By the time the last campaign staffer left on Day Nine, it was ten-thirty PM and she had been on her feet since five AM and had drunk approximately four cups of chai, eaten a paratha standing up at two PM, and had a conversation with twelve different people who all wanted something from her simultaneously, which was the specific condition of a political campaign seventeen days before polling.
The flat was very quiet after the last staffer left. This was, she had noticed, one of the particular qualities of this arrangement: during the day the flat was too full — two campaigns, two teams, the constant overlapping noise of people doing things — and after ten PM it was suddenly only two people, the transition so abrupt that the quiet had a texture to it.
She went to the kitchen. She needed chai. She needed to sit for ten minutes without anyone needing anything from her. She put the milk on the stove.
He came in three minutes later. He had been on the phone — she had heard his voice through the wall, the low register of a call that required calm management, which had been going on for forty minutes and had apparently just ended. He looked at the stove and at the milk heating on it and he said nothing, just went to his side of the counter and started making the instant coffee that he apparently drank in the evening, which was madness from a sleep perspective and she had almost said so twice and had stopped herself both times because his caffeine choices were not her business.
"Bad call?" she said. She didn't mean to say it. She was tired and her filters were less functional when she was tired.
"Campaign finance committee," he said. "They want to increase media spending in the last two weeks. I disagree."
"Why?"
