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“DONNA!” Josh hollered picking up the next file on his desk reading the label and already standing.
“Don’t shout. I don’t want you to pull something.” Donna shouted back from her desk, also rising to meet him as he left the offer.
“I can shout. And why is this on my desk? This is a PR problem. You need to give this to Mandy. I don’t have time for this school yard stuff.” He said handing her the folder and turning to head for Sam’s office.
“Mandy isn’t here and you have ten minutes to read over the DNC priorities before the meeting.” Donna told him, handing him another folder.
“I’ll tell the DNC what their priorities should be. What do you mean Mandy’s not here? She sick or something?” He handed her back the second folder. “Hey Sam! Do you know why the DNC wants another meeting?”
“No, I think there might be something about California though.” Sam said, looking around from his assistants desk.
“Josh!” Donna whined. “You need to handle this. Mandy isn’t sick, she’s gone.” Josh stopped at that.
“What do you mean gone? Where’d she go?” He said taking the file and starting to flick through it.
“I don’t know but until we get a new media consultant you need to deal with some of this stuff.” Josh looked perplexed.
“When did this happen?” He asked, still flicking between the clocks checking when his meeting was and the folder in front of him.
“I don’t know, its been crazy around here.” She said, “What do you want me to do with that?” She pointed at the folder.
“Oh, get one of CJs people to write up a press release stating it's an important issue and we’re consulting with all parties involved to ensure we have a clear view of the problem.” He said looking at her.
“And are we?” She asked pointedly.
“No. It's gardening, we don’t care but I’m sure someone will be talking to people.” He headed for Sam who was finishing up telling Ginger something.
“Hey, what happened to Mandy?” He asked as they headed for the DNC meeting.
“Mandy? She left, didn't she?” He said clearly trying to remember something.
“Yeah, but why? When?” Josh asked earnestly.
“Better offer I assume. It's not like we pay the big bucks around here.” Sam shrugged as they entered the Roosevelt Room.
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As they left the meeting Josh saw CJ coming down the corridor. He looked to Sam but the coward had already run for it. Why hadn’t he thought of that.
“Joshua.” She said sternly blocking his path back to his office. “What is this about a fluff statement?”
“It’s not a big deal, we’re looking into it.” He tried to placate the taller woman.
“Josh, this is a serious issue.” She insisted.
“It’s a PR problem. It shouldn’t even be on my desk.” Josh managed to dodge around her but she just followed him.
“According to Donna your not looking into it at all.”
“What happened to Mandy, this is a Mandy problem.” Josh stopped and turned to CJ hoping for an answer.
“She got eaten by wolves, Josh, which is exactly what will happen to you if you don’t actually do something about this.”
“It’s not a big deal! But seriously, what happened to her? I get back and she’s just gone.”
“You had time to learn about the Astrologist at MIT but you don’t know what happened to Mandy?” CJ asked, realising Josh was serious.
“I was shot!” Josh complained, he’d been isolated. Donna had rules about that sort of thing. It wasn’t his fault he was a little out of the loop.
“I am not you ex-girlfriend tracking service, Josh. You want to know what happened to Mandy, you call her.” CJ told him before storming off in a different direction. As much as Josh wanted to know he was happy that she had dropped the PR thing and decided he was best off hiding before she realised he’d not agreed to do anything about it. Toby’s office sounded like a good idea.
He ducked in closing the door behind him.
“What do you want!?” Toby yelled not looking up from where he was hunched over his keyboard.
“What happened to Mandy?” He asked, hoping to distract the irate man from his presence.
“What?” Toby still hadn’t looked up.
“Mandy, about yay big, dark haired, bane of my existence?”
“I fired her.” Josh was shocked, Toby liked Mandy, she kept things off his plate.
“Why?”
“Because she was bad.” Toby said finally looking up. “She was bad and I fired her because she was kicking puppies and I didn’t not like the way she chewed.” Toby said, walking towards a confused Josh.
“Really?”
“Of course not! I didn’t fire her! Her mother got sick and she left or something.” He said turning back to his desk was done with the conversation he’d only briefly visited in the first place.
“Toby, her mother died while we were in college.” Toby perched on the side of his desk and rubbed his eyes pinching his nose.
“Well, then I simply have no idea Josh, please get out.” Josh was getting worried but Toby wasn’t going to tell him anything else and CJ would have given up by now anyway. He slipped back out the door.
“I heard she was captured as a spy.” Ginger told him, looking up from her desk. This was getting ridiculous and he had real work to do. He was just going to put this out of his mind.
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They were finishing up filtering out the oval through Leo’s office as Josh remembered again.
“Hey, Margaret, what happened to Mandy?” Josh leant against the red heads desk picking up and inspecting a paper weight.
“I’m not supposed to talk about that.” Josh waited, the trick with Margaret was to let her come to him. “Except to say that you should be really careful about what you say if you go to the Chinese embassy. For instance you shouldn’t wear white while asking for a panda bear because white is a funeral colour in China and it might lead them to believe that you intend to harm the bear.”
“What are you saying, the Chinese arrested her? For threatening a panda?” Margaret checked to see if anyone was listening.
“Not just one panda Josh. Espionage into the security arrangements around all the pandas.” Josh leans back, she has gone full blown Margaret on this one.
“Okay, I’m just gonna need to talk to Leo for a second.” Josh waits for her nod before heading back into the office.
“Was Mandy captured as a spy?” Josh asked, fully aware he sounded crazy.
“What? No.” Leo said looking up from the papers strewn over his desk. He appeared to think for a moment. “Well, actually you know I can’t be sure. We should check into that.” Josh detected sarcasm.
“Leo, what happened to Mandy?” Josh was starting to sound manic.
“She took a job in China, Josh. She went to get a panda and came back with a job. What do you want from me? They made her a better offer and it wasn’t the cheeriest place around here at the time.” Leo gathered the files from his desk heading back to the Oval office. The president looked up as they heard the door close as Josh left Leo’s office.
“You gonna tell Josh what actually happened?” He asked, he generally respected Leo’s choice in handling Josh but wasn’t sure about this one.
“He doesn’t need that on his plate.”
“Okay, but you know he’ll find out eventually.”
“Give it enough time and he won’t really care anymore.”
“I hope so.” Their eyes met with matching concern for a young man who’d been through enough.