EPISODE 8.4 – Written by Jo March
The Canary in the coal Mine
TEASER
INT. WEST WING LOBBY, CONTINUOUS—FRIDAY MORNING
Lester Charles had certain criteria he used when deciding whether or not it was going to be a good day. No major editorials in the morning papers criticizing the
So far this morning, he'd read editorials in the Times and the Post about the stalled vice-presidential confirmation and the Ziegler pardon; he'd waited 15 minutes for his venti decaf espresso roast; the rain had started two blocks before he reached the White House; and now Lou Thornton was waiting in the lobby for him, clutching a copy of the Post and tapping her feet impatiently.
"We need a win," she announced.
"Good morning to you too, Louise," he replied.
"Today, Lester," she repeated as they walked toward the Communications offices. "We need a win today."
"Why today?"
"Because it's Friday. Because tomorrow's Saturday. And you know what follows Saturday?"
"A Sunday morning hangover?"
Lou glared at him. "Sunday talk shows. Pundits talking on all the major networks, and a few minor ones, about how the
"Well," Lester answered, "it beats repeating 'the White House does not comment on the private lives of its staff' five times a day."
"Trust me, this week's sound bites won't be any better than last week's if we don't get out there and take over the news cycle now."
Lester, trying to balance his briefcase, the newspaper he'd read during his fifteen-minute wait at Starbuck's, his umbrella and his coffee cup, was having trouble keeping pace with his agitated boss. He stopped long enough to hand over the umbrella and coffee cup to a startled assistant and rushed to catch up to Lou.
"It's not like I can manufacture a win for this administration out of thin air," he said.
"Lester, Lester, Lester," Lou replied, shaking her head, "haven't you ever heard of the concept of spin?"
"How am I supposed to spin this—'Hey, look on the bright side, guys! At least they haven't ridden Baker out of town on a rail'?"
"No, what you're supposed to do is find something, anything, that we can rightfully claim as a victory
for this administration. As many federal agencies as we've got in this town, there must be one that's doing something right. What's on the agenda for this morning's briefing?"
Lester mentally reviewed the list he'd prepared last night. "There are a couple of undersecretary appointments."
"Boring."
"Sam and Ainsley are working on the Superfund suit."
"And when they've reported back to us, we'll have something to spin there. Right now, it's too early."
"I think the FDA has some kind of press conference set for today. Something about women's health."
"The HPV vaccine?"
"Right. That's it."
Lou tilted her head to one side, considering. "Tough fight with the religious right on that one, but we can spin it. What time's the hearing?"
"This morning."
"That won't work. Tell them to move it back to this afternoon."
"I can do that?"
"You can point out that it's to their advantage. They announce this morning and they get 20 seconds on Nightly News. They announce this afternoon, we'll send along a couple of senators and congresswomen; it'll be a press event. They can line up some cancer survivors to speak about the issue. Now it's a three-minute piece with heartwarming stories of courageous women. Our friends on the religious right will want to take over the story, yelling about how we're advocating vaccinating little girls against STDs. But they can't start rallying the troops until Saturday. Meanwhile, we've contacted Meet the Press, Face the Nation, Capital Beat—we've lined up some heavyweights from our side to get out there and talk about the underlying health story. Major talking point: We're for curing cancer. We win."
"And you want me to get started on all this now?"
"Work it into the 3 o'clock briefing."
"Right. Cure cancer by 3 o'clock. I can do that. No problem."
As Lester headed toward his office, he had no doubt that it was going to be a bad day.
"We're curing cancer today?"
Lou glanced around to see who had just spoken. She should have realized it was Ainsley Hayes. The only other woman she knew with that moonlight-and-magnolias accent was Annabeth, who rarely left the East Wing these days. She supposed there was some sort of variation in their dialects that other Southerners could pick up on, but she was a Jersey girl herself and it all sounded like Foghorn Leghorn to her.
"The FDA's curing cancer. Cervical cancer, anyway. Or, well, they're approving a vaccine that—"
Ainsley nodded. "HPV. That's not going to play well with conservative religious groups, you know."
