Passage

By Joanna Phillips

*Summary: "That's quite a lot of underwear you have there, my friend."

*Disclaimers: They're not mine. Except in my head. And I think we can 
all agree that not much that is in my head counts for much. The title 
of the story and the chapters are all pieces of lyrics from "Hotel 
California" by the Eagles...and eventually the reason why will become 
apparent...maybe. 

*Spoilers: Anything through the end of The Women of Qumar.

*Category: I think this one could stand alone...well okay, so it leans 
against The Women of Qumar and Manchester a little. CJ POV, with 
Toby, Josh, and Sam right there with her. In the same car, even.

*Rating: R. Just because I like it like that.

*Special thanks always to Lisa R-this time particularly for helping 
me keep the stabbings to a minimum. And to Liz, who it turns out, 
*is* a beta reading goddess after all and for Sam's gambling habits. 

*Author's note: This one started out to be a light-hearted story, but the angst seemed to return of its own accord. In a major way. Some Graphic Violence. Beware.


Chapter One: Back To That Place I Was Before

"He's sick."

"What do you mean, `he's sick?'"

"That," Toby mutters darkly as he stops in my doorway and watches me 
carefully roll my clothes and place them just so in my suitcase. He's 
been packed for three hours, as far as I know, but also, as far as I 
know everything in his suitcase has been wadded into a ball. I have 
something against ironing. I suck at it, first and foremost. 
Therefore, I'm a careful packer. He can live with it. Or not. 

Strange thing about Toby. The man, physically speaking, isn't a 
threatening figure. Or rather, he shouldn't be. But there's some sort 
of a shadow all around him. Now, for instance, he seems to completely 
fill...and well, *darken* my doorway, though there's a good two feet of 
light from the hall shining in over his bald head. He's swelling with 
irritation now, so that that space seems to close.

"CJ...you've had forty-five minutes to pack. I don't understand...this..." 
he breaks off, searching for words to describe the remaining half of 
my clothes still lying neatly on their hangers across my also-neatly 
made-up hotel room bedspread, grouped in outfits for the remaining 
days of our four day run on the Pacific Coast. When words for my 
insanity fail him, he settles for waving his hands around. "It's 
packing, it's a suitcase. The clothes go in. You zip it up. We leave 
here on *time*."

"Well, that's just crazy talk, Tobus. And the sooner you learn that 
I'm worth waiting for, the better your life will be." I try to say 
the words brightly, but the sound just comes out flat. 

Like I'm pissed. Which I suppose I am. Still.

He tilts his head to the side for a moment, and looks relieved when 
Josh's voice drifts in from down the hall. His face soon follows, 
appearing over Toby's shoulder. "I got us a 5:30 p.m. flight to 
foggy San Francisco. Home of the Golden Gate Bridge and The Giants. 
Also Rice-a-Roni."

"What do you mean you got us a flight? I was under the impression we 
didn't have to go through a travel agent to book our seats on Air 
Force One." My tone is noticeably lighter with Joshua. I say 
noticeably because I feel Toby's gaze on me and know he noticed it.

"That's funny, CJ. No really. You're clever. Clever girl. That's 
quite a lot of underwear you have there, my friend."

I look down to the pile of panties and bras (also neatly rolled-it 
saves space, I swear it), and am mildly surprised to discover I'm not 
really embarrassed in the least to have Toby and Josh standing there 
staring at them. I spend way too much time with these guys, I decide 
then and there.

"How many days are we gonna be away, Toby?" Josh asks, wandering 
closer to the bed to get a better look. He reaches a hand down as if 
to touch one of the silkier looking garments, catches my eye, and 
rightfully fearful of losing a hand, steps back.

A sigh of the long-suffering. Then Toby says, "four."

"And how many pair of panties do you suppose is right there?"

"I don't--I'd really rather not know," Toby says, impatience 
lingering in every word. He clearly isn't in the mood.

Undaunted, Josh continues to watch the small heap of lingerie with 
fascination. "I'm no mathematician, but I'm gonna guess at least 
fifteen full sets. Can you please explain to me why a four day trip 
requires fifteen pairs of underwear? I have trouble understanding why 
a four day trip requires four pairs."

I feel it then. The blood creeping up my neck and into two bright 
spots on each cheek. The heat seems to pulse off of me, crawling 
straight to the roots of my hair. So, I have a fear of running out of 
underwear. Perfectly normal. I don't care what they will say. Plenty, 
I imagine.

"I don't believe it. You're blushing." Josh says with a smirk that 
makes me want to roll *him* up and stuff him into a suitcase. Or body 
bag. I'm not picky, you understand.

"I'm not blushing," I rather obviously lie. "And would you please 
explain to me what's going on? The President is sick? We've booked a 
flight on Air Force One? What?"

"Not Air Force One. Delta. The President isn't going tonight. We'll 
fly on ahead and get things set up for the fund raiser," Josh 
supplies, and I'm a little surprised at how easily he's sidetracked. 
I make a mental note. *Ask Josh a question that makes him feel like 
he knows more than you and he's yours for the steering*...oh wait, I've 
known that for years. 

"The President is sick? Is it the..." I break off, because I see Toby 
and Josh's eyes widen, and my own heart beats a little faster too, 
like I came very close to saying something I shouldn't. The MS is 
quite in the open, but for some reason, we all still feel it's taboo, 
a secret. The secret that could still bring us down, and the world 
knows why. 

"It's an inner ear thing. He can't fly with it." Toby supplies 
quickly.

"Are we sure that's what it is?" I ask with just a bit of cynicism. 
I was okay lying about the President's health before I realized I was 
part of a conspiracy. Before I needed a lawyer. Before I knew that I 
was being lied to. I'm still hurting from it. Maybe reeling too. It 
doesn't come so easily to lie about anything now.

"CJ, don't." Toby's voice carries a note of warning.

"I'm just..." I pause when the timber of his words echoes in my head 
and glare at him and then snap, "Toby--what the hell is your problem 
exactly?" 

"Yes, thank you for your concern, he'll be fine. They don't expect 
any complications."

I refuse to be abashed by this. Word of Toby's initial reaction to 
finding out about the President's condition has gotten around by now. 
His primary concern wasn't how Jed Bartlet was feeling either. We 
glower for a moment. Sometimes I come close to hating him when he 
looks down...or up, I amend with sort of vicious satisfaction...his nose 
at me with those eyes. 

"The press is going to ask questions."

"He had a meeting tonight and decided to wait until tomorrow to fly. 
Happy?"

"Yes. Because lying to the press about his health hasn't ever gotten 
us into trouble in the past."

"CJ," the warning tone is identical to the one I just advised him not 
to take. 

"Never mind, Toby," I say and turn away from him altogether.

"Can we just clarify once and for all, that *I* didn't sell the god 
damned guns to Qumar?" 

He points this out to my shoulder blades, which I instantly draw up 
into a defensive line. Beside me, Josh stiffens and looks back toward 
the doorway in surprise. Toby doesn't even raise his voice but he 
knows how to use words so that the statement has the exact effect he 
knew it would. My throat gets too tight for more words and sudden 
tears...tears of fury, mind you, nothing more...threaten my eyes. He's 
going for the low blow here.

And he wins because I don't trust myself to say anything further to 
him right now. Not with Josh in the room. Not with these ridiculous 
tears in my eyes. It's too sore a place right now, I tell myself. 
Soon, though, there will be a reckoning. I will kick his ass.

Josh looks from one of us to the other, and back to the bed. Finally, 
his curiosity gets the better of him, and while he thinks I'm 
distracted by my stand off with Toby, he reaches down to pick up one 
of my sexiest, if I do say so myself, pairs of royal blue bikini-cut 
panties.

"My, my, Claudia Jean. Lace?" he murmurs with a smile in the corner 
of his mouth, seconds before I slap his hand, rather hard because I'm 
furious with Toby, and he yelps and drops them. I pick them up and 
begin the process of rolling them again.

Josh is still fascinated. "Seriously, fifteen pair?"

Toby sighs heavily. It's his martyr sigh, and I know it. He ignores 
Josh, and now his words are what he imagines as conciliatory. Which 
to me, in my present mood, translates right into condescending. "The 
President is on antibiotics for the ear thing. We're hoping tomorrow 
morning he'll be okay to fly. We'll go on in tonight and start 
getting things ready for him. Plan B is that he'll come tomorrow 
afternoon and arrive in time for the fundraiser. Worst case scenario, 
he gets worse and misses the fundraiser. By the way, we have 
scheduled a meeting for him tonight, so you aren't lying. If the 
press asks directly about his health, you'll tell them."

"If he can't come tomorrow, there won't be any need to tell the press 
anything. They'll run all over it."

Toby's lips press tightly against whatever he was going to say. 
Instead he mutters, "then hope he can come tomorrow."

"And I don't need to stay with the press?" I ask. Not that I want to 
stay with the press by any means, but because I'm afraid one of them 
will suggest it before I do and then I'll feel resentful and hurt 
about being left out.

And I'm not unjustified here. They've shut me out before. Recently. 
After I screwed up Haiti in a moment when I couldn't afford to be 
anything less than completely cautious. Things have been a bit shaky 
for as long as I can remember, but more so after that day. They ran 
from me like the wildfire of destruction I was to the administration 
in that moment. I'm still a little pissed about that too.

Admittedly we feel better after the President's apology in 
Manchester, but things for us are different now. And not one of us 
knows how to go back to the way it was. We tried it for awhile. With 
some success. And then Toby had me announce that we were selling guns 
to Qumar. And later called Nancy in to try to smooth my feathers...at 
least that was the phrase I heard Josh use for it later, when I 
wasn't supposed to be walking by the bullpen at the moment he was 
telling Sam about it. 

Smoothing my feathers? I still can hear still the words and they 
still sound like shattering glass to me. Because I can also still 
remember that when I saw Nancy standing in my office, I thought I was 
being benched again. Just like Haiti. Which put me instantly on the 
defensive. 

And when Nancy tried to explain to me why selling guns to these...I 
won't call them men because I can't...these *things* who violate the 
simplest human rights of their women, of their mothers and wives and 
sisters...was necessary, well I may have stepped over any number of 
lines. But pardon me for thinking it was a little more serious a 
matter than my feathers being ruffled.

But I went into the press room and I bit my tongue and I did my job, 
because I was afraid, with good reason, that I wouldn't have it any 
longer if I did say what was on my mind.

At the very least, I knew I'd be benched again. And if that happened, 
my credibility, would come down around me all over again. Funny thing 
about losing your credibility. It isn't something that comes down 
hard or fast. Rather it just slips off and falls gently away, like a 
silk wrapper pushed from your shoulders. I'd felt it happen before, 
any number of times. But never so much as in the silence that had 
been so deafening moments after Nancy stood up at my podium to take 
questions about Haiti. 

My cheeks are growing warmer from the remembered embarrassment.

So I'd done Qumar. And I'd taken a pass. Toby had come to that 
briefing. He'd stood at the back of the room and looked as close to 
frightened as Toby Ziegler ever had looked, I supposed. And I'd 
choked on my nonchalance over the announcement, and Toby had placed 
his hands over his heart and given me a gentle look, and I think he 
maybe knew what it had cost me just then, but I still couldn't fully 
forgive him. Or our administration. Mostly, I couldn't forgive 
myself. I was just taking it out on everyone, including myself, but 
mostly Toby. 

Before, we were changing the world. Now it feels like we're just 
another thing that is wrong with it. 

"We need you there," Josh says almost gently, and I'm pretty sure he 
knows where my mind has gone. "Somebody else will brief the press 
tomorrow morning, and you'll take it back when they get to San 
Francisco. You're more valuable to us tonight." 

Exactly what I needed right then. A little more patronization. "Yeah, 
okay," I say and turn back to my suitcase.

"You put together a hell of a press event, CJ. We need you with us," 
Toby says to my turned back and I choose to take it for the rare 
accolade and apology I think he means it to be.

"Let me just finish packing."

Toby huffs. Josh grins. And things feel a little better. 

"Hey, ready?" Sam calls from the other side of the hallway as he 
emerges from his room, his garment bag slung over his shoulder. "We 
need to be at the airport at least two hours before the flight, you 
know. I called, and they said it should take us about twenty minutes 
to get there from here. We'll have cabs downstairs in five minutes. 
The airline was a little worried about a storm off the coast that 
looks like it's turning for land."

"It's really amazing you didn't get beat up more in school." Josh 
shakes his head and murmurs after we stand in bewildered silence for 
a minute, watching Sam. "Or now." 

Sam looks worried. "CJ, you aren't packed yet?"

"I don't recall asking any of you here," I say fixing a witchy look 
on Sam, who grins past my shoulder to where Josh is standing behind 
me, holding up my underwear again and saying, "you've got to come see 
this. It's a freakish travel underwear collection."

"Travel underwear? You mean like tiny-sized underwear? Because I can 
get behind that!" Thus invited, Sam steps further into the room and 
stops on my other side. He and Josh continue to admire my collection 
while I work on rolling and laying the rest of my suits side by side 
across the suitcase, over the layer of jeans and sweaters that go on 
the bottom.

"I'm very much into the red ones," Sam confesses to Josh, as if I'm 
not there at all. Since I'm basically ignoring them, I suppose it's 
just as well.

"Too flashy. Black for me any day," Josh responds and points, but is 
careful not to touch, the pair of his choosing. My fingerprints, 
which would have been better placed across Toby's face, still redden 
the back of the hand he is gesturing with.

"Toby, what's your pick?"

"None at all," Toby says with a quiver of laughter, and I look at 
him, surprised. The man has the strangest ability to catch me off 
guard. His lips are closed against a wicked grin as he looks back at 
me, dark eyes unfathomable except for a spark of mischief.

"Excellent choice!" Sam agrees and Josh nods.

"Are the marvelous three coming tonight?" I ask Toby over my 
shoulder, because it's clear Sam and Josh aren't interested in 
talking shop. They are crowding me a little now as I try to go back 
to rolling and placing clothes in an orderly fashion.

He winces at my choice of words but doesn't comment. "Bruno's staying 
here. Doug and Connie aren't. We're meeting them at the airport."

"Goodie." I say. With a sizable measure of sarcasm, and I'm showing 
restraint. When I turn back around, Josh is holding one of my bras to 
his chest. "Oh my God! You win!" I explode and then snatch the bra 
from him and stuff it in the suitcase, along with the rest of my 
belongings. It causes me pain to do this. It's complete chaos. Friday 
and Sunday's outfits right next to each other, and Saturday's a 
little too close to my casual clothes layer for comfort. "Okay? 
You're ironing my clothes. Josh. Sam."

