Certainties

Priya Deonarain


The whipped cream is the best part of a sundae. High school will be
remembered with fondness, no matter how crappy it actually was,
because post-education life is always crappier. The late movies on
television are always lemons and mob flicks. Leno will have
sarcastic jokes and Letterman will have inane ones.

The President does not get multiple sclerosis. Your father does not
cheat on your mother. Your best friend does not come *that close* to
death due to a gunshot wound.

It's just that there are some things you're certain of in life.

After Leo and President Bartlet were finished with me, I went down to
the mess. I don't know why, I wasn't hungry or anything. But I went
down there. Got an ice cream sundae. I spooned the whipped cream to
the side, though. And I didn't eat it later, just threw it away.
There was no real point in getting a sundae, because all I ate was
the ice cream and the chocolate syrup. I don't know why. But I did,
and it reminded me of summer at home when I was younger. Mom used to
buy loads of ice cream for the summer, as if we were stocking up for
some sort of nuclear disaster. No matter what time of day it was,
the icebox was always well-stocked. Always vanilla, never anything
else. No chocolate, no strawberry, no cosmopolitan. Just vanilla.

I went to see Toby after I finished my ice cream. He'd said, "I'll
be in my office when you're finished." Well, I'm finished, aren't
I? I am. I went to see him. He was leaned back in his chair,
tossing his ball on the wall. A steady thump-thump-thump.

"Hey," I said.

"Hey," he replied, catching the ball deftly, and turning his eyes to
me.

I walked into his office, and closed the door behind me. I didn't
want Leo walking in. I didn't want the President walking in. "Um."
I didn't know what to say. What do you say when you find out
something like this?

"Want to talk?" he asks, giving me that look that half-way apologetic
look he gets sometimes, even when he's got nothing to be apologetic
for.

I didn't want to talk. I wanted to walk out of that office, grab my
stuff, and head home. I didn't want to say anything at all.

"Why was I the last to know?" I asked at length. I didn't want to,
but I did. It's not like I felt out of the loop, I just . . .

He put the ball in a desk drawer. "You were working on the speech.
You were in the groove. I didn't want to hit you like this."

"Oh." That's all I said, and it was very non-commital. I thought
that I, of all people, would be able to construct a sentence longer
and more complex than that.

It's just that there are some things you're certain of in life.

I left directly afterward. I think I heard Toby call out to me, but
I wasn't too sure. I went to see CJ, hoping she'd be in still. She
wasn't. Neither was Josh, or Donna for that matter. I went to the
cousel's office. Tribbey wasn't in, so I asked when he'd be in in
the morning. The kid there told me that Babish was the White House
Counsel now.

When the hell did *that* happen? Never mind, I don't care. I left.
Went to my car. Drove home, thinking I'd hit at least *some* sort of
traffic jam. I didn't, thank God. One good thing, right? Always a
silver lining, or whatever they say. I can't think of the saying
just now.

I turned on the television, needing to hear some noise. They were
showing Leno; I hadn't realised it was still that early. He'd just
started his monologue. It was pretty silly, you know, making jokes
about some animal footage from the zoo, or something. So I switched
over to Letterman. He was making quips about the writers' strike.
I'd always thought it was supposed to be the other way around. I
watched it for a little bit, then flipped to HBO. They were
showing "Forrest Gump"; it had just started at midnight, a few
minutes prior to my finding it.

I thought, I should call my mother. She'd be up still, watching
television, or reading or something. I could tell her about the
speech, if nothing else; tell her that I insulted high school girls
nationwide.

She wasn't there. Her answering machine picked up, and I hung up
before the beep. Well, there was nothing to say. What kind of
message would I have left? "Hi mom just wrote a speech and oh by the
way the President has multiple sclerosis." Yeah. That'd work.

I went to bed. There was nothing more for me to do. I wrote the
speech, decided against inserting a really stupid passage into that
speech, insulted high school girls, found out that the only father
figure I have left has a debilitating and potentially life-destroying
disease. Notice I said life-destroying and not life-threatening;
walking across Massachussetts Avenue is potentially life-
threatening. Going down the escalator at the Dupont Circle metro
station when your shoes are untied is potentially life-threatening.

Losing cognitive abilities and motor function and not being able to
do anything other than sit and stare at the Nobel Prize and reminders
of your presidency on the mantle . . . that's life-destroying.

I couldn't sleep. I just lay there, spread-eagle on my back, on top
of the sheets because it was a really warm night, and stared up at
the blank ceiling.

It's just that there are some things you're certain of in life.

I guess I'm just not as certain anymore.

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