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“You know, I’ve never been in box seats before,” Donna says as she dumps files onto Josh’s desk.
“What, your parents weren’t established members of the Madison Philharmonic?” Josh quips back, flipping through the papers in front of him.
“You’re funny.”
“And that’s exactly what’s going to get us the votes on this bill.”
“Josh!”
Josh looks up for the first time, seeing Donna standing in his doorway, arms crossed.
“What?” He asks.
“Next Tuesday all the senior staff are invited to see the New York Ballet while they’re in town,” Donna says.
“…Okay?”
“And you have a plus one. One that includes box seats.”
“So?”
“Take me!”
“Why?”
“Do you ever listen? I’ve never been in box seats, and this means box seats and I would like to experience something nice from this job.”
“What? Working for the President of the United States isn’t nice enough for you?”
Donna stares at Josh, her arms still firmly crossed.
“You don’t have anyone to take anyway,” she says.
“You don’t know that,” Josh replies. It’s true, but he’d like to keep up the appearance that he actually leaves the office once and a while.
“I do know that,” Donna says. “I manage your calendar, and unless you’re secretly dating the pizza delivery woman, you don’t have anyone to take.”
Josh sighs. Donna is easily the best assistant he’s ever had, and he thinks of her as one of his best friends, but sometimes it sucks when she knows his every move.
“Alright,” he eventually says. “You can be my plus one.”
A wide smile breaks out across Donna’s face, and Josh tries to quell the way it makes him want to smile just as large.
“Great!” she says.
Donna leaves his office, but from his desk, Josh watches her go back to her cubicle, a smile still plastered on her face. He watches her for probably too long to be socially acceptable, before eventually turning back to his work.
If only he could make her smile like that every day.
—
The night of the event, Josh stays later than he intends in his office, on the phone with various senators about trying to get enough votes for this bill that needs to go through this weekend.
Due to that, Donna also doesn’t get to get ready until late.
Josh feels bad about it, though not bad enough to send her home when he needs her here to make calls.
“I’ll be right back,” Donna yells out after a few hours. She has a bag in her right hand, and a pair of high heels in the left.
“You should start getting ready, too,” She says, disappearing down the hall towards the bathrooms.
It’s not that Josh doesn’t want to go see the ballet with everyone else, but this bill is really important. They’re trying to get funding for food stamps, free school lunches, and lowering taxes on basic things like milk and bread. If he hadn’t already promised Donna that he’d take her as his plus one, Josh would back out of going to stay in and make more calls.
But, he promised, and he’s already let down Donna enough times that he can’t keep doing it.
Josh sighs and closes the doors to his office so he can put on his tux. As usual, he struggles with the bowtie, it becoming a limp mess in his hands.
There’s a knock on his door, and Donna sticks her head in without waiting for an answer.
She sighs and says, “You really need to learn to tie this by yourself.”
Donna walks over and smoothes out the lapels on Josh’s coat, then starts to tie his bowtie. Josh wants to make some kind of quip back to her, but her perfume is overwhelming his senses, and he takes in what she’s wearing.
Her dress is long and silver, with the straps tying behind her neck, leaving most of her back exposed. Donna’s hair is pulled into a bun, with a few strands of hair framing her face.
“Where’d you get the dress?” Josh asks.
“The mall,” Donna replies. “The tag is still on, too.”
“You really have to stop doing that.”
“You just don’t understand that right now, probably thousands of women across the country are doing exactly the same thing. We buy the dress for one night, realize we’ll never wear it again, and then return it.”
“I still think it feels like a crime.”
Donna steps back, Josh’s tie now a perfect bow.
“And you should keep the dress, just once,” Josh says. “You deserve something nice.”
Donna looks a bit surprised, her eyebrows raising. “That’s…nice, but my bank account says differently.”
“Put it on some kind of write-off.”
“I think that’s more of a crime than me returning it after two days.”
Josh shrugs. Even though she’s tied his tie, they stay close to each other, looking into each other’s eyes.
Donna opens her mouth, like she’s going to say more, but at just that moment, Sam walks by the open office door.
“The cars are out front,” he says, sticking his head in. “Donna, you look great!”
“Thanks!” Donna replies happily. “You look nice, too.”
