See You Next Tuesday

Chapter 1

Beihl for President
Portsmouth, New Hampshire

The second Anya Katz walked into the Portsmouth field office of Senator Mike Beihl's presidential campaign, she saw at least three things that needed changing.

First, the walk packets were laid out on the same table that held the grimy coffee urns—a spill waiting to happen, and hours of painstaking work cutting turf and highlighting maps to show volunteers which doors they were knocking that would have to be redone.

Second, the tables full of phones for voter calls were in a room with no door—no way to keep outside noise from bothering the callers, or the callers from bothering anyone else trying to accomplish literally anything. Anya supposed the placement was largely for the media's benefit; it gave the office a lively, bustling feel to hear a constant thrum of phone calls, and reporters would like to see that kind of energy when they inevitably stopped by. But Beihl was a long-shot candidate, a beloved progressive in a field of stern, electable moderates with identical suits, expensive haircuts, and free-trade neoliberal policy positions. Anya knew it was far more important that Beihl's callers actually hit their numbers than for the media to see them, and they'd be better able to do that in a room with a door.

Third, and most obviously, there was no front desk with someone to direct incoming traffic. Anya would see to fixing that immediately—as soon as she found her new supervisor, which she wasn't sure how to do without someone to direct her.

Despite these glaring flaws (all easily remedied), the office had a good vibe. People were smiling, and there were platters of homemade muffins and brownies. It was too early in the day for stacks of pizza boxes, but Anya was sure those would come later. Portsmouth was a sweet city on New Hampshire's slim slice of coastline between Massachusetts and Maine. It was an ideal place for Anya to spend the summer, knocking doors for a candidate she genuinely loved, making new friends, hiking on the weekends, chilly beach bonfires at night, maybe a summer fling. She was lucky her old boss from her internship in Senator Beihl's office in DC had been able to get Anya supporter housing here; she easily could have been stuck living in the UNH dorms in Manchester instead of bunking with a kindly grandmother whose second-floor porch had a view of the sea.

Anya glanced down at her notebook, where she'd jotted the name of her new supervisor: Gabe Hunt. She wondered who he was and how he fit in here: Was he the office director, or would Anya have to needle her way over his head to get things running properly?

"Excuse me?" Anya stopped a curmudgeonly older woman with frizzy hair. In Anya's limited but instructive experience, such women were the least friendly but most useful people in any given field office. "Do you know where I can find Gabe Hunt?"

"Over there. Tall one." The woman jerked her head in the general direction of the coffee urns and kept moving with a great deal of crotchety purpose, barely acknowledging Anya as she passed.

Anya turned toward the coffee urns to see which "tall one" Gabe might be, and stopped when she found . . . one of the most attractive men she'd ever seen.

He was tall, but not overly so—about six feet. (Though at five-foot-three, everyone seemed overly tall to Anya.) The thing she immediately noticed about him, that was impossible not to notice about him, was how golden he was. His suntanned skin, sandy brown hair, light brown eyes that glinted amber—they all had the same hue that made him look like his skin was always warm, like he'd just come in from the sunset. He had a lean, athletic build; he wore faded jeans that really fit him and a soft white button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled up to expose his forearms. He had a clipboard in hand, and he was smiling as he greeted volunteers—a megawatt, blinding smile, with teeth so white and straight she wondered momentarily if they were real.

Anya ran her tongue along the backs of her own teeth, which were, despite years of painful and expensive gadgetry, still a bit crooked. She knew she wasn't conventionally gorgeous, not like Gabe was. She was more likely to be called cute, with her curvy size-eighteen figure, unruly dark curls she usually pulled back for the sake of expedience, wide brown eyes, plump cheeks, prominent nose, and heart-shaped mouth. Anya never kissed a guy until college, never had a boyfriend until she volunteered on her first campaign the summer after freshman year. Anya discovered that on campaigns, unlike most of the other places she'd ever been, being smart, organized, and hyper-competent didn't make you the girl no one invited to parties. It made you the volunteer everyone wanted on their team. And it made you f***ing hot.

