Single Kitchen: This Land Is Your Land (a tribute to B. Sanders)
By the time my alarm went off, it felt like I'd been asleep for five minutes. Josh got up before me and got us coffee, which we gulped in a matter of seconds, desperately yearning for another. My phone pinged and I could barely believe my eyes when I unlocked it.
"Josh? Am I seeing this right or am I still asleep? Does it say, 'Harry Styles followed you'?", I handed him my phone; afraid my imagination and the lack of sleep were getting the best of me.
"Nope, you're seeing it alright. It does seem our Christmas Ball friend followed you on Instagram.", my phone was back in my hands and I wished there was more to do than just stare at the screen. I already followed him, so I couldn't return the gesture, and the mere thought of him scrolling through my posts was driving me bonkers. Luckily, I didn't have much time to dwell on it, since we were pulling up to the venue and a whole day of work was ahead of us.
"Does everybody know what they're supposed to be doing today?", I asked all of the assistants as we sat around the table having lunch. It was the first proper meal for all of us, in over 24 hours. They all nodded and recited their tasks by heart. I was relieved to see they knew what was expected of them but petrified by the thought they could never really be prepared for what was coming. It was going to be mayhem out there tonight, and they'd have to keep their cool the entire time, improvising if anything went wrong.
By four in the afternoon everyone was jittery and running around a bit mental. Josh was on his way to the main venue, with his team following closely behind. The only people left at the campaign center were my team and a couple of Bernie's men. I spotted the man of the hour in one corner of the large room.
"Hey. Are you excited?", I sat by the legend and he smiled right away.
"Of course I am. California is really important, and I just want everything to go according to plan.", it was the first time I saw actual worry painted across his face.
"That's what we're here for. Come on, let's take a picture together, I'd like a memory, if you don't mind.", I called Jessica over as Bernie assured me he does not mind and would in fact like me to forward him the picture.
"It'll be amazing. You'll do amazing. I'll see you on the flip side!", we said our goodbye as me and the rest of my team were heading to our positions. I posted the picture on Instagram while on the drive over to City Hall, thinking how I couldn't have imagined this being my life a year ago.
My phone was buzzing in my back pocket and I saw Josh's name when I pulled it out.
"Everything good on your end?", his voice was filled with exhaustion and concern, but he continued our pre-event tradition.
"Everything according to plan. How about you?", we talked for a couple of minutes, until one of the techs pulled me away to check if the visuals were okay. We started giving people teasers mid-afternoon, tweeting how they should pay attention to City Hall around eight if they were close by, and how they could take a break from shopping at the Grove and turn their heads to the big office building across the street. It was generating a lot of buzz and Lil' texted me saying they were all very impressed and immensely proud back at home. Soon Bernie started speaking and City Hall lit up with Bernie's image, while his voice travelled a couple of blocks over. My phone buzzed again, and I picked up without checking to see who was calling.
"Josh, if something is going wrong I don't even want to know. Things are looking good here and I will not let a minor inconvenience ruin it – come hell or high water.", I threatened my colleague and heard a genuine chuckle on the other end of the line. It wasn't Josh.
"Poor Josh, the man must be scared shitless of you.", a British accent pulled my attention from the projection for a split second, but I turned right back to face Bernie.
"Harry? How in God's name did you get my number?", in all honesty, I didn't remember giving him my number at the ball.
"Don't you worry about that. Tell me, is this your work? Bernie all over L.A.?", he sounded surprised but also very pleased.
"Yup. Which is why I'm gonna have to leave you and go back to monitoring the screens. Talk to you later?"
"Sure, go. Maybe you and Josh could come over to my house later to celebrate a job well done with pizza and wine?", I almost forgot he had a house somewhere around L.A., but I assured him I'd text him as soon as we were free and get his address.
The rally went perfectly, Bernie did an amazing job with his speech as usual and all of the 'projector locations', as we called them, were getting packed up. Twitter was buzzing, according to Ben, and I couldn't be happier. The media was picking up on the story, reporting how everyone's favorite democrat had done it once again, managing to bring his agenda to every doorstep in Los Angeles. Josh was on his way to pick me up from City Hall and then we'd drive over to Harry's house together.
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Author's note:
Hi! I usually plan un updating the story once a week, but I get if you don't want to commit to it unless you read more than three chapters, so I'll give you something to get hooked to :)
As always, tell me what you think, please.
TPWK, always.
T