"We're on it. Your guys are going to lose this one."
"If by 'my guys,' you are implying that my views will necessarily reflect the prevailing attitudes of, say, Jane Braun, you are making a faulty assumption. Indeed, if I had a daughter, I would insist on her receiving this vaccination."
Lou narrowed her eyes and looked at Ainsley skeptically. "Hayes, are you sure you're a
Republican?"
"Oh, yes. Would you like me to show you the secret handshake?"
"Don't believe her," another voice chimed in. Sam Seaborn, it seemed, had caught up to Lou and Ainsley somewhere between the cancer cure and the secret handshake. "She promised to give me the keys to the Republicans' hidden lair years ago, and I'm still waiting."
How, Lou wondered, did Ainsley manage to look both flirtatious and sarcastic with just a tilt of her head? And—oh, God--did this mean that Seaborn and Hayes had the potential to replace Lyman and Moss on the front page of the nation's more popular scandal sheets?
"I had every intention of passing those keys along, Sam, but then you ran for public office. I could hardly risk exposing hundreds of years of secret conservative documents to a liberal member of Congress now, could I?"
"Okay," Lou said, "I'm sure you both think you're being hilarious, but I have important work to do. Just be sure that you keep me in the loop about what happens with your trip to
Sam nodded his agreement. Lou wandered off in the direction of her office. Ainsley, on the other hand, seemed to be heading toward her old haunts.
"Hey, Ainsley," he called out. "You know you don't work in the basement any longer, don't you?"
"For your information, Sam, I was going to the Mess. I need to eat before we leave for the airport."
"I should have known," Sam mumbled.
"Breakfast is the most important meal of the day."
"I'm not disagreeing."
"If you wish to join me, we could discuss the lawsuit while we eat."
"Then what will we talk about on the plane?"
"Sam, we've barely talked since you got back to DC," Ainsley answered, as they walked down the steps. "We have a lot of catching up to do. I want to hear all about your fiancee."
"Her name is Lauren. We met when--"
Ainsley's eyes got wide. "You're marrying a former hooker?"
"That was *Laurie.* This is Lauren. Two different names. Two different women." Sam sighed in frustration. "And she was a call girl, not a hooker," he added.
"Lauren was a call girl?"
"Laurie. Laurie was a call girl. Lauren is a lawyer. Neither of them was a hooker." Sam grimaced as he heard his own voice echoing down the stairwell. Yeah, it was possible he'd gotten a little carried away there.
To his surprise, Ainsley started laughing. He'd always enjoyed Ainsley's laughter, even when he was the object of her mirth. It was like her appetite—hearty and unself-conscious.
"Donna was right," she said.
"What?"
"Donna said if I started talking about the similarities in the two women's names, you'd come unspooled within three minutes."
"Oh, great. Now my friends are conspiring against me."
Ainsley put her hand on his arm and looked into his eyes, smiling. He had forgotten how Ainsley's eyes sparkled when she was amused. And how contagious that smile of hers could be. "Only because we love you, Sam, and we've all missed you these last few years." Before he could respond, she pulled her hand away. "Now, if you will excuse me, it is, I believe, cinnamon scone day in the Mess. I will meet you at 9 o'clock in the lobby."
He stood there for several seconds, watching Ainsley walk away.
"You know, I'm pretty sure that if Leo had ever seen me just standing on the stairs like that, he would have decided I didn't have enough work to keep me busy."
Josh's voice startled Sam out of his reverie.
"Let me ask you a hypothetical question," Sam said as he turned around and started to walk back upstairs with Josh. Ainsley had been right. It was cinnamon scone day in the Mess. Josh had a half-eaten scone in his hand and a few stray crumbs on his jacket.
"Okay."
"What if you had to go on a business trip with Amy Gardner?"
"I'd send you," Josh replied.
"No, really. What if you had to go on a business trip with Amy?"
"I would send you," Josh repeated. "I have served my time in hell."
"It's a hypothetical, Josh. Just humor me. If you went on a business trip with Amy—"
"I'd sen—"
"What would Donna say?" Sam sighed, glad to have finally posed his hypothetical question.
