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I couldn't help but feel like an outsider the whole night. It didn't help that I was missing an invite to this event and it didn't do me any favors that Josh had been missing for a few hours. I knew he was busy though, so I wasn't that mad, but I couldn't help but feel out of place.
I had been sitting at one of the many tables in the large presidential ballroom for a while as I people-watched and made small talk with strangers who tried to get my vote. I was greeted occasionally by Josh's friends as they sat down and started a conversation with me (before they were pulled away to something that needed their attention.) Sam had even introduced me to the first lady before he scurried away to something more urgent. Mrs. Bartlet and I talked for a while but once she found out that I was seeing Josh, Abbey said that she would make sure that he would apologize for leaving me at the party by myself. I liked her, and her politics, but god she was scary.
I had been up to the buffet to get servings of different cheeses too many times so I had resorted to doodling on a scrap of paper I had in my purse while I began to wonder if Josh had forgotten about me. I looked up when I heard someone walking into the ballroom. "Ladies and gentlemen!" He had arrived. "Josh Lyman!" And clearly his ego had swelled to something bigger than it already was. Josh walked into the hall flanked by a small handful of his friends. His hands were in the air in victory. I stood up and waited for his eyes to pan to me as they searched the space. He spotted me fast and let out a yell, a "AHA!", of celebration as he quickly walked over. "Good news?" I said. "All good news baby." His smile was shining as he said that. He placed his hands on my hips and lifted me in the air without a second thought and spun me around. I was embarrassed that the deputy chief of staff had just twirled me around in the middle of a White House event but another part of me could not have been happier that Josh didn’t seem embarrassed about the display of affection whatsoever. As soon as my feet hit the floor, he kept hold of my waist and said, “Ten points!” His brown eyes were wide and crinkled due to his big smile. “That’s fantastic!” His excitement was contagious because now I was giddy too. “I told you that you could do it!” I smacked his arm playfully. All week Josh had nearly been sick over this speech. After we went out to dinner one night, we had to stop at the polling place to make sure that the phones worked (they did.) I had to stop Josh several times from calling the people who were conducting the poll to critique the questions (he did anyway.) “And I believed in that!”
“You mean you believed in yourself.”
“I always believe in myself-”
“Oh I know.”
“And has it failed me yet?”
“Do you-”
“Nooooo!” He said in a singsong rhythm and bursting into an interesting series of hip movements that could be described as a “victory dance.”
“Where’s Leo?” He took his eyes off my laughing face to look wildly around the room.
“Leo!” Josh waved to an older man across the room. “C’mon let me take you to meet Leo-” I could barely get a word out of my mouth before he had taken one of my arms in his and began to walk over to his boss. “Josh, if you’ve come to tell me the poll results, I already know and good job.” I know Leo meant what he said but the way he looked dryly at Josh made me laugh. He has seen him like this a million times before and was clearly used to how Josh became after he won. “Well, thank you, and it’s not that. I have someone I’d like you to meet.” I attempted to stand up even straighter as Josh introduced me as his girlfriend to the chief of staff. “You’re with him? Why?” Leo said with his eyebrows raised in surprise and looked at me with exaggerated confusion. “Haha Leo, very funny.” Josh said while rolling his eyes. “It’s nice to finally meet you Mr. McGarry, I’ve heard many good things from Josh.” I said as I shook his hand. “Oh I’m sure you’ve heard many things from him.” He said, and cracked a smile as Josh whined in protest. “Leo-!”
“Josh let me pull your leg a bit, huh?” Leo said. He was about to say something else before he was interrupted by another man tapping him on the shoulder. “I’ve got to go but I’ll catch up with you kids later. Very nice to meet you.” Leo smiled warmly as he shook my hand again. “Nice job tonight.” He said and patted Josh on the arm in appreciation before walking away.
“So.” I said turning back towards Josh as there was a bit of silence.
“You look so beautiful.” He said, there was awe in his voice.
“You like the dress? I was a little bit nervous about it…” I had spent too long worrying about an outfit but on the other hand I had never had to choose what to wear to an event where the president of the United States would be. I settled on a floor length, off the shoulder, midnight blue gown.
“You... Wow.” For the first time since I had known him, Josh was speechless. The moment didn’t last long though, because Josh whipped his head up like a dog when he heard the sound of high heels coming toward us. “Oh my God. Why is the first lady mad at me?” Josh barley moved his lips as the nervous sentence came tumbling out of his mouth. “She may have said something about having a word with you after she saw me by myself.” Josh watched as the first lady shot him a look that said he will be seeing her later as she turned to talk to someone beckoning her over.
“Let’s get out of here before she gets the president to yell at me too.” Josh said with urgency. “He’s very… He’s a man that believes in chivalry a little too much. He goes on and on.” he said before I had a chance to ask why the president would care. Josh ushered me out of the hall, his hand pressing lightly on the center of my back. The loud noise of the hall slowly faded away as we walked down the ghost-town version of the west wing. “I bet it’s not normally this quiet, huh?”
