Use your charm

Sometimes I just love my job. There are days when it sucks. I mean, Muriel Snettle and her porcelain cat collection was dire, but then I'm pretty sure that the main reason that happened was that Cara was still annoyed that I forgot to phone her back. Anyway, that is all behind me, since a particularly fortuitous drink which I bought for the new political editor ended up, in the short run, with me in her bed, and now, in the long run, caught between two girls…women…whatever. They're hot. I don't really care about politically correct terms.

"Who are you?" asks the one who has just arrived, older, scruffier, clearly just come from riding.

"It doesn't concern you," calls the one on the veranda, still offering me a fine view of her cleavage as she leans forward.

She is shot a stern look, before older one turns to me again. "Sorry, I didn't catch who…?"

"George Wickham," I say, and hold out a hand. "I was looking for Lizzie Bennet." I shoot a look at the younger one. There's no way she's the one I'm looking for, but I wouldn't mind if it turned out…

"I'm Lizzie," says the older one, and looks pointedly at the younger sister. "So it does concern me."

The younger one pouts, and walks off inside, slamming a few doors for good measure.

"I'm sorry," says Lizzie. "She's a bit of a liability."

"It's fine," I say. "They often are at that age."

She raises an eyebrow. "She's twenty-one. More than old enough to know better." She shakes her head. "Anyway," she says, "what can I do for you?"

"I'm with J. Russell Online…?" I pause and wait for the customary "uh…what?"

"Yeah?" she says. I pause.

"You've heard of…"

"Yes, of course I have." She sighs, and smiles slightly. "It's been getting better this last year."

I smile back. "I think so."

She looks down at herself, and grimaces. "Look," she says, "can you give me a second to go and change? Right now I smell like horse."

"You don't to me."

She doesn't appear to be won over by compliments. Damn it. "Well, if you could wait here a second," she says, and gestures to the furniture on the veranda. "Sit down if you want." With that, she disappears through the door and runs upstairs. I drop into a wicker chair, and pull out the notes Jules prepared for me.

Elizabeth 'Lizzie' Bennet, age 28; English Lit major at Sewanee, editor of the Sewanee Purple; communications staffer to Dory Velasquez, Mayor of Pulaski; senior communications staffer to Marco Pelloux, Governor of Tennessee; rumoured to be the new speech writer on Charles Bingley's Presidential campaign…

"Wait" I mutter to myself. Not that Charles Bingely, surely. "Damn it."

"Talking to yourself, son? Not a good sign."

I look up, and a man stands in front of me, the kind who chased me off his land when I was ten for having a go at cow tipping. He is tall, and broad, and could probably still take me.

"No sir," I say. Don't get on his wrong side, don't do it… I stand up and hold out a hand. "George Wickham."

He raises an eyebrow, not unlike his daughter, a minute before. "Rex Bennet," he says after an awkward pause, and then he shakes my hand, hard. Clearly he wants me to know that he could kill me, with or without a shovel.

"I'm here to interview your daughter, sir."

He leans back against the veranda railing and takes his hat off, passing it through his fingers. "Is that so? I've got five, but I'm guessing unless Lydia and Kit have committed some kind of felony…"

"It's Lizzie I'm here to interview."

He gives me a long look. "Yes," he says. "I thought so." He takes a deep breath and nods. "She knows you're here?"

"Yes sir."

He nods again, slowly, and suddenly his whole face lights up as Lizzie reappears at the doorway, hair slightly damp around the edges. "Hey!" she says, and grins at him. He ruffles up her hair, and then disappears into the house, and Lizzie drops onto the swing seat.

"Sorry that took so long," she says, as an old dog limps his way up the steps and along, to drop unceremoniously under the seat.

"Long?" I ask. "Most women I know would take five times that long just to change their shoes."

She grins, and starts to swing the seat, one foot on the dog. "So," she says. "What can I do for you?"

I shuffle my notes. "Well," I say. "I'm starting to research a piece on speech writers on the campaigns, and we've heard that you've just joined Charles Bingley's campaign."

She looks bemused. "How on earth did you hear that so fast?"

"Ah you know, people know people."

She shakes her head slowly. "Well, OK. Yeah, I have. I was offered the job two days ago."

"You were head hunted?"

She smiles. "Not exactly. My sister works on the campaign and got sick, and I was up there to visit her, when they offered it to me."

I pause in my note taking. "Right out of the blue?"

"Well," she says, "I think they had seen my writing when they were here for an event a month or so ago."

"Right," I say, and continue scribbling. "It has been speculated that whoever wrote for Charles Bingely would have to be pretty damn good given his own standards. Does this reflect on your writing?"

She laughs. "Oh, I don't know about that! He is an excellent writer, and it is an absolute honour for me to be asked to do this."

"Miss Bennet," I say, smiling, "this is no time to be modest."

"Lizzie," she says. "Please."

Man, this girl is...I don't know. Bewitching? She's got the brains and the warm smile, and those eyes. And now it turns out that she's a genius writer. Would it be a bad time to ask her to have my babies? Probably.

"Look," I say. "I've got a bunch of questions here, and I reckon you'd have really interesting answers to them…"

She blushes slightly, and shrugs.

"Is there any way I could take you to dinner, and continue this there?"

She sighs. Her shoulders actually drop. "I'd love to," she says, "but I have a flight booked in a couple of hours to go back up to Chicago."

"Oh."

"Yeah." She shrugs again. "Could we continue this over email, or phone or something?"