"So there's a possibility that we're going to leave Portland after 
all?" Toby says, finally straightening from his slump against the 
door frame, an expression of hope lighting up his scowl.

"I'm ready, damn it. Let's go. We need to be there two hours ahead of 
time and there's apparently a storm blowing off the coast that 
Delta's worried about. Which means our flight is going to be 
cancelled anyway, but God knows I'd rather sit at the airport than 
right here in a comfortable suite with a bed and bathroom that the 
scourge of the earth hasn't used."

"You're a little bit of a snob, CJ," Sam observes after they watch me 
wrestle my suitcase closed and drag it off the bed. It hits the floor 
with what sounds like the intention to fall the twelve floors to the 
lobby below.

They stand and watch me. Looking amused. And smug.

"No, really, no, I've got it," I say and pulling out the handle to 
roll the suitcase with, I sweep out of my door in a grand fashion, 
and just manage not to fall on my face when the wheels catch the 
threshold.
*

So, admittedly, I'm a little bit of a snob. After riding in Air 
Force One, after going when the President says go, after no trains, 
no baggage claim, no gate agents, and no gates for that matter, the 
Portland airport is just a little bit of a trial for me. And even 
before my first ride on Air Force One, I'd long since developed a 
deep rooted mistrust of the airlines' ability to get my bag within 
three state lines of the one I was supposed to end up in. After 
several experiences with delays and bad weather, I'm not even fully 
confident of ending up in the same state I'm supposed to be 
travelling to. 

It isn't an unfounded fear. Honest to God, my clothes once went to 
Paris while I went to West Virginia. Talk about the raw end of that 
deal.

I've been called a "clothes horse" by my reporters before. I reacted 
strongly. But the truth is, I do love good clothes. That's the only 
kind I own. And the $500 they offer you if they lose your suitcase, 
well, that isn't going to cover it.

So this is why, when I haul my bag onto the little platform beside 
the ticket agent (without the help of any of my three male 
companions, the pansies. What do I expect? Josh wouldn't even be 
carrying his own bag if Donna were here) my hand stays closed tight 
around the strap, even as the cheerful girl slaps the stickers on it 
and tries to pull it onto the conveyer that will take it...possibly 
forever...out of my sight.

"CJ, it's time to let go," Sam says soothingly and pries my fingers 
from my suitcase. I stand sort of forlornly and watch it disappear 
through the gray flaps that lead into whatever mysterious place it is 
that my luggage will probably go to die.

"Get help," Toby mutters at me as he tosses his own small bag up. If 
I could cast a curse on baggage (which apparently I can, but I'm 
speaking of other people's bags now) I would see to it that he got 
his back full of pineapples and coconut shell bras. I heard of 
someone that happened to once. Or maybe it was a nightmare. I don't 
really remember.

When we're all checked in, and Josh has given the ticket agent a 
small dose of hell over the permissible size of carry-on bags (he 
abides the regulations faithfully, but why the hell aren't the people 
who don't not dealt with to the fullest extent of the law?) and has 
promised to call the FAA on the matter, we take our regulation carry 
on bags (although admittedly, mine could be on the outside of 
regulation) and start through the airport.

I'm surprised by the little thrill that runs through me as I walk 
shoulder to shoulder with Sam Seaborn, following close behind the 
purposeful footsteps of Toby Ziegler and Josh Lyman. People turn to 
look at us. In some cases they are trying to recall where they've 
seen us before, thrown off by our casual attire. Others know who we 
are and excitedly turn to their companions, or complete strangers, 
and start whispering. I feel a little bit like a celebrity. 

I'm proud for a moment. It's something I haven't felt for a long 
time, but at first, during the campaign and during our first years, 
I'd feel it all the time. A privileged sort of elation to belong in 
this boy's club. To be accepted here. To be appreciated by these fine...
finest... minds for my contributions.

I'm a full-grown, extremely confident, extremely intelligent woman. 
But the part of me that lived long ago in a too-tall, too-skinny 
frame with braces and glasses and never turned any boy's head unless 
it was to invite painful teasing, feels this is still some sort of 
apology from above. I am walking and laughing with Sam Seaborn, with 
his complete attention focused on me, which most women and quite a 
few men understandably resent me for. 

And it isn't just the fact that they are all such extraordinary men. 
It's that they are extraordinary and that they think I am 
extraordinary too. I've lost sight of that feeling because I've been 
wallowing in my own bitter, self-mocking agony over Haiti for too 
long. Maybe I'm finally going to be able to shake it. I just need a 
few good days, I plead silently, to get my game back. 

I feel it now as Josh grins over his shoulder as we pass Starbucks, 
knowing that I'll be giving it a longing stare, which I am, but Sam's 
on a schedule and coffee isn't on the itinerary. 

I feel it as Sam puts his hand on the small of my back to let me onto 
the escalator first, then steps close behind me, his arms braced on 
either side of me. 

I feel it as Toby drops back to ask me what I think of having the 
President enter through the crowd tomorrow evening instead of at 
stage left, and agrees with my point that we don't want to offend 
anyone that President doesn't stop and talk to.

But then, we arrive at our gate, and Doug and Connie are already 
there, lounging across three chairs each with notes spread in every 
direction, and the bottom drops out of my new found sense of worth. 
These are the people Leo brought in to do the job he didn't have 
faith in our ability to do.

I notice it in Sam and Josh and Toby too. The deflation. We hate 
these people. We cannot work with them because we don't want to. We 
resent them down to the last drop of blood in our veins. They are 
ruining everything. They are ruining us.

There is instantly space between us all that wasn't there before. The 
space is exactly equal to that of two people we are afraid can do our 
jobs better than we can.

To say it's awkward as we take places in the row facing Doug and 
Connie and start to pull out our own notes, looking like the kids who 
are always late for class and thus always annoying the good students, 
is like saying a root canal tickles a little. There is silence, even 
as people move all around us. Going places, going home, oblivious to 
the war being waged across the plastic seat backs of gate B-6.

We are all studiously watching the pages we hold in our hands, which 
might as well be blank, because we aren't reading. Not any of us. Not 
Doug and Connie. It's too tense for concentration. Toby looks up from 
the speech and watches CNN on the television suspended from the 
ceiling, but his heart isn't in it. I see his eyes roam around, 
looking for a clock. Seeing that we have nearly an hour before 
boarding, his eyes instead shift to the large window where our plane 
is sitting patiently. I imagine that if he had it, and if the 
security guards wouldn't arrest him immediately, he'd be bouncing his 
little pink ball off the glass by now with more zeal than usual.

"This was the earliest flight we could get on?" Toby finally growls, 
looking to Doug as if it's his fault.

Doug stares back for a moment, and I can honestly understand the 
man's thinning patience. Mind you, I don't care, but I do understand 
it. Toby is riding him hard. Maybe it's a stretch to blame flight 
scheduling on him.

Doug's been pushed past a line. "Did I hear that correctly? Did Toby 
Ziegler, master of grammar and all that is holy, just end a sentence 
with a preposition?"

Josh, Sam, and Connie's heads snap back to watch the exchange with a 
mixture of awe for what Doug has just said and trepidation for what 
Toby might say next. When Toby chuckles, a sound that is completely, 
and I mean completely, devoid of humor, my stomach turns over 
unexpectedly. I meet Sam's knowing gaze. We've both been on the 
receiving end of that particular sound before.

Toby doesn't notice any of this though. He just watches Doug, his 
cheek dipping in and out as he grinds his teeth together. Finally, he 
smiles, again, without any hint of friendliness moving into his eyes. 
And he tries again.

"This was the earliest flight we could get on, asshole?'"

"As a matter of fact, yes," Doug smiles pleasantly, "But seeing as 
you could barely get here in time for this one, that's probably just 
as well." 

And now I want to hurl myself across the carpet between us and wrap 
my fingers around Doug's throat, and squeeze until he can't breathe 
any more. Sam, either knowing the look of death from me well, or 
feeling much the same thing, touches my shoulder with the arm he's 
rested across my seat back. Down girl. I can hear him thinking it. 
Too many witnesses.

I catch Connie's eye and see her annoyance and imagine she feels the 
same way about Toby. Again, the caring by me, not so much.

"Oh, thank God," Sam says on a release of air when Josh's phone 
rings. 

"Josh Lyman," he begins and then adds, "Hey Leo," with a poignant 
look divided between Toby and Doug that suggests that he doesn't want 
to have to explain to Leo why there's the sound of fists on flesh in 
the background. With another look at them both, in which there is an 
absolute lack of confidence, Josh gets up and walks away from us all.

And we revert back to silence strained through our tightly closed 
teeth and throw our gazes back to the papers clutched in white-
knuckled grasps.

Josh returns, looking around himself carefully, as if he expects he's 
being followed by the mob. He sits down at the edge of his seat and 
leans forward, whispering to us. "I have some inside information."

We all look at him expectantly. He savors the moment, the moment 
where he knows more than we do. 

"Josh-" Toby's ability to make the sound of each of our names into an 
explicit threat is really a gift, I think. I have a mental picture of 
him standing in front of a mirror and practicing it for hours on end.

Josh takes a deep breath and looks defiant, then catches Toby's 
expression and says in a rush, "In fifteen minutes, the FAA will 
announce that it is grounding all flights on the North Pacific Coast. 
Our flight is cancelled. The storm is already creating trouble South 
of here."

"I told you so," I say petulantly. I think, honest to God, my lower 
lip pokes out a bit. "Now, we're going to be stuck here for the rest 
of our lives."

"We can go back to the hotel, can't we?" Connie suggests.

"Yes, we can," Josh smiles, or smirks, and I'm instantly on guard. 
Josh is smirking like he knows something we don't know still. And I 
think about asking him to confess, but his gaze slides into mine and 
there's a barely perceptible wink and I bite my lip and stand up.

"Well, this has been fun," Sam says by way of parting when Toby, Josh 
and I start to wordlessly walk away from Doug and Connie.

Doug and Connie ignore him, and for a minute, I think that we are all 
five-year-olds. Oh wait, it might have sounded as if I cared there. 
Fighting a last minute urge to turn around and stick my tongue out at 
them both, I catch up to Josh and fall in, nearly getting myself run 
over by one of those little airport vehicles shuttling old people to 
their gates. I give myself a moment to ponder the thought of me in 
one of those around the West Wing, flattening reporters. And 
staffers. I smile and laugh to myself. Josh looks at me worriedly.

"All right, skippy. Spill it." I say.

"Leo wants us back at the hotel," Josh says as Toby and Sam appear at 
our elbows. "That's why he gave us the heads up before the FAA 
announced. Wanted to be sure we could get a cab out of here."

"This is hardly cloak and dagger, Joshua," I say and Toby cringes, 
because Toby is a hater of all things cliché. Which is why I'm not, 
basically.

"Well, I'm thinking that we have time to get down to the car rental 
places. Why couldn't we drive to San Francisco?"

"You mean why not, in addition to the fairly perilous wind and ice 
storm bearing down on us?" Sam wonders.

"Yeah, in addition to that." Josh says, clapping his hands, urging us 
to focus. I'm urged right into annoyance.

"Well, there's the fact that our luggage won't be unloaded for hours. 
And you're going to have to drag me kicking and screaming without my 
suitcase, I'll tell you right now."

"CJ, seriously. A twelve-step," Josh suggests, and plunges 
forward. "We'll claim the bags tomorrow by phone or something. Look, 
it's a couple of hours of driving. We'll take turns. If it gets too 
rough, we'll find somewhere to stop, but we'll be that much closer 
tomorrow."

"It's an eight hour drive," Sam corrects then ponders for a 
moment. "Probably more like ten."

Toby adds, "and the President is still going to beat us there. If we 
have to stop, Doug and Connie will too."

"No they won't! This storm will blow over in a couple of hours. The 
airports could be screwed up for days. They'll have to wait on the 
President. And we'll get down there ahead of Doug and Connie and 
we'll have time to do it our way. I've got a feeling. We'll be there 
by the morning. This storm isn't as bad as they're saying."

"Thank you Flip Spiceland," Sam murmurs, sees our confused looks and 
then explains, "he's a weatherman from Atlanta." We continue to 
stare. "I really don't know why I know that." He falls quiet again, 
and I imagine he's trying to recall exactly why he does know the name 
of a weatherman in Atlanta.

Josh's point about beating Doug and Connie appeals to us all, even 
though his plan is about two steps inferior to anything Wyle E. 
Coyote ever concocted. We're going to race Doug and Connie to San 
Francisco. This can only end badly, I know. We'll never catch the 
roadrunner. And because our motives are so impure, we're absolutely 
destined to fall off a cliff.

"I need to call Leo. So, are you guys...and girl," Josh adds sweetly 
because he's sucking up, "game?"

Toby is tired enough of waiting around that he nods, and so does Sam. 
Josh looks to me.

"Meep-meep." I say, and they look at me in such similar fashions that 
I can only smile in response and know that it will never, ever work.



Chapter 2: Pretty, Pretty Boys She Calls Friends

They are all standing at the rental car counter, and though I'm a 
good distance away (all the better to look like I'm not with them) I 
can hear Josh's voice climbing. He wants a full-sized or a mini-van. 
They only have compacts. They're lying. He knows that's a lie 
because he's seen an expose. The rental car companies are involved 
in a conspiracy. 

With the people with oversized carry on bags, apparently. Because 
why would the rental car company rent us one of the minivans they 
have hoarded--a vehicle that would cost more initially and more by 
the mile--when they could get less money by renting us a compact and 
thereby annoy Josh Lyman. It really isn't such a bad business 
strategy, I muse.

Clearly, Josh isn't well.

I am watching the line of cancellations roll down the screens with 
the flight numbers. Listening to groans of dismay all around. 
Cursing. Pacifying airline worker voices. CXL. CXL. CXL. I knew that 
already. I have a cool job.

Except that I don't, really. Because I'm about to spend the next 
twelve (I know Sam said ten at worst, but Sam's a damned optimist 
and I have zero confidence in these three people's ability to get 
from the bull pen to the oval office without some catastrophe, so 
excuse my pragmatism) hours packed into a compact car with these 
guys. Then I'm going to get out of the car, with no change of 
clothes, and go to work setting up a press event. 

By the time of the fundraiser, I'll have been up approximately 38 
hours. And then there will be the usual cocktails and schmoozing and-
-I think that the word schmoozing just actually ran through my head 
which disturbs me--then it'll be onto Air Force One for a night 
flight to Los Angeles, where we're going to need to prep the 
President for a town-hall meeting of sorts at UCLA, and then back up 
to Seattle to finish out our run at a benefit for the 
environment. 

