroline shrugs. "I'm just saying." She turns to me. I try not to catch her eye. It doesn't work. "You wouldn't want your sister to act like that, would you Will?"

I'm torn. I desperately want to say 'yes, of course I would'. It wouldn't be completely true though. Damn my honesty. "I wouldn't want her to if I had already asked her not to…" Lame, lame, lame.

"Which you said she had!" Caroline is triumphant.

Charles steals my coffee, takes a sip, and then grimaces. It's not my fault it was cold. "Well I think it's charming," he says, stealing my glass of water to wash out the taste. "She travelled for hours just to look after her sister. I mean," he continues, attempting to ingratiate Caroline, "my sister wouldn't cross the road for me, let alone several state lines!"

It hasn't worked. Caroline looks sour. "Well I think it's highly unprofessional." She finally puts down her fork, gathers her things, and stands up. "I'm going to go and check over those press releases that Jane was supposed to have done. Hopefully she hasn't infected them too badly."

As she walks away, Charles slumps. "She's brilliant politically, she's brilliant politically…" he chants, muttering.

"She's a pain in the ass."

He grins. "That too." He looks up. "Would you really not want George to do that for you?"

I shrug. "I don't know."

He raises his eyebrows. "Well," he says, standing up and stretching, "you'd do it for her." With that, he walks off, and leaves me alone in blissful silence.

"Please let the restaurant be open," I mutter to myself. It's a bad habit, which has stuck over the years. Somewhere between praying and wishing, my ten year old mind decided that asking (politely) out-loud for things would make them happen. An unfortunate, or rather fortunate string of coincidences means that now I do it automatically. Yet again it works.

"Please let it be empty."

This one doesn't. And how. Will Darcy is sitting in the corner, leaning his head on one hand, scribbling something across sheaves of paper. He glances up and freezes.

I find myself waving, or at least that kind of salute thing. The grown up version of the waggling hand, the excited effort of making your hand blur. He smiles. Almost.

"Can I get you anything Ma'am?"

This has only started happening recently. Only a few years ago it would be 'Miss'. It would be a kindly old man, who looked a lot like some kind of grandfather crossed with Santa. Now, it's adolescent boys, calling me Ma'am. I just about manage not to smack him in the face.

"I couldn't have scrambled eggs and toast and coffee, could I?"

"Well, that's really the breakfast menu Ma'am and…" He freezes at my badly concealed murderous expression. He doesn't realise that it's at the name. He seems to believe it's because of his denial of eggs. "I'll see what I can do M…"

"Thank you" I interrupt, and drop into the nearest chair, thankfully not too close to Will Darcy.

He looks up, and raises his eyebrows. "Ma'am?"

The rat was listening the whole time. I grimace. "When did waiters stop being genial old men?"

"When you left the land of make believe?" He smiles slightly to himself, and then turns back to his papers.

I sigh, and enjoy the silence for a good few minutes. Finally, he drops his pen, and leans back. "You had a long journey."

"Yeah." My neck is still creaking from sitting still that long.

"How long are you staying?"

I haven't even thought about this yet. All I asked Dad for was a few days. "I don't know. As long as Jane needs me."

"How bad is she?"

I'm genuinely surprised at this constant barrage of questions. Except he's not being confrontational. For once. "Not as bad as I feared, but, you know. Bad enough."

He frowns for a second, gathers up his things, then comes and sits at my table. "Why did you come?"

Does he really care? Is he just asking in the hope that I'll be gone by day break? The guy is an irritating enigma wrapped up in an annoying mystery. "Jane is a terrible patient. Her idea of 'sick' is a normal person's idea of on-death's-door."

He smiles. "Sounds familiar."

"Well," I say, "last time that she didn't feel 'all that great' she had pneumonia." I shrug. "She can't be trusted to look after herself."

He nods. "I heard she collapsed."

"And then no doubt tried to continue working."

He shrugs. "It is a competitive field. You don't get anywhere unless you work hard."

