(post-admin, CJ/T, R)


My Back Pages


"Ah, but I was so much older then.  I'm younger than that now."


1.  Ideas As My Maps - (the book launch)
 
 
*
 
It's Toby's book launch, and CJ learns of it through a note from his publisher.  It 
comes in the form of small neat font on a piece of cardboard, devoid of personal 
touches, an invitation to buy the book rather than to attend the launch.  She goes 
anyway.

 
*
 
It's his book launch, and Sam is there because he wrote Sam an old-fashioned snail 
mail handwritten note, on paper stained with cigarette ash, and told Sam that he is in 
the book.
 
So Sam swallowed the hook and demanded an advance copy, fell in love with Toby's 
words all over again, promptly dashed off a sycophantic foreword upon which the 
publisher pounced with delight, as the name of the posterchild of the post-Hoynes 
Democratic party will look good under Toby's on the dust jacket.
 
Toby has always rather liked the idea of the names Ziegler and Seaborn together on a 
dust jacket - and after all Sam is in the book.  As is she.  But he's never written her a 
love letter yet and he isn't going to start now.  
 
*
 
And so it is the day of his book launch, and she is wearing dark glasses and a 
headscarf and marvelling at the fact that this doesn't make her look particularly 
conspicuous among the literary set.
 
*
 
He sits for an hour and makes sloppy flourishes of the pen that pass for signatures, 
and stews the minutes away.  She's fashionably late and hovers to the side of the 
doorway on the outside and laughs each time he growls instead of smiling at a fan.  
She notes with amusement how his manner is distinctly more mellow when nubile 
college girls simper their admiration.  
 
This is closer to him than she's been since the end of the Bartlet era, and when she 
watches him sell his words she misses him, which is a luxury it does her good to 
allow herself once in a while.  
 
It has to be kept on a tight rein, however, else it might prove as potentially destructive 
as her penchant for doughnuts with pink fondant icing. 
 
*
 
He sits with throbbing veins and a sizzling fuse and thinks that he'd never have 
written the damned book if he'd known he would have to sell it.  He doesn't write 'best 
wishes' or 'thanks for reading' on his back pages, simply signs Toby Z. Ziegler and 
scratches the date into the paper because maybe someday someone will want to look 
back and remember the day his book was launched.
 
As he sits and signs his words away, his hatred of the pastel-suited schoolgirl rep from 
the publisher increases exponentially.  Every time she flashes a $10,000 'encouraging' 
smile his way or snaps her fingers for some even lowlier lackey to fill his water glass, 
he thinks it might be an entertaining pastime to disembowel her in some way.
 
*
 
She watches and feels vicarious pride in the lines of people queuing for his name.  It's 
been more than a decade since she last waited in a line, so it's fortunate that she 
already has his name, in a far steadier than the hand than the one he's using now.  She 
has it in a dozen books she pilfered from his collection when they were young, in a 
handful he chose as gifts and even on a wedding invitation right next to his bride's.
 
She has his name in his own hand, but she doesn't have his latest words.  She would 
like to read his book.  Especially since some of the early reviews indicated that she, 
with Sam and Leo and the others, is in it.
 
She's appeared in a number of books since Bartlet left office and thereby opened the 
floodgates for political memoirs by people who hadn't been close enough to have 
anything to remember, commentaries by people who hadn't been privy to enough to 
comment on, and satires by people who knew nothing of the absurdities of the people 
they were trying to satirise.  Never has she been shaped into paper and ink by 
someone who knows her, though there have been several who think they do.  She 
would dearly like to know which category Toby falls into.
 
*
 
Sam Seaborn is guest of honour at the Q&A session after the signing, and picks her 
out immediately.  He waves, and the millionaire couple in front of her wave back, so 
he settles for a wink and a nod.  She slides her sunglasses down her nose and winks 
back.
 
She hasn't missed Sam particularly, but on seeing him again she can't think why.  He 
still has the charm of a boy, but she can see the budding of the demeanour of a 
statesman.  The story of how this man once saved her life is still good for a whole 
evening's drinks.
 
*
 
Toby is in no better mood by the time he is ushered into the seat beside Sam's.  He 
does not bother to look at the audience.  He has had enough of people buying the 
words he doesn't feel are his to sell.
 
He speaks about the book for a few ragged minutes and trips over his words until he's 
facedown in a gutter full of them.  He's never been a great orator; few know it better 
than the woman he doesn't know is there.
 
The audience looks at each other knowingly: they are in the presence of a creative 
genius, evidently.  His inability to communicate is the clincher.
 
*
 
She thinks it ironic that his triumph is based on saying all the wrong things.  She 
clearly made a mistake all those years ago when she tried to break him of that habit.
 
*
 
Sam longs to step in and speak Toby's words for him, for if he'd been good at crafting 
speeches, his greatness lay in the delivery.  It's easy to make people believe what one 
says, he explains whenever asked, when one believes it oneself.  A simple formula, 
but he is the only one in the arena today who can convince the public that he sticks to 
it.
 
Sam wonders if Toby has noticed CJ's presence yet.
 
*
 
The publisher's rep gets him back into his seat and announces that the debutante 
author will take a few questions now.  It reminds CJ of a briefing.  She misses the 
hurly-burly of the White House press corps, but not their brutality.
 
*
 
A young woman is on her feet, rather redundantly raising her hand at the same time: 
"Mr. Ziegler, it's an honour."
 
