Of course it helps that I'm a bit nostalgic about Chinese food these days.  I'm also feeling stunningly unfunny right now.  So I lean over and whisper in Donna's ear.  "Come with me."

She arches an eyebrow at me.  Apparently she's still pissed about the flowers.  But then she says, her tone suggestive, "Now where have I heard that before?"

"Donna!" I yelp.  Loudly.  I mean, really!  We've agreed to stop having all the sex for five more weeks because of the possible repercussions in our professional lives, and she brings the double-entendres while sitting in the Roosevelt Room with, among other people, a Republican lawyer?

I realize belatedly that all eyes are on us.  Sam is smirking.

So is Donna, actually.

I wave everyone else off and tilt my head towards the door.  "Donna."  I stand up and start for the door, reconsider, then turn and grab the rest of the chicken.

She rolls her eyes, heaves an exaggerated sigh, and follows me out into the hallway.  "Where are we going?"

"To find Toby."

"He's in the Oval Office with the president," she answers.

"Well, how long can he stay in there?" I ask, irritated, as we reach the hallway just outside the ante-room and there's no sign of Toby.

Donna rolls her eyes.  "Seeing as how the president doesn't usually include me in his scheduling, I have no idea."

"I'm just saying, if it's long, it's important.  If it's important, I should be there."

She gives me an amused look.  "Because the world would shudder to a halt if you weren't?"

"Could you maybe cut the sarcasm a little?"

"No," she answers promptly.

"I sent you flowers!"

"I noticed."

"And after all of the thought and effort I put into the flowers, this is how you treat me?"

And now she brings the skeptical face.  "Did you grow the flowers yourself?"

"No, I--"

"Did you drive to a florist and select the flowers with me in mind?"

"Well, no.  But--"

"Did you arrange the--"

"Donna!"

"I'm just saying, Josh, that dialing a phone and saying, 'Hey, I really want to irritate my--'"  She stops short, shooting a furtive glance in the direction of the Oval Office, then waves one hand dismissively.

I jump in before she can get back on track with the ranting.  "I'll have you know that not only did I have to decipher your illogical rolodex, I had to translate your cryptic handwriting--"

"Translate?" Donna interrupts, smirking.  "You are aware that my rolodex cards are written in English, right?"

"You know what I mean," I answer defensively.  "I had to find the appropriate card--"

"I'm supposed to thank you for rifling through--"

"I did not rifle!  I do not rifle!  And if you would file florists under 'F' like a normal person--"

"And the yellow pages were just too daunting for you Ivy-Leaguers?"

"Donna, the place is called Beaucoup Bouquet -- which is a singularly stupid name -- it's a florist, and you had it filed under 'A.'"

"Yes," she nods.

I stare at her.  "Under 'A.'"

"Yes."

"Not 'B'; not 'F'--"

"But 'A.'  Is there a point to this?"

"'A!'"

"'Apology,' Josh.  I send flowers to apologize every time you piss somebody off.  Which is practically a daily occurrence."

"It is not."

"Monday, you lectured the Editor in Chief of Time magazine on the fallacy of objectivity."  Donna uses a chopstick to tick off her points on her fingers.  "Tuesday afternoon, you called the Majority Leader an ignorant, conceited, ugly-ass windbag.  Yesterday--"

"Yeah, but I haven't pissed anyone off today," I point out.

"First, Congress is on a break.  Second, you've pissed me off today," she says with a triumphant look.

I grin down at her, because she is just too adorable when she's all riled up.  "So you're saying I should send you flowers?"

Donna glares up at me for a second.  "Bite me," she says, then turns and leaves me standing there holding my garlic chicken.

I smile at her retreating form.  "Name the time and place," I mutter.  Even if she doesn't hear it, it's imperative that I have the last word.

***

She didn't stop for red lights.

This time, as I watch Donna waltz away from me, I can't quite speak.

I know she used the subjunctive -- if I were in an accident -- but the look she gave me, the weight she gave the words...  She was telling me more about That Night.

Donna didn't stop for red lights when she heard about Rosslyn.  She had no idea I was hurt.  Not consciously.  From what little I pried out of CJ, Donna reacted like someone who'd just been informed that the sun is actually a small, furry bear and the earth is...

Yeah, I have no idea where to go with that.

Anyway, Donna didn't know I'd been shot.  She couldn't understand it when she was told, but she didn't stop for red lights on the way to the hospital.

