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Are you in love with Josh?
It says something – Donna isn’t sure what, but something – that her first reaction when Amy asks the question isn’t fear or panic or dread. Her first reaction is to be impressed that someone finally had the guts to ask to her face.
The fear-panic-dread hits a split second later. Her survival response kicks in, not fight – and thank goodness for that because, what would Amy think if Donna suddenly hauled off and punched her in the teeth? - and certainly not flight or fawn, but freeze. Donna feels herself go still, perfectly still, like her muscles have petrified, like she’s turned to stone.
Except her face. Donna has always had trouble not wearing every single thing she feels right there in her facial expressions, which is, honestly, probably why Amy is asking the question in the first place. So Donna knows that she doesn’t have her face under control, knows that she’s almost certainly broadcasting her answer out through her eyes, the clench of her jaw. She’s glad her back is turned to the other woman. She’s not thankful for a whole lot just then, but thank God, thank God, thank God her back is turned.
Are you in love with Josh?
It sounds so trite just…blurted out like that. Donna supposes that if you’re going to string together a series of words to ask how she feels about her boss, Amy’s probably come up with the most succinct way of putting it, but it just sounds… cheap. Silly.
It’s like she’s trapped in a scene from a young adult novel and not one of the good ones either, one of the overdramatic, angsty ones with a frustrating love triangle. It sounds like Donna is some swooning ingénue in a period romance. The quirky heroine from a Rogers and Hammerstein musical running up a hillside singing, the Disney princess waltzing with woodland creatures in an inappropriate-for-the-weather ballgown, just a sort of amusing joke, not a person to be taken even remotely seriously.
It doesn’t feel like a question anyone ever actually asks anyone else in real life but obviously Amy never got that memo, because here she is asking like it’s nothing:
Are you in love with Josh?
And now, here comes Donna’s third reaction, boiling up out of her belly like fire, like something burning alive, because how dare Amy, how dare this woman be the person to ask this question. It ought to be someone who loves Donna as much as they love Josh. It ought to be someone who cares about them both, someone who maybe, if the circumstances were right, Donna might be able to tell but instead she gets Amy, four beers in and a little bit tipsy and how is that even fair?
Donna has tried to like Amy, because she never wanted to be the sort of woman who hates another woman over…well… that. And also, perhaps more importantly, Josh likes Amy and Amy made him happy, at least at first. For that first little while there, he was so happy and Donna had loved how happy he was and so she’d tried really, really hard to like Amy.
But even while she’d been happy for Josh’s happiness, some deep-down mean little part of herself had also resented it, and that same deep-down mean little part of herself can’t, just can’t, like the woman who was the cause.
(and was he really happy? Is infatuated the same as happy?)
She’d told herself that it was a personality thing. Amy is brash and arrogant and cocky and self-righteous in her convictions. Amy is, in short, pretty well the female version of Josh if you removed Josh’s soul. Which isn’t to say that Amy has no soul – Donna isn’t the woman’s number one fan, but she likewise doesn’t think Amy’s a monster or even really a bad person – it’s just that Amy doesn’t have Josh’s soul, and the thing about Josh is that you put up with the first part of his personality because of the second part. The part not everyone sees, but which Donna knows with an intimacy that both sustains and terrifies her.
Because Donna knows, anyone who properly loves Josh knows, that his insufferable, swaggering self is just a shield for the part of him that is still a little boy watching his big sister die in a fire. Knows that he is loyal, and unwavering and unflinching in his care for the people he calls family. Knows that his immense intellect is dwarfed only by the size of his heart.
Anyone who properly loves Josh knows how damaged he is by loss, how afraid he is of incurring more damage, how he’ll go to the ends of the earth to keep his people from enduring anything like what he himself has endured, how he exists locked in an anxiety state of wondering when the next shoe is going to drop and if it’s going to be his fault again this time.
Anyone who properly loves Josh knows this but somehow Amy does not. Amy does not. And so how on earth is Donna supposed to like Amy? How on earth is she supposed to be anything but furious that Amy would dare to ask Donna this question.
Are you in love with Josh?
