Chapter 14 #2
“Of course it does.” Anya leaned back and looked out at the water lapping gently at the shore.
The sun was warm, and the dogs were barking excitedly—possibly they’d found a squirrel.
“But I also think that maybe the best part of that campaign was you guys. Simone and Kira. Us becoming friends. My parents getting to know everyone.”
Gabe nodded. “I totally agree.”
“So then it’s like, should we go to DC, to be closer to Simone and Kira? But also, I don’t want to go to DC. And sorry, I don’t want to assume— I mean, obviously you have your own ideas about what you want to do and where you want to go.”
“I want to be where you are,” Gabe told her. “If that’s what you want.”
“That’s extremely what I want.” Anya wrapped her arms around his middle, and he pulled her close.
“So then, we could go to DC,” Gabe echoed. “We could hop on a race together. Or…”
“Or?” Anya looked up at him.
“I don’t know.” He smiled. “Who are we if we’re not on a campaign?”
“People who own wooden furniture and meet their friends for dinner before ten p.m.?”
“Sounds boring,” Gabe sniffed.
“Says the man happily taking a hike on a Friday during business hours.”
“I think we’ve established this is not a hike, and duh, I’m always happy when I’m with you.”
“Even when I yell at you in meetings?” Anya grinned.
“Don’t be silly.” Gabe beamed at her. “Then most of all.”
“I’m so in love with you,” Anya said—and then her face froze in horror. “Oh god, I didn’t mean to say that.”
“Okay,” Gabe said slowly. “But is it true?”
There was no use denying it. She wasn’t even sure why she’d want to, except that her heart was pounding so hard she almost felt dizzy.
So she nodded.
And he was so beautiful—he was always so beautiful—but the way he smiled at her right then, the radiant joy on his face? Anya didn’t know if she’d ever seen someone so happy. She was overwhelmed by the notion that she could make someone this happy—especially someone she loved as much as Gabe.
“Can I ask you something?” he said. “You can say no. It’s okay if you don’t want to.”
“What is it?” She squeezed his hand.
“Will you sing your mom’s prayer?” he said softly. “The one from Vieques?”
“The shehechyanu?” Anya’s voice caught. She hadn’t sung that prayer since her mother died.
Gabe nodded. “I don’t think I’ve ever been this grateful to be alive.”
Text message transcript: Anya Katz and Kira Liu
Kira [1:14pm]: Happy Election Day!!!
Kira [1:14pm]: How’s it going so far? You crushing? Is my aunt gonna be mayor?
Anya [1:15pm]: Probably not since she’s running for county council, but she’s quite beloved so I can’t rule it out completely
Anya [1:15pm]: It’s going okay! Lowest turnout race I’ve ever seen, and it’s all mail-in ballots, so not really that much to do?
Kira [1:15pm]: There’s never anything to do on e-day, worst day of the race
Kira [1:16pm]: Any sense of when you’ll know something?
Anya [1:16pm]: A few hours, I think?
Anya [1:16pm]: The county clerk said she’d call me around five
Kira [1:16pm]: Cool, I’ll give you a call after that
Kira [1:17pm]: I want to run something by you
Anya [1:17pm]: !
Anya [1:17pm]: How mysterious
Kira [1:17pm]: Lol
Kira [1:17pm]: Talk soon
Text message transcript: Gabe Hunt and Hal Robbins
Hal [3:56pm]: Gabe. You haven’t returned my voicemails
Hal [3:56pm]: When can we talk? It’s urgent
Gabe [4:09pm]: Sorry about that, I’ve been traveling
Gabe [4:09pm]: I can call you in an hour or so
Hal [4:10pm]: Good. Speak to you then
Get-out-the-vote weekend flew by in a blur of phone banks and door knocks and Bobbie’s batches of lemon bars, which she baked rather more begrudgingly than she had before she found out about Gabe and Anya.
Anya had never worked an all-mail GOTV before.
It was so much simpler to track which ballots had already been mailed than to hound voters again and again to elicit promises that they really would go to the polls.
Sierra and her band of volunteers were steadfast and militant in their march toward what they felt was certain victory; Anya didn’t have the heart to tell them she thought a win was a long shot.
But then, there’d been years when Anya had been sure that nothing would ever happen between her and Gabe. Sometimes long shots worked out.
It felt impossible that just over a month ago they had never kissed, had never stayed up all night laughing and whispering, had never fallen asleep in each other’s arms. It felt equally impossible that they could grow even more close, but something palpable had shifted in these last few days since they told each other they were in love.
It felt steadier to Anya, but also scarier?