I have a sudden image of Donna in her piece of shit Toyota, eyes wide and unblinking, shoulders scrunched up, breathing short, panicky breaths, and breaking several traffic laws to get to me.  My heart aches for her.

For all of them.

I don't remember That Night.  Except in the nightmares.  But I can't consciously remember much of that day.  I'm told that's normal with a trauma.  I remember most of the speech at the Newseum, but that's it.  Not the walk out to the cars, not the gunfire, not even when they found me.

And intellectually, I knew it was hard on them.  I saw the tapes of CJ's briefings, her voice high and thready, her eyes wild.  I saw Sam on GMA, jittery and more verbose than normal, a haunted look on his face.  There's even some footage of Leo, Ginger, Charlie, and Toby from sometime the next day, just a snippet of them walking from the car into the hospital, but there is bone-deep fatigue in the lines of their bodies.

I saw the tapes, but it was like watching something from an alternate universe.  It wasn't real to me.

Donna wasn't ever on camera, then.  I don't have any frame of reference, except for some snatches of her watery smiles from the first weeks in the hospital, high on painkillers and pain.  Donna and I talked a bit, but never in detail -- I never wanted to upset her, and I'm sure she didn't want to upset me.

But tonight, with one sentence, Donna helped me to understand That Night.

If I weren't already helplessly in love with her, I would be after that.  Or, to be realistic, if I hadn't already figured out that I've been in love with her for years, I would finally have deciphered a clue.

When I've regained a little bit of my equilibrium, I push away from the door frame and head for the Roosevelt Room.  Donnatella Moss and I are going to my house tonight. I don't care if we have sex -- well, that's a lie -- but I want her in my bed tonight.

I sleep better with her there, and I have a feeling the nightmares are going to be making an appearance.

***

The tension in my body eases slightly as I approach the Roosevelt Room.  I can hear laughter and cheerful voices.

And Donna, bringing the history of the ERA.

I groan and open the door.  "Just to clarify -- we're not doing a joke about the ERA, right?"

Sam glances at me and shakes his head.  "No."

"'Cause I really don't want NOW on my back.  To say nothing of CJ."

"We're not doing a joke on the ERA," Sam assures me.

Donna doesn't even spare me a glance, just inserts, "It's not a joke" into the middle of her argument and continues, "Ainsley, the only right the Constitution specifically affirms for women and men equally is the right to vote."

I slide into a seat next to Donna and give Sam a curious look.  He merely shrugs.

Across the table, Ainsley shakes her head.  "The Nineteenth Amendment--"

Donna interrupts, her tone polite but determined, "States that 'The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.'  The right to vote.  That's it."

Ainsley looks amused.  "That's the same language as in the Fifteenth, Donna.  Except instead of 'sex,' it says 'on account of race, color or previous condition of servitude.'  You don't see Blacks or Hispanics pushing for their version of the ERA."

Larry and Ed have given up all pretense of working on the jokes, instead watching the interplay between the two women.

"Well," Sam interjects.  "The Fourteenth actually does protect them."  He glances over to Donna, who picks up the argument.

"Black males, Hispanic males, Asian males, Indian males -- they're protected by the Fourteenth, by virtue of the Civil Rights Act."

Ainsley laughs.  "Guys, I've studied this stuff.  The Fourteenth protects all citizens of the United States!  And the language of the Fourteenth says 'All persons born or naturalized in the United States.'  The Supreme Court used the equal protection clause to rule that women should be allowed in the Virginia Military Institute!"

"The first time the Fourteenth was used to protect women was in 1971," Donna points out.  "And the language in the ruling was quite biased.  It sets up different standards for men and for women claiming discrimination."

I can't take my eyes off of Donna.  Her ability to retain and spout countless facts about any given subject is well-documented, but I've never really seen her arguing.  Well, with anyone other than me.

She's totally hot.

Across the table, Ainsley is still bound and determined. "It does not."

Sam nods, "No, I remember this.  Donna, wasn't it something like 'skeptical'?  Courts are instructed to be skeptical about women's claims of discrimination?"

"Yes; skeptical as opposed to strict," Donna nods.  "In fact, a white male claiming race discrimination is protected by strict scrutiny, but a black female claiming sex discrimination is protected by only skeptical, not strict, scrutiny."

Ainsley sighs.  "This isn't getting us anywhere.  We're supposed to be writing jokes, not debating Amendments to the Constitution.  Besides which, the Fourteenth protects all citizens.  So the courts made a questionable ruling; that doesn't mean the law itself isn't enough."

