Unbalanced
"Josh, answer the damn phone," Donna's voice echoes through my
living room and my pounding head. Her
words also drift up from my front steps and in through window I just cracked
open. She sounds annoyed but I know
under that annoyed tone she's worried about me.
I left pretty quickly after she got back from the budget meeting. I let her give me bullet points and that was
about it. I couldn't sit and listen to a
blow by blow description of a meeting I should have been in. A meeting we should have been in
together. So I muttered something about
not feeling well...which wasn't a lie...and I headed home.
"What?" I snort into the phone.
I'm trying to sound indifferent and annoyed but ending up sneezing.
"Bless you. What are you
doing?"
"Talking on the phone," I mutter as I haul myself off the couch
in search of another box of tissues.
"Before that," she sighs.
"Uh, contemplating the possibility that my head will just
explode," I mutter as I look out my front window and see her sitting on
the steps.
"Josh." Again with the
worried tone.
"I'm fine." She doesn't
respond to that. Probably because she
knows I'm not.
"Josh are we ok?" she asks with a sigh. I honestly don't know how to answer
that. Things are changing at a
tremendous pace these last few days. I'm
falling off the radar and Donna's right on the center of the radar, blipping
away. The strange sense of balance we've
worked so hard to maintain has been thrown off.
It's unsteady, kind of like me at the moment, damn head cold. "Josh...are you still there?"
Crap, kind of zoned out for a minute there.
"Yeah. I'm just tired and
drugged."
"So are we ok?"
I decide to go for honest. "I
don't know. I was just....everything
just happened so fast today. I just
wasn't ready to let you go."
"Having trouble cutting the cord?" she teases.
"Something like that. So are
you going to come in?"
"Huh?"
"I'm standing at the window. I
can see you sitting on my front steps."
Donna laughs as she stands up and picks up her bag. I buzz her in as I head to put some water on
for tea.
"You weren't ready to let me go?" she asks as she comes through
the door, dropping her tote bag on the bench and kicking off her shoes. I should have known she'd dwell on that
comment.
"I really don't know what I mean," I mutter as I hop up to sit on
the counter. "I'm tired,
drugged..."
"You already said that," Donna points out as she grabs the mugs
out of the dish drainer. "In
addition to tired and drugged you are pissed, depressed and wondering what the
hell happened today." She has an
uncanny knack for completing my thoughts, even when I'm not always sure what
I'm thinking. I don't deny her
statement; instead I drop my head, suddenly find the pattern on my tile floor
fascinating. Donna moves to stand in
front of me. She braces her hands on
either side of me, leans forward and rests her forehead against the top of my
head. I wait for her to kiss the top of
my head like she usually does...but she doesn't. "Can we talk? I mean really talk," she asks as she
stands up and tips my chin up to look me in the eye.
"Yeah, we can. I don't know
that I'll make a whole lot of sense, but I'll try," I answer honestly as I
slide off the counter and take the mug of tea she's holding out for me. We settle down on opposite ends of the couch,
a rare occasion for us.
"Did you offer to loan me to Angela?"
"Huh?"
"Was it your idea?"
"No, not at all."
"She got your name from someone at the OEOB. You were recommended to her," I
explain. "You should be happy, you
got to do something today," I mutter more bitterly than I had
intended.
"Josh," she says, warning me that she is not going to sit by
while I throw myself a pity party.
"Sorry. Yes, I was jealous that
you got to go the budget meetings. I was
pissed about what happened with tuition.
I was pissed about the comment that made it seem like you thought the
budget problems were my fault. I feel
left out, stepped on and my whole world is just...just unbalanced."
"What about us?"
"What do you mean?" I honestly have no idea where she's going
with this.
"Are we unbalanced?" she asks as she pulls the afghan off the
back of the couch and covers herself up with it. She doesn't offer me the other end.
"Yeah," I mutter as I reach for my tea. "You're getting more
responsibility. And don't me wrong, you
deserve it, you really do but...."
"But part of my newfound responsibilities are coming at your
expense?" I can only nod as I
yawn. "Would it help to know that I
feel a little guilty about that?"
"Yeah, I think so."
