author: aj (another_juxtaposition@hotmail.com)
codes: donna, mild J/D. rated pg.
spoilers: everything is fair game.
notes: part of rockin' the suburbs, a project in progress. title and summary thanks to ben folds, whom we absolutely adore.
thanks: woody allen, amtrak, appletree market. RL for reading the first version months ago, anna, august, jess and her baby food. most of all, the versatile and heartbreakingly brilliant luna.

summary: "it's the same, why's it always the same?/the clock never stops never stops never waits/she's growing old/it's getting late"

*

It's the same every morning.

She has built herself a ritual in a world that scorns habits. In Washington, superstitions are endearing, ritualistic patterns kill careers. But each morning it's the same, always the same. She arrives first, flicks the light on in his office, straightens the towers of papers that toppled in the night and listens to his voicemail.

While she waits, Donna gets herself coffee. She'd tried to quit, back when Ginger told her it was staining her teeth, but one day of facing Josh without caffeine sent her running back to Mr. Coffee in a hurry. She doesn't view this as a weakness. She's stronger than she remembers, most of the time.

Recently Margaret told her, in a hushed tone, that secretaries in the seventies staged a revolution by teaching their bosses how to use the coffee machine. Donna laughed, saying, "I never bring Josh coffee."

She is not a secretary, she reminds herself, scurrying back down the hall to remind Josh he's late for his two o'clock senior staff.

*

Her friend Susan says constantly, only half-teasing, that the timeline of Donna's life is divided into "Before-Josh" and "After-Josh".

She doesn't mind. This is what she does, work for Josh, in the White House. She's good at it, and she loves it. She loves him. These are things she knows, embraces.

Things that are constant.

*

The week drags, and it's ten PM on Friday before she finally escapes, promising over her shoulder to return bright and early Sunday morning. "I really go beyond and above the call of duty, Josh, this wasn't in the job description."

"And that would be the job description I handed you when came to your scheduled interview and gave me your resume complete with a cover letter?"

She pretends not to hear him, though she has to work not to laugh. "Goodnight!"

Her heels echoe as she makes her way through the lobby and out the door, she's used to the sound by now. Donna tells the guard at the gate, "I'm a very generous person, you know?" and he quirks a smile in return.

She stops by Blockbuster on the way home and after what seems like hours of pondering the pros and cons of various new releases, settles on "Annie Hall." She remembers she liked it when she was twelve, and very little else. She figures she'll get more of the jokes this time around.

The hinges squeal as she pushes the door open, her roommate already asleep. She changes into her oldest pair of sweats and a battered University of Wisconsin t-shirt, the letters a mere shadow of their former red glory. Grabs a blanket and settles down on the couch, careful to keep the volume low.

Donna laughs at Diane Keaton's various outfits. She thinks of Ainsley when Annie stumblingly tries to ask Alvie out. She turns the movie off when Annie asks, "I'm never going to be smart enough for you, am I?"

*

There was a shift somewhere in the power structure, in the grand scheme of Donna's life. It started with Toby, back before the announcement. Toby had said, "Josh is going to need you." And he told her about the MS, the scandal. He told her, and he trusted her.

She waited for Josh to tell her. She waited, as she racked her brain trying to recall everything she'd ever read about multiple sclerosis, everything in history she'd ever studied about presidential privacy. She moved blankets into the basement trying to find a way to be helpful. Waiting, all the while waiting.

He never told her. She didn't wait long before telling him, choosing to ignore the shock on this face when she said, "Sagittarius," that ridiculous code name. Pretended it was guilt and not horror that flashed across his face. All the while she was thinking, "I was the first. I was the first."

And Josh had nothing to do with it.

*

There are dark shadows under her eyes when she shows up in Josh's office on Sunday. He's not there. She turns on his light, takes his messages, straightens his desk. Gets herself coffee, checks his schedule, does a little research through the State Department on the new "S" visas, and waits.

Donna realizes she's spent her entire life waiting for someone that is never on time.

Josh breezes in an hour late, a smile on his face. She hates herself for thinking he looks adorable in a black shirt, hates that when he says he's sorry she just smiles and hands him his folder.

*

Her roommate is out when Donna returns to her apartment, so she orders Chinese and watches the end of Annie Hall.