"The law itself doesn't apply to women," Donna says.  "In fact, the Fourteenth is pretty much a rich white man's law."

"No, it isn't," Ainsley argues.

Sam, who has been flipping through a legal tome, looks up.  "It really is: 'the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age.'"

"Women were included with the Nineteenth," Ainsley counters.  "And that doesn't limit rights to white men."

Sam shakes his head.  "The Fourteenth discusses 'counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed'--"

"Excluding Indians not taxed?" I interrupt.  "Native Americans have been born here for thousands of years, but they weren't considered citizens."

Donna smiles at me.  "And it also states that the United States government won't pay for escaped slaves.  That, plus the use of 'whole number' to recall the three-fifths Compromise?  If I were a Black man, I wouldn't want this to be my only protection."

"There have been laws passed since then," Ainsley argues, "that render those clauses inactive."

Sam snorts.  "Laws, but not Amendments.  Which is rather disturbing, actually."

Ainsley gives him a strange look.  "What are you talking about?"

"Your Pay Equity Act -- which is working so well, I should add -- is not a Constitutional Amendment.  Hey, Donna, how hard is it to get an Amendment added to the Constitution?"

I lean back in my chair and try to control the smirk.  This is much more fun that rewriting the Correspondent's speech.

"Hard," Donna answers promptly.  "You need a two-thirds majority in both Houses of Congress.  Then three-fourths of the states have to ratify it.  Which means 38 State Legislatures have to pass it in both of their Houses.  The ERA, by the way, was passed by the United States House of Representatives, the United States Senate, and thirty-five states."  She grins at Sam.  "Do you want me to name them?"

"The states?" Sam asks.

"Yes."

"That ratified the ERA?"

"Or the ones that didn't," Donna shrugs.

"No.  But thanks."  Sam turns to Ainsley and continues, "You know how easy it is to overturn the Pay Equity Act?  Simple majority in Congress. 51-49.  Take a good, hard look at Congress right now and ask yourself if we need a Constitutional Amendment declaring women equal under the law once and for all."

"We already are," Ainsley answers, starting to get irritated.

Donna stares at her.  "The Pay Equity Act?"

Ainsley gives Sam a dirty look, then glances at Donna.  "Yes.  Sam argued earlier that women are paid less than men.  I pointed out that not only is there already a law in place to prevent pay disparity by gender -- The Pay Equity Act -- many women make less over the course of their lifetimes because they have children."

Trying to avert the impending explosion, I grab Donna's hand under the table, and she nearly crushes my fingers.

Donna blinks at Ainsley.  "Excuse me."

"See?" Sam says to me.  "This is what I've been dealing with all night."

"You didn't come down to my office until 10:45," Ainsley doesn't even look at him.  "If women take five years off to raise a child, they can't expect employers to just pretend they were working all those years and pay them what a male employee that same age is making."

Donna's eyes are very wide.  "Have you met Rosita?"

I give Donna's hand an appreciative squeeze.  Donna doesn't even have her Bachelor's degree and she's more than holding her own against a Republican lawyer.  She is amazing.

"What?" Ainsley asks.

"Rosita," Donna repeats.  "She's one of the janitors here."

Ainsley shakes her head.  "No, I don't think I have."

"Rosita is twenty-seven," Donna says.  "She makes $18,000 a year.  She works because her husband died and left her with three children to support.  Think she chooses to work or not work?"

Smiling, Sam intones, "Tonight, the role of Claudia Jean Cregg is being played by Donnatella Moss."

"Hey, Ainsley," I say, shooting Sam a glare, "what are the statistics on spousal abuse by women because I think I'm -- OW!"

Donna has, predictably, smacked me upside the head.  "He was being you again," she explains.

"He was not!" I protest.  "I'm not stupid enough to mock CJ's feminista leanings."

Donna glances at me.  "Feminista?"

I put on my best innocent face.  "Her completely understandable feminist leanings that are shared by everyone in this room, except possibly Ainsley?"  I do not want to be smacked again.

"I like 'feminista,' actually," Donna grins.  "Anyway, my point is that women who aren't upper-middle class don't have the luxury of working or not working.  I can barely afford my rent."

Ainsley brightens.  "That's a flawed argument."

I give her a look.  "Excuse me?"

"Donna including herself in the argument.  She's a government employee," Ainsley says.  "The government absolutely doesn't discriminate on the basis of gender.  Government employees are given GS ratings related to their duties, and paid accordingly."