I sigh. I met the perfect woman, who incidentally has at least one shameless younger sister, which is never bad, and now she's flying away.

"I'm sorry," she says. "The taxi's due in, like ten minutes."

I think fast. This is the time for heroes, and I am going to reach for the stars (thank you very much President Bartlett). "What if I took you to the airport?"

"Sorry?"

I am coming off as such a girl. Sheesh. "I could take you. I've got a very nice, air conditioned jeep, and you know, if your flight is delayed I could continue the interview." I grimace. I really am coming off as such a girl.

"OK," she says, and smiles slightly. "That'd be nice."

Wait. "Really?"

"Yeah." She rolls her eyes, and smiles again. "Look, I need to go get my stuff, and say good bye. Wait here?"

"Sure," I say, and in a moment of pure genius, pull out a business card. "Here," I say. "Give this to your Dad or someone, just so they know who you're with."

She frowns slightly.

"You know," I say, panicking slightly. Was this actually a bad plan? "So that if anything should happen, they can call and check where we are."

She takes the card and looks at it for a second, flicking the card edges. "Is this a reflection on your ability to drive?"

I grin. "No."

"Good." She turns and walks into the house, and I slump against the seat. I am not going to screw this up. Not again.

"Well what do you know!" says Lizzie, and she sits down in the plastic chair again. "It is delayed."

I hold out my hands as she narrows her eyes. "I didn't plan it!" I say, and smirk, involuntarily. "Plus," I add, "I wouldn't speculate about that kind of thing when there are police men striding round with massive dogs and guns and things. They don't find it particularly funny."

"Really," she says, and grins. She puts her feet up on the opposite seat. "Go on then," she says. "Ask me something else."

I flick through my notes. They are so much more extensive than they need to be for this piece. There's no point in telling her that though. "Uh…what do you think of Charles Bingley?"

She smiles. "He's great. He's a young, idealistic guy who believes that anything is possible. He's the kind of man who we could all do with having in the oval office."

If only she'd talk that way about me. "What about the campaign attracted you?"

"The honesty." She drums her fingers on the chair arm, thinking. "I mean, allegedly his chief of staff, Will Darcy? He'll only continue working there as long as they are entirely honest."

I freeze automatically. I never thought my face was so expressive but…

"Are you all right? Did I say something?"

I sigh. I can't come out of this well. "You've met Darcy?"

"Yeah," she says, "several times."

"What do you think of him?"

She smirks. "He doesn't make a great first impression."

Hope dawns. "What about the second one?"

"Oh, that's even worse."

I feel confident. "Don't expect it to get any better."

"Really?" she says, "you know him?"

I sigh. "Yeah," I say. "Since we were about eight, I guess."

She leans back. "Seriously?"

"Yep. We were next-door neighbours."

"I can't imagine him as an eight-year-old."

"Imagine him now, but shorter," I say.

She smirks. "OK. So I guess you never really got on?"

I swallow. "Oh, you know, I think his parents liked me a lot. My Dad cleared off when I was five, so Rhys kind of took me under his wing."

She nods.

"He promised to pay for my education. Anything I wanted to do. Anything at all. There was no way my Mom could do it alone, and he totally looked after us."

She nods again. OK.

"Well anyway, he died suddenly when we were about twenty-three, I guess. I was a year into my law degree, and Will decided that he wasn't going to support me any more, and pulled the money."

"What?"

I swallow again. "Yeah" I say. "I got a job at a local paper, just to pay the rent, and I discovered that I loved it, so I started this instead, and worked my way up."

She smiles slowly. "That's great but…I can't believe…" She shakes her head. "What an ass."

I smile. "Yeah, that's pretty much what I think." I sigh, relieved.

"He has a sister too, doesn't he?"

Oh crap. "Uh, yeah. She's called George too, confusingly."

She smirks. "Confusing."

"Yeah, well," I say, "she was only little when they moved to Washington, but I hear that she's becoming a lot like her brother."

"Shame," she says quietly.

"Yeah," I say.

A crackly voice comes over the loud speakers, announcing the arrival of Lizzie's flight. She smiles slightly, and stands up. "Well, it was nice to meet you."

I stand up and only now realise that she's not all that tall. "Don't you imagine this is the last time we'll meet" I say. "I'm not letting you go that easily."

She blushes, and smiles again. She will be my undoing. Her, or maybe Sienna Miller if I ever meet her, but that seems unlikely. Lizzie Bennet it is.

"OK," she says, a little unsurely, and sighs.

I can't resist kissing her, just on the cheek, but still. She sighs again, right by my face, and I forget that Miller girl.

"I've got to go," she says, gathers her things and walks through the gate. She stops and smiles back at me. I wave. "I'll see you soon," I call. And I will. I'm sure.

To all my lovely reviewers: I tried going for some underwear analogy, but kept on coming undone, so I'll just say THANK YOU. You are too kind, and exceptionally supportive. Now keep 'em coming.

To katesie: explosions are coming. Honest. A chapter or two on, there's a doozie. I'm just quite a slow poster. And not a very succinct writer. But this will all change- at least, the posting rate. Hopefully. So please stick with it. And thank you.

To nourgelitnius: I'm so glad that I inspire a wish to watch the West Wing. If nothing else, I'm thrilled to achieve that. I watched one last night with Josh and Donna and...well anyway, thank you. Now, in my state of post-posting joy, I shall go and find the finest muffins and bagels in all the land.