He blatantly rolls his eyes.
 
"I think I can speak for quite a few of your followers when I say that we probably 
expected your first book to be a history of your years in professional politics.  May I 
ask, what made you choose to exert your literary muscles in this genre?"
 
"I have followers now?"
 
In her seat near the back, CJ snickers.
 
He looks to the publisher's rep.  "Take a note.  Apparently I am now the Pied Piper of 
Brooklyn."
 
His young questioner by this time carries a somewhat less overconfident manner.
 
"This is the problem with people who revere words," he continues, but CJ can tell he's 
being serious now.  "The syllable-worshippers.  They think the more words they can 
fit into a sentence, the better.  We're not supposed to court words.  We're supposed to 
take them and prostitute them to say what we want to say."
 
The girl sits down slowly and people exchange meaningful looks.
 
A man, who is being cultivated by Sam's staff as a prospective donor, speaks up.
 
"On a similar theme, your book was widely expected to be a memoir of some kind.  Is 
it fair to say that it is to an extent autobiographical?"
 
Toby shakes his head.  "No.  Next question."  He waves a literary critic to his feet but 
the donor isn't finished.  
 
"I'm sorry, but isn't it true that several of your characters are in this room right now?  
Not to mention your own avatar?"
 
*
 
CJ thinks ruefully that her disguise needs work.
 
*
 
Toby wonders for a minute what the man means by 'several', and then she is in his 
line of vision.  Glasses on top of her head, crooked smile and legs crossed at the knee, 
he sees her in terms of the words he pressed between his pages.
 
He notices one hand balance a copy of his book on her lap.  She can't have had the 
chance to read it yet; she's probably the only person in the room apart from the 
students who hasn't seen an advance copy.  He wonders if she will like it.
 
"No," he says.
 
*
 
It is now the champagne reception after Toby's book launch and her legs are still firm 
enough to get her in when she lets the security catch a glimpse.
 
She flashes a flirty smile at the young waiter from whose tray she takes a glass and 
stands with her back to the entrance studiously examining the paintings on the wall.
 
It's not long before there's a momentary flurry alerting her to Sam's arrival even 
before she hears her name called in what could best be described as a squeal.  It's nice 
that getting elected still hasn't changed him enough that he'd get embarrassed at 
sounding so excited about someone he hasn't seen in years.
 
*
 
"CJ!"
 
Sam is impressed by her all over again.  He didn't expect her to come, even after he 
made sure she received a copy of the publisher's announcement.  He would have 
invited her himself, except that he wouldn't have been able to explain why Toby 
didn't.
 
She is aging gracefully, not pretending to be anything she isn't, but somehow she 
manages the next-to-impossible task of looking better than ever.
 
He knows there is something different when he puts his arms around her.  Although 
she seems a little taken aback, he feels her lips on his cheek and his ear tickles when 
she laughs in it, and asks him,  "Did you get a head start on the champagne?"
 
*
 
He hasn't been drinking, but he joins her in one, which turns into three by the time 
they're through with, it's great to see you, you look fabulous, what's new, his 
campaign, her hefty pay cheque.
 
It gives her a kick when anonymous Armani-attired Important People approach him 
and he ever-so politely blows them off to stick with her.  This has happened a few 
times and now people are chattering discreetly and reminding each other who she is.
 
She tosses her hair while Sam tells her how much he liked her piece on tax incentives 
and environmentalism.
 
He twigs that the difference is that all the tension has melted from her body now that 
there's no one left to impress.  He wonders if maybe the fact that she was so damn 
good at it blinded them all to the fact that the job didn't suit her at all.
 
*
 
No one pays much attention when the writer shuffles into the room with a chip on his 
shoulder and a glass in his hand.
 
A lowly executive from a rival publisher makes a move like he's about to intercept, 
but Toby turns his shoulder into the young man's face in as firm a gesture as a punch 
on the nose.
 
At the far end of the room her eyes are fixed in his direction.  He hovers, momentarily 
lost, as she lowers her glass from her lips and indulges in a smile.  Once she's sure he 
can't pretend not to have noticed, she blinks and turns her head back to answer a query 
from Sam and he has to walk all the way across the floor staring at the back of her 
head.
 
*
 
"Hey, the man himself!"
 
She laughs, and maybe it's at Sam's enthusiasm or maybe it's because she can tell 
Toby feels like a schoolboy.
 
His head tilts to one side as he regards her suspiciously.  Her flushed cheeks aren't 
giving anything away.  He remembers first why he didn't invite her and then that he's 
supposed to speak now.
 
"Yeah."
 
He's used up all his words in the book.
 
She's still smiling.
 
*
 
It doesn't take much to convince Toby to blow off the party marking his book launch.  
 
He grouses at the photographer hovering in the doorway, not looking while Sam 
collects CJ's coat and holds it open, or when she kisses his cheek in thanks.
 
As soon as they're outside he realises that he forgot to steal some of the cigars he'd 
insisted on being made available.  He curses, and the photographer thinks it's directed 
at him.
 
*
 
She's enjoying herself, even if she hasn't quite stopped being hurt that she had to 
sneak in.  The thing she found hardest, in the past days, was always hesitating before 
she did something just in case someone somewhere thought it might be inappropriate.
 
It took her months, years even, afterwards, to get used to suiting herself again.  It has 
taken years off her.
 