I sigh, shrug, and say aloud, "I've pulled all-nighters with these 
guys before." Then I notice a security guard is watching me 
suspiciously, and with a defiant look at him, I edge closer to the 
rental car counter and Josh.

So Leo wasn't too enthusiastic about our plan to head down to San 
Francisco, but he had to give over to Josh's logic (an oxymoron if I 
ever heard it) that the President has been prepped and needs his 
rest and that there is really absolutely nothing left for us in 
Portland. (Except a bed, I pointed out during this part of Josh's 
relay of his conversation with the Chief-of-Staff). It makes sense 
to try to get as far as we can to San Francisco, because even if the 
airports are reopened in the morning, it will be chaos. And if the 
President isn't well enough to fly first thing, and we've waited, 
then we will have absolutely no time to prepare beforehand.


Leo likes preparation. Therefore, we're going to California. 

Maybe. 

If Josh stops arguing about the cost of a car he doesn't even want. 
There's a line forming behind us. People are looking. And while it 
would give me a perverse sort of satisfaction to read a piece in the 
Portland paper about what an asshole Deputy Chief of Staff Josh 
Lyman is, it's not something I really want to deal with in the press 
room any time soon. 

I just don't think I can spin it.

"Oh my God," I interrupt Josh suddenly and reach across the 
counter. "Give me the pen. We'll take what you have."

Josh's jaw goes slack as I sign my name on the form and hand the pen 
back the grateful looking man behind the counter. In moments, I have 
the keys and instructions on where to find our car. 

Josh's mouth is still open and as I turn and lead the way toward the 
automatic sliding glass doors, he finally is able to sputter...he 
really does sputter. "CJ, I was *haggling* there. I was getting us a 
deal! You can't just give into those people, you can't just..."

"San Francisco, Josh. Tomorrow," I remind him. 

"You're telling me to pick my battles."

"I'm telling you that you're unbalanced, but you know, you say 
potato..."

"Sure hope Carol can find your bag," Josh says in an offhand way, 
and I falter in mid-step and victory is his. 

"Be a shame to lose all that underwear," Sam adds, and sounds like 
he means it. 

*
"No way. This thing has a GPS!" Josh half shouts as soon as we are 
in the car. I wince. Josh doesn't really have an indoor voice. Even 
less so an enclosed-vehicle voice.

"A what?" I wonder.

"A GPS. Global Positioning Satellite." Josh screeches, and starts 
pressing buttons. "I've heard about these! You see what I did back 
there? I intimidated them and they gave me GPS."

"And GPS is good because?" I wonder.

"It's not." Sam mutters.

"Are you kidding me?" Josh asks. "Are you kidding me? This is 
awesome."

Me again. Louder. "What does it do?"

"Well, it tells you where you are and where you're going. Or 
something, you know." Josh shrugs. Josh is very technical.

Feeling slightly encouraged by this piece of news, I sit up 
straighter. "You mean it's going to get us to San Francisco instead 
of you guys?" My voice is a glitter with hope.

"It's crap," Sam growls.

I ignore Sam per my usual policy. "How does it work?"

Sam turns around and looks at me. "Well, it works on the theory of 
trilateration, you see. Which means that it locates three points and 
calculates your distance from each of them in order to place you. In 
the case of GPS, the three points are satellites. There are twenty-
four of them, and at least four on the horizon at any given time. 
Now, since we know where the satellites are positioned, and we know 
how fast the radio waves from the GPS signals travel...186,000 miles 
per second, which is also, you might be interested to know, the speed of light, 
then the unknown factor of where the signals are coming from becomes a simple
 equation."

Sam stops talking when he realizes we are all staring at him. 

"Seriously," Josh says, "you should leave your house more often." 

Josh figures out how to turn on the GPS finally, and then enters 
some stuff. We have yet to leave the parking garage at the airport. 

And suddenly, the weirdest thing happens. The little black box 
mounted on the dashboard starts talking to us. Telling us to back 
out of the space and to bear to the right, right out of the parking 
garage. When we don't respond fast enough, it repeats itself. 
Sounding a little annoyed.

I'm duly impressed. Josh nearly backs into someone in his eagerness 
to obey the little radio voice that's ordering us around. Toby 
doesn't seem to have heard anything that was said. He's just sitting 
behind the driver's seat, staring. 

Sam is sulking.

Focusing on him, I wonder, "What do you have against GPS?"

"It's the lazy man's way out. It's a cop out. There's something to 
be said for real maps and road signs and, and..." he gropes for words.

"Celestial navigation?" Toby supplies and Sam snaps his fingers. 

"Exactly. Humans were meant to be explorers. This is what we do. Why 
would you trust this tiny little computer without a heart and a soul 
and a natural spirit of exploration?"

Toby answers what was likely meant to be a rhetorical question on 
Sam's part. "Because each satellite costs $12 billion to build and 
launch and because you don't know the difference between the North 
Star and the dark side of my ass."

Sam shuts up.

I ignore the fact that my legs are folded about four times behind 
Sam's seat (he called shotgun first, although I don't believe we 
were in sight of the car and I put up a hearty protest), and press 
my nose to the very cold window. GPS is happy because we've followed 
instructions and have no more turns for several hundred miles. Josh 
has pretty decent taste in music, actually, and I am softly humming 
harmony to Tom Petty's "You Don't Know How it Feels." 

Portland is a beautiful city. Although I would never admit it to 
any of my comrades, I am honestly enjoying the drive out of town. 
There's sort of a shimmering view of snow-capped Mt. Hood caught up 
in the pinkish rays of the lowering sun, which is starting to slip 
below a very threatening looking line of clouds. Further away still, 
so that it looks like a mirage, Mt. Rainier wavers on the horizon.

The speech for tomorrow is locked, there's nothing I can really do 
until I see the forum, there's no press to brief, no wires to read.

It feels like vacation. Maybe this wasn't the worst idea Josh ever 
had. Not that I'm going to say so, mind you. 

"Let's roll another joint!" Josh and Sam sing-I use the term loosely-
with *feeling*, and I'm rethinking. 

Toby, in the back seat with me, seems to be looking for a way out of 
the car.

*

I must have fallen asleep not long after we left the city limits. I 
don't remember closing my eyes, but I'd been gazing out the window, 
listening to the familiar rise and fall of their voices and NPR's 
monotonous drone underneath it. NPR always reminds me of my father. 
Whenever our family took vacations, I can remember laying in the 
back of the family station wagon, listening to my mother and father 
talking, my brothers' snoring, and NPR. I always loved to come 
awake slowly to those sounds again, and then sit up to discover 
where we were, how much closer to our destination we'd moved while I 
lay dreaming. 

Not so much this time. No gentle fluttering of eyelids. No slow 
bleeding of dreams into wakefulness. 

"A Waffle House!" Josh shouts and the car dives to the right, "You 
gotta be kidding me!"

I jerk upright, and nearly install a sunroof. I make a few confused 
sounds and then realize Josh, and, by association we, are swerving 
across three lanes of traffic in order to make for an exit. It's 
nearly dark outside, and I lean around Sam, who is gripping the arm 
rest and grinding his own right foot down into the floorboard. I 
check out the clock. It's only 7:00.

"Your breaks working up there Sam?" Toby asks. Toby doesn't seem 
nervous. Then again, Toby grew up in New York. He's ridden in taxis 
all his life.

Sam finally relaxes a little as we live to see the exit ramp, 
although personally I am wondering when Andretti is going to stop 
going 70 mph, more so when I see a red light swinging in a gusty 
wind, and the tail lights of the car stopped before it.

"Our Father who art in Heaven," I murmur as Josh finally decides to 
break, and the car bucks and protests and eventually rolls to a stop 
inches from the other car's bumper.

"Plenty of time," Josh says with a smirk over at Sam and into the 
rear view mirror at us.

"And it's nice that we get to see what radio station he's listening 
to," Sam mutters.

GPS is putting up an absolutely ardent protest, ordering us back on 
the interstate. Over and over again it tells us to get back onto the 
ramp and merge onto the interstate again.

"That's why this sucks. See? It isn't smarter than we are," Sam 
mumbles, and reaches forward to turn it off.

Josh slaps at his hand. "Don't! We will not silence the protest of 
the GPS. He is entitled to a peaceful protest. Although he's 
starting to sound less peaceful."

I lean forward, pushing my face between Josh and Sam's shoulders, 
and look at the latter. "He does know there's actually not really a 
little man in there, right?"

"It's unclear," Sam replies.

"What in God's name are we doing?" Toby growls from behind all three 
of us.

"Eating. I'm hungry. It's the Waffle House. You just don't see those 
anywhere, you know."

"Except that you see them everywhere," Toby counters, "which makes 
the fact that I avoid them on a regular basis a much more impressive 
accomplishment, really."

"They have pie! You're telling me that you don't like the Waffle 
House?" Sam asks, turning around. "Didn't you go to college?"

"Yes, and I believe the two things are mutually exclusive."

"So what did you do when you needed a study break?" Josh asks.

"I never needed a study break. I have an infinite capacity for 
learning," he retorts. And looks to Sam. "You go to the gym. You eat 
well. You're concerned about, you know, dying. And you're telling me 
you like this?"

Sam nods happily. "It's a treat."

"You're a little sassy, Tobster," I add with a smile.

He turns to me with an expression as close to incredulous as Toby 
can get. "Surely to God you're on my side in this."

"Bring the waffles!" I say with enthusiasm. "Oh God," Toby says, 
without any.

*

I have to say, I'm a little amazed by the Waffle House's ability to 
stay packed at virtually any time of the day or night. I believe 
I've never been inside of one where I didn't have to wait my turn 
for a booth. Even with a winter storm bearing down on the West 
Coast, the usual assortment of students, truckers, and people it's 
safer not to wonder about the profession of are mingling together. 
It's the same hazy smoke-filled, glass encased, text book littered, 
haggard waitress staffed, orange tinted, juke-box blaring old 
country hit and American rock atmosphere that you'd find in any of 
the millions (I may be exaggerating here, but drive a stretch of I-
75 in a campaign bus sometime if you think so) of Waffle House 
locations across the United States. 

I am horrified by it and disgusted, and I love every minute of being 
here.

We are clearly strangers to this place and heads swivel and watch us 
as we cram ourselves into a booth by the window. Toby is practically 
clawing at the glass to get out. Josh slides in across from him. I 
leave Sam to deal with Toby and take a place beside Josh. I watch a 
group of students working physics problems at the counter and wonder 
what college we could possibly be close to. 

"I feel the grease accumulating on me," Toby mutters. "I actually 
feel it in the air."

"Yeah. It's great isn't it." Josh agrees.

Samuel N. Seaborne smiles brightly at the waitress who sort of 
stomps, sort of saunters over to our table and stands glaring down 
at us, pen touching her pad, drawn-on eyebrows raised expectantly.

Now Sam is a pretty humble guy, but he's not ignorant to his own 
charm. He's used to flashing that smile he's flashing up at our 
waitress right now and seeing people's reservations about him melt 
away. I've seen women lose their ability to say words when targeted 
with his very pretty face. He's guileless and handsome, and his 
eyes carry the breath-stealing warmth of an August wind. His charm 
even works on Toby Ziegler to an extent, so you can imagine that 
he's pretty confident in his ability to warm our waitress up.

"Hello. How are you today?" Sam inquires, leans forward and reads 
the waitresses' name tag, "Angelica. Well that's a pretty name."

`Angelica' who looks to be about thirty-five, a chain smoker, and an 
axe murderer on the weekends, purses her red-painted lips and glares 
at Sam, her face frozen into an expression of tried patience on the 
very edge of expiration. 

"You don't have enough money in your genuine leather wallet to make 
it worth my while to pretend that I can stand you. I'll be back 
when you are ready to order," Angelica tells Sam and turns to half-
stomp, half-saunter off. "Or not." 

"I think she likes you," Josh snickers.

"Bitch," I say, and look after her, spoiling for a fight a little 
bit.

"I like her," Toby says and for the first time since we left the 
airport, grins.

Sam has just now regained the power of speech and looks wounded and 
indignant and stunned. He says, "well, that was uncalled for."

*

I was going to order a salad, I swear to God I was. When I went to 
order it though, silently daring Angelica to say the wrong thing to 
me so that I would have an excuse to show her what happens when 
Southern Oregon bitch meets DC Bitch, Josh and Sam both gasped and 
put up a loud protest.

"Salad at the Waffle House?"

"What? You can't do that!"

And even Toby added, "you really want to try this place's produce?"

I'm only reminding myself of this to justify why I am wolfing down a 
dripping patty-melt and shoving forkfuls of hash browns, scattered, 
covered, and smothered, into my mouth. They made me do it.

Toby and Sam, who were done with their meals long ago, are sitting 
and watching me and Josh still eat with sort of morbid fascination.

"If they live till morning, I'll be impressed," Toby mumbles to Sam, 
who tenses because Angelica is approaching.

She glances into Sam's coffee cup, which is dryer than the 
Sahara. "More?" She growls, with a threatening look.

She turns away before Sam shakes his head, but I swallow my mouthful 
of greasy meat and shout at her retreating back. "Hey, Happy! Yes he 
wants some more! He paid for it! And I'll have another Diet Coke and 
a piece of apple pie, grilled, and my other friend here needs some 
more Dr. Pepper...do you need to write this down?"

Angelica whirls and meets my gaze and we wage a battle of wills. I'm 
suddenly aware that I'm sitting very straight in the booth and that 
Josh, Sam, and Toby are a little cowed down. They've seen this look 
on my face before. They know to get out of the way.

"Run, Angelica, run," Josh whispers to his waffle.

I don't let my gaze drop from Angelica's, and I'm aware that the 
people nearby, people who have probably been waited on by Angelica 
before are watching us, half fearful, half awed, but mostly 
entertained. I'm not sure exactly what I'm going to do if Angelica 
comes at me with nails and teeth, but I think that although I don't 
outweigh her, I've got a good half-foot on her height.

She narrows her eyes and then stomps (no saunter) to our table 
again, snatching Sam's mug, my glass, Josh's glass. "Anything else?" 
She asks, glaring at me and daring me to say anything else.

Which is what persuades me to add sweetly, "service with a smile?" 
as she walks away.

Josh looks like he's about to say something to me when a shadow 
falls across our table. And I turn and look up and up and up and see 
a bear of a man standing there, staring right at me.

"Hello there, Baby," he says with a grin.

