Gruntled

"Will!"

"Excuse me one moment," he says quickly into the phone, then, resignedly, looks up at Charlie.

"Your phone isn't working."

"I'm on it."

"Ah." He leans against the doorway. "Do go on."

Will rolls his eyes, and turns back to the phone. "Sorry about that. Yes?...Yes, fine. OK, I'll sort it out. OK, thanks…bye." He drops the phone. "What can I do for you?"

Charlie grins. "How are you feeling?"

"Fine, Dr Phil," say Will. Suddenly a wary expression crosses his face. "Why? What have you done?"

He feigns innocence. "Why do I have to have done something? This isn't the kind of respect that a Senator deserves!"

Will rolls his eyes and begins sorting through the explosion of papers over the table. "Charles, I think the state of my respect for you would be much better if it weren't for the fact that when we first met, you were incredibly drunk."

Charlie grins again. "I'm a charming drunk. Leave me alone."

"You came to me!"

"Oh, yeah." He saunters into the room, and drops into the chair. "So," he says. "I have an idea, and I wanted to find out your mental state before I proposed it."

Will narrows his eyes. "Why? What is it?"

"Now William. Are you, you know, disgruntled?"

Will grimaces, and starts to rub his tired neck. "Can't you just tell…" He sees Charlie's blithe grin, and gives up. "I'm not, what was it, disgruntled?"

"Are you, in fact, gruntled?"

"Charles…" His tones are now warning of imminent death.

"Fine," says Charlie, and leans back. "Now you have to be balanced about this. It is on one side, probably not the best news for you."

"This isn't the best way to get me on side."

"Yeah, but on the other hand, you will be very pleased. Very pleased." He nods, grinning, looking like some kind of children's entertainer.

Will groans. "Just tell me. This is torturous."

"I want to ask Lizzie to join the speech writing staff."

Will freezes for a second. "But…you don't have a speech writing staff. I fired them."

"Yes," he says. "She would be the speech writing staff."

"Lizzie Bennet. Jane Bennet's sister, Lizzie?"

"Yes."

The stabbing headache has returned. "But why?"

Charlie settles comfortably in his seat, his feet up on Will's desk. "Well," he begins, "when we were at their house, I happened to see her first editorial for the Sewanee Purple, framed in the hall, and it was good Will, I mean, good."

"What a great orator you are."

Charlie rolls his eyes. "I'm serious. Look, she was writing like I used to write."

Will leans back. "It was an editorial Charles, not a speech."

Charlie looks like a little boy with his hand caught in the cookie jar. "I've um…it just happened to come up in conversation with Jane last week that Lizzie worked for the Mayor of Pulaski in communications, and then did a year with the Governor of Tennessee."

"Who, Pelloux?"

"Yeah."

Will rubs his eyes, tiredly. "No doubt," he says from behind his steepled fingers, "you have had everything she has ever written sent to you."

Charlie looks even more guilty. He grins, and shrugs. "Highlights. I had some staffer sift through them and gave me the important ones."

Will doesn't reply. His eyes are closed. He leans back and breathes heavily.

"She's good. Really good, Will. Miles ahead of the jokers you left on my desk."

"You trust her not to screw you over with a dumb speech?"

Charlie shrugs again. "I think so."

"We know nothing about her."

Charlie grins. "Well you might not, but I know lots." Will groans, but Charlie continues. "And anyway, we trust her sister."

"No Charles, you have the hots for her sister. Very different."

"Hey!" says Charles, hands out in front of him, thumbs angled back at his chest. "Come on. Future president here."

Will holds up a finger. "You did not just say that. You did not…go and appease the thing atop the whatever…"

Charlie rolls his eyes. "You have spent way too much time with Josh Lyman."

Will remains pointing, a stern school-marmish expression on his face. "Charles…"

"Will?"

Will slumps back as a debilitating wave of realisation crashes down on him. "You're going to hire her anyway aren't you, no matter what I say."

Charlie shrugs. "I am the future…"

"NO. Stop right there."

"You are a superstitious girl."

"Your voters wouldn't be pleased that you're using 'girl' as an insult."

"How is 'my voters' not angering the thing high atop the whatever?"

Will shrugs. "I don't know. I don't make the rules."

Charlie leans forward, frowning. "Why don't you like her?"

"Who?"

Charlie groans. "Will! Lizzie. Lizzie Bennet."

"Oh. I don't know. I don't not like her, I just…I don't know. She bugs me."

A raised eyebrow. "She bugs you?"

"Yeah, you know." He rubs his forehead, trying to ease away the grumbling headache that still survives. "She just gets in my head and…I don't know. It's like having a mosquito, buzzing round you, all the time, you know?"

Charlie leans back in wonderment. "I don't know why you aren't my speechwriter."

"What?"

"Nothing."

"Oh."

Charlie watches Will for a second, and then smiles. "I think I was wrong about you."

"What about?"

"Caroline."

Will looks up blankly for a second, and then laughs. "I could have told you that a long time ago."

"Yeah" says Charlie. "You and Lizzie have got much better chemistry."

"WHAT?"

Charlie stands up. "Yeah. Who'd a thunk it?" His smile widens to a grin, mainly at Will's horrified expression. "OK, well good. That's all settled."

