Only she was meant to hear it, and she wasn't meant to take it seriously. But CJ had heard it too, and on Monday when Donna had said, "he was kidding about the shoes", CJ was apparently not impressed.
"Josh," she said, standing in the doorway to his office with her hands on her hips. "You promised Donna shoes."
He took another sip from his lukewarm coffee while he considered what the appropriate response might be.
"Huh?"
"You said that if she went to the thing on Saturday, you'd buy her shoes."
"Well, I didn't mean it."
CJ crossed her arms. "Well then, you shouldn't have said it."
It was impeccable logic. He couldn't fault it. He continued to drink his coffee.
"She and Carol had lunch planned. She canceled because you were taking her shoe shopping."
"Oh."
"I just thought I'd better warn you. You know, in case."
"In case what?"
"In case she seems mad."
"She'd be mad about something so trivial?"
"Shoes," said CJ, "are not trivial."
"Got it." Though he really hadn't. Shouldn't he have women figured out by now?
But it was irking him later as he read through his notes in preparation for Senior Staff. He opened his mouth to shout, and then it occurred to him that now might be a good time to learn to use the intercom. He pressed the button.
"Donna?"
No response.
"Donna?" Louder now. How did the damn thing work anyway?
"Donna!"
She pushed open his door.
"Yes?"
She was wearing a skirt that was shorter than the ones to which he was accustomed, and he forgot for a moment why he'd called her in.
"There's an intercom, you know," she said, presumably to fill the silence.
"I know. But I -"
"Don't know how to use it?"
"No."
"Well I guess there are some things they don't teach you at Harvard Law School."
"Yale."
"Whatever."
The snark: so CJ was right. It seemed shoes mattered after all.
"What are you doing at lunch?"
"I'm having lunch with Carol."
"Cancel it," he said, before he'd thought. Damn it, if he could just learn not to do that one of these days.
"You've got to be kidding me." She sounded a little like a moody teenager, but he chose, benevolently, to ignore that.
"I'm taking you shoe shopping."
"That's a little joke right there, isn't it? It's funny."
"It's not a joke. I'm taking you shoe shopping. Really. I'm sorry about Saturday."
She tried to hide her smile but he saw it. He was very observant like that.
"Okay," she said, and smiled some more.
"I'm taking Donna shoe shopping," Josh said over her shoulder to Sam.
"I'm not sure what the proper response is to that."
"That it's a kind and generous yet also a manly thing to do?" His voice had risen worryingly in pitch towards the end of the sentence.
"Right," said Sam, furrowing his brow in what looked liked bewilderment. Or perhaps despair. "I just came by to say the thing's a lunchtime thing now."
"But - "
It worried Josh a little that Donna was still smiling.
"It's okay, Josh. You can take me shoe shopping another day."
Later, much later, she would tell him that the thought was enough. It was enough that he had imagined himself to be free enough in the middle of a Monday to take her shopping. It was enough that he was willing to stand in line for an age, watch her walk up and down, tell her the black ones looked nice and the red ones didn't seem like they would be very practical. Of course, it was entirely possible that he hadn't thought about any of it, that he had not thought further than her smile. And that was okay with her too.
