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That, right there, is a question I had asked myself many times. The election is over, the votes had been counted, and I had been defeated. The plan, which Leo and Toby had signed off on only because I had sacrificed so much and they felt I deserved this chance�at least, that�s what they told me when I put in my request for a leave of absence�was that I would take a six week leave of absence from my job as Deputy Communications Director and that if I won I would just have to come back to the White House to sign some more non-disclosure forms�not as many as Josh, for example, would have, since his clearance is much higher than mine, but still a fair number�and that would be that. They would consider my leave of absence as the standard two weeks notice and they would find someone to replace me or just leave Toby without a deputy, whichever Toby decided he felt more comfortable with. I had hoped, somewhere in the recesses of my heart, that he would opt not to hire anyone else, though logically I knew that if he did it wouldn�t be out of loyalty to me but rather because it took him four years to learn to work with me without tearing what�s left of his hair out and he couldn�t afford to take time out of the next four years to try to break in a new deputy. If I lost, which is the case, I would come back to work and they would consider my six week long leave of absence as just that and life would go on as it had since the first Bartlet for America campaign. There�s nothing keeping me in California anymore. Despite my best efforts I still can�t stand to be in the same room as my father and my mother has become an obnoxious drunk since finding out about the woman she calls the Santa Monica Slut, though her real name is Maria.
�I don�t know.�
Stanley doesn�t have anything to say to that, which leads me to assume that my confession is in some way more telling than I�d intended it to be.
Of course, he doesn�t let me in on what I might have said or implied that, from the look in his eyes seems to hold the key to unlocking my most current and problematic neurosis. I was starting to think that I could get more answers from the annoying �psychic parrot� who sat on his owner�s shoulder and screwed tourists and the easily amused out of thirty bucks at Balboa Beach every day from dawn �til dusk.
�Tell me about your family,� Stanley said after a long silence. �You mentioned that your father had affairs,� he prompted when I didn�t immediately begin spilling the truths behind the supposedly perfect Seaborn clan.
�Yes, he did, except that he didn�t,� I replied. Stanley looked at his notes and I elaborated before he could start thinking he was wasting his time. He had helped Josh. I wasn�t going to give up just yet. �It wasn�t a string of women over the years. It was just one woman for thirty years in an apartment in Santa Monica. One woman. One affair. They bought a house together after the divorce was finalized last fall.�
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