I take in his flannel shirt and well-worn jeans and admit to myself 
that he wears them well. His jaw is a little square, but it gives 
him a hard sort of look that is appealing. His hair is black and 
falls carelessly across his forehead, almost into his very nice 
brown eyes. He looks like he knows all of this already, so I see no 
need to tell him so.

"Hello there Lumberjack Joe," I say flippantly and turn back to 
Josh, who isn't looking at me, but still is staring at the giant 
standing beside me. His lips are parted slightly, the comment he was 
going to make before lost somewhere between his vocal cords and his 
lips. In the window behind Josh, I see that my new friend is still 
firmly entrenched in his spot on the grease-slick floor.

"It must have hurt," he says down to me in an offhand way as I turn 
back around, getting the idea that he's not going anywhere long 
before he gets the idea that I would like him to.

"What?" I say, annoyed now by the way his eyes keep dropping down 
and further down my body. I mean, I don't mind being checked out, 
but there's something to be said for subtlety. 

"I said it must have hurt."

"Yeah, I heard. What the hell are you talking about?"

"When you fell straight from heaven."

Toby coughs to cover his laughter, but Josh's hand finds my knee 
under the table and he squeezes in warning. What Josh doesn't know 
is that I'm extremely ticklish there and it's all I can do not to 
yelp. At the same time, Sam's foot comes down over mine, putting 
steady pressure on my toes. How well they know me.

The fear is practically oozing from them. They're afraid I'm going 
to say something which is going to make Lumberjack Joe turn on them, 
or that they're going to have to defend my honor in some way. I 
almost snort with amusement at that thought, but I'm far too 
irritated by this man who isn't even creative enough to come up with 
a decent pick-up line.

I have no response for him though, so I obey Josh and Sam's wishes 
for the moment and just stare, with what I'm sure is a horrified 
expression on my face. 

Thus encouraged, he continues, "You must not be from around here." 

"Yeah, okay" I say, in my most dismissive tone of voice, "I'm going 
to go back to eating with my friends now. We're done here."

I turn back to my nearly finished plate, but the shadow doesn't lift 
from the table, and as I pick up my fork, Josh and Sam still haven't 
moved. Even Toby seems a little uneasy now.

Lumberjack Joe chuckles and reaches out to touch me under my chin, 
titling my head back to him. I'm so stunned by his audacity that I 
let him do it. 

Josh's hand lifts from my knee and he starts to push himself up, 
saying to Lumberjack, "hey, don't do that," at the same time Sam and 
Toby half-rise too.

"I've watched you since you came in. And I've been wondering. Do 
those legs go all the way up?"

Toby suddenly sounds like he's choking, and it's not from laughter 
now.

"Now is the point where you don't touch me anymore," I say and my 
voice is starting to shake a little bit, from anger. I jerk back, 
away from his touch.

He smiles and turns away, only to grab a chair from the counter 
behind him. He turns it around and straddles it, resting his very 
large forearms across the back. He's blocking my way out of the booth 
and I am now officially uncomfortable.

I realize that I might be overreacting. We're in a public place. He 
hasn't said anything overtly or even covertly menacing. But I don't 
like how he's got me cornered, and I don't like it that he refuses 
to leave after I tell him to, and I don't like the look in his eye, 
and I don't care how anyone else feels about that.

"I didn't invite you to sit down. In fact, I'm inviting you to 
leave," I say, quickly crossing the line to fury. 

"Aw, come on now, Girlie. I just want to talk to you is all. Give me 
a few minutes. You'll see I'm not so bad."

"Okay, you know what, I won't see if you're so bad. I've been very 
clear here. I am going to go back to eating with my friends here. 
Leave me alone."

"Now don't say that. You don't even know me," Lumberjack says and I 
think that there's a beat of time that stretches for longer than the 
rest as I watch his elbow slide off the chair back and see his hand 
reach down to rest on my knee. There's nothing particularly 
lecherous in it, really. But the touch is like a burn and I, on pure 
reflex, swing out with my designer booted toes and catch him square 
in the shin. Hard. 

So hard in fact, that I'm fairly certain I've done damage to myself. 
My yelp is as loud as his, and there is sick-pain that rips up my 
leg and into my stomach.

He leaps up, loses his balance, and crashes to the floor, looking 
dazed. He brings both hands to cover his shin, and he's gone pale. I 
meant to kick him. I did not mean to kick him quite so hard. My toes 
are pulsing with pain inside their leather prison. I seriously think 
I've got broken bones here.

I'm still sitting, half-frozen, but completely defiant of this man. 
I was justified in retribution. I have no qualms about kicking him.

Afraid he won't see it the same way, Sam and Toby are instantly on 
their feet and Josh is clamoring over the table to join them in 
forming a wall between me and him. It's really kind of a sweet 
gesture in a humorous sort of way, because it's like the Incredible 
Hulk vs. The Smurfs here, but it's also unnecessary. 

And the last thing I need to do is to end up defending their honor 
as well as my own.

Lumberjack finally stands up, without putting much weight on his 
left leg, and looks over their heads at me. I am really trying not 
to look smug but I hear that note in my voice as I say, "I did warn 
you."

"What the hell is wrong with you!" His voice is approaching a shout, 
and once again I notice that the entire Waffle House has given over 
to silence. The jukebox has even run out of songs. "I was paying you 
a compliment! I just wanted to talk to you! That's all!"

"And she told you to leave her alone, didn't she?" Josh growls, and 
his voice doesn't even jump up the way it does sometimes when he's 
nervous. He's Congress-ass-kicking Josh right this moment.

Lumberjack Joe doesn't even look at Josh. He's still watching 
me. "Somebody ought to teach you some manners, Lady." 

It isn't really a threat. Not an explicit one. I don't think he even 
meant it as a suggestion that he be the one to teach me manners. But 
the words, more than the way he says them, cause great waves of 
nervousness to roll over me, and I'm caught between wanting to slide 
further back in the booth, or stand up to closer meet his height so 
I can better scratch his eyes out. But as I am, sitting here behind 
Sam, Toby, and Josh, and having this huge man glare at me, I'm just 
a little worried. Just a little, I tell myself. 

Josh's fists are clenching and I'm thinking to myself, please God, 
Josh. Do NOT put up your dukes. I'm not so sure that Josh has dukes 
in the first place, but I'm definitely sure that he thinks he does.

Toby, thank God, is at his greatest in times of crisis. Not that 
this is a crisis on the scale of other things we see on a daily 
basis, but this is a new one for them. They are doing admirably, but 
I wish I could reverse this whole thing, because I'm afraid it's 
going to get out of hand. And there's going to be a killing. Or 
worse yet, an embarrassing story. Then Leo will kill all of us.

My toes hurt *bad*.

"You should know something about her before you do something stupid 
like make another threat." Toby tells him, in that low voice that is 
more unsettling coming from him than the loudest yell that 
Lumberjack's got. 

"And what's that, Baldy?"

Toby smiles, again without any humor. "I'm going to use small words 
and speak slowly here, okay? The President of the United States 
thinks of this woman like a daughter. And it's only fair to tell you 
that if you don't turn around and I mean now, the Secret Service 
will make your life very bad."

Lumberjack Joe starts to laugh then, looking between Josh and Sam to 
me. "You're all a bunch of weirdoes. Crazy. I don't want anything to 
do with you. But someone ought to knock that look off your face, 
Girlie."

Sam, who is right in front of me, is digging frantically in his back 
pocket and I have a vision of him whipping out a switch blade and 
embedding it in this guy's gut and I'm seriously freaked out by that 
thought so I finally push myself up off the booth seat before they 
do anything stupid.

"Here!" Sam says before I can say anything, and I see that he's 
opening his wallet and I think I will stab Sam to death with a fork 
if he tries to buy me from this bully. 

Not to worry though, because Sam only pulls out a piece of well-read 
looking newspaper. I see a glimpse of it as he unfolds it and 
realize what it is. The picture from the Washington Post of the 
President on Inauguration Day. I'm standing beside Sam to the 
President's left. Josh and half of Toby are to the right. Sam 
extends it in front of Lumberjack's nose and then quickly yanks it 
away as soon as recognition and surprise register on Lumberjack's 
face.

Sam traditionally holds his temper better than all of us combined, 
but when he's had enough, he's quite simply, had enough. It looks 
like now is that time. Leaning forward, putting himself directly 
into Lumberjack's face and reach, his eyes have nothing of the 
warmth in them that was there before. His voice is more of a growl 
than I have ever heard it, and there are little prickles of 
something uneasy along the base of my spine as he tells 
Lumberjack, "my suggestion is that you walk away like she asked you 
to do several times. The Secret Service would love the chance to 
take you out, but not as much as I would."

I can't think of another instance or time when I wouldn't have 
laughed heartily to hear Sam make a threat like this. But I'm not 
laughing now. 

And neither is Lumberjack. Holding Sam's gaze, he backs up and 
walks, not quickly mind you, but away, which is all I care about. I 
don't know if it's the evidence that we really are connected with 
the President, the threat of the Secret Service, or Sam that makes 
him go, and I couldn't care less.

The somewhat explosive contents of my stomach have settled for the 
most part and my heart has dropped out from under my collarbone. My 
foot still hurts though. "Ouch," I say out loud. I am unable to 
bring myself to put weight on it.

Sam watches Lumberjack for a second longer with something like 
regret etched in the hard lines bracketing his mouth. Then he drops 
his head for a moment to fold up the picture of all of us on our 
greatest day and slips it carefully back into a credit card slot of 
his wallet. 

Toby and Josh are a little stunned, standing there as Sam turns back 
around, the rage gone out of his face a little, but there's still a 
tenseness and an anger that makes him a little less pretty and a 
little more rugged and a thousand times more attractive.

Officially as a woman who is perfectly capable of defending herself, 
I'm more than a little annoyed by this macho kind of toe-to-toe 
chest-thumping contest that just took place.

Unofficially, I put both hands on the back of Sam's neck and give 
him a brief kiss on the lips.

Soon, Angelica reappears with two plates of apple pie. One she 
throws down before me, with such force that my dessert almost slides 
off the plate. The other, she sets carefully before Sam with a 
brief, but unmistakable, look of admiration. 

"On me," she says. With a smile poorly concealed in the corner of 
her mouth.

Chapter 3: I Saw a Shimmering Light

I'm standing at the briefing podium in only my underwear. The blue 
ones and they match the curtain behind me. My skin has risen in waves 
of chills. I've dropped my notes, and I see pages and pages piling 
around my bare feet. They all say "Qumar." Lumberjack Joe is there 
too, standing where Carol usually stands, and he's ogling me. 

When he moves, he covers the distance in a single stride and his 
fingers close completely around my wrist. The pressure is nearly 
breaking my bones and I fight him, but he's stronger, and I am pulled 
out from behind the semi-shelter of the podium, and onto what is 
suddenly very much like a theater stage. Slowly, though I cry out 
and try to break free, I am forced to my knees before him and I 
finally give in, and bow my head, half-naked, skin now burning under 
unforgiving stage lights.

And then I look out in the audience where my reporters should be, and 
there are hundreds and hundreds of women wearing Burkas. I can only 
see their eyes, which are full of betrayal and disappointment. 

"I'm sorry," I say. "I'm sorry." And I keep saying it over and over. 

I look to the back of the room and Toby and the President are 
standing there, and I know all I have to do is to ask them for help, 
and they will come forward, and this will stop. But I can't, because 
I'm too proud to ask them.

One woman stands up and pulls off her shawl, and both of her eyes are 
blackened. Another with a bloody nose. On and on they go across the 
rows and then back, one after the other: mutilated, beaten, bloodied.

And I can do nothing, held in place by Lumberjack, kneeling before 
the battered, tortured faces of the women of Qumar. 

*

I wake up with my heart surging against my rib cage and then back 
into my shoulder blades and my breath hitching in my throat. There 
are no stage lights, no Lumberjack, no blue curtain, and I am clothed 
in the jeans and sweater I have worn all day. Still, in the 
irrational grip of the dream, I am frozen for a minute, watching the 
yellow line roll toward the hood and disappear under the car.

"Bad dream?" Sam, who is beside me, driving, asks quietly. 

I don't answer him just yet. I sweep my hair nervously behind my ear 
and breathe deeply for a minute, still waiting to calm down. The 
image that jarred me out of sleep stays with me though. All those 
women. 

Seeking escape from it, I twist to look behind me, and in the 
headlights from a passing car, I see that Toby and Josh are sleeping 
in the backseat.

It is midnight. There are lightning flashes in the sky, and the wind 
buffets the car hard. Sam has the steering wheel in a white-knuckle 
grasp, and I'm not so sure he should be watching me worriedly instead 
of the road.

"Yeah, bad dream...I was in the briefing room-you know what, never 
mind," I say, changing my mind about telling him what I was dreaming. 
It just feels too personal.

"Okay," he says in his soothing way as I turn to the window. And bite 
back a scream. If my heart was pounding before, now it is driving 
into my chest with the threat of breaking through altogether. Because 
in an instantaneous flash of lightning I take in a guardrail, and 
then nothing but air that drops I don't know how many hundred feet to 
the foamy sea below. It's a fall that would be broken only by the 
hulking blackness of the rocks jutting from the churning water. 

Perhaps I'm a bit slow, but for the first time I realize we're no 
longer on a four lane interstate, but on a winding two lane.

"Sam!" I gasp and then add in a whisper. "You turned it off, didn't 
you? Where the hell are we? We must have taken a wrong turn 
somewhere. There's the ocean out there!"

I point out the window, as if he could have missed it. He starts to 
answer, then grows quiet as he maneuvers through a particularly 
vicious turn, which is so tight that I begin to think we're going to 
end up rear-ending ourselves.

"Yeah. While all of you have been napping, I've been navigating. 
There was a bad accident on the interstate back there. So I cut cross 
country. This is the Pacific Coastal Highway. It'll take us down the 
coast to San Francisco."

"Did you consult Fredrick?"

"Who?"

"Fredrick. It's the name I've decided to give the little GPS guy."

"Okay, now you're aware that it isn't a real guy too, right?" 

I shrug; I'm non-committal.

"I've silenced Fredrick. Bound and gagged him, in a manner of 
speaking."

"See, it isn't funny when you call him Fredrick," I say.

Sam sighs. "I turned the GPS off."

"Josh wouldn't be pleased."

"Josh is asleep."

"Won't it take us longer?" I wonder. 

"Well, not as much as you'd think with the four hour shut down they 
were talking about back there," Sam shrugs. "Besides, this is a much 
more interesting drive."

