Success (Evelyn Baker Lang/Ginger, R) (i. swear it happened just like this) Evelyn Lang had loved working in bars when she was a girl. Smoke, alcohol, sweat, money, smelled of life and tasted of tonight. Bone- jarring noise brought all the anaesthesia necessary and she could feel her youth in every nerve. She'd thought herself a mile smarter than was true. For a while after she was pulled up short, the life the bars overflowed with looked less worth living, so she answered the phones in a grey-scented office and pored over books instead. There wasn't much room for improvement in her grades, but she woke up a year later and knew that focus had taught her more passion than a dozen flirts in bars. By 2004, Evelyn Lang had become more brilliant than her own arrogance could have conceived of, and she still loved working in bars. She gestured for a refill at a waitress she knew wasn't a patch on her in her time, and reclined further into the seat. It was better being on the comfortable side of the bar. She slid one foot free of its shoe and casually massaged out the aches against her calf. The not quite end of a frantic day was her time to sit and sip and lull into submission the adrenaline that chased her ever onwards. She withdrew the evening's quotient of mindless forms from her briefcase and let her pen slide lazily over the pages. This wasn't real work. Its existence irked her. Patience was not her virtue. Lively surroundings made it infinitely more bearable. She'd been no more sloppy in her choice of location than she was in anything else. Her choice was not overpopulated (she could always get a table), but there was never a dearth of people to become fascinated by for a few moments. There was music when she needed music, and she could tap her foot silently against her shoe. It was the kind of place she would never be bothered and always be entertained. She kept an eye on the door. Two young women entered, together (always made it interesting). Nobody ever paid much attention to the eyes of a single woman in a corner and she allowed them freedom to roam. Her smile settled. It didn't do to gawp. Signing her name with a slightly greater flourish than usual, she moved the paper to the bottom of the stack. There came a stage, varying with pressure of work and appeal of surroundings, when the evening became hers alone. The black girl was worth falling behind for. There was no dance floor in this place. Evelyn had often noted the lack. The woman she was watching wasn't letting it slow her down. Evelyn had the impression not much could slow her down. Certainly the redhead on her arm wasn't having much luck settling her friend. No. The black girl's red dress had formed too intimate a relationship to her skin to swing with her hips, so she dropped her arm to her companion's waist and pulled her into a twirl. Dark fingers teased at the emerald fabric rising over the redhead's rear. There was plenty of flesh above the dress, but hands on that wouldn't have turned so many heads. Gauzy green swirled behind as they relaxed into an uneven circle. They weren't friends. The black girl worked everything the red dress showed off. A colour midway between the dress and her hair, the fair girl flushed. A friend didn't look like her heart was slit as far as her skirt when a friend broke a gaze and scanned the room to see who was looking. Neither showed much grace; neither had a sense of timing that bore much relation to the piano and strings. Evelyn found her foot preferred the rhythm of the dancers to the music. The black girl's motions were as reckless as her outfit. A vein in Evelyn's neck throbbed. Pink and awkward, the redhead gave up and backed away - not without a whisper in the other's ear and a tug of the wilful red dress. Evelyn had scarcely had time to notice that the black girl's contortions had exposed the underside of her breast. She'd managed. Just. They weren't friends. Evelyn was still trying to think of a word to describe the colour of the girl's skin. "Ma'am?" She turned her head to acknowledge the waitress. It brought the redhead in the green dress into her line of vision - a statue, wilting against a pillar. Her eyes were fixed in the direction Evelyn's had been. "Bring that lady a drink," she said, sliding her foot back into the shoe, "And one for her friend. If she can slow her down long enough." They exchanged a wry smile. Evelyn enjoyed sharing her interests. A friend didn't look as if there could be no purpose while her friend was making her own dance floor and she was standing aside. The redhead looked around in surprise when the drinks were served. Her eyes were wide, caught in the spotlight (doing something she shouldn't). Evelyn met her eyes momentarily on the way out. The girl blinked and Evelyn, with a smile and a nod, observed her chest constrict. She didn't know if the girl knew who she was. She didn't care. * (ii. busted in the blinding lights) She'd known the summons from the White House might come but she hadn't been