"She," Donna says, "is paid very little money for her traditionally pink-collar job."

"Pink collar?" Ainsley scoffs.  "Please.  A good many -- probably the majority -- of the assistants at the White House are men.  Look at Ed and Larry."

Reflexively, we do.  Both men toss up their hands, and Larry mumbles, "We are so not getting into this."

"Take a look, someday," Donna tells Ainsley.  "There are 1100 White House employees, and only 53 of them are female.  If you look around the bullpen, you'll see a few women.  Check out the offices, though, and you'll find only one.  CJ Cregg.  The Senior Staff is overwhelmingly male."

"Hey!" I protest.

Donna glares at me.  "Ann Stark could do your job."

"Ann Stark is a Republican!"

"Yeah," Donna shrugs.  "But she's a damn good politician."

I make a sour face.  "I'm better."

Sam snickers.  "Sure, Josh."

"I am!" I insist.  "And I got this job because I got the President elected.  Not because I'm a man."

It's Donna's turn to squeeze my hand.  "I'm not saying it is your fault.  I'm not even saying there's a qualified female Democratic political operative out there right now who could do your job.  But why isn't there?"

Ainsley rolls her eyes.  "Are we going to do the social-conditioning argument now?  Because I have very little patience for something that can be disproved by the fact that I went to college, law school, and then got a job in the White House Counsel's office.  Society didn't tell me I couldn't."

"Ainsley," Donna says quietly.  "You're a middle-class white woman.  Society is a bit crueler to lower class Hispanic women, to name just one subset."

"Donna," Ainsley answers.  "People are paid according to their levels of education.  Someone without a Bachelor's degree can't expect to be paid the same as someone with a post-Graduate degree!"

I am wincing, ready to hold Donna back if needed, but she surprises me.  Ignoring the unintentional barb, Donna calmly counters with statistics.  "Men with high school diplomas made $30,868 on average in 1998; women with diplomas made $21,963.  I'll spare you the racial breakdowns, but here's food for thought:  A black women with a Bachelor's degree makes $15,275 per year less than a college-educated white male, and $3,777 less yearly than a white male with only a high school diploma."

"I'm not sure where you're getting your numbers," Ainsley answers after a moment, "but women are free to sue under the Pay Equity Act if they're being discriminated against financially.  In fact, the Supreme Court used the Civil Rights Act to remedy past job discrimination against women in 1986."

Sam looks a bit shocked.  "I'm sorry -- did you just use the Civil Rights Act to make a point?"

"Yes."

Donna raises an eyebrow.  "That's not a redundant law?"

"No."

"Because," Donna answers, "it outlaws racial discrimination in public accommodations and by employers, unions, and voting registrars.  Rights that aren't listed in the Fifteenth, which outlawed racial discrimination for the purposes of voting."

Ainsley is glaring at Donna.

Sam and I are grinning like idiots, because we can see where she's going with this.  Donna is so incredibly hot right now.

"And," Donna continues, "since the language in the Fifteenth is exactly the same as the Nineteenth -- substituting 'sex' for 'race,' of course -- then women do not have those protections under the law."  Donna glances at me, and I can tell she's trying hard not to laugh.  "Right?"

"Right," I answer.  I really need for her to come home with me right now.

"Look," Ainsley says, "we could debate this all night.  What it comes down to is this:  There isn't an overwhelming need for the ERA.  In fact, every time Congress passes a law, or the state legislatures ratify an Amendment to the Constitution, there's a bit less freedom in this country."

Donna shakes her head.  "Do you think that the Civil Rights Act somehow limited your freedom?"

"No," Ainsley admits.  "But it opens the door--"

"For blacks, Hispanics, Native Americans, Asians, Indians, Prussians, Kurds, and any other minority group to be able to vote.  How is this restricting freedom?"

Ainsley stands.  "I don't want my rights handed down to me, Donna.  Old, white men shouldn't be able to enumerate my rights.  It's humiliating."

"The ERA was written by Alice Paul.  Its Chief Sponsor in the House is a woman.  It has been supported by women for 80 years, give or take, and the people who oppose the ERA have largely been old, white men."

The sudden silence in the room is unnerving.  Ainsley is standing there, glowering at Donna.  Sam is grinning.  Donna is waiting for a rebuttal.  And I'm trying my hardest not to drag her to the nearest room with a functioning lock.

"Um, guys?" Larry says.  "I think Toby's coming."