She's rediscovered posing for the camera - apparently it doesn't always involve 
adopting a poker face.
 
So it no longer jeopardises their careers when she throws an arm around Toby's 
shoulders for the benefit of the photographer, or when she presses her other hand to 
his chest and smiles a smile that someone would certainly have considered 
inappropriate if she'd done it back in their glory days. 
 
He thinks she's taking her arm away when they walk on by, but she only moves it 
lower so it's tucked around his.  The hand recently found on his chest is now similarly 
linked up with Sam.
 
Toby likes it when she teases him.
 
*
 
Sam finds it curiously touching that they're walking down a sidewalk arm in arm, 
three people who barely see each other and who would never have dreamed of 
walking anywhere arm in arm in the time when they saw each other daily.
 
He doesn't even feel like the odd man out, for which he is grateful to the woman in the 
middle.  If it were left to Toby, he would be feeling most unwelcome by now.
 
It's during these times, when he sees these people, or Josh, or, more rarely, Leo that he 
thinks maybe he left too soon.
 
"You shouldn't have done that," Toby's snapping.  He hasn't changed in the slightest.
 
"I was worried about Sam's reputation.  If he's the only one of your old friends you 
deign to hang out with, people are going to say you guys are gay."
 
CJ has changed, he already noticed that, but only inasmuch that she's more relaxed.  
Sam thinks that translates as happier, but his certainty isn't one hundred percent.
 
"Well, now people are going to think that you're going to hit them if they sleep with 
me and it's going to constrict my opportunities to pick up barely legal girls for one 
night stands."
 
Listening to them quarrel was one of the things he missed most when he left.
 
There's an inexplicable lump in his throat when they turn a corner and CJ squeezes his 
arm closer to her side.  

*


 
2. Lies That Life is Black and White - (the hotel)
 
 
 
* 
 
Four hours after marking Toby's book launch, and the three of them have finished 
dinner in Sam's hotel and have been sitting at the bar too long to keep calling it after 
dinner drinks.  What little gossip the papers haven't been interested enough to publish 
has been exchanged and gasped over; the convoluted jokes are coming thick and fast 
and they're still sufficiently aware to remember the punch lines.
 
Toby barely breaks his silence to grunt now and then but the others are keeping the 
conversation raucous enough to attract curious looks.
 
She laughs louder now.  He's still not sure if it's at his expense.
 
*
 
From the way they're lighting each other up, she might have come here to see Sam.  
Come to think of it, maybe she did.  Someone must have invited her.
 
His eyes must narrow when he thinks that, or some other indication on his face, 
because she switches direction in the middle of one about two nuns and a gorilla and 
asks Sam, "So how long have you been in league with this one to keep me out of the 
loop?"
 
Toby reflects, while Sam fumbles with his collar and wonders how they got from 
Sister Mary-Angela's zoological escapades to him being on the spot, that she could 
have called him far worse things than 'this one'.  It's close enough to a term of 
endearment to allow him to take a moment to enjoy Sam dangling on the end of her 
hook.
 
*
 
As Sam splutters something unconvincing about attorney-client privilege, Toby rolls 
his eyes and finds hers waiting for him when he gets to the end of the roll, just long 
enough to register that they're both full of wonder that a boy who can't lie to his 
friends can get work in professional politics.
 
She's just looking away when he speaks, for the first time in at least twenty minutes: 
"I made him promise to lie to you."  It's never been hard to confess to sins she's 
already forgiven him for.
 
She shrugs, not quite in his direction, and says, "I figured."  It doesn't keep her from 
scooping some ice from the bucket on the bar and pouring it down Sam's loosened 
collar.
 
It's Toby's turn to laugh, loud and genuine.  CJ calmly crosses her legs, dangling over 
the bar stool.  Their fellow patrons are really beginning to take notice of them now.  
An indignant Sam is a sight to see.
 
"What the hell was that?!"
 
"It would've killed you to say, 'Lie to CJ, my very dear and most respected friend, 
why, I couldn't *possibly*...'?"
 
"He threatened to write me out of the book!"
 
"I did," Toby nods, unrepentant.
 
She fights the urge to giggle, because it seems so undignified.  "You said at the 
signing we weren't in the book."
 
"I said that the characters weren't in the room.  The characters are fictitious."
 
He sees her frown, try to remember the exact wording of the question and answer, and 
cuts across her thinking.  "You're just going to have to read the damned thing."
 
"Oh, CJ, it's - it's *amazing*."  Sam's eyes take on a dreamy glow.  He's apparently 
forgiven her for the spreading patch of wetness across his silk shirt, which makes her 
feel a trifle remorseful.  "Wait till you read the part about the-"  Toby growls and Sam 
subsides.  "Just promise you'll call me as soon as you're done."  He punctuates the 
request with a sneeze.
 
She tosses back the last of her drink.  "How big is your suite?"
 
*
 
So she and Toby are sitting side by side on the edge of a king-size bed and a terribly 
handsome man is showering in the en suite.  She switches between cable TV channels 
while Toby raids the mini-bar, though in this suite the prefix is somewhat redundant.

 
"So," she flicks past a Bollywood epic, "Why?"
 
"Why what?", gulping a miniature Islay malt.
 
"Why didn't you want me to know about the book launch?"
 
She's looking at the television but she can tell he's shrugging.
 
"I didn't want everyone coming pestering me about what I'm writing."
 
