author: aj (another_juxtaposition@hotmail.com)
codes: CJ, CJ/Toby, post-Constituency of One
archive: just ask.
disclaimer: let’s play pretend.
notes: so this is all for luna, because she asked, and i asked how high. this wouldn’t be without luna. but LE brought the fairy dust,
and anything that sparkles is hers.

summary: and she’s nothing but a star on stage.

*

It’s the bubbles that trickle down her throat, the confetti stuck to her hands, that remind her where she is. And Leo is to her right, a wide smile across his face, and as they sing she feels like she’s in a musical that’s going all wrong. Or perhaps it’s going just according to plan. Acting, all of them, plaster of Paris smiles and laughter, but each is breaking inside, she can feel it. Everything echoes in the Mural Room, the paintings absorbing nothing but the sight of a party staged for something none of them understand.

The room is broken but there is champagne and Donna keeps refilling the glasses and when CJ’s glass is empty she refills it herself. The bubbles trickle down into emptiness, but she’s never been a depressed drunk, just one that performs, and she’s nothing but a star on stage.

Today Leo’s notes were harsher than ever before, and her memo was everything she stood against, but it had her name on it. Everything has her name on it these days, because she is the face, the tall pretty face, and everyone wants to trust her. Sometimes she lies and sometimes she doesn’t and sometimes she can’t tell the difference at all.

They all miss Sam, she realizes, Sam and his idealism, Sam and the belief that they could change the world. Until today she thought she was doing a pretty good job of believing he was still there, his voice on the phone as if he were just down the hall, Toby yelling as if he were yelling at Sam. But something went missing when Sam disappeared and all the edges have hardened and now everything is quiet.

Josh is eating his cake slowly. He walked in with an envelope and stashed it quickly in his jacket pocket. She wonders if it was a birthday note from Donna. Donna, who masterminded the whole thing, Donna with Josh always on her mind. A perfect assistant, she thinks, attached at the hip, one would be broken without the other. CJ relies on Carol all the time, but she would be replaceable. Even Sam, in the end, was replaceable. Is there anyone, anything, in her life that is constant?

Her eyes turn to Toby, his empty glass, his dark eyes focused somewhere outside the room. And there is the President, joking with Nancy, and Will deep in conversation with Bonnie. She takes another sip of champagne. Amy is missing, Abbey is missing, something important is missing and she wonders if anyone else notices. Charlie hands her a piece of cake and she smiles and says something, and he laughs in return, and CJ has the sense she’s three miles away and watching from afar. She’s playing a role that’s meant to be her, in this unconventional musical, carefully orchestrated. And perhaps it is, Donna as the stage manager, Josh the unwitting hero.

This year she bought Josh a robe, an obscene card and a note that said, “Thought the old one might have too many holes it.” It will probably be too big on him, but that will match those pajamas from the years before, so she figured she might as well go with the trend. There’s something endearing about thinking of Josh swimming in clothes too big for him. He’s always trying to fill shoes that are two sizes too big, always trying to be a savior. To be everything and more for Leo.

CJ failed Leo today, perhaps even the administration. She should have learned by now. That press room is full of her mistakes plastered against the walls like posters, and usually her wit can work herself out of holes. But sometimes she is too tired and they back her into a corner she should have spotted a mile away. Those times Toby always seems to be at the back of the room, watching her. He never comments on her briefings, just watches from afar. She answers to men, Toby and Leo, and the President of course, her life all about someone else’s words, someone else’s actions. She is merely the marionette, and they pull the strings.

In a toast to Josh she says she is the luckiest, to know him, to be a part of this. She wrote a memo.

It’s time for her to leave, tipsy on bubbles, tipsy on confusion, but she walks a straight line to Josh and says, Happy birthday, and then she exits the room without anyone noticing. CJ knows how to make an exit. The door of the Mural Room is heavy and she pushes her way out, walking down to the empty halls to her office. She flicks on the lights and blinks, her pupils adjusting rapidly. There is her coat, her briefcase behind the desk. CJ feeds her fish and tries to brush all the confetti out of her hair. She gives up quickly and throws a couple of briefing books into her briefcase, snapping the locks into place. There’s a run in her stockings, mid-calf to knee, another thing to throw away at the end of the day.

