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If you were to ask me to pinpoint a moment in time where I began to question the exact nature of Josh and Donna’s relationship, I’d not be able to tell you one. Their relationship has always been pretty much as it is, although I think that the aftermath of the shooting brought them closer, if that was indeed possible.

Were they sleeping together? I doubt it, but it was none of my business to know unless it affected their working relationship or if one of them was unhappy and chose to talk to me.

The thing is everyone knew subconsciously that there was more between Josh and Donna than, say, between Ginger and I, but it was something that went without saying. Just like Toby’s cynicism, you knew it existed, and the world wouldn’t be the same without it, but unless something was completely wrong, for example if Toby were excessively cheerful all of a sudden, no one would even begin to think about it.

So when the nature of their relationship changed almost beyond recognition after the Illinois Primary, it was no surprise that I began to scrutinise their behaviour to one another more closely, and started to juxtapose this with what I could recollect of their previous relationship.

Not an easy task when the said previous relationship was of an undefined manner, and given that I hadn’t actually been taking much notice of it.

When the arguments became more frequent, and the shouting could be heard at my end of the office, I knew that something wasn’t right. (Hey, I’m an observant guy…)

They seemed to argue about everything (and trust me when I say this, CJ occupied the room adjacent and could hear every single word shouted). Whether it was the appropriate way to compile voting data, or whether Donna should have her lunch in the mess or at her desk, it all escalated into a full out war over who was right and who was wrong. And let me tell you when they’re arguing comparative merits of Donna’s filing system over a more conventional approach when you’re sitting in the room next door trying to have a serious conversation with CJ, it doesn’t exactly do much to put you at ease. And I assure you that in that particular situation, there is no way to tell who is right and who is wrong, even if you bring in the deputy communications director to judge.

So, I listened to their arguments, trying to figure out what to do, whilst at the same time attempting to juggle my own job, my non-existent personal life, along with flying out for the occasional Primary or other campaign event.

My conclusion: Do nothing. Leave them to resolve their own situation.

I was foolishly content to believe that a solution could be found without anyone else’s assistance.

It was.

Donna left.

This, however, I doubt would have occurred if Josh hadn’t had that final argument with her.

This time it was serious and there would be no resolution.

It started out pretty much as the other arguments had done. Donna (I believe, as this part was second hand information from Margaret) had asked (very reasonably – again, I have no proof of this, Margaret is Donna’s friend, after all) if she would be allowed to leave early the next day for an unspecified reason. Josh refused to grant this requirement, stating that because she had been so distracted earlier in the day (something about some engineers coming in and doing some repair work near to Donna’s desk. Apparently Donna had offered them coffee and Josh wasn’t too happy) she’d need to stay later the next day to finish all today’s work as well as tomorrow’s. At this point we all dashed into CJ’s office, where she told us to shut up so she could hear what was about to transpire.

“I’ve finished all the work that I can possibly do today,” Donna stated reasonably. “And I shall come in early tomorrow if you anticipate that we shall have a lot to do.” I think this was her attempt at civility whilst trying to keep Josh at a distance.

“So I’m going to pay you to leave this office when recently you’ve not done anything to suggest that you even deserve the pay that you’ve received, so that you can go swan off for some date with yet another gomer? I took you into my office five years ago without question and all the thanks I get is for you to go try and sleep your way around DC in hopes that one of the no hopers you date might actually be interested? Your pathetic little personal life will not get in the way of me running my office, do you get that?” Josh replied snidely, his voice increasing in volume. There was no need for us to even be in CJ’s office anymore; no doubt that even Leo could hear the end of that one.

“Did I even suggest for one moment that the reason that I am leaving is because of a date?” Donna asked curtly. “Josh, for God’s sake, be reasonable. I just need to leave the office and get away from you just an hour early, is that too much to ask?” Donna’s voice had begun to get louder too. They would both soon be fighting for all they were worth, damn the consequences, the hurt. I began to stand up from the chair that I had sat down on so I could go and try to prevent a potentially problematic situation. CJ held me back, giving me a look and shaking her head to suggest that it wasn’t my place to finish what they’d started.

“So you’re leaving to get back at me, is that right? That’s pretty damn immature, even for you,” he sneered. He actually sneered. It seemed as though he was trying to bait her; to make her hit him or something else equally unthinkable.

“Josh get over yourself. Not everything in life is about you, no matter how hard you try.”