Gabe seemed to need her even more urgently, pulling her into hallways between call shifts, pressing her against the wall and kissing her as he ran his hands over her body, speeding on the drive back to the cabin at the end of the day, where they’d stay in bed for hours, then heat up dinner at ten or eleven p.m., whenever they emerged.
Anya was happy—she was deliriously happy.
And Simone assured her this was all totally normal, this was precisely what Simone and Kira had been like in the beginning too.
But something about it felt volatile to Anya, like there was no way to sustain that much heat without an inevitable combustion.
It was such a wild swing from the lows of losing her mother to the highs of being with Gabe; sometimes Anya felt like she couldn’t quite find her footing.
But whenever she started to spiral, Gabe would take her hand, or make a little joke, or bring her a blueberry muffin. He always brought her back to earth.
Election Day felt the way it usually did: something between a wild culmination, a stomach bug, a letdown, and a relief.
Anya oversaw her volunteers, hopped on the phone bank herself when she could, and made out with Gabe briefly in the alley behind the copy shop/jewelry store/deli, after which they went inside and bought sandwiches for everyone.
As the day wore on, there was less and less to do, and everyone was getting irritable and twitchy.
Around four in the afternoon, Sierra finally proclaimed they should all go home for a bit and reconvene for a victory party later (or a drown-our-sorrows gathering the following night if necessary).
They all needed a break from one another, and Sierra wanted to take the dogs out.
So Sierra was off in the woods when Anya got the call from the county clerk to tell her it was over. Gabe hugged her for a long time, then asked if she wanted him to come with her to break the news to Sierra. But Anya said no. She was the campaign manager. It was her responsibility.
Sierra read the look on Anya’s face the second she saw her standing on the back porch.
“Bad news?” she asked. The dogs lumbered up to Anya and started licking her hands and nosing at her thighs, making happy little sniffing noises.
“I’m so sorry,” Anya said. “It was much closer than the clerk expected, but the turnout was just too low. I think you’d be in a really strong position to run again, if that’s something you’d be interested in? Now that more people know who you are?”
Sierra smiled and sank into one of the rocking chairs on the porch; Anya sat in the chair beside her.
“You know I never wanted to run in the first place, right?”
Anya stared at Sierra. “What do you mean?”
“I ran because Kira asked me to. She thought it would be good for us. For you and me.”
“But, Kira…” Anya shook her head. This didn’t make sense. “Kira told me you needed help.”
“And I did!” Sierra grinned. “Look what a mess we were before you showed up. Trish or Bobbie would certainly be dead by now if it wasn’t for you. You’d think Trish would be the one to pull the trigger, hot temper and all, but I wouldn’t put it past Bobbie to poison a lemon bar.”
“No, me neither.” Anya laughed. “I’m sorry, but I still don’t understand?”
Sierra reached down absently to pet one of the dogs.
“When I retired, I thought it was the beginning of a beautiful chapter for Lois and me. And instead…well, I didn’t know it would be the end of the story.
Since she passed, everything felt a little mundane.
You know that feeling? Where your days are so damn ordinary it doesn’t matter which is which? ”
Anya nodded; she knew that feeling very well.
“Then this spring Kira called to tell me about you. About what happened with your mom, and how much you love campaigning. All your ideals, the way you want to make a difference. She thought maybe you and I could help each other. It sounded like a harebrained scheme to me, but what else was I doing? I thought maybe it’d be a good change of pace, a different way to pass the time. But it was more than that.”
“It was?” Anya’s voice came out choked.
“Being out in the community, hearing about people’s problems…
I didn’t know a campaign would be like that.
I liked how much it wasn’t about me.” Sierra smiled.
“It felt like service. Maybe that’s obvious, they call it ‘public servant.’ But most politicians—they don’t really seem like servants, do they? ”
“No,” Anya agreed with a small smile. “They absolutely don’t.”
“But you are.” Sierra gave Anya an affirming nod. “Kira told me you do this work because you’re called to serve. I only had to meet you for about ten seconds to know she was right.”
“Kira’s a really good friend,” Anya said, and Sierra gave her hand a squeeze.
“Why don’t you give her a call?” Sierra said. “I know she’s dying to talk to you. I’m gonna go in and give these dogs some dinner.”
At the word dinner, the dogs leapt up and barked excitedly, and Sierra laughed as she herded them into the kitchen. Anya stood and took her phone out of her pocket.
“Hey.” Kira picked up on the first ring. “How’d it go?”
“We lost,” Anya sighed. “Not by that much, but not by that little either.”
“Damn, that’s too bad. Sierra okay?”