A pause. The specific pause of two people who have just been ordered by a court to live together and are standing in a doorway registering that this is actually happening.
"Shall we?" he said. He gestured toward the interior of the flat with the ease of someone who was not going to perform discomfort.
She stepped back. He came in. His people came in after him and she made a decision immediately: "Your campaign staff uses the third bedroom and the office corner. My staff uses the living room and the second bedroom will serve as my war room. The main bedroom—" She stopped.
"I'll take the main bedroom," he said.
"I have been sleeping in the main bedroom for six weeks," she said.
"I have a court order," he said.
"So do I," she said. "The same one. Which says joint occupancy. Which means neither of us has priority."
He looked at her. The calculation visible for a fraction of a second behind his eyes — this woman is going to be difficult, this is going to be more difficult than I accounted for — and then the calculation gone, replaced by the face. The one that communicated: I am patient and I am winning and I know it.
"Then I will take the smaller room," he said. "Since you've been here longer, it seems appropriate."
She had not expected this. The concession was so smooth that she couldn't tell if it was genuine or strategic, which was, she suspected, exactly the point. "Fine," she said.
He nodded. He looked around the flat — the campaign materials on the walls, the whiteboards with her strategy notes, the stacked folders on the table. He looked at all of it with the attention of someone who was reading it and filing it and had no intention of indicating that he had done so.
"One ground rule," he said.
"I'm not agreeing to ground rules set by you," she said.
"I haven't said it yet," he said. "No campaign materials in the common areas after ten PM. The kitchen and living room are neutral spaces after that. We both need to sleep and we can't sleep in a campaign office."