“So Miss Donnatella Moss, the uneducated, ungrateful little bitch from the fucking middle of nowhere is telling me that, for one more time in her insignificant life, I’m wrong. Well, let me tell you something, here you are nothing, you mean nothing, and no one gives a damn what the hell you think. Especially me.” It was more to do with the tone of voice, I think, rather than the actual words. Although if someone had said that even in the kindest voice possible I’d still hit them. The silence that pervaded the room after this declaration was almost deafening.

“Josh, go to hell.” We almost missed the final shot, it was said so quietly and with so much enmity.

I stood up and quickly exited CJ’s office at the same time as Donna left Josh’s office.

I looked over at her, she was shaking, colour almost gone from her already pale face, and without a word she grabbed her bag and started piling everything from her desk into it.

I had no idea what the hell I was supposed to do, so I quickly walked over to her, and brought her into my arms, hugging her with all my might. Eventually she pulled back and I looked at her. She was staring at the door to CJ’s office, and turning round I noticed that CJ, Toby, Margaret and Ginger were standing there, looking about as shocked as I felt. I looked back over at Donna. She wasn’t crying, but the tears didn’t look far off and I figured she’d rather not cry in front of us.

I recall thinking that perhaps I ought try and persuade her to stay, but I realised soon that it would be a futile attempt. There was no way that she could stay in the same place as Josh, and it would be counter-productive in any case.

She continued to place items into her bag, and so instead all I could do was to help her put some photos in her purse amidst everything else.

She muttered a quick thank you, turned and fled.

I felt completely useless and helpless, and so very pissed off with Josh. As I think we all were. CJ and Toby both insist that they were more than ready to go in there and beat the hell out of him, but I got there before they could even say a word.

I was seething, seeing red, and there was nothing but lashing out at Josh and letting him know what a complete bastard he was being that I thought would help. I needed to tell him how little he deserved any friends, and was unlikely to be receiving much from me in the way of friendship any time in the near future.

So I went into that office, slammed the door behind me, and instead started to talk. I can yell, but I didn’t think that it would have achieved anything, especially since too much of it had been done recently. So instead I talked quietly, and with meaning.

Josh got the point.

I advised that he go home and get his act together and think about what he was going to say to Leo in the morning when it was discovered that Josh had been so unprofessional.

Josh did as I suggested without a word.

I never did find out what Leo said to him, but Josh wasn’t the same for some time to come. Although this could have been attributed to the fact that everyone was avoiding him pretty much like the plague, ignoring him where possible, speaking to him without any kind of warmth or feeling.

Everyone thought that he deserved it and, until I found out his reasoning behind the whole situation, I agreed.

However, now I know different, and so am quite ashamed of my behavior in those months, but there’s nothing that can be done to change it.

And then everything began to fall apart.

It gave us more reason to hate Josh, which had universally been decided the best course of action, considering the latest issue was his doing.

In fact, comparatively, most of us were unaffected by the problem, which started in mid-April, just after Easter, and was only resolved months later.

The press had been leaked a story by a seemingly reliable source, and after having a few facts to back it up proceeded to publish it not caring about the consequences. The headlines that morning were all along the same lines: Josh had received money from the tobacco companies in order to ‘do what he could’ to put aside the case we were building against them.

The ‘do what he could’ allegedly had manifested itself in the loss of some memos that we had been missing a while back in the office.

When confronted, Josh denied knowledge of any of this, but there was something in his expression that said otherwise. I knew that I could no longer trust him, or at least back then I knew.

It couldn’t be proved that Josh had had anything to do with the missing memos, and so he was allowed to remain on staff, but how he actually managed to stay, I don’t think I’ll ever know.

He was on his own, he had no friends, and he went home at a reasonable hour everyday after completing all his work. He talked to no one unless he had to, didn’t join us for drinks, didn’t yell at senators, congressmen or republicans and just kept himself to himself.

His new assistant, who hadn’t been there long enough for having anything to do with the missing memos, was the face of professionalism, and Josh learned to work with her, but it wasn’t the same.

Josh changed in those few months, became a mere shadow of his former existence, and it wasn’t surprising, but no one really noticed.

The memos turned up again in July, the explanation being that a nameless temp worker had filed them someplace so obscure that no one had even looked.

I looked to Josh when this news came to light, and again when the papers printed their retractions of the story and begged us all for interviews on what they thought might have been some sort of conspiracy on the behalves of big tobacco to bring down Josh. Although I had no hope that he might forgive me for my behavior, I also noticed that there was no relief evident on his face. I even began to suspect that he might have known all about it the whole time, but I had no basis for this suspicion.