"Yeah, but you told Sam to lie to *me*."
 
"Well," he takes a breath to think of a response, "You can be particularly pestiferous.  
At times."
 
She lingers at Oprah, just to irritate him; reaches back to slap him upside the head, 
misses, and feels rough hairs against her hand - she's cupping his chin.  
 
*
 
She's twisted round and they're very much in each others faces.  It's all dilated pupils 
and fingertips twitching, then it's just too much and she's giggling breathily and it's 
gone.
 
*
 
He falls back and stretches out on the bed; she turns back to the TV and the show she 
isn't watching.
 
"Uh, CJ," he tells her back, "Your viewing habits have, I guess, altered somewhat 
since I knew you."
 
It's not until then that she notices the silicon-pumped breasts shaking at her from the 
screen and the ooh-ahh breathing that sounds more like childbirth than orgasm.
 
"Should we be more disturbed," she asks, "That Sam's hooked up to porn or that we're 
both sitting on his bed watching it?"
 
"Speak for yourself," he admonishes, plumping a pillow.  "I'm... sprawling, I guess 
you'd call it."
 
"Okay."  She flops beside him.  The remote is still at the foot of the bed.  The girl 
onscreen gyrates enthusiastically.
 
Toby settles for gesticulating at the fridge.  "Can Sam buy you a drink?"
 
He picks out Irish cream but doesn't let go when her hand closes over it.  They tussle 
for a minute and when she laughs this time he knows it's at him, but that's okay 
because it takes on a pleasant ringing in his ears.
 
*
 
It wasn't like this in Washington.
 
*
 
There is a close-up of the male performer's ass bobbing up and down.
 
*
 
Toby shifts his eyes from the screen long enough to experience acute discomfiture at 
the realisation that her gaze is fixed upon his crotch.
 
He snaps his fingers and it works.  She smiles innocently.
 
"What are - why-"
 
"I'm still in denial that men actually get turned on by this stuff.  I mean, this is like the 
least erotic - no, wait, Jed Bartlet on any matter agricultural is the least erotic thing 
ever, but this runs it close."
 
*
 
Since the end of the administration it's been like the campaign again.  The others all 
talk about 'Jed' these days.  It still sounds wrong to Toby, but he's never liked to quit 
mourning the past.
 
*
 
In the present, he turns a shade of purple and rolls away onto his side.
 
"Toby."
 
He is aware of her body following him.  Any closer and they'd be spooning.
 
One of her shoes has slipped off and fallen off the end of the bed.  She rubs her 
stockinged toes against his ankle above the sock.  He looks back over his shoulder to 
see her devilish grin.
 
*
 
Save for the bumping and grinding on the triple-x channel, one could hear a pin drop.
 
*
 
It takes fully five seconds before he realises that this means the shower has been 
turned off.
 
He's about to sit up when she holds his shoulder still and casts a meaningful glance at 
the movie, in which a third party has just joined the proceedings and, judging from his 
articulation of his enjoyment, apparently suffering from a respiratory problem of some 
kind.
 
*
 
They've finished cracking up by the time Sam emerges in a bathrobe, which is an 
interesting sight in and of itself.
 
"That came with the room," is the first thing out of his mouth.
 
"So did these," Toby indicates the scattered empties, "But you'll pay for them later, 
right?"
 
Sam delicately ignores the question and scrutinises their position.
 
"Should I come back later?"
 
He's kidding - maybe he shouldn't be.
 
But CJ is already on her feet and heading to the bathroom to refresh her lipstick and 
fingercomb her hair.
 
And maybe, just maybe, splash her face with a little cold water.
 
*
 
Sam elects to sit in the armchair instead of the bed.  He takes the risk of reaching for 
the remote.
 
There's a particularly edifying edition of a popular reality television serial on channel 
17."  Toby, ever-helpful, drumming his fingers on the bedside table.
 
Sam clears his throat.
 
Toby waits till it's awkward, then asks, "You brought her here?"
 
"I-"  He blushes and fumbles in his seat.  Toby makes him a kid again, instead of the 
statesman he's become, and the wonder of it is that he doesn't even mind.
 
"I had them send out the details.  Not exactly an invitation but-"
 
"You made sure she knew about the book."
 
"I thought she probably should."
 
Toby begins to open drawers, hunting for something to smoke.  He rifles through CJ's 
purse, eliciting a murmur of disapproval from his protégé.  There are neither 
cigarettes nor any secrets to be turned up, so he does without.

Sam is still making excuses but he is not listening.
 
*
 
He's watching the open crack of the bathroom door.  She's half-cut, dancing to herself 
in the mirror, humming a rough approximation of the tune of 'Paperback Writer' while 
she applies eyeliner in an almost steady hand.
 
*
 
She's back, in the doorway with her hips tilted and her weight shifted mostly on one 
foot.
 
The porn's gone but her boys are still there.
 
She says, "I think it's time I read this book."
 
*
 
She and Sam spread the pages of the book open on the bed.
 
He brims with enthusiasm, quickly and accurately locating his favourite parts; she 
notes with affection that his copy is already looking dog-eared.  She leans against 
Sam's solid back and reads over his shoulder.
 
She takes in a few words at random as Sam's fingers pause before he flips past fifty 
pages.
 
She is surprised at the force that catches her.  She reaches around Sam and brushes 
her fingers across the ink-scarred paper.  She looks back at Toby, who has taken over 
Sam's spot in the armchair and is studiously ignoring them and experiences a brief 
burning ache in her stomach for his sudden vulnerability.
 