The phone on Donna’s desk rings. She lets out a small huff that Josh knows means she’s annoyed, and almost stomps over to answer it.
Josh looks at her as she leaves, not even noticing that Sam is still watching.
“So, the ballet,” Sam says.
Josh tears his gaze away from Donna. “What about it?”
“You’ve decided it’s a good first date for you and Donna?”
Josh stands up straight, feeling himself flush. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“Oh it’s not a date?” Sam asks. Josh wonders if he’s actually confused or just that good at playing stupid.
“No! Why would it be?” Josh says. He glances out of his office to see Donna still on the phone, facing away from them. He’s slightly worried that she’s going to overhear this and make it a whole thing .
“It’s just that…well, the ballet is a fancier event then we usually get to go to and pretty much everyone else who got a plus one is bringing a date,” Sam explains.
“Leo’s not bringing a date. Toby and CJ aren’t bringing dates. And neither am I! You’re the one bringing Ainsley.”
“It’s not about that. Why are you bringing Donna?”
Josh sighs. He digs the palms of his hands into his eyes, hoping he doesn’t get a headache from this conversation.
“Because she asked,” Josh says simply.
Josh can tell that Sam wants to say more, but Donna comes back into the office.
“That was a call from the minority whip’s office,” she says. “They did another count and are confident that the bill’s going to pass tomorrow.”
“Great,” Josh says. He brushes past Sam and Donna and into the bullpen. “Let’s go to the theatre.”
—-
He might not have thought this fully through. On two counts that is.
One is that Donna’s perfume is overwhelming his senses, and he can’t stop glancing at her out of the corner of his eye. The slope of her neck, the line of her nose just silhouetted in the dark.
The second thing is the music. Since seeing that therapist Stanley recommended, and taking his new anti-anxiety medication Josh has been fine. No more major episodes or panic attacks, and he was even able to listen to a CD of Bach the other day with only minimal discomfort.
So, even though he’s not at “putting his hand through a window” levels of anxiety, Josh can still feel tension digging its fingers into his chest.
He makes it halfway through the second act before he slips out of his seat. Josh had been seated on the aisle, something that he hadn’t even considered before Donna shoved past him to sit next to Ainsley. Knowing her, she probably thought about how he might need to leave.
Josh’s shoes make a small clicking noise as he makes his way through the silent halls of the theatre. He can still faintly hear the music and sound of pointe shoes smacking the stage.
Josh pushes open a door and finds himself taking in deep breaths of the cold air. He makes his way from the secret service agents guarding the front door, and through the garden in front of the building. Josh presses his back to a random column and takes a few more deep breaths.
The night hasn’t been impossible to enjoy, and at the very least Donna got to sit in box seats. Something she’ll probably bring up until the end of time.
Josh doesn’t know how long he’s standing there, all he knows that at some point it’s started to drizzle. The cold droplets of water make him open his eyes and take one final deep breath. The show will be ending soon.
Before he can move, the sound of high heels smacking the concrete come up to him. Then, Donna’s next to him. She’s forgotten the matching silver wrap she was wearing earlier and has her arms crossed against the cold.
“What are you doing out here?” Josh asks. He’s immediately pushing himself off the column and taking off his suit jacket.
“I could ask you the same thing,” Donna says. Josh moves closer and drapes his jacket over Donna.
“I’m fine,” is all Josh says. Off Donna’s slightly disapproving look he says, “Really.”
“I’m sorry for making you go,” Donna says.
“What?”
“I didn’t even think about the music and—“
“Donna, really, I’m fine. I just needed a little fresh air.”
Donna still looks like she doesn’t really believe him. Which is fair, considering that he said he was fine for weeks and then ended up next to her in the ER on Christmas Eve.
Josh wants to prove that he’s fine.
“Earlier Sam thought that me taking you was a date,” he says, trying to go for a joke. A joke, even though there’s something inside him that wishes it wasn’t.
“A date?” Donna asks. Josh very kindly doesn’t point out that her voice jumped about 3 octaves when she said that.
“I know, ridiculous, right?”
“Yeah, I mean just insanity.”
They both let out small huffs that could be considered laughter. The rain is coming down a bit harder now, making all the lights from DC come off streaky.