No one apologized for how they had reacted towards him, I guess we were all still a bit shocked about the whole thing, and besides it was too late to go back to where we had been before. None of us were entirely too easy around him, and it took a long time and a night of alcohol and confessions before we could even say that we were friends again, and before Josh was anywhere near back to his former self.

Not once in any of these months did we hear anything from Donna. None of us knew where she’d gone, although I suspected that Leo might have known as he’d mentioned something about a reference. Even after the whole thing was over she didn’t get in contact. It didn’t surprise me, I must admit, but I still would have liked to have kept in touch, even via emails. Certainly, I could tell that Josh was missing her, although he’d never admit it, especially after the way that he’d treated her.

Things were just starting to get back to normal when I received an invitation to a 40th birthday celebration of a friend whom I’d gone to law school with. He’d taken a few years out before starting college to make enough money to go, which is why he was older than me (yes, I may be getting there, but I’m not that old yet, thank you). The guy’s name was James Banks and he was a partner at a prestigious law firm in Boston. We’d been quite good friends in law school, although I’d not actually spoken to him for a couple of years. Apparently the whole gang from school was going to be there, and it was an opportunity to catch up with them all, and get drunk, that I couldn’t miss.

So I left early Saturday morning late in July for Boston. The party was from 7 onwards at a nice hotel in the middle of Boston, and I’d made reservations to stay there overnight.

I arrived at the party at 8, just late enough that things had got going. The band was playing and people were sat at tables surrounding the dance floor, chattering away loudly. I looked around, and quickly found the table where all my old friends were. They’d already set a seat aside for me, so I sat down after saying hello to everyone and started to find out what everyone was up to now. The majority of them were still in law, most were married and had kids. I felt very much the odd one out, but they were very impressed with where I’d got to and some admitted that they’d even followed my career somewhat, especially TV appearances, if only to brag to their friends that they knew someone in the White House. James finally made his way over to our table, and thanked me for turning up, albeit an hour late. We got to talk about his law firm and he told me about his new assistant. Apparently she’d also worked in the White House, but he wasn’t sure quite what she’d done. However she was very friendly and efficient so he had no complaints. I was going to ask what her name was (in case I knew who she was) but then some other people at the table started reminiscing the past, and we got caught up in that conversation so I forgot to ask.

After we’d done making fun of me for about the thirtieth time for some dumb thing I’d done in college (hitting on the wife of one of our professors to name but one), I excused myself in order to go to the bar. It was quite crowded, so I ended up waiting there a while behind this tall blonde girl who looked quite attractive from the back. She then got to the bar and ordered a screwdriver and started conversing with the guy serving her.

“Did you know that vodka is made from potatoes?” she told the bartender. I stood still with shock, ignoring another bartender when he asked what I would like to drink. In fact, scarily enough the song ‘It’s a Small World’ popped into my head and it was refusing to move. When asked again, I ordered a beer, and then turned to my right and tapped the blonde girl on the shoulder. She turned round and looked as shocked as I felt.

“Sam?” she asked. “Wh…what are you doing here?”

“I could ask the same thing of you, but would I be correct in assuming that you are the new assistant who James Banks has been telling me about who used to work in the White House?” I asked, already knowing the answer. So this is where Donna had gone. She hadn’t fallen off the face of the earth after all.

She nodded. As I paid for my drink she asked, “How are you? How are…things?” We walked away from the bar and stood in an open space next to an empty table that I wasn’t sure whether we should sit down at or not.

“I’m fine,” I told her. I wasn’t sure what else to say and there was an awkward pause which I felt obliged to fill in. “I knew James from law school. I’m sure if you tell him you know me he’ll tell you a thousand embarrassing stories about what I got up to at college.”

She laughed slightly, politely almost, and it struck me that she’d changed almost as much as Josh had in the past few months. Or maybe she just didn’t feel comfortable around me. She kept looking over at a table on the other side of the room where people seemed to be looking over at her. Or us, I wasn’t sure which.

“Listen, you probably want to get back to your friends. Maybe we’ll see each other later,” I said after another long pause, almost certain that it was merely my company that she was uneasy with.

That got a reaction. “No, Sam! You don’t need to go. Gosh, I’m sorry, just standing here and not talking. I just…I just didn’t expect to see you here, is all.” She laughed nervously again, before tugging at my hand. “Here, let’s sit down. My friends can ask me all about you when I’m done.” I did as she asked, and sipped at my beer whilst she practically downed her drink.