"Indeed," I mutter as I risk peering down into the emptiness not five 
feet from the car. The massive boulders stand solemnly in the water 
like tombstones, and I don't like the comparison I've just made at 
all.

We ride in companionable silence. I might have considered going back 
to sleep, but first of all, it doesn't seem fair to leave Sam to 
himself with the weather turning bad, and secondly, I don't believe I 
can sleep knowing that there's a sheer drop-off inches from my right 
shoulder.

Suddenly, Sam asks me, "if you could play any instrument which would 
it be?" Taken aback, I glance at him and he grins and urges, "come 
on. Which one?"

"Fiddle," I say quickly.

"Really?" He asks in surprise and laughs softly. "Why?"

"Ever heard `Devil Went Down to Georgia?'" I ask, by way of 
explanation.

"Yes, but it's not something I'm proud of."

"Okay then. Never mind. Your turn."

"Saxaphone."

"There's not one of those in 'Devil Went Down To Georgia.'" 

"Thus the basis of its appeal. You go," he says.

"Go what?"

"Ask a question."

I watch another streak of lightning lash at the unruly sea. "Most 
terrifying act of nature."

"Tornado. Hands down."

"I'm going to have to go with Volcanic Eruption."

"I don't think that counts."

"Why not? It's an act of nature."

Sam ponders. "I see how it's gonna be. Okay then, you asked for it. 
I see your volcanic eruption and I raise you one giant asteroid 
slamming into the earth."

I am shaking my head before he's done. "I'm sorry, but I have to call 
you on that. An Asteroid is not an act of nature. It's an other 
worldly type thing."

"Tidal Wave," Sam substitutes. "Tall enough to kick your volcano's 
ass."

"Earthquake to open up an abyss big enough to swallow your tidal 
wave."

He thinks hard, then relents. "Okay, you win that one," Sam sighs and 
I, of course, gracefully (or otherwise) agree. He asks, "If you had 
to lose your hearing or your voice, which would you choose?"

"Oh, we're in the big time now, huh? I'm gonna have to say I'd get 
rid of my voice...I can't imagine not being able to hear music. Then 
again, I couldn't do my job, which most of the time, I do love, 
without my voice...no, but the music...I'm going to say I'd rather lose 
my voice."

Sam thinks for a moment and I'm quiet as we follow another hairpin 
curve. "I think I'd have to say I'd want to lose my voice too. I 
can't imagine not being able to hear my words coming out of the 
President's mouth."

"Truth. You're never jealous? Don't you ever have the urge to stand 
up there and say the words you write? I don't understand that about 
you and Toby."

"I'm not saying I will never give speeches. But it's about the 
writing of it for me, not the delivery. It's about the words and the 
rhythm and the conviction that is built into the phrases, just 
waiting to be brought out by the speaker. It's about the rise and 
fall of the sentence and the drama of the pauses. It's about watching 
people stand up and clap in the right places, about watching them 
smile, about watching tears come up in their eyes. And I get to write 
it sometimes, but the hearing of it is when it comes alive. That's 
when I love what I do the most."

I smile at him, but he can't see that I do because he's watching the 
road and I think that he may be blushing a little bit. 

I'm still learning about Sam. He's a generous, sweet man with a 
great passion for what he does and a bone-deep conviction that we can 
change things. That we can save the world. We think of him as naïve 
sometimes, but I wonder if maybe optimistic and determined aren't 
better words to describe him. 

And occasionally, when I've seen flashes of what I saw tonight back 
at the Waffle House, where his anger and protectiveness come forward 
and he's suddenly as fierce a man as I've ever seen, I wonder how I 
ever thought him as anything but formidable.

"You're an enigma," I tell Sam.

He smiles and says, "Really? I like that."

I feel a gust of wind slam into the passenger side of the car and I 
look out worriedly. When lightning flashes in the sky, I can see that 
the waves of low-lying clouds are as wind-tossed and restless as the 
sea they mirror and meet on the horizon. 

"No ice yet?" I wonder.

"They were saying on the radio a while ago that it looks like it may 
have warmed up a few degrees with the cloud cover. Now they're 
thinking it's just going to be heavy rain, and the front has been 
stalled over the ocean for a bit. I think it's coming in now."

"Flip Spicerack?" I ask, because in his talking about weather I 
remember his mention of the weatherman's name in the airport.

"Spiceland. Flip Spiceland. Not Spicerack. I mean, come on, CJ. That 
would be ridiculous."

I snort softly. "That can't be his real name."

"Well, I've thought about this more than I should admit," Sam 
argues. "And I gotta say, I think it has to be his real name. Who in 
the hell would choose that name of their own free will?"

"You've got a good point there, Spanky."

"And we're back to Spanky. A name I didn't choose of my own free 
will."

"It always comes back to the Spanky," I say helpfully.

We grow quiet again. It's not often that I get to spend time with 
just Sam, so this is both enjoyable and unusual. I have a feeling 
that he's thinking the same thing. 

I ask him quietly, "did I thank you back there for what you guys 
tried to do for me?"

"I think somewhere in the middle of the ass chewing you gave us when 
we got back into the car, about how you were an independent woman and 
how you didn't need us to--and I'm quoting you here--`bring the 
Neanderthal,' there was an implied thank you. And there was the kiss, 
which I, personally, was grateful for."

"Good. I was right, you know. I can take care of myself."

"And if I didn't believe it before, I sure did after you kicked the 
hell out of the guy." Sam laughs out loud and shakes his head, "CJ, I 
swear to God, I'll never forget that. It's a high point of my life."

"He deserved it," I reiterate. And wiggle my toes experimentally. Ow. 
Seriously. There is pain.

"And worse," Sam agrees. Then looks at me. "You'll have to forgive 
Toby, Josh, and me. But we couldn't really just sit there when 
someone was messing with our girl, you know." We smile at each other, 
and he turns back to the road and wonders, "so, have you had to kick 
many other men in the shins over the course of your life, CJ?"

I feel my cheeks heating. "No, that would be the first."

"I'm surprised," Sam replies softly and I smile at the implicit 
compliment there. He's lying. I'm very clearly not the sort of woman 
that men just flock to for the sole purpose of flirtation, but I 
appreciate him for saying it. I'm still flushing, so I change the 
subject. "What is the high point in your life?" 

"The President's Inauguration." He answers with no hesitation, and I 
might have guessed that, considering he carries a picture of it 
around in his wallet. 

"It took me a little longer for it to sink in, I think. Mine was the 
day I walked into the West Wing, and my office, for the first time."

"That was a good day too," Sam agrees. "I remember, I kept half-
expecting someone to come in and tell me that there'd been a horrible 
mistake. The votes had been miscounted. Or at the very least, the 
President had come to his senses and decided to bring in someone who 
knew what he was doing."

I murmur dryly, "yeah, well, I still expect that to happen to me. Any 
day now."

"CJ...you may have the hardest job of all of us...except the President, 
and I'm still not sure it isn't a toss-up there. You do it better 
than we've seen anyone do it yet. And the better you do it, the 
harder it gets, because the more they want to push you. You stand up 
there and nail it nearly every time. You have to know that."

"Not with Haiti."

"There was no winning with Haiti. We were already bleeding too bad 
from the MS," Sam said, shaking his head. There's a note of 
bitterness when he adds, "and they all should have known it."

I'm really not fishing for compliments here, but I can't deny that 
these words are sort of a balm for my raw ego. I say 
tentatively, "you know...Josh told me later that you stood up for me, 
even when they didn't. He apologized for it, but he wanted me to 
know that you'd stood by me the whole time, in front of them, and in 
front of Leo. And I think at the time I was too miserable or too 
embarrassed or too something to acknowledge it, but I haven't 
forgotten about it."

"You'd do the same for me." He says it with certainty, and I realize 
he's right. I would. Toby, Josh, and Leo have brilliant political 
minds. So do me and Sam. But we've got some sort of loyalty that runs 
a little bit deeper in us than most, I think.

"If the high point was inauguration, what's the low point?" I ask.

"Before this spring, I would have told you the night at the Newseum. 
Now, I think it may be when they told me about the MS."

"Mmm." I say by way of agreement, and the terror, confusion, and 
betrayal of that moment, sitting before Leo comes back to me. But the 
fact that I was lied to isn't why it's the low point. It's the low 
point because with it comes the realization that this man that I'm 
willing to dedicate my life to for these years, this man who is 
brilliant and generous and everything this country has waited for in 
a leader for my entire lifetime, is sick. And mortal. And fallible. 
Capable of a lie. In danger of falling down. In danger of losing. In 
danger of dying. 

"Sam, what do you think it says about us that the best and worst 
moments of our life revolve around this administration?"

Sam sighs and is silent for so long I wonder if he is going to answer 
me. Finally, "I think it means that we're about to fall down hard, 
CJ. But it's too late now."

"It's the fall that's going to kill you," I say, recalling a 
conversation I'd had with Josh in the days after I'd been told.

It's a moment after that when the bottom simply falls out of the sky, 
and rain, which isn't even recognizable as rain in that there are no 
individual drops of it, but rather blinding sheets, comes down. Sam 
comes to a stop because visibility is very quickly zero.

He searches for and finds the windshield wipers and we sit on the 
deserted Pacific Highway for a minute, our headlights illuminating 
the water driving upon us in between the fast swish of the wiper 
blades. 

"So I guess they meant it, about the storm," I say offhandedly.

"Yeah." Sam gets his bearings, straightens up in the seat and starts 
to drive very slowly. The radio station he is listening to has been 
interrupted by severe weather alerts, and hearing about 75 mph gusts 
isn't helping my nerves at all when they are simultaneously rocking 
the car. Thankfully, the wind is coming from the sea, so it's pushing 
us away from, rather than toward, the cliffs, or I believe I'd insist 
on stopping. And tying myself to something on solid ground.

Without consulting Sam, I search for music of some sort. There's only 
one channel that I can get with decent clarity, and it appears to be 
playing only Christmas carols. Well, that's appropriate. It's 
December, after all. 

"How can they still be asleep?" I wonder incredulously, turning to 
look at Toby and Josh. Josh's head has slipped down a little bit and 
is very nearly touching Toby's shoulder. The windshield sounds as if 
it may cave in to the force of the rain.

Sam doesn't hear me, because he's too busy handling the car. It 
really is a job right now. I sit back quietly and re-cross my legs, 
and watch the road wind precariously through the raindrops.

It probably rains all out for forty-five minutes, and it's an 
exhausting stretch of highway. Sam is tense and straight-faced and I 
don't want to say anything that might distract him. When the rain 
lets up, it does so gradually, so that I don't notice that I've 
loosened my hold on the console and the door handle, and that I'm not 
grinding my good foot into the floorboard anymore.

In fact, when I realize the worst of it has passed, I'm unconsciously 
singing `Silent Night' with the radio. 

I'm a little surprised when Sam joins me, taking low harmony to my 
melody. I would have maybe expected him to be a tenor but he's a 
baritone, and his voice has a lilting, full quality that I find 
incredible. I'm a second Soprano, and not nearly so talented as Sam, 
but I leave the singer on the radio to the melody and take the 
harmony above her. 

The car is rich with the texture of three-part harmony and at one 
point, my throat gets almost too tight for sound and tears rise 
against my lower lashes, because this song always moves me, but not 
so much as our spontaneous singing of it. Toward the end of the song, 
we start losing the station to static and interrupting frequencies, 
and without missing a note, Sam turns it off and switches to the 
melody effortlessly. He, like me, knows every verse to the carol, 
even the original German. 

When we are finished, we drive in what is becoming a silent night as 
the worst of the storm stalks all eastern destinations of ours, and 
smile to ourselves.

Toby's voice, husky with sleep, drifts softly over the 
seatbacks. "That was nice."

We are both startled, and simultaneously pleased and embarrassed by 
this praise. It is a gentle moment. A peaceful one. And I again think 
that I love these people as much, if not more, than I've ever loved 
anyone before. I forget that they make me crazy and that they shut me 
out and that occasionally, they have boys named Morton leave turkeys 
loose in my office. I forget that we're coming up on a very scary 
time, and that we don't know how we're going to come out the other 
side. And it's just me and my boys.

"What the hell is the ocean doing out there?" Toby asks a moment 
later, voice noticeably less sleepy.

"Sam navigated," I explain, a note of pride in my voice because I am 
in the know. "And he didn't ask Fredrick for anything at all."

"What the hell?" Toby says, but before I can answer, clarifies, "I 
don't care."

I don't know why I'm so sleepy. I've slept more on this car trip 
than I do in a night in DC. I'm doing my best to stay awake and 
alert and talk with Sam and Toby, but my eyes sting and a yawn builds 
repeatedly against the roof of my mouth. 

In the backseat, Josh moans and mumbles something that sounds a lot 
like Donna, and the three of us sit in freaked-out disgust, but by 
tacit agreement, choose to say nothing.

Toby insists that we turn it back to NPR, explaining that as a Jewish 
man, one Christmas carol is all he is allowed. 

"One a year?" I wonder.

"No. A lifetime," he answers, and I am pretty sure he's making this 
up, but I turn it back to talk radio.

Chapter 4: Some Dance to Forget

On the other side of a very light sleep, there is blinding 
whiteness, piercing even against my closed lids. My eyes fly open, 
and the light sears into them. It's painful and disorienting. There 
seems to be nothing else but the brightness; all my other senses are 
dulled into insignificance. 

Headlights. Coming right at us. Then, well, *not* as our car dives 
to the right and the guardrail comes rushing toward me.

That's not really accurate. The rail stays where it is. It is us 
rushing towards it.

Sam is cursing as he manhandles the car, jerking it back to the left 
again, keeping us from the edge of the drop-off. There's a sound 
like an explosion, and the hood of the car tilts precariously to the 
right. I close my eyes and we are going forward and sideways at the 
same time, and Sam's forearm suddenly crashes against my chest and 
forces me backwards, further into the seat.

I open my eyes at one point and we are spinning, slower than you'd 
think, sliding across wet pavement as the car makes horrible, 
horrible noises that make my teeth ache in addition to everything 
else. 

The chaos is illuminated by high beams: sea, guardrail, yellow line, 
rocky hillside. Sea, guardrail, yellow line, rocky hillside. I look 
down and see a trail of orange sparks being thrown up from the right 
front tire. Closing my eyes again, I fight my stomach, which is 
moving in much the same way as the car.

When we come to a stop, and when I dare to open my eyes, we're 
sitting perpendicular to the double yellow lines-the same lines the 
pick-up truck that almost killed us had just crossed. We're in the 
middle of the road, but it doesn't matter because the highway is 
deserted, except for the somewhat Satanic glow of the rogue truck's 
taillights. I look past Sam and watch the vehicle until it flies 
around a bend and is gone from my sight forever, the only hint it 
had ever been there the taste of adrenaline and bile in my mouth. 