She’s reaching for her coat when Toby appears, like he always does, seemingly out of nowhere.

“Let me drive you home,” he says.

“I’m fine. And I need my car to get to work tomorrow.” Toby’s eyes narrow. “I know my limits, damn it, and when I say I can drive myself home, I mean it.”

She grabs her coat, picks up her briefcase, and pushes past him out the door. Her hands shake while she fumbles with the keys, but she’s home before she knows it and the pantyhose are thrown in the trash along with the remnants of last night’s Chinese take-out dinner. She settles on the couch and flips between C-SPAN and CNN, flipping, back and forth, back and forth. It’s early. She is everything but tired.

In the freezer there is vodka, but she doesn’t feel like drinking alone. She grabs her coat again, throwing her keys in her pocket, and drives recklessly. She doesn’t really care about anything right now, and there’s music in her head. The sets are changing and CJ is driving and her life isn’t real. And there is Toby’s apartment, and she double parks the car in front because there are no spaces and CJ isn’t in a mood to wait. She marches up to the door, rapping loudly with her fist.

There is no answer. She knocks louder, harder, and yells, “Toby!” After what seems like an eternity, a light switches on, and Toby opens the door, smelling of whiskey and scotch. He acts like he expected her and she hates that about him. Somehow he always predicts her. So she ignores the feeling and walks past him saying, “Nice of you to invite me in.”

Three bottles of varying shades of brown alcohol sit lined up on his coffee table, CNN on the television. She walks up to the TV and flicks it off, then throws her shoes somewhere in the general direction of the door. Then she moves into the kitchen, gets herself a glass. CNN is back on by the time she returns. She pours herself some scotch, or what she thinks is scotch anyway. “You’re quite the host tonight,” she says, waving her glass around. Toby just stares at her as she unceremoniously flops onto the couch, her bare feet touching the end of the couch.

“Sit down. Put your feet up. Take a load off.” She takes a big gulp of scotch and grimaces as it goes down her throat.

He says, quietly, “I lost Will.” She moves her feet and he sits beside her. “He’s going to work for Russell. He said we were a sinking ship and someone had to look forward instead of backward, or something to that effect, anyway.” He laughs and holds his head in his hands. She rubs her hand along his back. He shrugs it off and stands up. “Don’t.”

She feels like she is reeling, falling. She’s forgotten her lines. “Toby, what? I was just – ”

“I know.” He fills his glass from the middle bottle. She watches him swallow. “I know.” He paces in front of the television, the black ticker tape scrolling behind him.

“You know, I can’t tell them apart without their stupid little hats? Sometimes I think I can, I think Molly’s cheeks are fatter and Huck’s eyes are a bit darker, but then I see them side by side and it’s the hats. Those tiny stupid little hats.”

CJ’s palms are sweaty against her glass. She takes another sip, two hands.

“And they aren’t even identical twins. My own children and I can’t tell them apart. Andi can. Of course, Andi, Andi who didn’t want the house, doesn’t want the house, doesn’t want me, but she wants those children, those tiny little fingers and dirty diapers and I was part of that. I have a responsibility, CJ, and I lost Will.”

She isn’t quite sure how those fit together but it makes sense somehow and she reaches for the bottle on the left. Darker than the one before, a deeper smell. She fills her glass.

“You didn’t lose Will,” she says, her words carefully enunciated. “Will left of his own volition. He decided to move his bags to a different office. I would bet you everything that you offered him any and everything to stay. You can’t blame yourself for someone else’s decision.”

The alcohol smells rich and deep. He stops for a moment and looks at her, straight inside her, and says, “He’s the second one.”

She drinks and places the glass on the table, standing up. “Toby,” she says, walking toward him, and his edges are a bit fuzzy, “Toby, it’s not your fault.”

His breath is warm. She is barely a foot away from him, and whispers, “I miss Sam, too.”

Suddenly they are kissing and it’s the most natural thing in the world, and Toby tastes like the third bottle, deep and rich and brown. Suddenly they are in his living room kissing and her heart is beating fast in her chest.