“So, how are you?” I asked, hoping that the alcohol would bring her back to her previous talkative self.

“I’m fine,” she said. Then a pause. “I don’t know what else to say,” she admitted through another nervous giggle. She finished off the rest of her drink in one impressive gulp. “God, I’ve not seen you in months. I’ve missed you. CJ, Toby, Leo, the President - everyone.” I noticed that she hadn’t mentioned Josh in there, but I wasn’t going to comment. I gulped down some beer.

“Well, what’s not to miss?” I said jokingly, and she laughed. Not nervously, or politely, but actual laughing. “It wasn’t that funny,” I said, looking at her as though she was going mad.

“I’m sorry,” she said through laughter. “But when you say that with a beer mustache, it really is amusing.”

I quickly wiped at my face, embarrassed. But it seemed to break the figurative ice, allowing us to talk for the next 30 minutes, skirting round the topic of Josh.

We drank more, and then I asked her to dance. Other people were now on the dance floor, so we joined them dancing to the end of a song that I didn’t know. We danced and laughed a while, then a slow song came on, and I vaguely recognized it, although I didn’t know what it was called or how I knew it. But Donna went quiet all of a sudden.

“What’s wrong?” I asked as we danced slowly round the floor in circles.

“Illinois primary,” she said, and I didn’t know what she was talking about. “We were dancing and you wanted to get a reaction out of Josh so we danced closer. It was this song,” she told me, and it was the first time she’d mentioned Josh all night.

“Oh,” was all I could think to say.

“How is he?” she asked suddenly. “When I heard about the tobacco thing, all I could think was that I was so glad that I left when I did. Then I heard that he’d been cleared of it all. I knew anyway. He wouldn’t accept money for something like that. He’d rather fight them,” she finished there, and again I wasn’t sure what to say.

“What happened between you two?” I asked eventually.

“What do you mean?” she asked, but she didn’t fool me, she knew exactly what I was talking about.

“Nothing was the same after the Illinois Primary. Did something happen?”

We danced around in silence for a while, just listening to the music, and I thought that maybe I’d gone too far. It was none of my business after all.

But then she spoke. “Something did happen,” was all she said, and I wasn’t going to ask her something that she didn’t want to talk about.

The song finished, and she went to go talk to her friends, and I went back to the table where all my law school friends were sat.

For the rest of the night we all proceeded to get more drunk, more rowdy, and the stories became more ludicrous as secrets we vowed never to tell were shared amongst the whole table. Fortunately they weren’t all about me.

At about 1 o’clock things were starting to finish up, and I was glad that I only had to walk upstairs rather than find my way back to a hotel or apartment. I said goodnight to James and all my friends, promising to email them sometime, and invite them all to my 40th, and to give them a tour of the White House personally if they were ever to visit.

I looked round the room, trying to locate Donna, as I hadn’t seen her since our dance. But I couldn’t find her, so I walked out of the function room, and all but fell onto her as I stumbled and fell over my feet, being far drunker than I realized. She was sat on a chair outside the room, almost asleep.

“You okay?” I asked.

“Too tired. Too drunk,” she replied.

“Want to come up and sleep in my room?” I offered. “I’ve got a king sized bed.”

“Okay,” she murmured, and I helped her as much as I could to her feet after I’d got up onto mine. We soon found my room, and I changed into some shorts and a t-shirt to sleep in as she crawled under the covers in all her clothes. Managing somehow not to fall over walking to the bed, I got under the sheets the other side and kissed her on the forehead saying goodnight. The alcohol then took its hold on me, and threatened to send me into a deep slumber immediately.

“Sam?” Donna mumbled almost asleep.

“Uh huh?” I replied, in much the same state.

“Thing at Illinois Primary?” she said.

“Uh huh?” I managed to answer.

“Slept with Josh,” she told me.

“Uh huh.” I commented, then promptly fell fast asleep.

The next day it was back to Washington, having forgotten Donna’s admission. Donna gave me her email address, and jokingly told me that she was going to brag to her friends that she was getting the Deputy Communications Director to write to her. Apparently they would all be impressed.

Then I got in my car, kissed Donna goodbye and promised to write to her soon, and that she should visit sometime.

I returned to DC to find my world turned upside down yet again, and writing to Donna far earlier than I had originally planned.

END OF PART TWO

[part three]

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