She looked at him. It was a reasonable rule. The fact that it was reasonable was the infuriating part. "Fine," she said. "One from me: no calls on speakerphone in common areas. Neither of us needs the other's strategy."
"Agreed," he said. He extended his hand.
She looked at the hand for a moment. Then she shook it. His grip was firm and brief and told her absolutely nothing about him that his face hadn't already told her, which was both impressive and annoying.
"Thirty-one days," she said.
"Thirty-one days," he said. "Should be interesting."
He went to the small bedroom. He closed the door. She stood in the living room of her campaign flat and thought about the court order and thought about thirty-one days and thought, despite herself, about the handshake — the specific quality of it, the firmness, the brevity, the way it was exactly what a handshake was supposed to be and nothing more, and how that kind of control in a person was either very reassuring or very alarming and she had not yet decided which.
She went to the whiteboard. She picked up her marker. She began working on the voter outreach strategy for Ward 14, which was where she was behind and where she needed to close the gap.
She was not going to think about him. She had thirty-one days and an election to win and that was what she was going to think about. That was all she was going to think about.
She lasted about forty minutes before she found herself thinking, against her will, that it was going to be a very long thirty-one days.