His discomfort at the book launch was more than just crusty intolerance.  He was 
watching anyone pick up a copy of his soul, or the nearest thing in corporeal form, for 
seventeen bucks and change.
 
And she has it all laid out in front of her to read.
 
*
 
Toby tries to close his ears as the younger pair exclaim with joy at his work.  He 
cannot like it the way they do.  He hears not the words, but the things words can't say.  
It feels, he imagines, like he's watching his own autopsy.
 
*
 
CJ and Sam spend a playful couple of hours bonding over a shared devotion to the 
words of the man getting drunk in the corner.
 
They read, but not properly.  She's purposely skimming on the surface, afraid of the 
storm beneath.  She wants to know what it has to tell her but it will keep.  There's no 
need to risk the simple pleasure of the day's reunion.  
 
Instead she and Sam embrace and tell each other several times how good it's been to 
get together again, and pour each other drinks until eventually Sam regretfully 
declines - he has an early flight.
 
It's a cue, ever so delicately given, and she hauls Toby from his seat.
 
There are more hugs and chaste kisses at the door - she revels again in the free licence 
to be effusive since they stopped being part of something bigger than them.
 
Sam leans against the doorpost and calls out promises to email as the others disappear 
down the corridor.  CJ has a copy of the book tucked firmly under one arm.
 
*
 
When they hit the night air, Toby sobers up a little.  They walk down the rosy-tinted 
street, holding each other up.
 
He wonders aloud where she's staying.  She wonders if he's got room for a little one.  
He feigns irritation.  She ignores it, smiling at the reflection of the moon in the 
windows of the few passing cars.
 
Neither realises just the hour until they reach a corner with a newspaper vendor.  The 
early editions have hit the streets.  On a hunch she buys one and flicks to the literary 
supplement.  The book launch is covered in a couple of paragraphs, illustrated by a 
tiny reproduction of their photograph.
 
"I told you you shouldn't have done that," he says.
 
She shrugs.  "I think it's a good picture."
 
He takes the paper from her and squints.  "I suppose it isn't bad."
 
He looks at her out of the corner of his eye.
 
They walk another half a block.  
 
He says, "I might use it for dust jacket of my next book."
 
*



3. Abstract Threats, Too Noble to Neglect - (coming home)
 


 *
 
He's fumbling for his keys when she guides him by the elbow round the side of the 
house.  When he sees her overnight bag tucked beside the back doorstep he tells her 
she's very presumptuous.
 
She smiles enigmatically, and he uses another key.
 
*
 
They sit up all night reading.  They haven't done that in twenty years.  He chooses the 
passages that don't make him cringe to read to her; she tries out his words in her 
mouth, watching his face to see if she's getting the cadence right.  They play out 
dialogues.  There are sudden, surprising, sobs and shrieks of laughter.
 
*
 
Eventually he dozes.  She reads every word to herself, time and again.  By sunrise his 
words are throbbing in her veins.
 
*
 
She's sprawled, legs splayed, on his Oriental rug, out for the count.  He steps between 
her limbs, bends to prise a half-empty mug from her outstretched hand and goes to 
make breakfast, consisting of instant coffee.
 
*
 
After that, he doesn't like to leave her so unceremoniously asleep on the floor, but he 
returns bearing doughnuts and so the offence is pardonable.
 
*
 
He gets out of the shower and she's on the phone, flopped belly-down on the bed with 
the cord twisted round her finger and looking more like a teenage girl than he's ever 
seen her.
 
"Sam, he's here, so I have to say nice things now."
 
He rolls his eyes.  She kept her promise.
 
"Hey, you're right."  She looks up and addresses him.  "Sam says you don't say nice 
things to me, so I can say what I like."
 
He wonders why she bothered bringing a bag.  She's wearing his shirt anyway.  
 
"Did I give you permission to call long distance?"
 
"I promised I'd call when I finished the book.  Also, bite me."
 
He nips her instead, a pinch of hip between forefinger and thumb.  She is suitably 
surprised and indignant, and unconvincing when she swats him away.
 
*
 
A continent away, Sam wonders what the sounds she's making mean.
 
He can just make out Toby's gruff assertion that she's not finished with the book yet.
 
That's interesting.  He didn't think Toby wanted her to get it.
 
*
 
It bothers Toby quite a bit that she looks so at home in a place that's never meant any 
more to him than a place to charge his laptop.  Since Hoynes's inauguration he's lived 
largely in his head.
 
In the kitchen, close but not touching, in a scene jammed tight between intimacy and 
banality.  It's too familiar to be natural.  Maybe she's been inhabiting his rooms all 
these years and he hasn't even noticed.
 
*
 
He doesn't notice when she starts to speak.  It's the slightly frustrated eyes that catch 
his attention and make him realise he hasn't been listening.  He was never accustomed 
to listening, and has had little occasion to for several years.
 
There's enough of a trace of apology in his features to stop her making a fuss.
 
"Why a novel?  I mean, I can see you being sick of writing politics, but if it was going 
to be all about us usual suspects anyway?"
 
*
 
She's perched on the edge of the kitchen counter but her legs stretch all the way to the 
floor.  She isn't even on tiptoe, he notices as he drags his gaze up the length of her. 
 