"There's working hard and then there's working yourself to death."

He nods slowly. "Try telling that to Charles."

The terrified looking waiter reappears. With shaking hands, he gives me my eggs and coffee. "Thank you," I call after him. He wasn't bad after all. Just mildly insulting. Anyway. "He works too hard?" I ask Will.

He nods again. "He's doing the jobs of about four people, and much as I try and take as much as possible, some of it he just won't relinquish."

"Like what?"

He groans. "Speech writing. Stupid, freaking…" He pauses, and smiles resignedly. "No one's good enough for him."

"Didn't he write the State of the Union?"

Will grimaces. "That's the one he throws in my face."

"Well of course he would," I say, trying not to spit eggs at him. It's not like I want him to find me attractive, but it would be a bonus if he didn't leave, disgusted, with egg in his ear. "I mean," I continue, "it's his thing. Why would he read a speech someone else wrote for him, if he can write better?"

Will looks at me, very hard. "Are you two in cahoots?"

His hard expression is marred by his choice of words. "Cahoots?"

"You know what I mean."

"The word, yeah. The whole sentence? Not so much."

He sighs, waves at the waiter, and says, "coffee please. Very, very strong." He isn't mean but he does have that authoritarian I-could-have-you-taken-down-by-the-Swiss-guard thing going on. The poor guy looks, if possible, even more scared. "Where was I?" he says.

"You were about to explain to me why Charles Bingley and I may, or may not, be in 'cahoots'."

He rolls his eyes. "Oh. That." He starts to rub his neck, and I suddenly notice how tired he looks. "It's exactly his argument, the whole 'I could do it better' thing."

"So what's the problem?" I ask. "Find someone who writes well."

Will rolls his eyes. "I've found him people who write 'well'. I've found him a ton of decent writers. They're just not good enough."

"They'd get better."

"You think I haven't told him that?" He sounds beyond exasperated. The waiter returns, with the coffee, and having put it down in front of a murderous looking Will, practically runs for the kitchen. As if emerging from a dream, he suddenly sees the coffee and looks around, surprised. "Where's the waiter?"

I smile. "Probably crying into the lobster bisque."

"Oh." He wraps his hands around the coffee and sighs. "Well, anyway, Charles is terrified of a speechwriter screwing up even just one speech and giving the media one idiotic sound-bite."

I pause. "You wouldn't let that happen, would you?" It pains me to concede this to him, but much as the guy annoys me, he does appear to be good at his job.

He looks at me as if I'm crazy. "No. Of course I wouldn't." His look is pretty scathing. So is his tone actually, but who's keeping count? He sighs. "But, you know, I say that, and yet you see people getting up on stage, making massively stupid speeches." He pauses, and takes a sip of his coffee. "You ever heard Zav Barker?"

I groan. "Oh. Yeah." I push my plate aside and tear apart the toast. "I kind of see Charles's point."

Will smiles, ever so slightly. "Yeah. Well, anyway. Until I find him his very own Toby Ziegler, or in fact actually persuade Toby to work for him, Charles is writing his own stuff."

I drop my toast origami in favour of coffee. "Other people do, don't they? I mean, I've heard that Saul Zimmerman is writing is own stuff."

Will stiffens. "Zimmerman?"

"Mm," I say from the depths of my coffee cup.

He looks at me, hard and cold. "Well," he says, any possibility that he is a normal, functioning person, gone. "He probably only writes the high profile ones. Or just polishes ones written for him. Remarks to, you know, whoever at some small place…he probably only sees them two minutes before." He stands up, drains his coffee, and picks up his things. "I hope your sister is feeling better soon."

What did I do? It's a good thing that only Charlotte appeared to find him attractive. For my money, the dude is a psycho. "Yeah. OK."

He nods, curtly, and walks out, leaving me alone with cold scrambled egg remains, an explosion of toast crumbs, and cold coffee, in an empty and chilly restaurant. If Jane doesn't die of this cold, I may have to kill her.