We're facing the high wall of the cliff we were winding around the 
edge of. We nearly hit it head on. 

This is so Wyle E. Coyote that I just can't even handle it right now.

Toby speaks first. "Everybody?"

Josh is very quiet and I twist around and look at him and see that 
his face is completely without color, stark in the headlights 
bouncing off the rock in front of us and back into the car. I can 
tell from the way Toby is looking at me that my face must look much 
the same. It wasn't a pleasant way to be awakened for either Josh or 
me.

Toby leans forward and surprises me by touching my forehead, pushing 
my hair away. His fingers whisper across my brow bone. I stare at 
him, too stunned to move. His hand falls away slowly and he 
explains, "I thought you'd cut your head. Just a shadow."

"Sam?" Josh asks finally from directly behind me, finding his voice 
before I find mine. He sounds a little high pitched and airy.

"Did you see that? Son of a bitch," Sam growls, then says 
louder, "we almost went off the edge!"

"Yeah, but we didn't. We're okay," Josh says quietly. Reassuring 
himself, I think.

"We blew a tire." Sam kills the engine, and I feel anxious. I want 
to tell him that he should move the car from the middle of the road. 
And then wonder why. With the exception of one truck that caused all 
of this, we haven't seen anyone else in several hours.

"Okay," Toby says. "We'll fix it."

The lights are still on and the car is making an annoying little 
dinging noise to let us know that.

The Pacific Highway. After midnight and a violent winter storm. In a 
car that apparently has just broken.

It's not a really good situation. It was also written in the stars 
that this should happen, so I'm not really as stunned as Sam, Josh 
and Toby seem to be.

Instead, I'm struck most by the absolute, all-encompassing quiet. 
We're perched too high on a cliff to hear the waves' assault on the 
rocky shore far below from inside the car. The constant hum of the 
motor and the drone of the radio fled us very quickly, and no where, 
no where is there another car to be heard. Even the truck is long 
gone from us now. The sky has even silenced itself, with not a 
single plane flying overhead. 

It's eerie and chilling and the fact that I'm surrounded by three 
men who earlier tried to protect me doesn't comfort me much in that 
the way they fought for my honor was to pull out their wallets. Not 
going to work in this damn cliché setting for a psychotic man with a 
hook for a hand to come upon us. 

Self-consciously, I slide my elbow nonchalantly up the side of the 
door and push down the lock while I try to look like I'm smoothing 
my hair behind my ear. 

Josh is still fighting for his bearings. He was asleep longer than 
any one. He didn't even wake up when we pulled into a brightly lit 
gas station...the last sign of civilization we've seen, shortly after 
our rendition of Silent Night. "Where are we? Is this San Francisco?"

I look out over the deserted seascape, increasingly haunting as 
moonbeams bleed through clouds to pool on certain surfaces while 
others are too dark to be silvered by any light at all. 

And I can't help it. "Yes, Josh. This is San Francisco. It was blown 
away in the storm, but we thought you needed your sleep. And so 
we're just stopping here to have a little gander--"

"Okay, so it's not San Francisco. That's all you had to say. A 
simple *no*. So where are we?"

"No one knows," Toby mutters.

"Fredrick knows." I murmur. "But he's probably not going to tell us 
now."

"What does the GPS say?" Josh wonders, sitting up and trying to get 
a look at it around my shoulder.

"Sam turned it off," I say helpfully, then add "hours ago," and Sam 
gives me a most ungrateful look.

"Why the hell would you do that?" Josh shrieks. "And where the hell 
are we? Are we even in California?"

"Of course we are!" Sam assures him and then more quietly 
says, "I'm pretty sure of it..."

"Turn it on! What have you done?" Josh is trying to climb over me 
and Sam to get to the GPS. He is stretching as far as possible and 
he just can't quite get it. Naturally, I don't help him out.

"Look, there was a bad accident on the Interstate. I knew how to get 
to California 1. So here we are. It's south to San Francisco. How 
hard is that? And I hate to tell you, but Frederick can't tell you 
anything about fixing a tire!" Sam's voice is climbing here, and his 
knuckles are going white on the steering wheel...probably because all 
the color in his body seems to be flooding into his face. There's a 
vein in his forehead that's becoming particularly prominent. 

Sam takes navigation very seriously.

Josh blinks a few times. "Fredrick?" 

"Never mind!" Sam shouts. Then he seems to *realize* he is shouting 
and sits back, loosening his hold on the steering wheel with effort. 

"Feel better?" I say soothingly.

"Much," he nods. "Thanks."

"Are we going to get out of the car and have a look at the tire, or 
are we going to have a group therapy session now?" Toby inquires, and it seems to me to 
be a fair question.

I don't really want to open the door, but Josh is behind me and is 
suddenly urging me to let him out -and right *now*. When I hear the 
noises he's making and realize his stomach has just caught up to 
him, I practically bolt from the car, forgetting about my bad toes 
and putting my full weight down upon them. 

By the time I realize how badly it hurts, it's too late to remove my 
weight from my right foot. It doesn't stop me from trying, though. I 
stumble and try to hop on my left foot, but I lose my balance. And 
fall flat on the pavement, catching myself with my palms and 
skinning them.

I hear Josh being rather violently sick over the guardrail as I push 
myself up off my stomach and ease down onto my butt on the wet 
pavement, careful not to let the toe of my boot touch the ground for 
fear of any more contact. I am unable to contemplate standing again 
just now, though the water biting through the fabric is so cold that 
it is circling to a burn. 

In fact, my toes hurt so bad that I think I may have to join Josh in 
a moment. 

I look around me and see little bits of tire tread everywhere in the 
glimmer of headlights, littering a zig-zag of black marks swerving 
from one side of the highway to the other. I'm particularly 
distressed to see just how close some of those marks are to the 
guardrail. The car is sitting on its rim about three feet away from 
my thigh. It's cold as hell, and the wind hasn't let up as much as I 
thought it had from the confines of our car.

"For the love of God!" Toby mutters as he comes around the car and 
gets a look at Josh, then me. "You people are thirteen kinds of 
worthless. What the hell's wrong with you?" 

"I fell down," I say, though I consider it rather obvious.

Josh straightens up only so he can turn around and collapse heavily 
against the rail. "I have a sensitive system," he admits, for 
perhaps the first and only time. He presses the heels of both hands 
above his eyes and bends over, taking deep breaths. Weakly, he 
adds, "I'm not a damned cat, by the way. I'm about out of lives 
here."

Sam is in the trunk now. His shoulders have completely vanished 
from sight.

Toby divides a contemptuous look between Josh and me and turns back 
to Sam, who appears to be digging even more deeply into the trunk. 
His feet have almost left the ground at this point, and I wonder 
exactly how large the space could be.

"Now what the hell are you doing?" Toby growls and splays his 
fingers across his head, tapping against the crown with his index 
finger. "I'm surrounded by idiots."

Sam's voice is muffled, but I hear both panic and disbelief in it 
when it drifts out to us. "There's no spare."

"Sure there's a spare," Toby says in a dismissive tone, laced with 
just a little uneasiness. "Did you lift up the compartment in the 
floor there?"

The heels of Sam's feet return to the highway as he starts edging 
backwards. I hear a thump and see the trunk door bounce further 
upwards as presumably Sam cracks his skull open upon it.

Oh God, what a sight we must make. Me sprawled out in a puddle, 
unable to get up and gather my dignity around me because I've 
suffered a massive injury to my big toe. Josh, pale and clammy and 
unable to stand on his weak knees after vomiting into the Pacific. 
Sam, swearing and staggering and holding what will probably be a 
good-sized knot on the back of his head. 

I finally make it to my feet---alone mind you---the men so bent on 
protecting my honor earlier have apparently got better things on 
their minds now. I hobble over to the rail very slowly. Josh has 
recovered somewhat, and he, Toby, and Sam are all standing, inches 
apart, staring down into the trunk. They are bathed in the red wash 
of taillights, and it's creeping me out a little bit.

At first, there was a lot of screaming. Then they all began crawling 
around the car, under the car, searching for the spare. Then they 
all stood and stared at the flat-or rather, nonexistent-tire for a 
bit. Finally they have reconvened in front of the open trunk. 

They haven't said anything in awhile.

And then Toby voices aloud the observation Sam made fifteen minutes 
ago. "There's no spare."

I sort of tune them out at this point. I gather that Josh is 
shrieking about the rental car company and how he's going to sue 
their asses, and Sam is whole-heartedly agreeing to represent us 
all. Toby is cursing fluently, holding up his cell phone and walking 
back and forth, trying to get some sort of a signal. 

I'm trying very hard not to fall over the rail and into the ocean 
below and wondering exactly what kind of damage I've done to my toe.

Josh calls to me over his shoulder. "CJ, are you going to help us 
out here?"

"You're the strategists. You da men. I'm the Press Secretary. You 
come up with a plan and then I'll brief the..." I look around for 
someone to brief. And settle on, "I'll brief Fredrick."

Then I snort softly at my own cleverness. They do not.

I expected to be met with glares, or more likely, stones, but Josh's 
eyes get wide and he smiles. "Claudia Jean, you're a genius. We'll 
turn on the GPS! Maybe it can give us information on how far we are 
from...something."

"Oh yes," I say politely, "excellent," and stay where I am as Josh 
leaps into the car. Sam and Toby come around to stand outside the 
open driver's door.

The night is still and the air is growing heavy with a fog the likes 
of which I have never seen before. The fog is thick enough that it 
seems to insulate me against the pure sea air beyond it. 

When the GPS comes on, I can hear it clearly through the open car 
door. 

Frederick was apparently either injured in the mayhem, disrupted by 
the storm, or, in my opinion, just really pissed that we turned him 
off, because over and over, no matter what Josh does to it, the 
black box just repeats, "turn around here. Go back."

"Good advice," I say quietly to the Pacific.

*

We, not one of us, gets phone service here. We belong to one of the 
most amazing digital networks in the country...in the world...and 
there's not a phone among ours that works right now. Which explains 
why after more discussion that I thought strictly necessary, we are 
walking down the Pacific Coastal Highway.

Clarification. They are walking. I am struggling, alone, behind 
them, half-hopping, half-limping and I'm sure it's the most 
ungraceful sight in the world. Not that they are paying enough 
attention to appreciate it. 

They are men on a mission, on a hunt. For what, I don't know. A 
spare tire is my first guess. I would settle happily for a blanket 
and a bed. And a bone saw with which to amputate my toes.

They seem to not notice that I've dropped back, oh, fifty yards or 
so, and that the distance is growing. And damned if I'm going to ask 
them to slow down.

Because if they discover that I have really injured myself in 
kicking Lumberjack Joe, there will be hell to pay. They will never 
let me forget it. The story of their chivalry, which will be 
exaggerated and expanded upon with every telling, is going to take 
long enough to die without the epilogue of them having to not only 
save me but also carry me home.

God. They are so going to notice that I cannot keep up. I am short 
of breath right now, I'm in so much pain, and I feel sick to my 
stomach. Despite the chill of the air, a sweat is breaking across 
the bridge of my nose and at the nape of my neck.

"CJ, what in God's name is your problem? What are you doing back 
there? We haven't walked half a mile!" 

I don't think I'd realized that I'd stopped completely until I hear 
Toby's voice. It bounces off the rocks over my head and is thrown 
out to sea. It sounds as if he's calling from above me, rather than 
from down the very steep hill they've been walking down. 

Sam, Josh, and Toby all pushed the car from the middle of the road 
before we left it behind us. The headlights are still on to light 
our way with more consistency than the intermittent moonlight. The 
lights are throwing my outline down the hillside and over them. I'm 
a little self-conscious at just how ridiculously long my legs look 
in the distorted shadow. 

Shielding their eyes against the bright lights behind me, they are 
staring at me. "What's going on?" Sam calls. 

"Coming," I call breathlessly and then grit my teeth. I can do this. 
I've been in worse pain before and dealt with it. Not that I can 
remember when by any stretch of the imagination, but I'm sure there 
was a time.

They are now coming back up the hill towards me, because they can 
see I'm clearly not coming any time soon. I'm still trying to gather 
my courage to take a step forward. Knowing the kind of sharp agony 
I'm going to feel, as if my bones are about to slice through both 
tissue and skin, doesn't help much. 

I'm living up to my Secret Service code name, which I've protested 
to every authority I can think of, standing here on the pavement, 
one foot hovering in the air. 

And I'm pretty much still doing my impression of a freaking flamingo 
when they all stop before me, breathless after their climb.

"Something's wrong, isn't it?" Sam asks me.

"I'll tell you. You boys, you're as quick as...I don't even know 
what." I hurt too badly to come up with a simile...even a bad one. 

"Well, what's wrong with you?" Josh wonders. "Cramp?"

This sounds like a better explanation than the truth, so I nod, and 
then, to back up my story, place a hand against my side.

"You need to rest a minute?" Sam asks.

"Yeah, just a minute," I say, still breathing heavily, "Just one 
small, short, minute..." 

At this point, I make the mistake of meeting Toby's eyes. 

Damn the man for seeing right through me. He isn't gracious enough 
to be buying this, even a little bit. I think I say something to him 
with my stare, with my defiantly raised chin, because he blinks and 
then turns to Josh and Sam.

He tells them, "I'm done with the walking. You two go on ahead. We're going to wait 
here. Find some help, why don't you, and come back and get us. 
Preferably soon."

"No, that's stupid. We shouldn't split up. I'm fine now," I say, 
because I still don't want Toby's help. "Let's just go."

They don't go, so I decide to, and put my foot down with 
determination. 

A cry escapes through teeth clenched to prevent just that, and my 
knee gives in an instinctive attempt to avoid the pain. 

Toby grabs me under one arm and Josh's arm comes around my waist and 
between them, they keep me from hitting the pavement again. I feel 
about four years old, but it hurts so bad that I cannot stop the 
tears from rising up in my eyes. I'm fighting with everything I have 
to keep them from scalding a path down my cheeks right now.

There is still sharp agony pulsing in white-hot flashes as Josh and 
Toby very nearly carry me toward the guardrail. I feel dizzy and 
sick and disoriented. 

"What have you done Claudia Jean?" Josh asks softly as soon as I am 
leaning against the wet rail and trying to pretend my vision hasn't 
been almost completely obscured by my tears. This is so not me. This 
is so not happening.