It's decided in the air somewhere between Los Angeles and New York, that if relationships don't progress, they die. Woody Allen uses some analogy about a shark, how when they stop swimming they die, and Donna laughs thinking of Sam. Later, Alvie realizes his mistake in letting Annie go, but Annie has already decided that waiting in New York with a self-centered man who doesn't really believe in relationships isn't worth it. Annie, who went to a shrink for him, who read books on death for him, who took the first step and asked him out.

Donna is impressed. She's even more impressed with Alvie, who goes west in an attempt to win Annie back. But Alvie says all the wrong things, and Annie, successful and single, stands up on Sunset Boulevard and leaves saying, "You know how wonderful you are, Alvie."

Alvie doesn't get it. They never get it. He returns to New York, but Annie has lunch with him a few years later. She's still beautiful and successful. Older, wiser, still alone, but happy.

Annie stopped waiting. She left for Los Angeles and didn't look back. Donna stares at the television so long the movie starts to rewind itself, the noise startling her. She falls asleep on the couch.

*

"Donna! Get me the notes on the Feingold amendment." Josh yells in the direction of his office, and Donna pops up behind him. She hands him the file.

"How do you do that?"

She stares at him blithely, ignores his question. "Why are we supporting it?" Josh sighs deeply, she almost resents its implication.

"Because it's an education bill, Donna. Because it's going to make smaller classes and raise the bar of education and other things that anyone in their right mind supports."

"Shouldn't we actually, you know, try to fix the system? Instead of saying, you don't pass this test, you fail? No one is going to want to teach anymore."

"Who do you know that wants to teach in public high schools today?"

"Well, some people must. There are teachers, after all."

"History majors of the world, unite." He turns into his office. This is where round one usually ends, but Donna follows him into the room.

"How can you measure education in testing? What are you doing for these kids' self-esteem? What about the ones that have strengths other than math and science and verbal skills? The artists and the athletes and the inventors?" Donna's hands are dancing through the air, close to frantic but still controlled, and Josh is ignoring her. "These teachers are going to be teaching for a test, not teaching so that students learn. Life isn't a multiple-choice test, Josh. This isn't what we should be doing. This isn't what we believe in, or stand for."

His eyes snap up. "It's a damn good thing you're not making the decisions around here."

Donna recoils, stops, startled. "I'm just talking, if you weren't so stubborn-" but she doesn't get to finish because Josh cuts her off, his voice low and biting.

"If you weren't so wrong about absolutely everything . . ." but he trails off.

She doesn't break eye contact. "You have staff in 10." She turns. Josh doesn't move, doesn't say anything.

She doesn't care. She absolutely does not care.

*

Donna lets the scalding water beat against her scalp. Her skin turns red, but she doesn't mind, welcomes it. Scratches at her back, at her forearms, at her neck. There's a steady rhythm to the water, a constant pulse across her body and she doesn't want to give it up. She slides down the tiled wall, sitting almost on top of the drain, her knees drawn up to her chest. Lets the water pound, lets it wash over her again and again and then suddenly -

Stop. She slams her hand against the knobs and the water ceases. Stands up so fast she sees a few stars, grabs a towel and fairly runs into her room.

The phone is ringing and she knows it's him, it's always him. She snatches it, demanding, "What do you want, Josh?"

There's a moment of silence and then a short laugh, too loud a laugh. "Okay, that was kind of creepy," and she's too tired to do this now.

"It's never anyone else," and it's true, all too true. She can hear his breathing, strangely irregular. She's breaking his pattern here, right now, shattering it, and she's betting that he hates that.

"Donna, I-" but she cuts him off, because she can.

"Don't, Josh. Just don't," and she's almost pleading, pathetic. She hates the way her voice cracks, its petulant tone. "I'll see you tomorrow, okay?"

"But Donna-" and she explodes.

"Josh! Can't you just, just let me have something? One full night where it isn't about you?" She inhales sharply. She's shocked him, but she doesn't really care because she was the first and that has changed everything. She was the first, and she'll never be smart enough.

"Goodnight, Josh." She hangs up the phone and she's wet and she's shaking, but she was the first and she doesn't know what that means.

She stands for a while, listening to the rain pound against the window, the low hum of the refrigerator. She listens, dripping onto the carpet, dripping. It happened, and now she needs to dry her hair. Pulls on old sweats and a grey shirt that has a hole in the right armpit. She finds a towel, pink, rubs it absently over her long hair, her thin hair.