"Josh this is what I've been waiting for, for a long time. It's not the way I envisioned things and I
wish it could have been different."
"But it was supposed to be me."
"What was supposed to be you?"
"The person who recommended you for something, the person who moved
you in the direction of bigger and better things. I wanted that to be me."
"And I had my doubts that was ever going to happen," she mutters
as she gets up and starts to pace. Which
of course is usually my job.
"What's that supposed to mean?" I ask, suddenly jolted out of the
semi-drug induced haze I had been in.
"You've been giving me more responsibilities lately but...but it
seemed....it seemed like although you'd like to give me more, you'd never
recommend me for another position. That
you like having me around and don't want me to leave you."
"That's not true. I mean, yes
it's true, I like having you around. But
I'm not holding you back."
"I know. For the first time I
saw that today. When you pushed me back
in the Roosevelt Room."
"I was trying to be supportive," I explain as I reach for the
afghan.
"I know. And I know that was a
big deal for you. Everything's just
so...."
"Unbalanced."
"Yeah," she whispers as she sits back down on the couch. I
tentatively hold up the end of the afghan for her and she scoots down the
length of the couch to curl up next to me.
"Josh, someday I am going to move on, you need to face that
fact. Whether I get promoted, leave the
White House or get fired there will come a time when I won't have to see you
day," she points out, the teasing evident in her voice as she pokes me in
the shoulder for emphasis.
"Well, I try not to think about that day. But maybe I'll find an assistant who will
bring me coffee without me asking."
"Hey, I've been bringing you coffee everyday since your
birthday." Again with the poking.
"That's just cause you're worried I'm going to get fired."
"Nah, I'm over that. I'm done
kicking dirt on your grave too."
"Thanks," I mumble as I reach for another tissue. I blow my nose and try to pop my ears
again. Donna watches with amusement,
eventually reaching out to feel my forehead.
"You're pretty warm. You ready
for more Advil?" I glance at her
watch and shake my head.
"You want more juice?" she asks as she points to my empty glass.
"Yeah, thanks," I whisper as I pull the afghan up a little
higher. Donna comes back a few minutes
later with more juice and a cool, damp cloth.
She hesitates for a few seconds and finally motions for me to move so
she can sit in the corner of the couch.
I settle down with my head in her lap and she puts the cloth on my
forehead.
"We've certainly been unbalanced before. What makes this time different?" I ask
as I hand the glass back to her.
"It's professional this time.
Every other time we've been off it's been because of something in our
personal lives. Amy, Cliff, Jack. But we
still had our work roles. You're the
boss and I'm the assistant. Granted our
view of the professional roles is a little unconventional but it works for
us. These past few days our lives have
been turned upside down. So much has
happened. We're just not sure how to
handle things, how to act with each other.
I don't know if I'm explaining this very well," she says with a
sigh as she runs her fingers through my hair.
"You're doing just fine," I assure her with a smile.
"I don't know," she sighs as her cell phone rings. I sit up a little to let her off the
couch. It's pretty clear that it's
Angela on the phone. Donna looks like
she wants to hang up.
"Talk to her," I mouth as I flick on the television. Donna wanders around, pacing and talking,
much like I usually do. She checks on me
a few times. The medicine's starting to
make me a little fuzzy and I'm getting really tired. I don't want a blow by blow description of
the phone conversation with Angela so maybe letting myself drift off would be a
good idea. I truly lack the ambition to
haul myself off the couch and get into bed.
When Donna checks on me again, she tosses the quilt from the end of my bed
over me and turns off the television. A
few minutes later she hangs up and sits on the edge of the couch. She thinks I'm asleep and I don't let her
know otherwise.
"Joshua, Josh, Josh," she whispers as she tucks the quilt around
me. "You need to stop scaring me, a girl can only take so much. Don't worry, we'll find the balance,
together."
Donna leans over and kisses me softly and I can't help but kiss her
back. She pulls away, embarrassed as she
clearly thought I was asleep. "That
didn't help the whole balance thing," I smirk as she stands up to leave.
"Live with it. I'll call you in
the morning." And with that she heads for the door.
THE END