"Apparently, she's done some damage to her foot," Sam says wisely, 
and I grudgingly nod. "Apparently she really did kick the hell out 
of that guy."

"Don't say anything!" I say angrily to Toby, although he hasn't, and 
dash at the tears with my sleeve. The worst of the pain has passed 
and now my toes all just throb meanly with every heartbeat. For 
maybe the first time I realize how much pressure there is against my 
shoes and wonder how much swelling there must be. Until I tried to 
walk on my foot, the support felt good. Now, I want to rip my boot, 
and possibly my foot, off immediately.

"Why the hell didn't you say anything earlier?" Toby shouts.

"It didn't hurt that bad earlier. It was kind of numb for a few 
hours. I wasn't walking on it! Now it hurts!" I snap. "Happy?"

"No," Toby says softly, and I know he is distressed that I'm 
hurting. 

He suggests that Josh and Sam go look for some form of help. We 
think, after peering further over the edge of the railing than was 
probably wise, that there are lights down below, near the beach. 
It's an incredibly steep walk, and probably a two mile-long one, so 
I really don't think that I'm going to protest.

Josh tries to send Sam without him, citing all of this as Sam's 
fault for turning off the GPS. Sam counters that this whole trip is 
Josh's idea and that he should be the one to go.

They both stare dubiously down the long, dark road, and I think 
they've seen the same movies featuring man-with-hook-hand that I 
have. 

"You could flip for it," Toby suggests casually. 

Apparently, neither feels as if luck is with him, because in the end 
they refuse to chance being the one sent alone, and both go. Sam and 
Josh move away at a jog, their footsteps bouncing up off the cliff 
side and returning to us in distorted echoes. I think normally Josh 
would have protested moving any faster than his signature swagger, 
but he's afraid of being left too far behind.

When the sound fades away and that strange, tangible silence wraps 
around us again, I begin speaking just to break free of it. "So what 
gave me away?"

Toby rolls his eyes. "You mean how did I see through the story that 
someone who runs four miles a day on a treadmill was on the verge of 
collapse after a half a mile walk? I'm just quick, I guess."

"Yeah, that's you. Quick as..." I try again, but come up with 
nothing. "I just don't know what works there."

He's not paying attention to my words, because he's preoccupied with 
my comfort. "It's cold. Think you could make it back up to the car? 
We could sit there and wait." 

I look up the hill, daunted by the severe angle of it. The 
headlights from the car perched there stream over our heads, two 
cylinders of brightness reaching far, far down the hill, and to the 
frothy ocean beyond the curve that takes the road out of sight. 

Toby sighs and says, "probably not a good idea, huh? Have you broken 
anything?"

"I think so," I say, because this is clearly no time to be a hero, 
in that I have already given myself away as a simpering wuss. "A 
toe. Maybe two toes. Maybe all of them. I can't tell."

"Think we should look at it now?" he wonders and sounds like he's 
afraid I'll say yes.

"No...let's not. It, it doesn't hurt very bad right now, and I don't 
want to mess with it."

"You should have said something earlier, CJ. We could have gotten 
you to a doctor or something. We could have at least given you an 
Advil. Some ice."

"Toby, honest to God, if I'd have known how bad it was going to hurt 
a few hours later, I would have screamed from the rooftops that I'd 
hurt myself. I wasn't being noble."

"Here, you should elevate it." He shrugs out of his long overcoat 
and he folds it over once and tosses it to the ground. "Sit there." 
He takes me by the elbow and I hold onto the rail with the other 
hand as I ease down onto the coat, one long leg outstretched to keep 
the foot from touching anything. My muscles are starting to quiver 
with the effort.

"What am I supposed to elevate it on?" I ask him, but before I 
finish speaking, he's released my arm and he's come around to sit in 
front of me, on the pavement, and he's very, very carefully taking 
me by the calf and easing my foot into his lap, holding me steady by 
the ankle.

The pressure of his fingers on my ankle is somehow soothing. I might 
have flinched to have someone so near to my very sore foot, but I 
trust Toby not to hurt it, accidentally or otherwise.

We sit like that for several minutes. Josh and Sam's footsteps and 
voices have completely left us, and it feels like we might be alone 
in the world. I look down the hill where our shadow has overtaken 
the landscape. 

It could be a tender scene. Toby cradling my injured foot. Except 
that my heart is beating too fast because I'm caught between wishing 
Toby will say something and hoping that he won't. 

I wonder why we are still awkward with one another alone. We do fine 
when Sam and Josh are around, but we still haven't hit our stride 
together again. 

He knows that too. 

I guess he figures we've got nothing else better to do right now 
than to try to get back on equal footing. I can't tell him to shove 
it up his ass and walk away like I did during the whole Qumar thing.

"You had a nightmare, awhile ago. In the car," Toby begins, without 
preamble, looking down at my boot. His hands still hold my ankle 
immobile, so when I start a little in surprise, my toes are safe.

"I thought you were asleep."

"I was, off and on. I was awake when you woke up startled. You 
started to tell Sam what you'd just dreamed, but you changed your 
mind."

"It wasn't important," I shrug, wondering where he's going. "Just a 
strange dream."

"It made me remember something that I haven't thought about in 
almost twenty years."

"Yeah?"

"You went to the Middle East the summer between your Junior and 
Senior year of college. With a relief effort of some kind."

"Yeah. The Red Cross." 

"I'd just met you the Spring before. When I started dating your 
roommate."

"I know all this Toby. I was there too." My tone is suddenly sharp, 
because I'm afraid of where he's going with this. I'm afraid that 
he's about to figure it all out. 

And when I glance at the wedding band that still glitters on his 
finger, I feel a familiar pull of something I don't even want to try 
to recognize. 

And I wonder what Andi told him and feel betrayed already, before I 
hear it.

"I always figured you went to Afghanistan or Egypt or somewhere along 
those lines. It was Qumar, wasn't it? You went there."

I'm still startled and starting to feel trapped, but I swallow hard 
and say, "Yeah. I went to Qumar." 

"What'd you do over there?" He asks casually, but I suspect he knows 
exactly what we did over there.

"We tried to allay some of the suffering there, Toby. We had to do 
it underground, quietly. We tried to help them. I got in my head to 
try and begin some sort of change there, through the women 
themselves. I talked to them when we brought them food, tried to 
explain to them that it was within their rights to live outside of 
fear. I took some video footage so the outside world could see what 
these women are put through."

"How'd it go?"

"Well, we were caught and imprisoned for three days by the police 
and all of my footage was destroyed and all of the food and other 
aid we'd brought was confiscated. We were sent home, and lucky that 
we were allowed to leave at all."

"So it didn't go well."

"No, it didn't go well." My jaw is starting to ache with the force 
of the teeth I am clamping between every word.

"So you came back to school the next fall."

"Yeah," I say, impatient with his step-by-step approach. I don't 
like to talk about this at all, and particularly not right now, and 
certainly not with Toby. "Look, Toby, I don't know what you're 
getting at, but I don't think-"

He interrupts me. "Andi told me that after you came back that you'd 
wake up startled or that you'd call out in your sleep. She said that 
you'd try to hide it, and that you never said anything about it. 
But she'd hear you sometimes, crying at night. She said that for 
about six months, she didn't think that you slept through the night 
once."

"I didn't realize I was disturbing her."

"No...CJ, you weren't...that isn't the point. She just, she saw the 
difference in you after you returned. You know something else?"

"What?"

"I noticed it too. When I visited that semester. I noticed it too."

"Noticed what?"

"I don't even know if I could explain it. When I first met you..." he 
smiles and chuckles softly to himself, looking down the hill at our 
shadows, and shaking his head. "You were in the process of setting 
the world on its ear, CJ. You were so...I don't even know...you were 
just on *fire*. You walked into a room and you owned it and you 
didn't care who knew it. And you'd burn anyone who 
disagreed with you. Including me, several times that year."

I remember several heated debates across mine and Andi's dorm room 
and smile back at him for a moment. "Andrea would get so tired of 
it, wouldn't she? She'd eventually leave us to go find a quiet place 
in the lounge to study." 

"It didn't stop us," he reminds me with the smile he reserves for 
when he's feeling fondly toward me. "Nothing did. Not Andi, not 
curfews, not graduation, not a thousand miles. Not a couple of 
decades." The smile drops out of his lips then and he sighs 
heavily. "Except for that trip. CJ, when you got back, you weren't 
the same."

"Can you even begin to imagine the things I saw there, Toby? Of 
course, I wasn't the same! And what would it say about me if I were!"

Toby shook his head. "I'm not trying to say...Look, CJ, I know what 
you saw would have affected you...but CJ, I can't help thinking, and 
Andi couldn't help but thinking that something else happened there. 
Something that rocked you more deeply than the suffering you saw. 
And I don't know what it was."

"Toby, all that was a very long time ago, and it has nothing to do 
with what's going on now."

"I think it has everything to do with what's going on now. You moved 
through it back then, CJ. You moved through it and you got most, if 
not all , of your fire back. The day when I told you to announce the 
arms package sale to Qumar, you were so much like the girl I first 
met that it threw me a little. I'd almost forgotten how formidable 
you could be. But since the announcement CJ, you're the roommate 
fresh back from there." 

"Toby, you're talking like a lunatic. You know that don't you?" I 
try to say lightly, but as with any other time I try to blow Toby 
off, my voice, my eyes, my heart, betray me.

"I feel like I did that to you, CJ. I feel like I took the same 
thing from you that you lost in Qumar. What was it? You need to let me in here." 

I'm stunned into silence, because he shouldn't be allowed to lay me 
open like this without my permission.

"CJ, are you going to tell me about what happened or not?"

My heart is thundering again, making my toes throb with renewed 
meanness. It has been so very long since I've let myself revisit 
this place that Toby's dragged me to. Because it came as such a 
surprise that he remembers I went over there at all, and that I came 
back changed, and that he and Andi both knew that I didn't sleep 
well for half a year. I haven't had time to construct a logical 
defense.

So I take an illogical one, jerking my foot from his grasp and 
pushing myself off his coat and back onto the guardrail. Putting 
space between us in the hopes that he won't be able to see me so 
clearly from a distance.

"You're the last person in the world that I'll ever tell about 
Qumar, Toby. Leave me the hell alone and don't ever ask me about it 
again."

My words wound him, and that wounds me, and when we see triumphant 
headlights peeking in and out of the curves below us-coming up to 
get us, I hope-we still haven't said another word to one another.

In a few minutes, Josh and Sam spill out of an old Lincoln, followed 
more slowly by a man in his late sixties, clothed in a bathrobe and 
overcoat.

"Toby, CJ, this is Ernie. Ernie owns a hotel at the bottom of the 
hill. He's going to take us in for the night."

"Excellent," I say, hoping that Sam and Josh won't notice the 
tension between Toby and I. I turn to the older man and smile. "Nice 
to meet you Ernie. You're my hero."

Ernie grins, but I get the feeling Ernie doesn't say much.

"How's your foot?" Josh asks, and comes forward when I grimace in 
answer. "Let's get you in the car. You both look cold."

He and Sam both come forward, urging me to throw and arm around 
their shoulders. As I do so, I notice Toby standing awkwardly to the 
side, not sure of what to do. 

He wants to help now, was only trying to help a minute ago. I feel 
regret tightening my throat. I don't like to hurt Toby. There's 
always something sad in his eyes, and I can't stand to see anything 
I've said darken them any further. I have an ability to do just that 
to him sometimes though, and it seems as if I've done so again now.

Josh and Sam put me in the back seat of the car so I can stretch my 
foot out. Sam slides in on the other side and urges me to prop the 
foot upon his lap, and I do, but I don't quite trust him as much as 
I did Toby. Josh slides across the bench seat in the front of the 
car, leaving Toby to sit on the front passenger side, in front of me.

We don't say very much as Ernie drives back up the hill so that Toby 
can run gather our things and turn off the headlights of the car. I 
assume that we're going to worry about the flat in the morning, 
which is fine with me.

I watch the way his eyes are downcast as he crosses back in front of 
the Lincoln's headlights. He's sorry. He's sorry my foot hurts, he's 
sorry about Qumar, and he's sorry that he asked me about it.

And I have to remind myself that what happened in Qumar is not his 
fault. 

It's completely mine.

And so, when Ernie turns the car around and starts back down the 
hill, I quietly reach my hand between the door and the seat, and 
give Toby's shoulder a very light squeeze. He stiffens, but in a 
moment, his hand comes to cover mine, and I know he accepts my 
apology.


Chapter Five: Voices Down the Corridor


Toby opens my car door and helps me out when we roll to a stop in 
front of a very large manor house that's a black, hulking mass 
against the navy night. It is perched precariously on the edge of a 
cliff, so that there's nothing but empty sky behind it. Clouds are 
again boiling up on the horizon and cool purple brilliance shimmers 
across them as lightning returns.

In a moment, the front door creaks open reluctantly, and a rectangle 
of yellow light pours onto the ground before it. I see no one there 
who might have opened it and my skin ripples with chills.

"This place looks like the Hotel California," I observe aloud to no 
one in particular.

Sam, who has come around the car to see if he can help Toby get me 
inside, mutters in response, "I was thinking the Bates Motel."

I glare at him, not appreciating the thought at all but thinking he 
may have it right. Shivering, I say, "I like mine better."

"Would you shut up now?" Toby mutters and I see that Ernie is coming 
around the car. I check just to be doubly sure that Ernie has no 
hook for a hand. Ernie smiles at us and opens the trunk, swinging 
two carry-on bags across his shoulder while Josh grabs the other 
two. 

I think that I could care less if Ernie is a murderer this moment, 
because my foot has gotten progressively worse, and even with almost 
all my weight supported between Sam and Toby, I'm in a lot of pain. 

I try to focus on other things as we make our halting way into the 
house. The few lamps I see don't push the shadows all the way back 
into the corners. The house smells old and musty, and most of the 
furniture in the den we pass through is covered in plastic. It looks 
as if this was once a grand place. 

Long, long ago. 

A white cat with eyes so pale they nearly match its fur sits on the 
stairway, head thrust through the railing. It's nearly eye-level 
with me as I hobble by, and it stares me down as I move past it. I 
find that I don't want to turn my back on the cat.

Ernie leads us into a large dining room. There are probably ten 
tables for four, with all the chairs hanging upside-down from the 
tabletops. Ernie hastens to pull the chairs off one table, and 
motions me into the first one.

I collapse into it gratefully and don't protest when Toby lifts my 
foot and eases it onto another chair.