But let’s be honest for a second here, Donna thinks, let’s get real for this instant in time. This instant where she’s frozen with her back to Amy trying to get her traitorous face to stop doing whatever it’s doing. Let’s cut the bullshit, because Donna knows, Donna knows her real problem isn’t with Amy’s personality.
Amy is assertive and confident and brazen and fearless and a hundred and five other things that Donna admires. Admires and wishes she was. So, blaming Amy’s personality is a cop out. It’s less of a cop out to blame the fact that Amy, for all that she is like Josh, doesn’t understand him, but that’s also not the real problem.
The problem. The problem, is that Amy doesn’t understand Josh and Donna does, but it’s Amy who Josh would choose to take home tonight, if he was presented with the choice. Josh would choose, has historically chosen, Amy. Because, in the grand scheme of things, Amy is the easier choice.
(not because he loves her)
(…right?)
Donna knows Josh. Half the time she knows him better than her own self, which is one of those things she used to hear people say and not understand until it happened to her. Until she walked into a campaign office, arbitrarily picked a human being to assign herself to and ended up accidentally making that human the centre of her universe.
She hadn’t meant for this to happen. Hadn’t even realized it had happened until Josh went and got himself shot and nearly died on her, because wasn’t that a fun epiphany to have standing in the middle of a hospital waiting room with half the senior White House staff staring at you like they expect you to throw up, or pass out, or dissolve into a million tiny Donna-shards on the floor. All she’d set out to do was be a good assistant. And yes, it helped that her new boss was smart, and funny. Yes, it helped that he took time to answer her ridiculous newbie questions and only ever mocked her good naturedly, and sometimes even listened to her when she had an idea or a different way of looking at things, like she wasn’t just some dumb, blond, college drop-out from Wisconsin, like she was a contributing member of the team. Like she was someone worth listening to. And yes, yes, it helped that he was cute. It helped that he had that particular smile that dimpled just so, when she said something surprising or witty. The smile she started trying to coax out of him as often as she could. But none of that changed the fact that she’d just been trying to do a good job and she hadn’t meant for this to happen.
And now, now here she is with all this knowledge in her body that she never asked to have. She knows life events and favourite foods, and which sports teams to root for (even if she’ll always, always pretend she doesn’t). She can tell within five words at the start of the day whether Josh got a good sleep, or if something has him worked up, excited, angry, anxious. She knows the glint in his eyes that means he’s being playful, and the one that says he’s looking to put his fist through something, the slope of the shoulders that signals defeat and the lift of the chin that signals defiance. She knows when Josh needs her to be nearby, available to bounce ideas off of, or perform some obscure task, when he needs her to leave him the hell alone and, probably most importantly, when he thinks he needs her to leave him the hell alone, but actually needs her to stay close and in his face so he has no chance to sink into one of his lower moods. Donna knows, always knows, when he needs her.
She knows how he smells, like tide laundry detergent and drugstore aftershave and coffee.
She knows that his hands are somehow always warm, warm enough to feel the heat through her clothes when he gently touches the small of her back to guide her down the hall.
She knows that that there are certain days every year, like clockwork, that will make Josh walk a little faster, speak a little more sharply. Certain days where Josh is Josh dialed to a hundred and twenty and whether it’s a day where he keeps touching a particular spot on his ribcage and avoiding anything that even resembles music, or a day where he keeps touching the family photographs in his office and humming Ave Maria under his breath, Donna knows what each day means and how to react to them.
Donna knows all of this, but doesn’t know what Josh looks like in the morning, just waking up, head on the pillow, or how his hair smells, damp from the shower, or how it would feel to lean into him when he touches her, to give in to the urge to curl into his warmth and stay there, instead of keeping herself perfectly, carefully away.
(Amy knows those things. Amy does.)
Amy whose question is still bouncing around the room like a wild animal let out of a cage it’s been in too long. Like it’s something alive. Something that might hurt, really badly hurt Donna if she lets it.
Are you in love with Josh?
Because there is one other thing that Donna knows. Something that Donna knows Amy doesn’t know, but suspects that Amy might, you know, suspect.
The thing is this: Donna would throw herself in front of a bus for Josh. She’d walk through fire for him. She’d do anything that might somehow spare him pain, or ease a burden, or even just make him smile that smile that she has loved since the very first time she saw it. And she’s certain, bone deep, absolutely certain, he’d do the same for her.