expecting it. She didn't attempt to wipe the smile off her face. She'd been aware of the possibility from the moment her clerk called (all hot and bothered and desperate to spill tragedy about Owen Brady). You couldn't say Evelyn Lang wasn't aware. Neither was she naïve, nor jaded. The Bartlet administration wasn't her fairytale but it didn't mean their White House couldn't be a part of her fantasy. She was perfectly aware of why she was here and she wasn't in awe, but she was deeply impressed. She turned in a circle in the lobby, committing as many details to memory as possible. The picture in her mind would always be incomplete. The atmosphere fairly buzzed with business. People radiated respect and frustration. There was stress in the structure, holding everything together. It was as she'd expected, only more. It was what the communications team would call a high-powered environment. The court was one of those. Evelyn relaxed. She was a tourist. "Justice Lang?" The woman was tiny, like a doll - the kind more likely hung on an arm than a Christmas tree. Evelyn's skirt rustled against her calves as she followed Rina through the halls. (She remembered the era when she used to wear her skirts up there.) There seemed to be people in front of them at every step. They would side-step just in time to avoid a collision. Evelyn would have worried if she'd been the worrying kind. The deeper inside the building they progressed, the more frantic the buzz. Rina caught her expression and smiled. Evelyn wondered idly how old she was, and felt a tremor of guilt at the acknowledgement that Rina was someone she would pay more attention to in a bar than in the White House. For now she chose to concentrate. She almost didn't notice that one of the people who so magically managed to disperse in their path failed to do just that. Rina extended her arm to keep from running right into the redhead. "Ginger, hi." The redhead's disdainful look at the hand on her arm was masked in a moment, but Evelyn was fairly sure it hadn't gone unnoticed. She unloaded a stack of folders into Rina's arms. "Toby's going to need to take a look at these before his two o'clock." She hesitated, turning her head partway towards the judge. Evelyn didn't know if the girl remembered her but after a few seconds' unblinking stare, she was sure. "Good morning," Evelyn said. Her smile had edges. They glittered. "Justice Lang," Ginger, trying out the name. She glanced at Rina. "I'll take it from here." They started walking. "What do you think of the White House?" "It's breathtaking." Having taken the briefest of breaths, Evelyn took over questioning. "Did you have a nice evening? That time I saw you?" Ginger looked for an answer inside the cuff of her sleeve. "You and your companion make a very striking pair." Ginger stiffened. There was a flickering that went deeper than her eyes. Evelyn wondered if she realised they'd stopped moving again. "You mean Bonnie's striking. I don't strike." "Pity," Evelyn said. Rather than respond, Ginger opened a door and hovered with her back against it, waving Evelyn through. "Josh and Toby will be with you in a few minutes. Can I get you anything?" That meant there was no hurry but that Ginger was in one. "No, thank you." Evelyn settled her briefcase on the table. "I'll be taking for a light lunch when this meeting is over." She plucked a business card from her pocket and held it out. Ginger looked over her shoulder before she dared touch it. "Of course I understand if you're busy." Evelyn took a seat (Ginger took the cue to flee), now more than ready to concentrate on the meeting and revel in its location. She took a slow satisfied look around. She could decorate her lounge like this. * (iii. it's partner found; it's partner lost) Ginger couldn't make lunch, "but a late dinner would be great." She suggested a cosy place across the street from the bar where Bonnie had danced. Evelyn was impressed. The seats were low and the booth walls were high. The lighting was unobtrusive, pretending it emanated only from the candles flickering shadows across their faces. It did Ginger great favours. Glow bounced off her hair. Light and dim skirted the fabric of her dress. The occasional flicker threatened to strip her, one newly- brightened sliver of skin at a time. It was the same dress she'd worn last time. Evelyn found it interesting that Ginger thought this was a date. Candlelight made Evelyn's reflection (in the window Ginger hadn't wanted to sit next to) ghoulish, shadows stretching from her angles. It didn't matter. She'd no intention of staring at herself. Ginger asked her again what she thought of the White House. "The staff are far more attractive than I would have thought was plausible." Ginger's blush deserved better than candlelight. "Why don't you like that pretty girl I met this morning?" Evelyn asked. Ginger put down the pepperpot she'd been playing with. "Not too personal a question, I hope." "I liked the girl who used to work there better." The corners