Sam's grin vanishes.  "Shit!  Come on.  We need jokes, people!"

Ainsley and Donna stare at each other for a moment longer, then Ainsley sits down, breaking their gaze.  She reaches for a notepad and turns her attention to Sam.

Donna finally allows herself to smile, her expression luminous.  She glances at me and I grin right back.

On the pretext of grabbing a piece of paper on the table, I lean closer to Donna and say, "You were amazing."

Donna's alabaster skin flushes, and she dips her chin in acknowledgment.  "Thanks."

***

No way in hell I'm letting Donnatella Moss walk away from me again this evening.  She is coming home with me.

"Donna," I say, tugging on her arm as we walk to the parking lot.

She gives me a knowing look.  "Illegal touching, Josh."

"That was your elbow, Donna.  Hardly an erogenous zone."

Donna stops as we reach her car and leans in towards me, her hand brushing my bicep.  "Everywhere on my body is an erogenous zone when you touch me, Josh," she whispers in this seductive tone.  "Just like your entire body is an erogenous zone when I touch you."

"Is not," I argue childishly, even as I shudder from the feel of her fingers grazing me through three layers of cloth.  "Come home with me."

"Way to prove your argument," Donna grins.  "Have you been taking debating tips from Ainsley?"

"You were so sexy in there," I admit.  "I've taught you well."

Donna rolls her eyes.  "So you're all hot and bothered because I was arguing with a Republican and now you want me to come home with you?"

"Not for sex," I say.  It's possible I'm lying right now.  "It's late."

"Yeah?  And?"

"We have to be back here around seven."  My hand tangles with hers.

"Right," Donna nods.  "So we'd best get going."

"My place is closer," I point out.

Donna nods and slips into her piece of shit Toyota.

I'm tempted to run a few red lights myself on the way home, considering we're working with some serious time constraints.  Thank God CJ's otherwise occupied tonight.

We reach my condo and Donna follows me inside carefully.  We're both a bit paranoid about tabloid photographers after the thing with Sam and Laurie.

There's no one skulking about, so we stand just inside the door, staring at each other.  I want her so badly right now, but I'm not making the first move.  We've still got that bet, and textbooks are damn expensive.

"You know," Donna says in this low, throaty voice, "there's still a possibility the ERA could get ratified."

I raise my eyebrows at her.  "It had a time limit.  Which ended in 1982."

Donna gives me a lazy grin.  "The Madison Amendment."

I crinkle my forehead at her.  "The Congressional pay raise thing?"

"Yes," she says, easing her jacket off.  I may be salivating.

"Wha-- What does the Madison Amendment have to do with the ERA?" I ask.

"Not much," she says, reaching for my shoulders.  But she's merely removing my jacket.  Dammit.  She leans back a bit and smiles up at me.  "The Madison Amendment was ratified in 1992."

"Yeah," I manage.  "I repeat:  What does the Madison Amendment have--"

"To do with the ERA?" Donna interrupts.  "It took 203 years."

I blink at her.  "What did?"

"The Madison Amendment was proposed in 1789."

"Okay," I nod.  I really just want her to stop talking and kiss me.  Is that too much to ask?  She is so damn sexy.

"The Supreme Court has mandated that Amendments must be ratified in a 'reasonable' and 'sufficiently contemporaneous' period of time.  Which, apparently, is 203 years."

"Okay," I repeat.  I believe I am incapable of much else.  She's reaching for my sweater and pulling it over my head.

"If we can get three more states to ratify the ERA, three decades is considerably less than twenty, which means the ratification period would meet the Court's definition of 'reasonable.' Right?"

I reach into my jeans pocket and take out my wallet.  "Screw the bet," I say, tossing it at her.  "Here's the textbook money.  Let's do it."

I lean in to kiss her, but Donna holds me off with a hand on my chest.

She grins up at me.  "You get our anniversary wrong and then you offer me money for sex?"

"Donna--"

"I'm serious, Josh!  There's a term for that!"

"It's called a bet.  Now get undressed."

"Josh, I'm pretty sure this is illegal."

"Well, perhaps in some Southern states--"

"Joshua!"

"Donnatella!  Would you like me to demonstrate something I know to be illegal in several Southern states?  I do believe you have expressed appreciation in the past for--"

"Get in here," she interrupts, pulling me into the bedroom.  "But I won the bet."

I grin at her.  "Who says women aren't equal to men?"

THE END

04.07.01