The Moon and St Christopher

Sometimes when you step to the edge of the precipice the ground beneath you truly does crumble. Sometimes when you are crossing a ravine by rickety bridge one step really is one step too far and your heart stops for an instance at the sound of a sickening crack. And, sometimes, sometimes the branch you are clinging onto with all your considerable will to survive, the bough that is the only thing preventing you from falling onto the abyss – well, sometimes it breaks.

For CJ the bough had broken in front of the press at a time when the Bartlet administration had enough other things to worry about and a desperate need to avoid mistakes. For CJ the fall was about disappointment, anger, exhaustion and an overwhelming desire to run for cover at the knowledge that those foolish words would be her epitaph.

And while she did not crack up, or fall apart then, in that moment, or even subsequently when in full damage control mode, still she knew exactly what she had to do.

Her gaze is locked on the door to her apartment, waiting for the cab to the airport, remembering all the times she has done this before, wishing, just once that she wasn’t, after all, a monumental screw up – that she didn’t need to run away.

The first time she had run she had been 6, and in actual fact she hadn’t got very far before her father had caught her, lifted her onto his shoulders and carried her home paying no heed to her tears or screams. But, what was significant, was what had set her upon an inescapable path. She had run away at 6 because that had seemed preferable to giving her parents the letter from her school that informed them their daughter would be punished, for fighting.

She could still remember the way her mind had worked, the way she had come to the conclusion, aged all of 6, that her only option was to run. Her parents had always impressed upon her little girls did not fight and that losing her formidable temper was a very bad thing. She couldn’t imagine how they would react, couldn’t face their disappointment, which had seemed far more alarming than the prospect of setting beyond the end of the street on her own.

As she’s grown older she’d developed the art of running away from lovers. She’d left her college boyfriend 2 weeks after they’d graduated because he had suggested they move in together and she couldn’t face telling him that she wasn’t ready for that. She’d left the next man in her life as well, Simon had been ten years her senior, divorced, with kids and she’d run away from him because he’d suggested that she meet them.

She’d run away from Toby once, so long ago she wasn’t sure he even remembered. But, at the time, the fact that he never told her why he liked or wanted her, never complimented her except by omission, had made her think that he didn’t care and rather than confront that she had left when he wasn’t looking.

She jokes that she is terrible with goodbyes, but really she isn’t kidding about that because she’s left jobs when the going seemed too tough, left campaigns when it became obvious that the candidate would lose, left politics rather than face constant failure, left PR because she hated it and it hated her; and so the pattern went on. Each departure feeding into the next.

On her way to the airport she thinks about this time, about this hurried exit. She wonders when Leo will find the letter she left on his desk tendering her resignation and what his reaction she will be.

She tries to recall every moment of her last hours in the White House as Press Secretary to the President of the United States because she knows that whatever she does next it will never be as precious to her as the life she is walking away from now.

In her case she has the photographs that have graced her desk since her first day in post. One is of her brothers, the other is a photograph of her, Sam, Josh and Toby on their way to an inaugural ball. They are all smiling broadly, arms linked, the four musketeers, gazing fearlessly into the lens – it’s a memory of herself and them that she will treasure for as long as there is breath in her body.

She has a letter for Carol that she will mail from the airport and it is one of the hardest letters she has ever had to write, far harder than all those Dear Johns and letters of resignation, because she knows that Carol will be disappointed to learn that her boss is not the stubborn survivor of a man’s world that she had thought her, and it hurts her to think she is taking away that illusion.

Her spin boys, she thinks, will understand. Or at least they will know how to spin her departure to their advantage. She knows that they will do it because its what they are best at and because somewhere in their psychological make up there is an arrogance and a resilience that she could never dream of possessing.

Toby will never forgive her – she knows that, and it is that which almost, almost kept her from running this time. But she can not face the thought of disappointing him and the knowledge that she is doing so by leaving is not as bad as the certainty that if she stays she will disappoint him in the end anyway. At least this way she doesn’t have to see the look in his eyes.

‘Don’t get on the plane.’ She is at the check in desk when he finds her and for a moment she is glad it is not Toby.

‘Josh,’

‘Don’t get on the plane.’

