See disclaimers in part 1
****
House of Cards 3/4
By Lacy
Focus, delicacy, sensitivity. These words replay themselves in my
mind as I drive the short trip to Chez Robert. I am fashionably late
when I arrive and it's easy to spot Joey and Kenny in a table near the
back. She's dressed in a sharp black business suit with an iridescent
blouse. The mood lighting of the restaurant brings out an ethereal
glow in her skin.
"Joey," I offer my hand when I approach the table. She and Kenny
stand in tandem as she accepts my hand with a firm grip, releasing it
quickly so that she can immediately sign her greetings.
"It's good to see you again, Josh," Kenny translates. "You look
well."
"I am. Thank you." I respond.
"Where's Donna?" she signs. "I expected you to bring her along."
"Donna's name wasn't on the invitation," I remind her.
"I'm sorry," she signs. "I should have been more clear in my
instructions to Kenny. I wanted to offer you both my congratulations.
Belated as they are."
"So, you knew?"
"I read the papers, Josh. It would have been hard to miss."
"I wasn't sure."
"You never returned my calls, Josh. For a while, I wondered about
this, but now it's so clear."
"Calls?" I ask in confusion. "What calls?"
"After the...." There's a pause in her signing as she makes a decision
to be blunt, "shooting. I called several to times to ask after you."
"I only received the one message," I explain. "When I was in the
hospital. The flowers were thoughtful of you."
"This was later," she tells me, "after you were released. I called
your office. I left messages with-"
"Donna," I conclude, as her story comes into focus. "I never got
them."
"I assumed that you weren't ready to speak with anyone so I stopped
calling. I got the message."
"I didn't," I say again. "I didn't get the messages."
"It's possible that she put them aside for later and then forgot about
them."
"Yes, I'm sure she did," I say, but I don't believe it for a single
moment.
Donna doesn't just fail to remember things. In fact, if anything, she
goes to great pains to ensure that her job performance is completely
above board. It's been that way ever since the very beginning, when
she lived in fear of being fired.
But she conveniently forgot to pass Joey's messages along. My mind
grapples with excuses for Donna's behavior, but the only reason I can
devise for her lapse in job performance is that Donna knew I would
call her back. Donna knew that I would want to talk to Joey, so she
deliberately let me believe that Joey wasn't interested.
<<If you hadn't been shot you'd probably be with her right now instead
of me>>
Donna's earlier words flood back to me and though they didn't make
sense at the time, Joey's piece of the puzzle has brought a fuzzy
picture into focus. Damn it! How could I have been such an idiot?
That's why she didn't want me to meet with Joey tonight. Not because
of the omission, or even the 'catching up'. She didn't want me to
meet with Joey because she knew the truth would be revealed.
I have to give her credit, though. What a masterful gambit she's
played, orchestrating an entire future -- and I thought I was a
brilliant strategist. Donnatella Moss could teach the oldest of
sharks on Capitol Hill a few tricks. She was so subtle about it, too,
I never would have guessed on my own. I never would have known
without this meeting tonight. I just would have gone happily wherever
Donna led me.
"Look, Joey, "I begin. "I wanted to meet with you this evening, but I
have some pressing matters at work, that I can't really discuss.
Maybe I can call you sometime, or we can get together next time you're
in town?"
"That would be nice," she smiles. "And next time you can bring Donna
along."
We stand from the table and I lean across to place a kiss on her
cheek. "Sorry about dinner." Our eyes catch and hold for a moment
and she smiles before I turn to leave.
My anger only becomes more acute on the drive home. My hands grip the
steering wheel until my knuckles whiten with the pressure. A part of
my mind whispers that it would be more prudent to wait until I've had
time to cool off, before confronting Donna. But another part screams
that she's the one who's been a hypocrite in this situation and I
should be the one to call her on it, before she has a chance to play
any more nasty games.
What could she have been thinking all those months ago?
Slamming the car door gives me a small amount of satisfaction, but not
nearly as much as the feel of the hardwood floor vibrating beneath my
feet when the front door meets the jam with an abrupt violence. I
drop my keys on a pile of boxes beside the door.
In the living room, Donna is unpacking, but recoils at the sound of my
ferocious entrance. She levels her eyes at me, and opens her mouth,
obviously to ask me what the hell my problem is.
"It looks like I'm not the only liar in this house," I speak without
giving her the opportunity to renew the list of my transgressions.
Now it's my turn.
"What?!"
"Yeah, I got the whole story from Joey, just like you knew I would."
"What the hell are you talking about?"
"You know, I've got to admit. It was a brilliant strategy on your
part. I knew you were smart, but this...this was more devious than
something even I could come up with."
"Devious--?"
"You played me and I didn't even see it coming. And why should I?
Who did I trust more than you?"
"Josh-"
"It all makes sense, what you said tonight, about how if I hadn't been
shot I would probably be with her right now instead of you."
"I don't understand. How did this become about me? Did she tell you
something about me?"
"Exactly like you knew she would. When she mentioned the calls, I
knew that was why you were so upset earlier. You didn't care that I
was having dinner with another woman. Hell, you didn't even care that
I didn't tell you about it. But you knew that Joey would tell me the
truth."