“I just can’t believe that Sam finally got the courage to ask Ainsley out—and that she said yes !” Josh says.
“I believe it,” Donna replies. “She’s liked him for a while.”
“You talk to her often?”
“Sort of you. You will never understand that most of the politics in this town happens in the women’s bathroom.”
Josh smiles. He was worried for a second that he had made her uncomfortable with the comment about it being a date.
“You just do the listening in the bathroom or are you revealing state secrets?” Josh asks.
Donna’s face flushes a bit, making the freckles along her nose more apparent. “You’ll never know, since you’re not allowed in there.”
“C’mon, what’s one thing you’ve told another woman in the bathroom?”
“That I did have a spare tampon.”
“Donna! You know I mean a real thing!”
Donna takes a deep breath and glances around. Josh thinks that she might be about to spill an actual state secret, but then considers that one time she did an interview and talked about missile silos under the White House. But, that was a long time ago and she’s grown a lot since then.
“I might have divulged to Ainsley and Carol that I had my own plan I wanted to execute.”
From her slight smile Josh knows she’s not about to drop a bomb about something political.
“What kind of plan?” He asks.
“I heard from Margaret that senior staffers were getting tickets to the ballet. And I had wanted someone to…make some sort of move, so I made up a small fib about never having been in box seats before. And it worked.”
It takes Josh longer than it probably should for him to understand what she’s talking about.
“You’ve been in box seats before?” Is the genius thing that comes out of his mouth.
Donna sighs. “Yes, Joshua. I was in high school and we took a field trip to a theatre to see a play and my class were sat in box seats.”
“Oh.”
The rest of Josh’s mind is still trying to make sense of the rest of what she said.
“It’s almost the end of the show, we should head back inside,” Donna says. She turns to go, but Josh reaches out and grabs her arm.
“Hold on a second,” he says. “What did you mean by ‘make a move?’”
“Josh, we really don’t have to do this right now.”
“No, no I want to.”
“I just meant that…well—“
“You wanted this to be a date and I’m too slow at actually asking you?”
“…Something like that.”
Donna’s not looking at Josh anymore, instead she’s studying her shoes, so Josh knows she doesn’t see the smile take over his face.
“You know, you could’ve just asked,” he says.
“What?”
“But you made a scheme instead, which really just proves that you’re the real political genius between the two of us. So, I’ll do the honors. Donnatella Moss, will you go on a date with me to the ballet? Even though I’m asking after we already went.”
Donna looks up, a bit of shock taking over her face. “Really? You’re not making fun of me right now?”
“I’m serious. Are you going to answer me?”
“Yes, Joshua Lyman, I will go on a date with you… even though we already did.”
They’re already standing close together, but they get even closer now. They’re standing only inches apart, both smiling.
“Then, I don’t think it would be presumptuous if I did this.” Josh leans in and kisses Donna. It’s everything he’s wanted since that day in the campaign office when she hired herself, for dozens of late nights at the office and watching her go out with other guys.
His hands wrap around her waist, while hers go straight to his hair. She hadn’t put her arms through his jacket, and it almost slides off her shoulders, but he manages to catch it with one hand without breaking their kiss.
They finally break apart after what could be years.
For a moment, they just stand there, taking in each other. Josh has about eight hundred things he wants to say, but before he can, the doors to the theatre open and people begin trickling out. He knows that the President and the rest of the senior staffers are being taken out through the underground entrance, and are probably wondering where they are.
“We should go before the motorcade leaves us,” Donna says.
They start walking back together, Donna’s arm linked through Josh’s. He stops them just short of the entrance to the building.
“I’m going to take you out on another date. One that we’re both aware is a date in the first place,” he says.
“Good. And it better be something I can dress up for again.”
“I wasn’t aware how high your standards would be.”
“You should’ve guessed. I’m a lady of class.”
They bicker all the way through the theatre, making it with the rest of the staffers just before they’re ushered into cars.
They’re maneuvered into the same car as Sam and Ainsley, and when Josh looks away from Donna long enough to catch Sam’s eye, he’s not at all surprised to see Sam smirking at him.
Tomorrow, Josh is probably going to get all kinds of crap, especially from Sam and CJ, but tonight Donna’s next to him, and her hand is still resting on his arm.
And that’s all he can ask for.