He’d do the same for anyone he loved, she tells herself, of course he would, because that’s just Josh, but it’s not really the fact that he’d almost literally die for her that Donna trips up on. It’s the things he does because he seems to think it will please her. The things he does to make her smile.
Because between the banter and the bickering and good-natured ribbing, between the moments of jackassery and the days where she thinks she’d rather slap his face than almost anything else, between those moments there are times when he looks at her… and Donna wonders.
She wonders if she’s imagining that sometimes he seems to make excuses to touch her. Never inappropriately; there is a hard line through the middle of Donna and Josh’s relationship that, wittingly or unwittingly, they might dance along but never, ever cross. But a hand on the shoulder when he could just say her name, a press of fingers to the small of the back or the upper arm to say thank you, a congratulatory hug that’s just a little bit too close and a little bit too long to be perfunctory.
She wonders if she’s imagining that they seem not to be able to go even one day without somehow ending up in one another’s personal space. That sometimes Josh will lean in to ask her a question, in a meeting, over her shoulder at the computer, walking down the hall, he’ll lean in close enough that she can feel the warmth coming off his skin, his breath on her ear. Close enough that her heart rate triples and she has to fight to keep her face, her traitorous, treacherous, tell-tale face from showing how much she wants to lean towards him, to close the gap between them, to stop having to hold herself just so, just on the other side of that line, and while she’s doing that, fighting that internal battle, she wonders if she imagines that he’s fighting one of his own. She wonders if she imagines his reluctance to back away.
She wonders about the just-a-bit-more-thoughtful-than-necessary Christmas gifts, and the memos to the President about things that are important to her, and the look on his face he sometimes gets when she tells him about a guy she’s been seeing, the look that reminds Donna so forcibly of how she felt every time he mooned over Amy in those first few weeks.
And the night of the Inaugural balls. The way he’d looked at her in her dark blue dress, the one she’d fancifully thought looked a bit like the night sky when she’d bought it, a fancy Josh seemed to have agreed with because he’d looked at her… God, he’d looked at her like every star in the heavens had settled in her face and eyes and hair. He’d looked at her like he’d never seen her before, or like he’d always seen her but that this was the first time she looked in real life the way she looked in his head and…
Well. No one has ever looked at Donna like that before.
And so she wonders.
And Donna knows that if she is wondering, then Amy could very well be wondering too. Amy might be asking one question and not asking another.
Are you in love with Josh?
And also:
Is Josh in love with you?
But Donna can’t answer the unspoken question. Can’t answer it because she legitimately doesn’t know, legitimately has no idea if all those little moments and looks and lingering touches add up to “in love” or if she’s just projecting because if Josh is in love with her than she’s just a little bit less pathetic. If Josh is in love with her, it makes every second of the last five years worth it instead of making them a sad story of a sad woman who stayed treading water in a going-nowhere job year after year because she’d somehow managed to fall into a bad-romcom version of her own life, unrequited yearning and all.
Donna also can’t answer the unspoken question because if she tries to answer the unspoken question, it will make her think about all those little moments and think of what they all might mean to him, and think of what they all do mean to her. It will open her up to that most dangerous of creatures, hope. The thing with feathers that perches in the soul and sings the tune without the words and pecks your heart to pieces when you find out you were wrong, all wrong and Josh does not love you, you silly, stupid girl. You complete and utter fool.
Josh does not love you.
He does not.
(probably)
She has to keep telling herself that. She has to repeat it to herself over and over, a personal mantra, a daily affirmation. Write it on a post-it, Donna, tattoo it over your heart, anything it takes to make sure you never, ever let yourself consider the possibility that Josh might love you. A possibility that you will have to consider if you answer Amy’s unspoken question.
But what about Amy’s spoken one? Because that one is still bouncing around the bullpen, ricocheting off walls, knocking things over, making such a mess, such a mess and it needs to be dealt with. Needs to be dealt with before it escapes and hurtles off to do some real awful damage.
Are you in love with Josh?
Well yes, Amy, of course she is. Of course she is. Donna wants to scream it in the other woman’s face, to just say the words once, ever, instead of swallowing them and swallowing them and swallowing them.