"Good evening, poor dears." A voice that doesn't belong to Ernie and 
that doesn't belong to us floats into the room on a draft that 
chills the back of my neck. The sound is pitched high and airy, yet 
it seems to fill the room to the rafters.

A moment later a tall woman with hair as white as lightning comes 
in. She is probably in her seventies or eighties, but she moves with 
the easy grace of an eighteen-year-old. She's wearing a silk dinner 
dress, her hair pulled neatly off her neck in a bun, her lips 
reddened, eyelashes lengthened.

I know she's had time to prepare for us since Josh and Sam first 
arrived but I'm unnerved because it's almost like she was expecting 
us all along.

"You are most welcome," she says directly to me with a smile. "We're 
so glad you've stopped by. My name is Rose. This is my son, Ernie."

"It's good to be here," Sam smiles, sitting down heavily across the 
table from me. 

"Yes, you're kind to take us in so late at night," I say, hoping to 
get on their good side. I look at quiet Ernie and his mother and 
think of Psycho, and damn Sam for bringing up the Bates Motel in the 
first place.

"Not at all," Rose says in her strangely lyrical but empty 
voice. "It's so unusual for us to have guests in the off season. How 
about some coffee to warm you up. Perhaps a drink? Brandy? Wine?"

"Do you happen to have any aspirin? My friend here thinks she's 
broken her toes, and we're going to need to have a look soon," Toby 
murmurs and I wince, wishing he'd forget about the looking at my 
toes part.

"My dear Claudia Jean," Rose says and I leap upright in my chair so 
quickly that my boot slips off the other one and my heel comes 
crashing to the floor. Blue lights of pain explode in front of my 
eyes, and with effort, I don't throw up.

"How did you know my name?" I gasp.

"We do get CNN out here," Rose says and laughs at my terror. I 
suspect she knows every thought that has run through my head since I 
got here. "I'll bring an aspirin to you, my dear. It's a pleasure 
to have you all here. I voted for President Bartlet, you know."

"Oh, well, um..thanks?" I say, because the boys don't look 
interested in conversation.

"Yes, of course. I'll just go fetch the aspirin."

"If I could just maybe get a glass of wine? I don't want an aspirin."

Josh and Sam ask for coffee, Toby requests Brandy and a pair of good 
scissors. 

Rose tugs Ernie along behind her and in a moment we are alone in the 
dining room. So Ernie is Rose's son...that would make her closer to 
ninety, I guess.

"Why won't you take anything?" Josh wonders. 

"I don't like to take drugs for just every little thing. You get 
immune and you know, stuff."

"So you're drinking wine instead. Because there's not really a 
chance you get immune by drinking too much of it for just every 
little thing," Sam reasons.


I start to reply but Toby stands up and moves closer to my foot, 
which I've returned gingerly to the chair. "How do these shoes come 
off?" he wonders, leaning over my foot and looking on both sides of 
the boot.

"Well, Toby, I wrinkle my nose and cross my arms and nod my head and 
poof! Want to see?"

"CJ," he snaps, draws a deep breath, and takes the high road. "Is 
there a zipper or something? Or do you just pull them off?"

"I don't like the way a zipper looks on a pair of shoes. Shoes 
aren't supposed to have zippers," I assert.

"So, no. You just pull it on and off, then."

"Yes."

"That's what I thought. CJ, I want you to prepare yourself for this. 
We're going to have to cut the shoe off your foot."

"Like Hell you are," I say without missing a beat, glaring at Toby 
with my best, I'm-so- serious-that-I-may-kill-you-just-for-
suggesting-it look.

"CJ, the shoe has to come off," Sam agrees, coming to Toby's 
aid...at least in spirit. He's standing a good distance from me.

"Over my dead, rotting body." Perhaps I'm not being reasonable here. 
Perhaps I don't give a damn. "It isn't so bad. Let's just pull it 
off. Come on, it'll be fine."

"Don't be ridiculous, CJ. It's a pair of shoes."

I gasp indignantly. "You may have on just a pair of shoes, Tobias. 
But let me tell you a little story about CJ Cregg. These shoes are 
Cole Haan's. They are Italian, tumbled grain calfskin leather. In 
Camel. The last pair in Washington, D.C. Leather 
lining, sock cushioning. I looked for them for three weeks. Tried on 
every pair of boots in every department store there is. These fit me 
like no other."

Toby nods. "That's all very nice, and somewhere, far, far away, I'm 
sure there's someone who cares. We're still going to have to cut the 
shoe."

"I paid $300 for these boots!" I nearly shout and my voice threads 
down the hallway and comes back in a panicked echo.

"You're the biggest moron I've ever come across," Toby replies.

"We are not cutting these boots off. No way. Josh, come here. I want 
you to pull it off."

"I told you. I'm running out of lives, CJ," Josh says, backing away 
from me. I've lost some of my power over Josh now that he knows I 
can't give chase.

I try a different tactic with Sam. Pleading. The damsel in 
distress. "Sam, please. I'm asking you to help me out here. Just 
slide it right off. I love these shoes. It would break my heart to 
ruin them." 

Sam seems to be pondering it. Sam is no stranger to good clothes. 
Sucker. He gives Toby an uncertain glance, and in return, Toby 
glares down at me, cheek dipping in and out. I hear his teeth 
grinding together.

Finally, he throws up his hands and motions Sam over. "Go ahead. 
Pull it off. Pull her whole damned foot off if you want to. Then you 
know what we're going to call you, CJ?"

"I do not," I say.

"Peg Leg Cregg." 

He isn't able to say it with an entirely straight face, and Sam and 
Josh both give off startled barks of laughter. I have to admit that 
even I crack a smile.

Sam approaches and I lean back in the chair and grasp the back legs 
of it to keep my hands at my side and clamp my teeth tightly. He 
hesitates, one hand closed around the heel of the boot, the other at 
the back of my ankle.

"You sure?" he says.

"Do it quickly," I advise, and clench my teeth again. "Don' worry 
about hurting me. I'm tough."

He yanks. 

I scream.

And scream. And scream. Loudly. Which causes him to cry out and jump 
back, releasing my foot, which for the second time, slips from the 
chair and bounces off the hardwood floor of the dining room.

I double over in the chair, tears streaming down my face. I'm 
furious. 

"You twisted bastard!" I accuse Sam through my tears, and see that 
he looks near to them himself. "You sick, sadistic f--."

"Um, CJ," Josh interrupts me. 

"But you said...you told me to do it quickly." Sam defends himself

"And what the Hell made you think you'd be able to pull off my boot 
at all? I have broken bones, Sam! Broken bones!"

"You're an idiot," Toby growls and I look over to him to thank him 
for his support in berating Sam, and then realize that he's talking 
to me.

*

"Well, it's really quite obvious," I sigh a few moments after Rose 
and Ernie's return and after I down a glass of wine in three 
swallows and gratefully accept a refill. "We're going to have to cut 
it off."

"You think?" Josh mutters sarcastically.

"Hey Ernie, how about those scissors?" Toby asks with a smile that 
has me thinking maybe Sam's not the sadistic one at all.

"Oh, dear, we forgot the scissors. Ernie, go get the scissors," Rose 
instructs her son and flits around me like a nervous bird as Ernie 
leaves the room. She begins prattling on about the grand old days 
when movie stars stayed at her hotel in the summer and how this is 
nearly as big a deal. 

"Ernie's father was a movie star," she says dreamily as she pats her 
hair and I feel a little pang of sorrow for her, living here alone, 
dressed for dinner, and still probably looking for a man who used 
her once when she was too young to know better and never looked back 
again.

"Ernie sure is quiet," Sam murmurs.

"Ernie's mute," Rose says, and looks at Sam like he'd have to be a 
simpleton to miss it.

I am startled and I look to Sam who's staring back at me. How odd 
that we were discussing if we'd rather be deaf or mute earlier in 
the evening. This night gets more and more bizarre.

Especially when Ernie returns with some deadly looking gardening 
tool. Not so much scissors as shears and I think that he's probably 
going to kills us with them. I'm a little relieved when Toby takes 
them with authority. 

He's going to enjoy this, I know. 

I can't look. It's a little like getting a shot at the hospital and 
thinking that if you don't watch the needle go in, it will somehow 
hurt less.

I hear the soft groaning protest of the leather as it splits against 
the blades. I wince although I know without doubt that Toby is not 
going to let the shears anywhere near my skin. I think I would 
rather have him lay me open to the bone than to have to let him cut 
these boots. These beautiful, expensive, comfortable, warm boots 
that were so damn hard to find. 

Inch by inch, I feel a release of pressure against my calf, down to 
my ankle. There is, for a moment, increased tension against my toes 
and then the leather pulls away across the top of my foot and in a 
moment, Toby lifts the boot straight up off my toes and I hear 
the "thump" as it hits the floor.

"Time of Death..." Josh begins, but stops abruptly when I turn my 
glare onto him.

Toby is now pulling at my sock, cutting that away too. The socks did 
not cost $300, so I watch him do this. When he gets to the top of my 
foot, the dark brown cotton falls away from skin that is not the 
pale, winter color of my ankle but rather a dark, angry black 
already. The colors mutate as he gets closer to my toes, which are 
bulging inside of the shredded sock, obviously several times their 
normal size. Black, furious red, yellowish green, and finally deep, 
royal purple. My first two toes are grotesquely swollen, bent rather 
sickeningly in ways they shouldn't be. 

Behind me, Sam hisses in sympathy as Toby drops the sock beside the 
boot, which I still haven't been able to bring myself to look at.

"Damn, CJ," Josh murmurs. "I bet that hurts."

"I bet you're right," I say quietly and look at Toby, whose worry 
is evident on his face.

He turns to Ernie. "Do you maybe have a first aid kit? Some gauze, 
something we could splint these toes with? And she'll take that 
aspirin now. Maybe Advil if you have it. She's on her third glass of 
wine."

I'm glad Toby asked for the painkiller, because I wouldn't have. But 
somehow seeing my toes has made them hurt about ten times worse. I'm 
reminded of when I was little. I could have been dropped off the 
roof of our house, and I wouldn't have shed one tear if there was no 
blood. But let a cat scratch me, and I would howl for hours.

He sits down heavily beside me as Ernie leaves the room again. Sam 
puts another glass of wine in my hand, and I take full-mouthed 
swallows, letting the wine roll under my tongue and up against my 
cheeks, trying to take pleasure from it and to distract myself with 
the drinking of it. 

Ernie returns once again in his ghost-like fashion, and I numbly 
swallow two Advil tablets with my white wine. The wine seems to be 
dulling everything but the throbbing of my toes. My head is starting 
to fall back, too heavy for my neck and my hands are now hanging 
open at the sides of the chair. Swallowing takes a grand effort and 
my eyes burn with weariness.

>From a great, great distance I hear Toby say, "I'm going to try to 
splint your toes, now, CJ. This may hurt a little."

"I'm sure it will," I say, then whisper, "I'm so cold." And I am. My 
teeth are chattering just a little bit, because I'm too weary to try 
and stop them. 

I hear Rose's voice, and strangely, it sounds as if she's standing 
right beside me, although I know she's positioned primly at the 
other side of the table. "Ernie, a blanket. And why don't you 
prepare her room for her? Build a fire."

"Her clothes are wet. We might want to find her a change of clothes 
and put those in the dryer," Sam suggests.

"This sweater is dry clean only," I murmur, or at least I think I 
do. I may or may not have said the words aloud. They continue as if 
I hadn't spoken, so I think maybe I just thought I said something. 

Toby instructs Josh to look in my carry-on for a change of clothes. 
I hear Josh's soft snort of amusement a few moments later and hear 
Sam ask what's funny.

"The only thing she has in her carry-on is-wait for it-more 
underwear and a pair of heels."

"I don't...you've got to be kidding me," Toby sighs, and although my 
eyes are closed and my head tilted so far back on my neck that it's 
becoming difficult to breathe, I can picture him shaking his 
head. "Look in my bag. I've got a sweatshirt, I think. She can sleep 
in that."

Josh asks for a phone and calls Leo. From Josh's end of the 
conversation, I can tell that Leo thought the check-in was long 
overdue. "I'm sorry to wake you...no, we didn't get any service. We 
had a flat tire on the coast...Sam is why we're on the coast. Well, 
no, we're fine...except that CJ's broken two toes. Well, trust me when 
I say that you don't want to know how. It's a long, long story. 
Yeah, we'll find a tire tomorrow or call the rental car company or 
something. We'll be in San Francisco by lunch time. Is he feeling 
better? Good." Josh voice fills the quiet room as Toby works, and I 
gather by the time he hangs up that we still have our jobs, if for 
no other reason than so Leo can make us regret this whole night even 
more.

As if that were possible. 

I think there are tears seeping from under my closed lashes by the 
time Toby's finished with my toes. He was as careful as possible, 
and when he couldn't be gentle, I felt the apology in his hesitation 
and in easy touches at my ankle with fingers callused by hours 
holding pens and stroking keyboards. 

"Okay, that'll do until we can get her to a real doctor," he says. I 
realize that at some point a blanket was dropped around my shoulders 
and that I'm not shivering anymore. I'm walking the edge of sleep, 
where every sound blends itself between dreams and wakefulness.

"Ernie, take Miss Cregg to her room, please. Mr. Ziegler, if you'd 
like to carry her things perhaps?" It's that high clear voice that 
doesn't go at all with the willowy body it lives in. "I'll follow 
and help her change into something dry."

I nearly fall back into consciousness as I am suddenly lifted from 
the chair, more effortlessly than I thought I could have ever been 
lifted. I don't open my eyes, but I think it's Ernie, and then 
realize that I know it's Ernie, because the men I'm currently 
travelling with aren't accustomed to carrying anything heavier than 
a pen. 

My inhibitions are far enough gone where I don't really mind being 
toted around, and I honestly don't think I could walk-or rather limp-
to my room, assisted or not.

I open my eyes at one point, and I am started to see Silent Ernie 
staring back at me, smiling softly. I look over his shoulder and 
notice the strange white cat following at a distance, staring at me. 
Toby, Josh and Sam are walking ahead, and beyond them Rose leads us 
slowly through the hallways.

We climb stairs that creak ominously, and I notice what's strange. I 
see no lights. The hall is aglow with soft yellow light, 
illuminating the faces of the strangers imprisoned in gilt frames to 
either side of me. But I cannot see one light fixture. It's as if 
the light is being thrown from the walls themselves.

I blink and try to clear my vision, but the same dreamy, blurred 
surroundings meet my tired eyes upon reexamination.

Rose shows Josh and Sam where they will be staying and leaves them 
there, finally coming to a halt in front of