"And what truth did she tell you?" She's valiantly keeping her
emotions in check, desperately trying to hang on to her opposing
position and its arguments. Seeing her so strong in the face of my
rage - so unaccountable to her own misdeeds - simply makes me want to
break her all the more.
"The calls, Donna! She told me about the calls."
"Could you please lower your voice? What calls?" She asks so
innocently. And I think this face -- this expression -- bought my
trust for three years.
"You know damn well what calls I'm talking about."
"Refresh my memory."
"She called regularly after I was released from the hospital. Except
that I never called her back, because I never got the messages. You
deliberately withheld information from me. You stabbed me in the
back. God, now I know how Caesar must have felt. Except that I've
been sleeping with my Brutus. I guess that makes me more like Samson
to your brilliantly performed Delilah. And what acting!" I hiss
harshly, enjoying the way she cringes against the onslaught of my
fury. "Give the girl an Oscar. I always thought I knew your every
look, your every glance, but now I know that it was all just an act.
Have you been playing me from the start? How else could you get me to
hire you without any qualifications or references? You just looked up
at me, begging with your eyes, and I fell for it. But you were right
all along, Donna. If I'd never been shot, I would probably be with
her now, instead of you. You played with my life. You held it in
your hands, when I was most vulnerable, and then you toyed with it to
make it fit your own whims. What gave you the right?"
My anger seems to spend itself, and I wait for the arguments I'm sure
will be forthcoming. She stands utterly still, shell shocked by my
brutally honest tirade. At some point during my outburst, she finally
began to cry. This was not weeping, though, or dramatic sobbing,
merely the eerie spilling over of tears onto her ashen cheeks.
There is no fear in her eyes, or in her stance. There is only
heartbreak and a disappointment so black and so deep, that I will
never be able to forget the desolation of it. No admissions of
culpability are on her lips. When she finally speaks, it's not what
I'm expecting. There is no begging or beseeching for forgiveness.
"Ginger handled the phones," her voice is faint and cracking.
I am struck speechless by this new disclosure, something of which I
was previously unaware.
"I was too busy with taking care of you and trying to keep things in
order. I couldn't do that and deal with the volume of calls coming in
to your office. Ginger offered to help, and Toby let her. He was
trying to get on my good side."
It's probably at this point that I realize I should have listened to
the voice that was doing the whispering inside of my head, back when I
was in the car. I should have taken a cooling off period.
"You can ask them," she tells me, wiping the tears from her face. She
crosses to the fireplace mantle, careful not to touch me as she passes
by me. I can only turn to watch her because my mouth, so willing to
sprint away earlier, has now refused to function. "You can have your
life back, Josh," she whispers, as she places a hand on the mantle,
borrowing its strength.
It's progressively sinking in that the grief I meted out was as much
self-inflicted as it was aimed towards her. My own reaction is simply
more delayed. I've said many things to her, both in jealousy and
anger, and most frequently in frustration, but my outburst tonight was
pure destruction. I did something, or rather didn't do something,
that could have made all the difference. I didn't follow my own
personally crafted list of rules. The first one of which is 'Get all
the facts'.
"You're right," she sniffles, clinging to the shreds of her emotional
control. "You didn't have a choice."
She's agreeing with me?
"And you really should have that choice, Josh," she takes a ragged
breath. "While I wasn't smart enough to create the devious plan you
imagine, I'm smart enough to know that a choice of one, isn't much of
a choice. It's just settling for what you can get."
"Donna," my voice returns, but I have no idea what I can say to her to
take it all back. I just wish I could turn back the clock, as trite
as that sound and start the day over. I've done so many things wrong
- made so many errors in judgement.
"I don't want to be someone you settle for," she persists. "So take
your life back," she removes the ring from her finger and places it on
mantle, "and welcome to it."
The feeling of my heart being seized sadistically from my chest serves
to remind me that she is only returning the favor. She's gently and
peacefully revisiting upon me the pain that I, only minutes ago,
brutally visited upon her. And unlike me, who spoke out of anger, she
speaks from despair. Unlike me, she whispers with the full weight and
knowledge of the truth behind her.
"Donna, I didn't know." I attempt the excuse, but understand that
ignorance is no justification for the systematic deconstructing and
annihilation of her spirit.
"Doesn't matter," she responds, before fleeing from the room as though
I am the Devil Himself. She grabs my keys from the box I dropped them
upon, and escapes the house without a backward glance.
"Donna!" I shout, but she is already gone. By the time I reach the
door, my car's engine is roaring to life, and she's pulling away from
the curb at an incalculable rate of speed. She had no other means of
flight, since we'd left her car at the old townhouse and made plans to
retrieve it on Monday. And I am left without the means to follow.
She's left me again, and this time I gave her every reason. I hope
that she will come back, if for no other reason that to gather some
things. In her haste, she left her purse, and I hope that she isn't
pulled over for speeding in the city limits.
Upstairs I pack a few things of my own, in case she wants me to leave.
And I wait. I wait for the pain to stop, but I know that it never
will. I wait for her return. I wait for her to dream up some parting
shot, and to come back so that she can deliver it with all the
abhorrence I deserve.
I wait, but she doesn't come.
TBC