“Never. I feel like I should whisper or yell. One or the other.”
“It’s so peaceful.”
“Sure, if you think a deserted town is peaceful.” Josh scoffed.
“You know what I mean…” I imagined the halls full of professionally dressed people walking with immense purpose and cups of hot coffee.
“This your office?” I said as we stopped in front of a doorway.
“This is where the magic happens.” He said with a smirk on his face as he stepped inside and turned on a lamp. I crinkled my nose and said, “Maybe don’t say that.” Josh pushed my comment off with a shrug and watched me glance at the pictures and items that littered his desk. “Don’t- Don’t look too closely at some of those.” He said apprehensively and shoved some of the papers in a drawer. I turned my attention to his CD player on top of the filing cabinet. “You have a CD player at work? Do you play music often?” I said. I began to poke around and tried to find his collection of music. “Um, not really no.” My back was turned to him but I could hear his voice grow a bit apprehensive. “Would it be weird for me to ask what CD’s you have here?” I was worried about what I had done that made him nervous. I watched him as he opened the top drawer of the filing cabinet and pulled out a small binder of CDs. “Go ahead and have a look. I mean, you’ve seen that a lot of my music is back at home, but you know.” He leaned back up against the desk and crossed his arms. “Classical music… Stones… Tony Bennett…”
“When I was a really little kid, I was a flower boy at a wedding. I had to wear a tux, and that was my first time wearing one, and I felt so important. And I remember asking my Dad if I looked like Tony Bennett. I remember seeing him in a tuxedo and thinking he looked so cool.” Josh’s voice was soft as he reminisced.
“Did your Dad introduce you to him?”
“Yeah. It was my first concert actually. That’s where I saw him in the tux.” A nostalgic smile was on Josh’s face as he looked at the ceiling and pictured the memory.
“I like that your standard of cool is Tony Bennett.” I said sincerely. He looked at me from under his brow as he said, “C’mon don’t.”
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t-! I tell you embarrassing things about me and- and how can I come back when you are just okay with it?”
“Josh, what are you saying?” Now my arms were crossed too as I stared at him with a smile on my face. “I’m being serious. You know when I’m teasing you.” I turned back around in search of the power button on the CD player. “You told me something personal, why would I meet that with jokes?” I turned over my shoulder to see that he looked so much smaller than the Josh I saw that entered the presidential ballroom. I popped the CD into the player and studied the back of the case and wondered what song to pick. “Any requests Joshua?” He shrugged at my question. I let whatever first song that came on shuffle play, which was “Dancing in the Dark.” Smooth bossa nova filled the office as I turned around and offered Josh my hand. “I think you owe me a dance.” I said quietly. A smile began to form on his face as he took my hand gently. We fell into a casual waltz: shuffling around in his office with his hands on my hips and his cheek brushing my ear. I could feel his face crinkle into a grin as I exaggerated my movements to the dramatically smooth horn solo. Feeling a bit more confident, Josh twirled me around. He then did it again but one too many times in a row. Dizzy and giggling I held onto his shoulders and rested my head on his shoulder. “Did I upset you earlier?” I murmured into his suit jacket. I felt Josh shake his head. “I’m just… I don’t know.” Our waltz slowed as it changed to the next song, a much slower ballad. “It’s been a day,” he said with a sigh. “Certainly.” I replied, I was tempted to push him and to ask why I upset him but I decided to just leave it. We danced for a moment longer until he pulled us over to the CD player and pressed the skip button until he found a song he was looking for. Jumpy piano mixed with an upbeat cymbal rhythm made Josh pick up his footing as he began to whisk me around his office. Josh sang along with Bennett about how they had their “top hat, white tie, and tails” on. He pulled me back in as our dancing became more and more goofy as the song soared into the final chorus. We ended up moving down the lines of desks outside of Josh’s office as Tony Bennett sang to us through the doorway. Josh wasn’t exactly the best dancer, but his effort made up for his lack of rhythm. As the song ended, and Josh mimed singing out the last big note, we laughed heartily as we slowed our dancing down for the next song. “Sorry if I made you worry,” he said.
“It’s okay, I just wanted to make sure I didn’t do anything.” I said. He twirled me around by the water cooler.
“You didn’t! Promise. It’s just… I’m not involved in a work where everyone has your back. So just give me a little bit of time.” We came to a stop in the middle of the maze of cubicles.
“I know. We’ll start off small.” Our noses were inches away from each other. He didn’t have to lean in much at all to kiss me. I pulled him in as close as I could as we shared a moment in the too-quiet west wing. My hand had just begun to go up into his hair as he pulled apart from me and said “Did you know I wanted to be a ballet dancer as a kid?”
“I can tell.” I said and kissed him again.