The carpet is rough against her feet. Aaron Brown is talking and Happy Birthday is stuck in CJ’s head. But she’s kissing Toby, and they are both fumbling and a bit sloppy, and this is nothing new. This script was written long ago. Her blouse comes off as she unbuckles his pants and his fingers are cold against her skin.

They have done this enough times, and CJ is diligent about swallowing her pill every morning, so everything flows naturally, flows like it should, if this should be happening. And there is her skirt on the coffee table, and his shirt underneath her bare feet. Then there is the floor, hard against her back, and Happy Birthday in her head as Toby moves within her. He doesn’t look her in the eyes, just moves quickly, almost furiously, and she uses her hand to massage her clit. She is anywhere but near relief and gives up and Toby’s eyes are still shut. Her shoulders rub against the carpet. There will be angry red rug burns in the morning. She welcomes them. It’s Happy Birthday and Aaron Brown and this is her life, Toby above her, her back flat against a wall.

His back is sweaty and she chooses to place her palms flat against the floor. He moves faster, eyes closed, and she thinks, this is not who we are. He is thinking of Molly and Huck, she knows, two tiny persons that have some of him inside, two tiny persons he doesn’t want to fail like he feels he’s failed today, and before.

And CJ is CJ, and this is something akin to love, but Toby said, “Marry me,” and CJ broke a little bit each time Andi said no. There are babies now, and that only reminds her that her family is her work. (There was a memo.) That she goes home alone and ends up here, drunk and alone in the world, and Toby takes her in without a word.

He rolls off of her, sighing. She wishes the TV were off. She wishes a lot of things, and if wishes were horses, but CJ’s a big girl now. A woman in a world where women are treated like men, and she expects nothing less.

They lie there naked, silently. Breathing out of sync. He is the first to get up, fishing for his boxers, his pants. CJ just lies there, watching. “I’m going to take a shower,” he says, and she just stares at him as he goes to wash his sins away.

She is cold and sits up, pulls on her skirt and blouse. Her shirt is buttoned all wrong but she doesn’t really care. Another drink, she thinks, and then I’ll go home. So her glass is filled again and she downs it quickly. And when she hears him turn the water off in the bathroom, she grabs her shoes and closes the door carefully.

Her car is waiting for her, illegally parked in the middle of the night. She drives slowly, knowing she shouldn’t be driving, but drives all the same. Like any other day, like this day, she grabs her coat from the front seat, jingles her keys, and walks up the steps to her Georgetown brownstone. CJ pushes her door open and knocks her briefcase over.

The answering machine is flashing angrily at her. Toby’s voice floods the room. “I’m sorry,” it tells her and then a beep. She hates him for saying it. She erases it quickly, resisting the urge to throw the answering machine across the room. She is too tired, anyway.

CJ sits down at her desk that is never used to draft a letter of resignation. She sits down with determination that this is the right thing, that this is something that should have her name on it, not a memo that undermines her every move and word. She holds the pen in her hand and stares at the sheet of paper.

She stares. She has no words. She always uses someone else’s words. Toby, Sam, Will, Leo, the President, even Nancy and Fitzwallace, but never her own. Until today, until the memo.

The words I spoke today during the briefing reflected my own personal views, and not those of the administration. The words I spoke today were my words. The words I spoke today were the right words, and I undercut the people I work for and then I drank champagne and then I said, I am the luckiest.

The words are repeating and she can’t get them out of her head, the words I spoke today reflected my own personal views, I am the luckiest, happy birthday. Dear Mr. President, she writes, and can’t think of anything else to say. She is sorry but she wouldn’t take it back. There’s a memo with her name on it and her own words and it’s all she can see.

CJ pushes the chair back and goes into the kitchen, opens her freezer. She reaches for the bottle of vodka that sits solitary, lonely, inside. She walks determinedly into her bedroom and climbs into bed. One swig after another, and she’s singing Happy Birthday, because it’s somebody’s birthday and right now it’s the only song she knows.

*

. the end .
  . send a flower .
    . pick another.
       . back to the garden gate.