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OK - so almost cracked it, the good news is I finished the damn thing, the bad news, I
had an idea for the next part - and so it goes on! TITLE: Reading The Small Print I didn't expect to feel different standing just inside the door to Toby's apartment. I've been here before, not for a while admittedly, but at some point over the last two and a half years I've worked and ate pizza at the table by the window, sat on the couch and argued passionately about the burning issue of the moment. I've even stormed out of here and slammed the door shut behind me on some evening in the distant past when Toby was being particularly obnoxious and I was feeling particularly vulnerable. I remember just picking up my stuff, telling the assembled company to go screw themselves and sweeping out into the night with no real clue where I was going. Josh came after me, of course, calmed me down, got me home in one piece. It never occurred to me before this moment, things might have been very different if it had been Toby who followed me out into the darkness. Maybe that's what we need right now to get past this emotionally charged silence, Josh chattering away about something, forcing us to listen and participate simply by the way he veers between ridiculous and brilliant with every breath. Anything to move us on from the fact that we are standing here, stranded in the realisation that while I may often have been in this apartment as a colleague, I have very seldom been here when it was just Toby and I - and never before as his lover. If that's who I am. I'm not sure that I'm very certain about that right now. Perhaps this would be an easier scene to play if our dramatic confrontation hadn't gone so hideously awry. In fact, I can't help but reflect that we seem to be entirely incapable of doing things like other people. I mean here we are shy, actually shy, around each other, when we've known each other for years and have already made love. And while we're on the subject, lets not forget that we couldn't manage a shift in the nature of our long-standing professional and personal relationship without declaring outright warfare. I suppose I should be grateful we aren't going to probe the wounds we've inflicted on one another this week under the watchful gaze of Mrs Harrison, Bryan the Building Super and two cops, or the White House Press Corps for that matter. I should have realised that this would involve chaos, in fact it should have occured to me that a relationship with Toby Ziegler would defy every known convention. Suddenly I find myself fighting back an outrageous urge to laugh. Its a nervous reaction of course, the consequence of being face to face with Toby after a week of avoidance and, although I'm loath to admit to this, his ability to move me, to get under my skin doesn't help much when it comes to maintaining my composure. Laughter seems easier somehow, cathartic, plus it delays the need to find something meaningful to say to him. So I give into it, leaning back against the front door and laughing, at him, at me, at our situation and at the dizzying feeling of movement whilst standing still that I get when he looks at me, when he really looks at me. When I recover Toby is standing in front of me wearing an expression like a petulant child. Its a look he does well, one I suspect he has spent many years perfecting and it has absolutely no effect on me. 'Enjoying yourself?' He asks caustically and I'm annoyed enough to snap back at him. 'Actually I am, I don't get out much as you know and this is cheaper that the theatre.' 'CJ!' Is that irritation I sense? 'Of course I'm not enjoying myself! I set off the damn alarm, I get accused of trying to break into your apartment, your neighbour and Bryan the building man treat me as though I'm either a curiousity or a woman of dubious virtue and you, Presidential speech writer, can't thing of an adjective to describe me. I didn't expect you to use 'lover' you know, 'friend' or 'colleague would have sufficed.' All right, so I've waved goodbye to my composure already, and what's his response to this catalogue of woes, how does he respond to my list of grievances? 'His name is Bryan? Damn!' 'Toby!' Its only after I have yelled at him that I realise he is joking. 'God, you're annoying.' 'You're just getting that now?' We're back with the silence now that our little outburst has passed, although, and this sounds odd I know, its an entirely different type of silence. Its less alarming, less daunting somehow and then I get that feeling again, the surge of electricity and energy because I am here, with him and we are, or could be the sole focus of each other's attention. I know that he feels this as well, and I wish fervently, that everything could be as simple as this reaction. 'Is it always going to be like this?' I ask wearily, not really expecting an answer. 'Yes.' If I'm surprised by his choosing to answer what was largely a rhetorical question that's nothing to the shock I feel at the sudden burst of intensity that follows. 'CJ, its always going to be like this between us, this is who we are. We're always going to get things the wrong way round; talk when we should just act, act when we should discuss or think first. We're always going to be able to make each other mad, or scared, or both. You are always going to be the person I blame when things go wrong and the first person I call in a crisis. We'll push each other away and then decide we need each other too much to be apart. Our friends will despair and be happy for us and despair all over again. They'll never understand our relationship unless they see us in our incredibly precious moments of calm and quiet and then, they might just understand that all the other crap is worthwhile because together we find a balance that we don't have apart. Its not the best description of a relationship, I know. It isn't a particularly attractive or romantic picture I'm painting here, I can see why you might want something else, something less difficult and potentially less exhausting. But this is us, its true, if that matters at all.' Damn. Damn - he's good. He had to pick this moment to cast off his usual claok of diffidence and harness passion and eloquence to come up with a picture of our lives and feelings that I recognise too clearly to dismiss. He had to pick this moment to find a way to leave me both speechless and breathless. Damn him. This probably isn't the right time to tell him that he had me certain that I was in love with him at 'yes'. My briefcase hits the floor with a dull thud that I am scarcely conscious of and considerate, careful hands slide under my suit jacket to ease it off my shoulders. I guess this means I'm staying. This might mean that I'm home. End
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