Of course I’m in love with Josh, she’d howl, how are you not in love with Josh? How could you possibly have him, have him right there in your home, in your life, in your heart and walk away? You walked away even though you got to smell his hair after a shower and you got to kiss his lips in the early morning when they still taste like coffee and you had all that and you walked away and of course, of course, of course I’m in love with Josh.
She’s in love with Josh and she’s pretty sure everyone knows it but no one ever, ever says it out loud or refers to it in anything but the most obscure way possible because doing otherwise is breaking the rules and the rules are the only reason that any of this works. The rules keep things in order, keep things from getting messy and dangerous. The rules are the reason no one has gotten hurt. The rules are the reason Donna has not gotten hurt.
(except)
You keep from saying what you mean (mostly) you flirt harmlessly (usually) you keep your face in check and your eyes from lingering, and you don’t talk about anything of consequence (until you do), you never ever, ever cross the line, that line, that line you hate so much, and you follow the damn rules and no one gets hurt.
(except this still hurts, doesn’t it?)
Amy, rule-breaking, question-asking Amy, has no idea, no idea how tenuous the whole situation is. She can’t have any idea or she’d never have asked Donna for this answer. She’d have realized that she was never going to get an honest response, that there is, indeed, no scenario in which she would get an honest response except the scenario in which Donna had to admit her feelings or see Josh hurt.
Because that’s the biggest rule of them all, isn’t it? Donna would throw herself in front of a bus for Josh, walk through fire, ease his pain, share his burdens and she would do all of that because Josh has been hurt enough as it is and so the biggest rule has to be don’t hurt Josh.
If Josh knew she loved him, he’d have to make a choice. Josh, whose biggest fear is hurting someone he cares about (and he does care about Donna, she knows that, he does care) would find out she loved him and if he didn’t love her back that would hurt her and he’d know that and he’d have to decide what to do about it. Her job, his job, their friendship, her heart. Do something or don’t, pretend like it never happened or don’t. He’d have to make a choice and Donna can’t see a way that this choice would not somehow hurt him.
To hand Amy any kind of honest response is to hand her a knife and aim it straight at Josh’s wonderful, brilliant, already-too-damaged heart.
And Donna can’t do that.
Donna won’t do that.
Are you in love with Josh?
(answer the question Donna)
It’s time to turn around. It’s time to blink the damp from her eyes and arrange her mouth into a hard line, to scoop the contents of her chest off the floor and place them carefully into the hollow place behind her breastbone.
(go on, answer it)
It’s time to unhook her fingers from the little book in her hands, the little book she went blind to thirty seconds or several lifetimes ago. Time to put it down on the filing cabinet as though nothing has happened, and turn to face Amy all the while hoping that the other woman doesn’t notice that Donna is quietly bleeding to death right there between the fax machine and the files on budget reform.
It’s time to give the reply that really, she knew she was going to give from the first instant after the words left Amy’s mouth. Donna has been worried that it would be hard to tell the lie she knows she has to tell, but she doesn’t actually think it will, because, in the end, Amy has asked the wrong thing.
Does Josh mean more to you than any other person has ever meant to you? Is he your best friend, closest ally, staunchest protector? Is he your family? Is he your first thought in the morning and your last at night?
Donnatella Moss, is Josh Lyman your world? Is he your whole damn world?
(Yes. Oh yes)
That’s the question.
That is the question.
(A hundred, thousand times, yes)
And if someone asked her that question, if someone ever had the insight to realize that the phrase “in love” doesn’t cover it, not by half, not even a tiny bit, well then Donna might be in trouble. But there is no one in this room but her and Amy and Amy has no idea, no earthly clue, that she’s only grazed the surface of the thing.
The truth is deeper and broader and infinitely more complicated. Confusing and wonderful and utterly terrifying.
The truth is that Donna does not have adequate language, can not possibly find the words to tell the truth even if she spoke for three straight days and didn’t stop.
And so Donna will once again, as always, lie and lie and lie, face blank, eyes bland, clutching her own already-too-damaged heart in both hands.
Because the truth is, she’s in love with Josh. Completely, madly, irrevocably, irretrievably in love with Josh.
And isn’t that the saddest damn thing you ever heard?
END