So while Gabe Hunt was undeniably, gobsmackingly handsome, Anya didn't put much stock in that particular metric of personal valuation. All she needed to know was whether he was good at his job.

But as she approached him, she noticed several volunteers (from any number of generations and genders) were jockeying to chat with him as he handed out walk packets. Anya sighed and elbowed her way to the front of the group.

"Excuse me, are you Gabe Hunt?"

When he turned to face her, he broke into a warm smile, like it was the first spring day after a long, cold winter. "You always hope it'll be someone like you asking that question, but it almost never is."

Anya found his leading-man charm a bit unnecessary for a professional environment, but if he was going to be her supervisor, she needed to win him over as quickly as possible. So she returned his grin with a confident smile of her own.

"I'm Anya Katz," she said smoothly. "I interned for Senator Beihl in DC last summer?"

"Right—and this summer you're with us." Gabe ran his finger down a list on his clipboard. When he found her name, he tapped it twice. "You have perfect timing."

"Oh yeah? Why's that?"

"Because I need help unloading some toilet paper."

Anya laughed. She had a loud, ungoverned laugh; she'd always felt self-conscious about it. Gabe wrinkled his brow.

"Something funny?"

"I thought you were joking," she said awkwardly.

He pointed toward the rear of the office. "Let's go."

She followed him through a couple of hallways, turning left and then right, volunteers looking up to greet Gabe with a smile as he passed.

"So how long do we have you for?" he asked Anya. "You heading back to school in the fall?"

"I graduated in May." Anya straightened up with pride. "My parents wanted me to come home to Chicago, but I really wanted to do this. So I'm here until my student loan payments kick in or you guys start paying me or Senator Beihl drops out of the race, whichever comes first."

"Drops out?" Gabe looked down at her. "You don't think he can go the distance?"

"Are you serious?" Anya tried to be polite, but the question was absurd. "The Union Leader has him polling at two percent."

"Wow, so you don't believe in him at all." Gabe leaned in conspiratorially and dropped his voice low. "Does the senator know you feel this way?"

"You're hilarious." Anya folded her arms, which brought out her cleavage in her scoop-neck tee, and Gabe obviously noticed, and snickered, and oh god, did he think she'd done that on purpose? He pushed through the back door into the sunny morning, and she hurried to follow.

"So if you don't think Senator Beihl can win, that means you're here for something else," Gabe mulled, turning to look at Anya as he walked. "Are you hoping to make some connections? Build out your network so you can hop on another primary after Beihl drops out?"

"Because the only reason I'd be on this campaign is that it might be good for me?"

"If you don't think Beihl can win–"

"It's not always about winning!"

Gabe abruptly stopped walking and turned to face her as they reached the parking lot.

"Oh yeah? Enlighten me."

She knew he was goading her, but she was completely unable to resist the bait.

"Mike Beihl is a progressive hero and a great leader," she started, "and his message is good for the country. If we do our jobs here and move the needle to the left with voters, we kick the door open a little wider so the next progressive has a better shot. And even if we don't move the needle at all, even if we fail completely, I would still rather work for a candidate I actually believe in than spend my life trying to get worked up about some empty suit just because I think he might win."

"Wooooow." Gabe let out a long exhale.

"What?" Anya shifted her weight, feeling uncomfortable under his gaze.

"Nothing, it's sweet. Next you'll tell me your career goal is to make people's lives better and change the world."

"What's wrong with that?" Anya said. "My parents protested for civil rights, and against Vietnam. They raised me to believe I could do something meaningful with my life, and someday when I have kids, I want to pass the same values down to them."

"It's cute how your values make you all huffy," Gabe teased.

"Adorable that I actually believe in things," she said dryly. "What's your goal, then?"

"Oh, you know, run a presidential campaign, win the White House, be on the cover of Time, get remembered as one of the greatest political operatives in history."