Someone knocks.

She freezes, her eyes wide and her legs shaking. The rapping comes again and she goes to answer it.

It's Josh, and she's wearing a damp gray shirt and old sweats, her hair slick against her neck, her skin pale and taunt. She doesn't have the energy to blush as she gestures needlessly to allow him in, after he's already crossed the threshold. She shuts the door carefully behind her, listening to the slow click of the latch as it settles into place.

Her nipples are hard from the cold and Josh is trying to avert his eyes. She wants to laugh, but she doesn't remember how. So instead she waits, shifting her weight slowly from foot to foot, wrapping her arms tightly around her body.

He stands with one hand on his hip and one running through his damp hair, his white shirt speckled with water, his overcoat dripping on her beige carpet. "Donna, I just . . . I'm sorry," and he says it matter-of-factly, and she hates it. She hates the way he knows he can come over here at three in the morning because his conscience is guilty, the way he expects his trivial words to set her world back on track.

She shrugs and says, "It's okay," even though it's not, and it might never be again and then she kisses him. It's a disappointing kiss, a bad kiss, and somewhere she hates him. She loves him, she knows, but she's so tired of playing these roles.

He loves her. She doesn't doubt this, she will never doubt this. But he thinks of her as Donna, his Donna, the Donna who doesn't bring him coffee but wouldn't stop for red lights. She will never be more in his eyes, always the Sancho Panza to his Don Quixote, and she was the first to know.

It's strange today, tonight, this morning, how she doesn't much care about anything, how she knows that she hates him and she's accepted it. She's gone through these weeks and these months and she hasn't cried. There was a point in her life when her eyes welled at the slightest incident, when Josh could send her into tears at any moment. But now she was the first to know and they expect more and she's getting blankets.

He's standing there and Donna moves forward and kisses him again. It isn't better the second time either, somewhere she knew that it would never be like she imagined, that life is never how you imagine. And this is the way things happen, she knows, because existing means rejecting perfection. She's not upset that it works this way. There is no Donna and Josh, just Donna, and just Josh. She keeps trying, nevertheless, in the waning moonlight because she has crossed over a different line into this place where the footing is uneven and the melody off key. She is integral, even necessary, and she is in his world even if he never invited her.

She was first, and she organizes note-cards and kisses her boss because she can, because she could leave tomorrow, because she hates him.

Donna turns and walks to her bedroom. Josh follows without a word, and they lie in her bed between her dusty rose sheets. He wraps his arms around her, and she's tired and she's cold.

She begins to cry.

*

He snores lightly when he sleeps, just enough to be endearing. She glances at the clock without moving, Josh's arms still around her. Her leg itches, left foot suspiciously tingling, his breath even against her neck. She imagines he must be uncomfortable in his jeans, in his socks, yet she's almost afraid to wake him. But she can't breathe quite right, with him pinching her ribs. So keeping her arms close, Donna slips out of bed and moves, on the balls of her feet, toward the bathroom.

Her reflection greets her in the mirror, and she merely stares in response. Red, puffy eyes, a tangled mess of blonde hair, pale, almost gaunt skin, she's exactly what she expected. This is a day like any other, Donna tells herself, every morning the same, always the same. She has patterns and routines. But her boss is in her bed, fully clothed and fast asleep, and she wants to kiss him and smack him at exactly the same time.

Habit wins in the end, as it often does. She climbs in the shower, shampoos, conditions, shaves. It doesn't take long, her fingers never prune. There's a pink towel under the sink waiting for her. Wrapping herself in it, digs her toes into the mat. She tries to hurry because Josh is in her bed. He's out there and she's in here and she'll only be wearing a towel.

Josh is still asleep. It's Saturday, she knows his schedule better than her own, knows he doesn't have to be in the office until 3. So she grabs her favorite sweater, the jeans with the bleach stains on the thigh, and retreats again to the bathroom. Takes her time with her hair, and emerges pink and clean, to the sound of Josh's snores. Donna wonders how she could have ever found the sound endearing.

An hour later Josh stumbles into the tiny kitchen, where Donna is reading the Post. She hands him a mug without looking up.

"I made some coffee."

He accepts the mug without a sound, running his fingers over the smooth blue ceramic. Settles down in a chair and Donna takes a deep breath.

