claudiajean's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dry Briskly- WW Her showers had been getting hotter and hotter. As she inched the water knob towards the red, she asked for forgiveness. Then she went to work. She felt bad for wallowing, for feeling so sorry for herself, and for her elaborate lies. She apologized for lying to the world, but deep inside she didn’t mean it. Toby hadn’t stopped looking her in the eye, but he will in days, minutes, seconds. Her skin had become dry and itchy, and her doctor said that her showers were probably too hot, and gave her lotion in a small tube with no scent. It cost her 35 dollars, and she threw it away in a garbage can outside Starbucks. Now her skin flaked off in sheets, and she had to buy a new dress for the state dinner, a dress that wasn’t backless. Since her car was in the shop, Donna had offered to take her shopping. The State Dinner was roughly 36 hours away and she was staring at the snow falling outside her window with a phone in one hand and a TV remote in the other, screaming at her father who was partly deaf, but at the moment mostly pissing her off. She accepted her offer and now the much younger woman was waiting in the doorway with a key ring that made her look like anything but a secretary. In the small Honda, Donna listened to the radio, an FM station that played music, not news talk. She found herself staring at the buttons, at the dial, unable to comprehend. “You can change it, if you want.” Donna said, looking at her nervously, out of the corner of her eyes. Her hand shot out before she could say no, and pressed the am/fm button, relieved to find it was national news talk. “Thanks.” it never bothered her to hear herself on the radio. Donna was asking her why she was getting a new dress anyway, and not wear the one she bought last month. It had hung in her office for over a week, gray and gorgeous, backless in all it’s glory. Donna had stood and looked at it in different light, much to her annoyance, and made numerous comments about her alabaster skin until she had called Josh at his desk to get her, and drag her away. Now she felt almost bad about that because Donna was taking her lunch hour to drag her to a boutique across town where the owner, Max, essentially custom made dresses for her. She had called that morning and told him to find her something with long sleeves and a back. Inside the shop, there were racks and racks of the most beautiful and expensive gowns in the district. Max had told her once that every dress he made for tall women, he really made for her. “Why are you covering up your body, Claudia?” Max asked in that flamboyantly gay way that she adored. “Max, this is Donna Moss, a colleague of mine.” She said, and saw Donna flush at the compliment. Donna was a secretary and hardly her colleague, but she did drive all the way out here for nothing, so she figured it wouldn’t hurt. She walked to a rack next to the register that had five dresses hanging with sticky note with her name on it. She grabbed them and slipped into the empty dressing room. Max had put a bottle of water in there for her, in an ice bucket, like wine. Next to the water was a small vase with a daisy. “Thank you, Max.” she called and he laughed. She could tell he was pleased. She tried on all of them, and looked old. She felt old, and hated anything with sleeves. She had sores lining her arms though, so it was the only way to go. “Max?” she called. “Yes?” He was standing outside, waiting for her, while Donna gushed in the background. “You’re holding out on me.” She admonished. She heard him sigh, and come into the dressing room with the gown she knew she’d end up buying. She was standing in her bra and underwear, and her beige hoes, with her arms crossed; painfully thin. This was nothing new, he did it all the time, but this time the gown crumpled to the floor and she turned away. “Claudia, you’re sick!” he gasped, reaching out to touch her back but refused to make contact with the raw skin. “No, Max. I’m ok. But you understand how I need that dress.” she said, pushing her glasses up onto her head so her hair would stop falling into her eyes. “I don’t believe you but you can take the dress. When you come back though, in the spring, I won’t give you anything but backless.” He said, stalking out of the room like he was insulted by her pain. She saw Donna’s red pumps pause outside the dressing booth, and then continued on. Later, in her office, she put the dress on. It was a heavy fabric; it was a turtleneck, and she would be sweltering during the whole dinner. The heat was always cranked at those types of events, at the President’s request. His philosophy was that if it was hot enough, everyone would go home early. It was long, and it was brown, and it wasn’t gray or backless, but it would have to do. Toby knocked and came in was she while standing, staring at her reflection in the window. The lawn was lit up with lights, and the snow was already melting off. “Hey.” he said, sitting on her couch, pulling the throw around his shoulders like a little boy. She gave him an odd look. “What’s the matter?” She asked. “The heats been broken for the last hour and a half, CJ, I can see my breath.” he said, in a tone that should be condescending, and was towards anyone else, but ended up just sounding exhausted. “Oh.” “Donna said you were sick.” She didn’t say anything, but stared at Toby’s beard. “Do I look sick, Toby?” “I’m not sure.” She shrugged. “Get out, I have to change so I can go home.” He didn’t move. “Toby?” “I’ve seen you naked before, and it’s warmer in here. I’ll walk you to your car.” he said. She wanted Donna to perish. She wanted to take the blonde hair and that white skin and shove cigarette butts into her palms and to rip the hair out, and to make her cry. “Toby you haven’t seen me naked in seven years. Go away.” She wrapped her arms around herself as he nodded and waited outside her door while she quickly changed. She looked at her nearly naked body in the mirror, while absentmindedly scratching. It felt like rug burn, like