‘I have to get on the plane – and how the hell did you find me anyway?’

‘Toby found the letter before Leo. He’s gone to Reagan in case you were flying from there. Where the hell are you going any way?’

‘Paris.’

‘For some shopping?’

‘Josh – just pretend you didn’t find me, OK? Just let me go?’

‘No!’ They are starting to get looks from her fellow travellers and she calculates they have about five seconds before they are recognised, so her decision to duck out of the queue and pull him by the jacket to a quiet corner is a good one. ‘What are you doing CJ? You can’t run away to Paris. You can’t quit.’

‘I did and I am. How did Toby find the letter, I left it on Leo’s desk?’

‘He went looking for it, Leo isn’t back from Chicago yet. And can I just say that it’s a good thing he’s such a devious son of a bitch, because I didn’t have a clue.’

It wasn’t because Toby was a devious son of a bitch that he found the letter, but she lets it pass, quietly absorbing the knowledge that he clearly hasn’t forgotten any more than she has.

‘Josh, its better if I go – I screwed up, badly and you’ll be carrying me, you can’t afford that.’ Josh runs his hand through his hair and takes a few rapid steps away from her, putting some distance between himself and the cause of his frustration.

‘What are you talking about? How can you think we’d just let you walk away CJ? After everything – after all the crap you’ve cleaned up for us? How can you think we wouldn’t fight for you?’

‘Because that is what happens, someone becomes a liability you let them go, its politics, I understand that, all I’m doing is making an exit before you have to do that.’

‘You’re running away.’

‘Yes – I am.’ Maybe, she reasons, if she can make him understand how fixed this pattern is he’d let her get on the plane after all. ‘Its what I do, ask anyone, ask Toby. He’ll tell you - CJ is a runner, when she can’t face something she doesn’t try to sort it out, she doesn’t try to fix it, she just gets the hell out of there.’

‘Not this time.’

‘Yes, this time.’

‘CJ – you aren’t getting on that plane. I swear to you – one call, that’s all I have to make. The President is in the residence, do you want to see how fast he can close down this airport? Do you want to continue this conversation with him? Because I will call him, and he will come down here and compared to that conversation this is a cake walk, I guarantee it.’

‘Josh, please.’

‘Don’t get on the plane CJ. I don’t care how many times you’ve done this – please, come back with me, we’ll fix it, I promise, whatever it is, we’ll fix it. Don’t go.’

Time ticks away slowly while she makes up her mind. Distantly she wishes she was six again and her father could make the decision for her by throwing her over his shoulder and carrying her home. She wants to believe that he is right, she wants to stay so badly she can taste it – but she can’t be sure that she has the strength such a decision would require.

‘If I stay I could end up out of a job in three months, six months, a year.’

‘You think we aren’t all in that boat? Come on CJ, you serve at the pleasure of the President, remember? He isn’t quitting, he isn’t asking you to quit, just hang on, just stand your ground for yourself the way you would for someone else.’ And still she hesitates.

In the morning she will walk, once more into the West Wing and this experience will have the misty, intangible quality of a dream. Her head will hurt with the beers she and Josh drank in celebration and commiseration, and her eyes will be a little red from all the crying. She will be stiff from sleeping on his couch, but she will remember that he held onto her and promised that he would never let her go, no matter how heinous her crime.

She will still be unsure of her place in the administration and she will doubt that she can fix what has gone awry – but for the first time in a long time, she will want to fight for herself.

She will replace her photographs on her desk and destroy the letter to Carol – and it is then she will see the silver necklace across her blotter and she will wonder about it for a moment before going in search of the person who surely placed it their.

Toby will be in his office, of course, and she will stand in the doorway, dangling the fine chain from her fingers, the pendant swaying gently. She will ask him what it is, and he will answer her question with one of his own because he is Toby and that is what he does. She will tell him in reply that she does indeed know what it is, but she can’t imagine that he does and his reply will be the one thing that convinces her that her decision to come back was the right one, and that maybe, just maybe, she can do this.

‘It’s a St. Christopher CJ, I thought you should have it, so the next time you decide to run away you can find your way home.’

The End.