“Bullshit. He’s a head case.”
“A genius strategist and head case.”
“Maybe,” Sam said. “But you have the heart.”
“I mean, I’d love to,” I told him. “Honestly, ever since I got on this campaign and realized how much I love it, I’ve wanted to be a campaign manager.”
“You would be already if you went with a candidate for a lower office. A state senator or local mayoral race.”
I nodded. “Yeah, I could. But how could I pass up the opportunity for the mayor of New York City? Even at a lower office? What I’d love to do is eventually be a campaign manager for the presidential race.”
“That’s big time,” he said. “Even more work.”
“I know.”
“You’d be great at it,” he said with a smile.
“Yeah?”
“Absolutely. I already think you should replace Shawn.”
I laughed and waved my piece of garlic bread at him. “You’re a bit biased.”
“Just a bit.”
“Well, it’s only a dream anyway.”
“It’s not a dream,” he said. “It’s a goal. One you’re already working toward and going to achieve.”
“How do you know?”
“Because you’re the most determined and hardworking person I know. How could you not achieve it? The work is worth it.”
A smile tipped my lips. “Sometimes, I think you know me even better than I know myself.”
“No, I think you know yourself. I just remind you that you’re a badass who is going to take over the world.” He took my hand across the table. “Everything else you hear or think is the world saying that you can’t do this. You’re not good enough. That a guy like Shawn should be in your place. That you didn’t earn your spot. That’s bullshit. You’re here where you are because you deserve to be. You’ve already shown me that time and time again.”
I flushed this time at his words. The words he had no idea how much it meant to hear. I’d been given everything in my life, except this. This was the one thing I’d worked at. The one thing I wouldn’t stop for. Not for anyone or anything.
“Thank you. Sometimes, you need to hear that.”
He winked at me. “Anytime.”
“So, speaking of those three days off,” I said after I finished my next bite, “how do you feel about going to the Hamptons?”
“The Hamptons? Really?”
“Well, Court is doing some kind of photo-op thing with English, and she wants us to all go. I think he’s giving her a hard time.”
“Hmm. I wanted to go home to see my parents, but I wasn’t sure how I’d even make that work since it’s hardly enough time to fly. Let alone drive.”
“Oh, I didn’t even think about that. You know…I could get you a ticket…if you wanted to go home.”
“No way. I can buy my own ticket if I have to.” He started laughing and shook his head. “I mean…I did hustle the guys out of about thirty thousand dollars at poker.”
“What?” I sputtered.
“They invited me to play. They didn’t ask if I was any good.”
“Jesus Christ!”
“Yeah,” he said with another laugh. “They insisted I keep the money too. Said that they didn’t play for fake stakes.”
“Sounds like them.”
“Anyway, it’s obviously not about the money. It’s more about the time.”
“Right. I get that.”
“I think I’d rather go to the Hamptons with you.”
“You’re sure?”
He nodded with a glimmer in his dark eyes. “How can I say no to a weekend alone with you in a dream locale?”
I bit my lip, thinking of all the trouble we could get into. “You can’t.”
“Exactly.”
25
Lark
“Have you heard how many we’re at?” Sam asked again.
“My phone has been going off nonstop,” I said, pulling it out of my back pocket. “Reports of how many voter registrations people have at each event around the city and then field updates on totals. Looks like we’re close. Maybe a few hundred from our goal.”
“Not bad.”
It wasn’t.
On any normal day, asking for more several thousand voter registrations would be insane. But with so many people out for the Fourth of July and all the festivities around the city, making them easily accessible, it might actually happen.
It was crazy that we were even out here.
“Boots on the ground,” as Shawn had said.
This was the kind of work Sam and I had done on the campaign in Madison. Field work was the most tiring and also the most rewarding. Contact with voters made them five times as likely to vote. Any contact. Everyone hated getting phone calls and having their doors knocked on, but every time you had that interaction, it increased the likelihood of voting. And considering voter turnout generally sucked, getting as many people out there to talk to voters helped.
Which was why Sam and I were in Mayor Kensington T-shirts in Prospect Park in Brooklyn, walking around and trying to get as many people registered to vote as possible.
“All of this would be a lot easier if they lowered the cost of voting,” Sam grumbled.
“I know,” I said with a shrug. “It’s costly for so many people to vote. You have to find the time, a way to get the poll, sometimes drive long distances to get to a polling place, maybe take off work, not to mention if you’re a single parent you have to arrange childcare or bring them to the polls, wait in long lines, and that’s all bare minimum on the day of. Voting is a right, but a lot of times it feels like a privilege.”
“Preaching to the choir.”
“And anyway, registration is the biggest impediment to getting people to the polls. Especially in New York where you have to be registered twenty-five days before election day. For a presidential election, where there’s so much media attention, it might make sense. People have it on the brain to register early. But for local elections…primaries, it really hurts us.”
“It’s worse other places.”
I nodded. “Yeah. Everyone is so worried about voter fraud even though it rarely happens. What they should be worried about is how few people actually register and even fewer vote. A lot of elections would look differently if we managed to mobilize the entire population.”
“Your real passion—participation.”
I winked at him and then pointed toward a large group up ahead. “Participating in the government is the hill that I die on,” I confirmed. “I was the asshole who didn’t give a shit about participating. I thought that I had everything. That it wouldn’t matter what happened. I was young and stupid. Politics are personal. Politics are everything that you do in your life. It’s your roads and your health and your children and your air and water. It’s not just the controversial stuff that makes the news.”
“I’m with you,” Sam said. “Once you get bit by the campaign bug, it never goes away. I worked for Senator Maxwell back in North Carolina.”