of Evelyn's mouth went up and her lips parted slightly. Her face said ‘aah’ without a sound. "Your friend. Bonnie." Ginger poured a little pepper against her fingertips and scattered it with a flick of the nail. "Rina took her place. But not all her places?" "It wouldn't be fair of me to discuss it." Evelyn nodded, though Ginger wasn't looking. The interesting parts of the story were written on the girl's face. "Good." The food arrived. Ginger might have been checking out the waiter. This would be an interesting test. She'd see if she could bear to watch her eat. She carried the conversation until she tired of the sound of her own voice, then asked Ginger the kind of questions that nobody minds answering. She judged it was going fairly well. Ginger seemed surprised when the evening ended without the suggestion of sex. The ‘but’ was visible on the tip of her tongue before she swallowed it back. They didn't make plans or promises. Evelyn didn't have doubts. * (iv. rubbing half the world against her thigh) Her first press conference with the President of the United States had set Evelyn alight, and now the air was far too thick. Heat, sweat, faded arousal, all drowning out overeager perfume. They'd played their parts but now she wanted more space for her own breath. The prospect of a powerful headache in the morning floated dimly in the layer of her consciousness she didn't care about. She should let the sex out and the air in. There was no sense in opening the curtains and window before Ginger left. She curved the pillow around her head. She assumed Ginger would leave. It wouldn't make much difference if she didn't. Evelyn was sure the headache would only tattoo a rhythm her feet could spring to. A rush of elation chased the sleep from her eyes and she tossed her body across the bed, dragging the covers with her. Ginger squeaked and wriggled, embracing more of the edge than there was. A clap on the ass would probably knock her over. "Your boss is smarter than I thought." She'd said that several times tonight. She was unashamedly giddy. Ginger moved to sit cross-legged on the pillow, out of the way of Evelyn's erratic limbs. "You're happy, aren't you?" "Delirious." "No, I mean, in general. Before today. Were you happy?" It was the kind of question that existed only because people were afraid to ask themselves. Evelyn didn't have the patience. The shallowest portion of her joy fluttered with amazement that her patience held up long enough to enjoy playing her favourite games. She'd loved teaching them to this girl, who was terrified of touching her because the only woman she'd thought she knew how to please had broken her heart. "Yes," she answered. "Didn't you ever want…" Ginger began to pick at the corners of the pillow, teasing a loose thread with her fingernail. "What?" "Something you didn't have?" "Of course. I didn't say I was complacent." "What about something you couldn't have?" The conversation was boring Evelyn. Anything that distracted from her euphoria belonged sometime other than tonight. (She was history. The knowledge drove her crazy when she twisted her fingers in the hair of a girl, twenty years her junior, with her head between her legs. The memory drove her crazy right now.) She said, "Yes." Ginger wasn't ready to let it go. "What was it?" Evelyn didn't look at her hand but she could feel, always, the band of skin, shrunken by decades of wearing the ring. Underneath gold, the skin there was white, to prove its purity. She hadn't lived with him in seven years, but press features never mentioned. She wanted to commit for a reason other than thinking she'd done everything else. She wanted to forget the death of his smile after the miscarriage, and how his body sagged without hope to buoy it up after she refused to try again. To acknowledge the baby she removed as well as the one she lost. To tell her younger self to prevent the existence of both. "Nothing you'd relate to, I hope." More than any of those things, she wanted to be where she was today, and where she was going tomorrow. "I feel wonderful," she announced. She kicked playfully at the covers and threw her head back, looking at Ginger upside down. She could have given Ginger some advice, but she'd never cared for the stuff. She asked, "Are you staying?" * (v. it's hell to pay when the fiddler stops) Nails scratching scars into the wood, Evelyn leaned forward against the back of the chair in Toby's office. Toby was elsewhere – somewhere more important. He'd excused himself three times since she arrived. She'd been here most of the day. She had been naïve. She'd thought the nomination only as the most immense of opportunities. She hadn't expected it to keep her from doing her job. Toby had been gone twenty minutes when Ginger knocked on the open door. "You're scaring Rina." Evelyn raised her eyebrows. "You're one to talk. Do you have any idea how many cups of coffee she's offered me today?" She thought Ginger was hotter in her daily greys than any glamorous threads. She