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Toby closes the door behind him, shutting them into C.J.'s office, blinds lowered and dark except for slivers of light like the slitted staring eyes of a judgmental God. She holds the dry-cleaning bag in hands knotted tight. "Don't even start," she says, turning to him. "Whatever I said wrong, I probably already caught it, and if I haven't, it's too late anyway. I can't hear it right now, okay?"
He peers at her, the door against his back. "You're doing fine." Hoarse and heavy, his voice, from not sleeping and not shedding a tear. It's possible he's never been this far beyond tired.
C.J. folds her arms, clothes hugged to her chest and the shadows thick around her eyes. "Oh, God," she says. "You didn't come in here to...pep-talk me, did you? You don't do pep talks. Don't."
Mirror to the irritation on her face, he folds his arms, too. "I came in to watch you take your clothes off."
"Oh," and her lips curving to quick laughter, gone as quickly, her frown puzzled and entirely familiar. "You're serious?"
"Yeah."
Deep breath, eyebrows arching, and then, "Okay." Fingers raised to the button below the seashell-shaped notch in her throat. Maybe she needs this, this intermission, almost the way he does. "Just, keep your hands where I can see them."
He rolls his eyes. "C.J. Really. I--"
"Really."
He turns his hands, palms empty toward her; I am not armed. I have nothing to give. The dry-cleaning bag falls flat and slick at her feet.
Shoulders shrugged free of her jacket, then her blouse, bare skin shimmery where the light touches it. Each article folded carefully before she puts it aside; she handles her clothes the way some men handle money. He keeps his back hard against the door, harder every second, dull ache beginning near the base of his spine. Not blinking, not once. She peels her stockings off with a simple grace superior to any wiggle or dance. The skirt next, unzipped in back and dropping around her ankles, kicked aside. Black panties, white machine lace cupping her breasts. He hears himself breathing. Long body striped by light like some exotic animal, turning; she faces him full on, eyes checking his.
If he could say something, he would say it; voiceless with the desire to touch her, to nail her down, to assure himself that she is real and warm as she appears to be, as he knows she is; to know her again as he did once. From the inside out. He grinds his teeth at his own cliché, standing still, saying nothing.
She sighs, face hidden as she shakes out her hair and her arms falling loose at her sides, no energy to make an effort at coyness. Dimly, the scent of cologne and damp skin. "Things keep happening," she says. Whispers, almost. "Things keep happening I never would have imagined."
"Yeah?" Dry tongue. Blood moving south.
"Well, to begin with, I work in the White House." At her words a phone bleating, just outside the thin-skinned office. He doesn't look away from her. "I never thought that would happen."
Memory uncoiling like a whip; the image of her clambering out of a pool, dressed and dripping wet and gilded by the sun, so far away from here. It doesn't seem like a true memory so much as a daydream he might have had once. "You want me to apologize?"
"For bringing me on board?"
For your success. For my failure. "Whatever."
Again, the lightning-flash of her laughter. "Would you, if I wanted you to?"
He tips his head back so that it touches the door. This building: the bull's eye in concentric circles of power and fear. And his children's names, their mother's name, hanging between them, a trio of bells not yet rung. Exhaling between his teeth: "Just change."
Even slower now, putting the clean clothes on, new stockings rolled smooth up the slender thighs, skirt seams precisely aligned, black suit and blue blouse electric on her skin, as if this were charm enough to ward off exhaustion, pointed questions, and bad news. So she's been a shield, and he's been behind her. He shuts his eyes against this, the hurt of knowing how he's hurt her, and when he opens them again she's fully composed. Except her face. Her forehead pinched, lips a little parted, eyes giving everything away even before she says it. "Do you think Zoey's alive?"
He lowers his chin, hand worrying the back of his neck, so tense he may be turning to stone. "I know as much as you do."
"I know what you know. I need to hear what you think."
But he won't say it, not even for her, not here in this building. Not out loud; he knows too well the power of words. He hunches his shoulders. "I think if she's alive, she's been--no way she comes back whole from this." A hesitation. Breath drawn in. "Neither do her parents."
Tiny nod, tiny tremor running through her body; somehow he wants her even more now than two seconds ago when she was standing there all but naked. Somehow, in raw spite of all the changes in all he knows, he never wants her any less. Base instinct, basic human drive toward comfort. And something more.
She's stepped back a little. Reading glasses from her desk tucked into her pocket, hand hovering over, he imagines, her heart. "And it's come to this," she says. "And gunshots and children--and even Walken's goddamn dog can't chase us out of this building."
He moves off the door, quick toward her, old bones in faint complaining chorus as he pulls up inches short. Eye to eye, to scan the darkness of her pupils and find the pinprick of inextinguishable light.
"I.” She almost smiles. "I have to get back in the trenches."
He nods and she's past him, the barest rustle of her sleeve grazing his. A bolt of heat through him at this not-quite touch. By the time he turns around the door is open, a glare in his eyes. He squints. She's gone.
"Okay," he says, to no one, to the discarded clothes folded on her desktop like a slipped skin. He reaches toward them, stops, reaches past them instead. Picks up her pen and carries it with him. Back into the trenches. He is not going empty-handed.