"I think that we need to--" But a loud beep cuts across her words, and she falls silent. He looks at his pager, almost voraciously. Sighs loudly, runs a hand through his waning hair, and looks at her.

"I have to, it's the Feingold amendment. Keyes is threatening to take Brown and Schneider with her." He's floundering, his eyes apologetic. She smiles at him.

"Josh, I work for you. I understand, remember?" And a wide grin breaks across his face, hours later she'll wonder if it was relief.

*

She's muttering to herself surrounded by boxes of instant rice, rows of orange boxes.

"Ready in five minutes, ready in 30 minutes, ready in . . ." Donna trails off and grabs Uncle Ben's long-grain wild brown rice, which tells her, "Don't wait for dinner!" It's thrown in the cart next to the coffee, the spaghetti sauce, the pretzels.

Donna's shopping cart has a loose front wheel and she almost takes out a display of Kellogg's cereal boxes as she tries to maneuver down toward the frozen food aisle. There's a man taking up the entire aisle with his cart and the open freezer door and his hands full of frozen peas and spinach and she would like to bowl him over with her cart. Instead she waits, smiling as he apologizes, and moves on.

She pauses a moment to pick up Bagel Bites, the ones with the extra cheese, because these are the things that Josh likes most at three in the morning when he stops by her apartment unannounced. Donna is nothing if not prepared.

The grocery store comforts Donna in its regularity, the way the milk is always next to the eggs, how there are always more kinds of cookies than you expect. She went there when he came home from the hospital, his faithful sidekick bringing the bread home. She bought him pudding, applesauce, ice cream, things she ate when her tonsils were taken out.

"I don't need to eat baby food, Donna."

"Shut up and eat."

He ate it all, of course, though the next time she went out she brought him Bagel Bites and stocked his cabinets and fridge with real food.

He laughed and said, "I don't think I've ever had perishable products in there before."

"Don't worry, I'll leave instructions, not that I expect you to actually follow them."

"Well if I could actually read them-" and she had smacked him there, on his shoulder. He grimaced in mock pain and squealed like a girl, laughing, but it occurred to her that some things would never be funny again.

Shaking herself, she shuts the freezer door and makes for the checkout aisles. The lines are long, but she's not in a hurry. If something comes up, Josh can find her, Josh always finds her. She starts to put her groceries on the belt, and the man behind her reaches in her basket to help.

"Oh, thanks, but I've got it."

And suddenly Donna knows that she does have it. She's always had it. She functions on her own, she remembers where she's supposed to be. She needs things, yes, she might even need Josh, but she could leave tomorrow for Los Angeles and she would survive.

She smiles at the man, says, "but thanks so much," and he smiles back.

The bagger asks her, "Would you like help with those bags, ma'am?" and she smiles at him and says no thanks, because there are only seven bags, because Donna is stronger than she looks.

*

Donna is at her desk pulling up a list of memos when Josh appears, leaning on the glass wall of her cubicle.

"Hey, Donna, can I talk to you for a sec?" and she follows him into his office.

She perches on the edge of his desk and he sits, leaning toward her earnestly.

"Donna, I know I've been an ass lately- "

"Lately?"

"-but you need to know that you are often the reason I think this is all worthwhile."

"Josh." She leans forward and presses her fingers to his lips. "Shut up." His eyes are wide but she looks through them, kissing him lightly, and it's almost perfect.

She backs away slowly, doesn't break eye contact. He looks a bit perplexed, as if she sprouted three heads and spoke in a language resembling a Gregorian chant. A wide smile breaks across her face, she's always liked the way she smiles.

"You know how wonderful you are, Josh."

She spins on her heels, leaves him behind smiling. Donna walks back to her pile of note-cards, of briefing books and colored pens.

All waiting for her, only her, Donnatella Moss.

She tells no one in particular, "I could leave tomorrow you know, just like that, say 'LA here I come' and there I could be."

Sam, his glasses slipping down his nose, overhears her remark. He closes the report he's been buried in saying, "That's nice. But you know, we'd miss you around here."

"You'd have to deal with so much whining from Josh, you'd never get any work done." He laughs, pats her shoulder, and disappears down the hall.

She smiles again, reaching for a blue file in a large stack of many and begins to work.

*

the end, the end, the end.
  . send a flower .
    . back to the garden . .