He feels curiously domesticated, pouring out their third cups of coffee each.  It's 
worrying: he's far too old to learn new tricks.  
 
And she'll be gone by tonight.
 
*
 
She doesn't quite understand why he touches her elbow before he hands her the mug.  
It doesn't take twenty years of history to tell he's distracted, but maybe it does to 
realise that he's more completely in the moment than is at all natural.
 
She blows on the coffee to cool it, and when he keeps staring at the morning lines 
around her eyes, she leans to blow on his too.
 
"Toby?"
 
*
 
He adds up a hundred thousand times she's said, whispered, screamed his name in his 
mind and if his mental arithmetic's up to speed, he's sure she's spoken it more times in 
anger than tenderness, but in the latter instances she meant it more.
 
He raises the mug to his lips and starts to sip before answering her question, if not the 
one in her eyes.
 
*
 
"I wrote a novel because that way one has freedom of expression."
 
He doesn't make her push, only taking a step back and half-turning away before 
elaborating: "If a book's meant to be factual there are too many constraints, in 
language, in structure, in... passion, I guess would be a word for it.  What to leave in, 
what to take out-"
 
The hand that isn't holding the mug is in his pocket and she can see the thumb 
working nervously, a sure sign he's talking about something that matters.
 
"If I'd written the inside story on the Bartlet White House - something which has, by 
the way, been done two dozen times already by every kid who ever did a day's work 
in the mail room and a few who didn't - all anyone would have read would have been 
revelations, gossip: how traumatised we all were after Rosslyn; how I found out about 
the MS; personal relationships between the staff; death threats; how Sam's resignation 
affected the administration; every sneaky move I ever pulled.  It would have been 
gratuitous even if it hadn't been written that way."
 
They both wince ever such a little bit at one or two of the items on his list.  
 
She nods slowly, even though he isn't looking; remembers a series of articles Ainsley 
Hayes wrote a few years ago and how, as respectful as they were, she couldn't even 
read them.
 
"This book-", and she thinks how much his voice sounds like a first-time father's, "-
covers everything I could have wanted to say.  At least, if I did it right..." 
 
He tries to think of something else, not wanting to leave it as if he's asking for her 
validation, but he's out of words again.
 
For a moment he thinks it's going to be awkward but she only asks, "Why couldn't 
you say something like that at the launch?  Those people, your *fans*-"  His blanch at 
her word choice is a delight.  "They'd have loved to hear those things.  All they 
wanted was to know a bit about where the book came from."
 
He's been twitching around like a thoroughbred in the starting gate for the duration of 
the conversation.  Now they're close to touching.  He's still not quite facing in the 
right direction.  
 
When he speaks it's in the mumble he always uses when he doesn't want to say what 
he has to.  "It's too personal.  I don't want a bunch of strangers to know what's in my 
head."
 
She rests the coffee mug on the worktop.  "Well, in that case my suggestion is to not 
publish something that covers everything you could possibly want to say."
 
He shakes his head and she can tell from the crinkling in the hairs around the corners 
of his mouth that he's smiling.  "That's the beautiful thing about words.  They can 
mean a hundred different things, and what they mean isn't down to the writer; it's 
down to the reader.  None of those people has a clue what my words mean to me."
 
He's facing her at last, wanting to know if she understands.  
 
"I'm happy to share those words with the whole damn world.  But they'll never know 
where the words came from.  I won't share that."
 
She'd reach for his hand, but his look is more penetrating than a touch.  "What about 
me?  Will you share it with me?"
 
Full circle, he steps back and turns away again.  "Not if you can't figure it out for 
yourself."
 
*
 
She lies on her back in front of the imitation log fire clutching a highlighter, the book 
propped up on her raised knees, rereading.
 
He's at his desk with his laptop open.  He's got nothing left to write at the moment but 
he has become accustomed to playing Solitaire while he thinks.  Besides, if she stays 
long enough he might be inspired.
 
*
 
At around five o'clock Sam calls.  He pretends to be checking up on them but it's 
fairly evident that he wishes he could be there.  It takes Toby ten minutes to persuade 
him he can't afford to blow off tomorrow's vote on the phone tap bill.  He wonders if 
this means she told Sam she'll still be here tomorrow.
 
She puts the book down long enough to demand he hand over the phone.  He chuckles 
when he hears her ask Sam his opinion of the key to Cathy's relationship with Ira.  He 
doesn't hear the response, but her ill-suppressed frustration confirms Sam's standing 
by his vow of silence.
 
*
 
Four hours later, he tries to force-feed her.  She still hasn't mentioned a date of 
departure and he wonders if he should be concerned that she is apparently forgetting 
both to eat and to work.
 
She kicks up a fuss, claiming to be on the edge of an epiphany, so he promises to push 
her over the edge later if she'll join him for dinner now.
 
It's a gracious invitation and a good offer, so she giggles and kisses his earlobe, and 
holds onto the book with a death grip.
 
*
 
She attracts some looks in the diner, a middle-aged woman in a man's shirt with her 
nose in a book.  He's glad he practically dragged a pair of her own pants over her hips 
before they left.
 
He has to order for her because she won't put the book down to look at the menu.
 
He decides he has created a monster.  Now he must feed it.
 
He orders two steaks.
 
*
 
Over dessert, when his belly is straining at his belt, he offers up a hint.  "The reason 
Sam wrote a good intro is that he got it right off."
 
