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MY GUESTBOOK
�The Patriots?� CJ asked.
I nodded. �He kept telling me to �see the whole board�. He said that over and over, leaving every few minutes to play against Toby or go to the Sit Room, which gave me time to think. He kicked my ass, of course, but� okay, this is going to sound incredibly cheesy, but he opened my mind. Ever since I�ve been looking at everything differently.�
�He�s never asked me to play chess,� CJ admitted.
CJ�s comment made me remember something President Bartlet used to say about �new people�. He didn�t like new people, didn�t trust new people, and had little patience for new people most of the time. It wasn�t until the Illinois primary that Bartlet started accepting Josh and CJ and Toby and me as his staff, and he didn�t remember our names until the Convention. But, even if he had known a person for years Bartlet maintained that he didn�t really know anyone until he had played chess with them. For example, Oliver Babish�s kids grew up with Liz and Ellie, his oldest babysat for Zoey and, later, Annie. Babish and the President built hospitals together�at least, that was what I�d heard, though something told me that that meant they had written checks to foundations and stayed on the business side of things rather than that they had put hammer to nail. All of Babish�s wives had been friends with Abbey, though Abbey never got along all that well with Babish himself, especially once they started meeting all the time during the MS disclosure and its aftermath. But, despite years of knowing each other, Bartlet always said that they didn�t really know each other because they had never played against each other in a game of chess.
Obviously hearing that wouldn�t cheer CJ up, so I opted to keep that particular memory to myself for the moment.
We�re both quiet for a few minutes before CJ says, �So, you, Josh, and Donna are going to be running the free world. Maybe it�s time to invest in a bunker. You know, like the one under the barn in Manchester.� We both cringe, remembering the wall-shaking screaming matches between Abbey, Bartlet, and Ron Butterfield about digging up half the farm in Manchester to put in the Presidential bunker and war room. Of course, those were merely squabbles over who was supposed to load the dishwasher compared to the battles that were waged over the Secret Service �improvements� that were visible from above ground.
�Somehow I don�t think your landlord would approve,� I commented.
�I probably won�t be living there come February,� CJ said.