"That I should send you," Josh answered.
They had reached the top of the steps just in time to encounter Donna, who had clearly overheard the last part of the conversation.
"You're going on a business trip with Amy?" she asked, one very expressive eyebrow cocked in Josh's
direction. "When did this get on the schedule?"
Josh looked to Sam for help.
"Uh, yeah," Sam said. "Hi, Donna. I, uh, my office is—" He pointed toward the bullpen. "I think I hear
Ginger calling me."
As Sam sped away from them, Donna took a step nearer to Josh and brushed the remaining crumbs off his jacket. "You care to explain?" she asked.
"It was a hypothetical question," he said. "And I said I wouldn't go. I'd send Sam. I said that
several times."
"I believe you."
"You do?"
"After last night, I have few doubts."
Josh beamed at her. "Yes, last night was..."
"Josh Lyman, I swear if you say 'nice'..."
"...amazing. How's that?"
Donna leaned in closer and patted his shoulder. "Good boy. You're learning." Before he could respond, she reached out and took the remaining cinnamon scone out of his hand. "I do, however, have one complaint."
"Funny," he replied with a smirk. "That's not what you said last night."
Donna put her hand around Josh's arm and started leading him back toward the Chief of Staff's office. "You left while I was still asleep this morning," she said quietly.
"I did, yes," he said. Like Donna, he lowered his voice so they wouldn't be overheard. "You know why? Because I am a thoughtful, considerate boyfriend who would never dream of waking up his girlfriend. Who was, I might add, completely and thoroughly exhausted. Because I was amazing last night."
Once again, Donna raised her eyebrow. Josh quickly corrected himself.
"*We* were amazing," he said. "Together."
"Which is why I was disappointed to wake up alone," Donna continued.
"Okay, I'm getting that I screwed up somewhere, but I'm not clear what I did."
"You left."
"To come to work. Cause I had an early meeting. And I was being nice and letting you sleep in." His brow furrowed. "If you can call 6 a.m. 'sleeping in.'"
"I don't want to sleep in," Donna replied. "Or if I do, I'm capable of going back to sleep after you
leave. In the future, please note that I want you to wake me up before you leave."
"Why?"
"Because I like seeing your face in the morning. Your chin's all stubbly, your hair's flying in about
sixteen different directions—What can I say?" She shrugged. "I like your face."
By now, they were standing directly in Margaret's line of sight. This precluded Josh giving Donna the rather thorough kiss he felt her remark called for. So he smiled and went for the banter instead. "Well, see, this puts me at a disadvantage cause I like to look at you when you're sleeping," he whispered. "You—"
Margaret coughed discreetly, calling his attention back to the real world. Donna let go of his arm and
took a step back.
"Anyway," Donna said, "I was looking for you for a reason. We're going to have dinner with the President and the First Lady in the Residence tonight. I'll meet you here, and we'll walk over together."
"Wait!" he said, as Donna turned to go. "Dinner?"
"Yes," she said. "Mrs. Santos thinks the four of us should celebrate. Today's the FDA press conference, remember? Our first big foray into the policy arena?"
He sighed. "Right." He would have preferred a quiet evening with Donna, but he knew how important today's press conference was to her and how hard she was trying to encourage Helen Santos to pursue an active agenda. "Okay. Dinner in the Residence. With our bosses. Way to party."
He watched Donna walk away until Margaret coughed again.
"Yeah, Margaret, maybe you ought to do something about that cold," he quipped as he picked up a folder on her desk. It was then that he noticed the man sitting on the sofa across from his assistant.
The guy looked like what Sam had once referred to as "the funnel people." In his early fifties, maybe,
with a choppy haircut, a graying mustache, and an old corduroy jacket—the kind with patches on the elbow. Josh wondered for a moment whether he should have Margaret call security.
Before he could reach a decision, Margaret introduced them.
"This is Dr. Hubert Kaplan," she said. "He's your 7:30 appointment."
Hubert Kaplan extended his hand. "Bob sent me," he said.
SMASH CUT TO CREDITS