"He did?"  They're practically the first two words she's spoken all night.  
 
"He knows my writing style inside out.  He got it.  You should read what he had to 
say about it."
 
"I did.  I've read the whole thing five times already."
 
He shrugs and shovels more pie into his mouth, taking note when she flips back to the 
early pages. 
 
*
 
Back home, he plays music he hates and she adores.  She doesn't thank him, so he 
plays George Jones and she slams a well-aimed fist into his ankle as he passes her 
place on the rug.
 
It's technically morning by the time she drifts into oblivion with her face in the book.  
When he drops her in bed and pulls the covers up, he reads his words back in the light 
print scars across her forehead and cheeks.
 
Later, his face falls forward onto his keyboard and random letters dance across the 
screen while he sleeps.
 
*
 
He wakes up with his skin prickling, sunburn in a darkened room.
 
The laptop flickers back from standby to life as he raises his head and stares at her 
indentations on the rug, thinks without emotion that if she's gone he might not be able 
to step on it again.
 
The air in the room has an altered composition; he doesn't have to go into the 
bedroom to know it's empty.
 
His own fault, of course.  He should have asked her outright about her plans.  She 
knows he doesn't like surprises.
 
*
 
In the kitchen a flush of good, old-fashioned, heart-hardening anger begins to massage 
the melancholy away when he discovers she used the last of the coffee.
 
His ankle twinges.  She's left him a bruise.
 
*
 
He shuffles around looking for something to do and the sun streaming through the 
window makes him growl, all the louder when he remembers there's no one to hear.
 
Stretching across the worktop in a manner that his muscles don't like at all to draw the 
limp curtain, he almost laughs.  
 
Almost, then he goes back to being angry, because she's only gone and ruined his 
moment of self-indulgence.
 
And because he really does dislike direct sunlight.
 
*
 
His back garden was never much of a view before now.  He has long been tempted to 
concrete over it.
 
She'd go a lot further than almost laughing if she could keep her nose out of the book 
long enough to notice him standing behind her.
 
He wonders if the neighbours are curtain-twitchers.  He's never given them much to 
talk about before beyond the odd late night drunken spectacle, but his stomach's too 
strong for that to be a regular occurrence.
 
He thinks that if anyone happens to be looking they will find the sight of him in 
wraparound thick dark glasses and a wide-brimmed floppy NYCC hat rather amusing.  
It's faintly disturbing that the thought of brightening a stranger's day brings the 
shadow of a smile to his lips.
 
*
 
Though that may have rather more to do with the picture she's presenting him - and 
Big Brother, if he's watching - with, stretched out on the overgrown lawn, toes 
pointed as if reaching for something.
 
The denim cut-off shorts she's wearing would be far too young for a woman of her 
age who was any less in shape, but he can't find fault.  Her back is bare save for the 
flesh-coloured bra straps, only her flesh is a far richer colour, and he feels like an old 
man for wondering if she used sunscreen.  
 
She's allowed the elements to dry her hair so it's shaggy and her head is angled so that 
it falls in her face and shields her eyes from the glare so she doesn't miss a word of the 
book.  The streaks he assumed were the latest highlights reveal themselves in the stark 
light to be grey.  He'd forgotten what her natural hair colour looked like.  
 
The contrast with bronzed skin makes the grass, and the moss, more lush.  Perhaps 
Toby too.  
 
He does think that perhaps her legs are paler than they used to be.  He imagines 
squeezing her calf to examine the evidence and doesn't have the energy.  Maybe she's 
been staying out of the sun.  There's a metaphor in there somewhere. 
 
*
 
"You know, at your funeral, when you're dead, after your ultimately vain battle 
against skin cancer, I'm gonna stand at the front of the church, or whatever the hell 
heathen place they have the service in, and I'm gonna say, I told her so."
 
"And my ghostly voice will whisper, I begged him not to wear that hat, I got down on 
my hands and knees and begged.  And my many mourners are gonna talk amongst 
themselves and say the dead chick talks more sense than the Jewish vampire at the 
podium," and he realises she knew he was there all along.
 
*
 
She can't lure him onto the grass but she rustles up a deck chair he didn't know he had 
and he sinks awkwardly into the middle, struggling to sit upright.
 
She turns a page to hide the fact that she's struggling not to laugh, because that's the 
kind of mood she's in this morning.  Something tells her he feels vulnerable, which 
means she has the upper hand and she's not too virtuous to enjoy the idea.  
 
Maybe it is because the sun invariably dulls his wit.
 
*
 
"I thought you'd gone."
 
"I haven't."
 
"That's too bad, 'cause I thought this was maybe just a hologram."
 
She shakes her head wryly.  "Succumbing to the writer's lifestyle.  Too many lonely 
afternoons watching Star Trek reruns."
 
He can't think of a better comeback than to say he prefers Battlestar Galactica so he 
refrains, trailing one hand on the ground, pulling up stalks of grass and the occasional 
daisy.
 
*
 
She counts how many sentences she can read before impatience wins over dignity and 
he asks, "How long before you have to go back to work?"
 
Wonders if telling the truth will ruin her mood, does it anyway but taking her time, 
"No rush."
 
"What's that supposed to mean?", quicker than intended.
 
"Well, I handed in my notice, so let's just say I have plenty of time to curl up with a 
good book."
 
She peeks through the veil of her hair.  He looks like he has indigestion.  She isn't 
sure if that's good.
 