Will looks dazed. The tiny yellow birds are almost visible whizzing in a circle around his head. "What is?"

"Lizzie. Working here." Charlie leans forward and pats Will's shoulder. "You going to be all right?"

Will sighs a sigh of tornado inducing proportions. "Sure." He rubs his eyes again, and leans back. "But I'm not telling Caroline."

Charlie all but waltzes to the door. "Oh Will," he says, shaking his head. "Half the motivation for hiring Lizzie is the promise of Caroline's face when I tell her." He grins, and sashays out the door.

The sharp crack as Will breaks the pencil in his hands brings him back to his senses. "Oh hell," he breathes and drops his head to the desk.

My room has developed that smog which is only achieved by combining congestion relief with closed windows, drawn curtains, and chicken soup. It's not exactly unpleasant. On the contrary, there's something incredibly comforting about it. Also, the light bulbs appear to be faulty, and emitting a remarkably small amount of light. Therefore my bed is the only illuminated part of the room. Every thing else is in dim shadow. This, too, is comforting. It's like the light from the Christmas tree and the fire; dim, but soothing. Lizzie has arrived, and having forced me back to bed, is on sitting on the end of the bed, her feet tucked under the end of the blankets.

"But why me?" she keeps asking. "It's so weird!"

"It's not weird," I croak out. "You're good."

She looks stern. "Stop talking. You're supposed to be resting."

"So you don't require any answers?"

She smirks. "This is how I like it best. Me talking. You unable to answer, and just nodding."

I take a sip of tea. "Or shaking my head vehemently."

"Never," she says, and grins. "You're too nice to disagree with me."

I raise an eyebrow. "Liz, I distinctly remember saying 'Oh honey, no. Not blue eye shadow'."

"That's just advice..."

"I would have tackled you to the ground on the way out if I had to."

She grins again. "Fine. You rarely disagree with me."

"I thought that Jonathan Cake should have been Snape."

She shakes her head. "I'll let you off, because you're ill and possibly delusional, but just know, when you're better, we're having an Alan Rickman retrospective to prove that you're wrong."

I slide further under the covers, my tea still in hand. I'm actually feeling a little better at last, although to admit that I was feeling better to Lizzie would be, conversely, to admit that I had been ill, which would result in her doing some kind of victory war dance around the room, which my general headache and tired eyes couldn't cope with yet. I nod. "All right."

Lizzie's eyes narrow. "You want me to go?"

"No, no," I say, from behind layers of floral material. "Stay. Your voice will send me off to sleep."

She kicks me, albeit gently, under the covers. "Your nice face hides the fact that you are in fact, mean," she says, and grins. "I couldn't bear it if you were actually as sugar-coatedly, ass kissingly nice as you would sometimes appear."

"You just said I was too nice to disagree with you!"

She shrugs. "You proved me wrong. And," she adds, "it doesn't mean that you aren't the same girl who told Billy Collins I should go with him to homecoming." Her eyes narrow. "It was yet another 'oh Lizzie, you're so lucky to have such a lovely, thoughtful sister' moment. They all thought you were being kind and matchmakerly to your unattractive dolt of a sister. Instead," she says, bitterly, "it was you being mean."

I have to slide down further so that Lizzie can't see how happy I am at the memory of Billy Collins, on one knee in the middle of the cafeteria, asking her to the dance. Precious memories like that keep me warm at night. I shrug. "I can't help it that people think I'm nice."

Lizzie grimaces. "You are. That's the problem. You're just mean to me."

I shrug again. I can't deny it.

Her scowl drops, and she shakes her head, despairingly. "I heard from him the other day."

"Who? Billy Collins?"

She nods, her chin resting on her knees. "Except he signed himself 'Bill'. He wanted to meet up."

"How did he get your email?"

She shudders slightly. "I have no idea. Probably facebook. Or Charlotte, I guess. She kept in touch with him."

I take another sip of tea, fighting the urge to fall asleep. "Are you going to?"

She raises an eyebrow. "What, meet?" She shrugs. "Not now. I had told him I was busy anyway..."

"Busy?" I ask.

She scowls. "Would you want to meet with him?"

"Fair enough."

She wraps her arms round her knees. "I've exchanged a few emails with him."

I'm enjoying this, despite the call of my pillow. "Long, romantic ones?"

She kicks me again. "Not from me, all right?" She grimaces. "His are long though, and all about the memories of school and how close we were, apparently."

I'm really enjoying this. "Maybe he's hoping you'll hook up."

Lizzie's expression is sour, to say the least. "He can hope," she says, and shakes her head, slowly. Finally she looks up. "I should go," she says. "You need rest, and I've got one heck of a round trip tomorrow." She bites her lip for a second, just like she used to.

"Hey," I say, and kick her, gently, through the sheets. "You really are good. They wouldn't have hired you if they didn't think that."

"Yeah?" she asks, and nods. "OK." She gets up, kisses my cheek, and then straightens up the bedding where she was sitting. "You sleep well, all right? I'm just a phone call away if you need anything."

I put down my tea on the side, and nod. "All right," I say. "Thank you."

She rolls her eyes, and kisses my cheek again. "It's too late now Janey. I know you're mean. Now Charlie...it's not too late for him." With that, she grins and waltzes out of the room, and I settle down to sleep.

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