someone, for years, had been dragging her across the stiff carpet in the president’s office, in a backless gown. “I’m sorry!” she screamed, pounding the door frame, spinning on her heels and avoiding Toby’s eyes still. “Damn it.” she went back into the briefing room trembling and burning and tired. Later, after a few drinks and some bitter coffee, when everything came into focus a little too sharply, she would stand outside her apartment door in two inches of sludge brown snow, with a frozen lock and she’d start planning her move back to California. Just words, she told herself. Just words. They decided that she had ‘misspoke’ even though she wasn’t known for her propensity to mangle words, and maybe she was right. The president would be relieved, if only to look like a good commander in chief should. Light bulbs flashed in her eyes and she couldn’t see who she was calling on. “CJ, will you be returning to the Bartlet administration if he is, indeed, elected for a second term?” it was a low blow and she felt like someone had punched her in the stomach. “Of course, the President is never relieved to send American citizens into danger. Obviously that’s what I meant to say. But he does think the situation with Haiti is important and to be resolved as quickly as possible, thank you.” At her apartment, she boiled water for tea, and turned to the west coast channel where it was primetime still, even though it was midnight in D.C. She flipped though the sitcoms, and dramas, until she found her face on TV. She pressed record and taped herself and the awkward silence that followed. In the morning, when she didn’t come to work or call in sick, Josh called. “Hey CJ.” He said, sounding perky as ever. She was sitting on her bed filling in a crossword puzzle in the Washington Post, penciling in her own name. “I’m sick.” “Mmm, yeah. Ok. But it’d be really great if you would come to work now.” she could tell he was distracted, and talking over his shoulder, and it sounded like he was eating something as well. She reached over and placed the phone onto it’s cradle. 15 down was an abbreviation for the president and was two letters. She wrote in MS. The phone rang again. She decided to go into work when she had to change the MS to JB. The first lady came to apologize to her later in New Hampshire. She was in the barn, typing, and maybe bonding with the snake who wouldn’t leave her alone, but never got too close. It was a familiar relationship, and she named the snake Elliott. “I brought you some cider.” the voice startled her, and she nearly slipped off her bale of hay. “Thank you.” She took the warm mug from the First Lady, and they stood there awkwardly for a moment. She studied the mug, it said BARTLET FOR PRESIDENT. But it seemed that Toby had already gotten to it, because for was crossed out and ‘is the’ was written in it’s place. She set it down next to Elliott. Abbey eyed the snake carefully. “I didn’t mean to snap at you. I know you were just trying to do your job, CJ.” She sat across from her on an upside down bushel basket. “I’m sorry. I’ve been screwing up anyway.” she was nervous, and flushed, and she shoved up the sleeves of her sweater, knocking over the mug of cider and cracking the mug. Defeated, she put her head in her hands. “Let me see your arm.” Abbey came over. “Have you been scratching them?” The First Lady ran her clinical fingers up the skin of her forearm and watched as a snowfall of dry skin fell off. She tensed up, feeling guilty, like she was caught doing something wrong. “I have bad skin, very dry. Especially under stress, I suppose. It’s nothing.” she said, standing, towering over Abbey, but feeling like a child in comparison. If she felt those fingers on her again, she was afraid she might burn or shatter. She hastily pulled down her sleeves, and bent to pick up pieces of glass from the dirt floor. “Have you seen a doctor? A dermatologist?” “Yes, they said it would clear up. Really, I’m fine.” looking into her eyes, trying not to blink, it was one of those moments she felt like begging for forgiveness. Instead, she said, “You should see my back.” She’d been hiding her body for so long now, that as soon as she said that, she started to cry. She would have expected Abbey, as a mother, to take her in her arms and offer some comfort. Instead, she stood there and waited until she had composed herself. “CJ?” “I’m sorry.” “This is what we’re going to do. I’m going to write you a prescription for an intense moisturizer, and you’re going to take it to the drug store downtown. If you use it, you’re skin will be better, and you can stop being so goddamn sorry all the time, and you can start doing your job.” “CJ?” it was Toby, walking into the barn. “Hey. I need you to read this speech. Hello, Dr. Bartlet.” “Hello, Toby. There is cider in the kitchen. Come up to my office when you’re done with the speech, CJ.“ She was left standing there, with broken glass and sticky hands smelling of apples and cinnamon. “Did I miss something?” “I was going to have a little breakdown, but now I think I missed my opportunity.” “That’s probably a good thing.” he said, after a moment. She looked up and gave a nervous laugh. “I was planning it out in my head, you know? What I was going to yell, and throw. I was going to get really cold and go into shock. Now, I think I’m just going to help myself so I can do my job again.” “First on your list; this speech.” She looked at the yellow legal pad he was holding and shook her head. “I'm all sticky.” “I’ll walk you to the nearest spicket.” “Ok.” She looked at him, and he did a half nod and took her arm to lead her towards the big sliding wooden doors. Later, he walked her to the drugstore, while he read her speech to her, and he paid the 35 dollars for the tube of unscented lotion. This time, she didn’t throw it away, and he rubbed it on to the inflamed skin on her back while she clutched a bedpost with white knuckles and hissed. end 9:41 p.m. - 2002-01-11 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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