"That's eight employers with whom you've parted company since the administration."
 
"You've been paying attention."  *That's* good.  Probably.
 
"How much notice did you give them?"
 
"Two hours."
 
His eyebrows rise above even his monster sunglasses.
 
"They bore me, Toby."
 
"Your flighty girlish irresponsibility bores me."
 
Which is just a little implausible coming from the man who watched her from the 
shadows for twenty minutes before he spoke.
 
"Yeah, and I'm the lovechild of the Pope and the Queen."
 
"I can see the family resemblance."
 
"Hey!"
 
And now he is happy, because that yelp she gives when an insult takes her by surprise 
is one of his favourite sounds in the world.
 
He snickers in his deck chair that she pulled out of his garage like she pulls words out 
of his pen, and she goes back to her book.
 
*
 
When it is cooler and they are back inside, where the air has changed again, he notices 
she is beginning to read more slowly.  She's nearly getting it.  An aniseed taste on his 
tongue.  He fidgets. 
 
*
 
It's there in the part of her mind she can't reach.  She wonders if it's the part he can 
reach, and would he help if she asked him.
 
*
 
Later, when he comes home laden with bags of groceries, he notices her stiffen as she 
stands up to welcome him.  He tells her he told her so and she grimaces and 
rummages through the bags for a carton of ice cream to clutch to her skin.  He mocks 
and won't tell her where the moisturiser is unless she agrees to let him rub it on her, 
and so they are enemies for a while.
 
*
 
He taps out the alphabet in reverse order on the keyboard and broods about what 'no 
rush' means.  Either she is moving in with him without asking permission, or she's 
planning on being gone by morning.  He doesn't like that she's playing with him.
 
*
 
Her eyes are tired.  They might not be the only parts of her but she can't start thinking 
about anything else or she might lose the breakthrough that's hovering somewhere 
around her frontal lobe. 
 
It's the dedication that's sticking her, she thinks.
 
She can see her skin red under the light blouse and hates that he knows the right 
answers.
 
He really did write a beautiful book.
 
*
 
The book's too thin for there to be a thud when it closes but certainly there are 
reverberations.  Her hand lies flat on the cover, pressing all the words within together, 
and stays there until she has turned her back completely.  It feels like a physical effort 
when she tears it away.
 
She doesn't realise her eyes are misty until she sees him slouched in the doorway, at 
which point they brim over.
 
*
 
It took him 100,000 words to get close to saying what he had to say; takes two salt 
water drops and contractions of a few facial muscles for her equivalent.  He feels 
inadequate.
 
*
 
He gives a laugh, equal parts nervous and dry, and digs his hands deeper into his 
pockets.
 
"Case closed?"  
 
She sniffles, draws her hand across her eyes, and feels like a girl.
 
"Your baby's quite something, Toby Z."
 
You're supposed to do something when people are crying, he's dimly aware, but he's 
too busy staring at a closed book.
 
"You're finished with it."
 
"I think I'm going to leave it a while before I reread, yeah."
 
But that's not the question.
 
*
 
Her mouth is dry; it's been a while since she remembered to drink.  She didn't give 
much consideration to what would happen after she got the message.
 
She is looking over his right shoulder when she asks how the job market is round 
here.
 
*
 
He doesn't think she would tease so soon after the reading but then he didn't expect 
her to cry either.  Getting emotional in her old age.  Not true, she always was, but 
she's not so ashamed of it now.  He feels mellowing in his veins.
 
*
 
"I dare say there a few openings."
 
She's looking at his face now.
 
Honesty compels him to add, "You could do better."
 
"I've done better.  Now I'm doing what the hell I like."  Which just about sums up her 
life after the White House.  Sam was right, she is happier, and no wonder.
 
She stands, and close enough to encourage him to reach around her waist and find the 
groove his hand wore in the small of her back.  This isn't new but it's born again, 
devoid of the tortured element of old.
 
"You don't mind if I sleep on your couch for a while?  Until I find something more 
permanent."
 
To his coy mistress: "Not a chance in hell."
 
And if she rests her head on his shoulder she can see the open bedroom door.  She 
makes a contented noise and looks forward to descending into her second childhood 
on a foundation of guiltless sin.
 
*
 
Later they make war over something he shouldn't have said twenty years ago.  
 
The climactic battle takes place in the bedroom: his careless hands tear her more 
delicate garments as he grabs her things out as fast as she can throw them into the 
carry-all.  Eventually she resorts to throwing toiletries at him.  He catches her wrists 
in self-defence; she kisses him.  It's meant to be a diversionary tactic, but she succeeds 
in diverting herself so well that a ceasefire is called by mutual consent and they're 
making something else instead.
 
His fingers are gentle with sunburnt skin and manipulative of flesh she hid from the 
sun.  She knows what he wants.
 
*
 
In the morning she smacks him on the head to show she hasn't forgotten.  He swats 
her ass in return.  Even their fights are younger than they used to be.
 
*
 
They're still in bed when Sam calls.
 
CJ answers.  Sam chuckles, knowing what that means.  Toby slips two fingers inside 
her.  She wiggles.
 
Sam asks how she liked the book.
 
Toby starts to move.
 
She says she's holding out high hopes for the animated version.
 
Sam is not offended when she hangs up.
 
*
 
 
End

April 2003


Summary & chapter titles are from the eponymous song by Bob Dylan.