didn't have Bonnie's glitz. She didn't need it. "No more than Toby has before breakfast." Ginger hadn't moved from the doorway. One pale hand against the door, the other resting on her hip. She had long fingers, delicate. Evelyn didn't know how she wasn't melting in that suit. "Your boss is trying to take over my life," she said. "You knew what you were taking on." Ginger sounded calm. "You can handle it." Evelyn was surprised to feel her heart flutter at the show of confidence, and disturbed to find she couldn't wholeheartedly share the faith. "He told me to sit in a corner until the confirmation and be a good girl for the rest of my life." Ginger made a poor effort at suppressing a chuckle. She looked like a good girl. In the shiny clothes, she'd been trying to be bad. "That's better than any advice he's ever given me." Evelyn frowned. Right now what she wanted most fervently was a means of placing controls on Josh and Toby as solid and usable as those for their commander. The Constitution was her department. But she wasn't one to dwell on things, and she had other wants, too. "Take off your jacket." Ginger accepted the invitation, not before a twitchy glance over her shoulder. "Close the door." Evelyn shut the blinds. Ginger didn't protest when Evelyn put her arms around her waist and let her skirt fall around her ankles, but she smelt of fear and shampoo. It was much better than perfume. The doorknob digging into her back, Ginger squirmed. She didn't protest the pinching of the soft inners of her thighs; didn't mind Evelyn sinking to caress her ankles, stroke her legs, here, there, the back of her knee until it almost buckled. A tongue running up her thigh. Teeth. A muttered denial was silenced by hot breath near her underwear, then upon it. She lurched forward when Evelyn's hands crept round to squeeze her behind, then threw herself back, into the hands and the doorknob. She cried out and Evelyn, flying up her body like white heat, caught it in her mouth. The fear almost overtook her when they heard someone pass outside, but Evelyn grabbed her head - hair, hands over ears - and kissed (Ginger liked it), hard (so did she). "Evie," Ginger whispered. "I thought. I thought you," halted fragments as if she couldn't speak when Evelyn's hands didn't stay still. They slowed to a tickle under the waistband of her underwear; a flick of the schoolgirl buttons of the schoolgirl white shirt. There were actual buckles on her shoes. "Thought you didn't." "Didn't?" Evelyn's first and finest skill was precision. She neither rushed nor wasted a second. She slid a hand between the buttons while the other cupped Ginger through her panties. "Mix business." Reaching, Ginger kissed her shoulder through her blouse. "Pleasure. And pleasure." "And pleasure, forever amen." Evelyn laughed with jagged edges and rubbed until she'd earned a damp spot. She was good at pressure: applied, stepped up, eased off just in time for the recipient to beg for it. She leaned in, breathed against the pale, deathly throat. Ginger was hot; she just hadn't been admitting it. "I can't do business when I'm tense." Ginger's fingers tangled with hers under the shirt, tearing open buttons on the way. Her small concession to decency: fighting the invasion of her bra. She didn't acknowledge the lower hand, or its pressure, except with fierce little muscle twitches in her thighs. Evelyn hooked her finger around the underwire and yanked the bra down. Ginger's breasts were hot, and swollen with blood. Now they fought only over the nipple (as if the other didn't count). Ginger groaned in defeat, and sunk down on the fingers that had slid into the damp space underneath her panties. Too easily shamed, she might as well be shameless. It was the most clinical version of lovemaking, but time was finite and it worked. Evelyn loved that, loved that Ginger was crazy for the fear and turned up to ten by Toby and his nearness. She'd never felt a woman spasm around her fingers as tightly as when the doorknob turned against Ginger's back, and it was a wrench to withdraw them and brace her palms against the door long enough for a skirt to be gathered. For shaking fingers to drag it up her legs. Ginger was still quivering on her knees when Evelyn relented and let Toby enter. The image suited her. She'd restored her innocent little buttons, leaving the intruder no chance of seeing how far the flush extended. Toby stared but Evelyn's steady gaze held him. He barely glanced at Ginger. His brain was probably deciding it couldn't cope with any more dirty panties in his new Chief Justice's closet. He stepped aside long enough to let Ginger slink out. Behind Toby, Evelyn could see curious Rina casting glances. She slid her hands into her pockets. "Little accident," she said. "You needn't have pushed so hard." He broke the stare, moved behind the desk and sat down. He didn't have much to worry about. She'd seen the watershed in Ginger's eyes; knew she'd stepped too far; knew it wouldn't happen again. End.