Thousands of cameras flashed at the same
time and then over and over again when Amy came out of the house. They al
wanted to ask the same question: “How well do you think it’s going to go for
you tonight?” And Amy wanted to answer but she just entered the car that was
waiting her and drove away without saying a word. Her publicist praised her for
not saying a word but she didn’t even heard her. She was too busy trying to
answer the question the media was asking.
Would she win the election? Maybe. There was a
strong possibility that it might happen for her. It was no mystery that her
campaign had been primarily focused on the fact that she was a woman and the
she was not one of the political elite. She was just a councilwoman in the most
populated city in the country and she had become an important part of politics
in a single day.
The party she was running for had chosen her
over many other candidates because they had thought they could mold her into
someone people would like and vote for, someone that did not look at all like
all those older men that had dominated politics for so long. They wanted to
restart with a fresh face, especially after failing to win the election for a
third time in a row. They had to take advantage of the opportunity being offered
by the fact that the current government was shaking.
One scandal after the other had taken its toll
on people’s opinion and, according to the latest polls; the two candidates were
virtually tied. So everything could be decided by a handful of votes and that
was very important. They had to ensure that they had every single possible vote
in their pocket and that’s why Amy had travelled across the country, without a
rest, for the last five months.
She wasn’t an experienced politician but what
the party liked about her was that she could be able to be close to people in a
way most politicians just couldn’t. She didn’t look fake when talking to a
mother or a person that had lost it all. They could take Amy to a prestigious
country club or to a soup kitchen in the most horrible part of a city and in
both cases she would be able to be sympathetic and relatable.
By the time she entered that car, the truth
was that she felt exhausted. She didn’t want to walk anymore. She just wanted a
good night’s sleep but that wasn’t possible on Election Day. They had paraded
her around all day and she hadn’t even been able to properly eat anything, only
some fruit her assistant was able to pass to her before the day properly began.
And she couldn’t even eat it all because someone took the box away from her to
give her a speech she had to memorize.
Amy Walker was almost forty years old and that
apparently was something people liked. They also liked the fact that she looked
modern and seemed to know everything about the world today. She had all the
gadgets and even tried to run her own social media but that was difficult
because of the amount of things she had to do in a day. So, normally, Amy would
only write herself a message once a day and the rest were images and phrases
posted by her team.
To her, that seemed a little bit like cheating
but she reminded herself that it was all part of being a public figure. Most of
those people had no way of managing anything by themselves because of their
schedules and priorities. She would have wanted to be more in touch with her
voters, but she could only do that in some events and even then it was
extremely hard to get really close to any of then.
In the car, her assistant gave her a box of
sushi. She was so hungry that she ate five pieces in less than five minutes.
Someone was trying to explain to her something about how the election work and
such, but she was to hungry to even care. She asked for a bottle of water and
has some, drinking almost half of the bottle in one gulp. Amy not only felt
hungry and thirsty but also desperate. She felt like the space she was in was
too small. In a second, she had fainted.
When she woke up, she was still in the car.
They had apparently stopped because the doors were opened and, as soon as she
opened her eyes, her assistant got closer and grabbed her hand. She helped her
sit down properly, as she had been lying down in the back seat of the big car.
In a strange moment of privacy, they hugged and her assistant told her she was
sorry for not being able to give her more time to adjust to it all and to eat.
She felt guilty somehow.
But Amy didn’t say anything about that.
Instead, she asked where they were. One of the bodyguards helped her out of the
car and she realized they had arrived at the convention center but they were in
a lonely part of the parking lot. Policemen had possibly closed it only for
her. She was thankful for that. Amy told her assistant to walk her wherever she
had to go and the poor assistant did exactly that, a bit scared she might not
have recuperated fully.
Indeed, Amy did not feel very good, but there
was no point in turning back and laying in that car forever. It was her night
and she had to be there to see if everything went as they thought it would go.
It was the final step of the road and she couldn’t just miss it.
They all entered a backroom and then descended
some stairs to the place where she would get her makeup done and a new outfit.
She asked her assistant to update her every time there was something big
happening and the younger woman just nodded as the candidate entered her prep
room. Inside, many more people were waiting for her, in order to turn her into
one of the many images that people liked.
One group washed her hair and the other
retouched her nails and toes. She had undressed behind a curtain and taken off
her dress and everything else and put on a white bathrobe to be more
comfortable. As she had sat down in the chair, her assistant had told her that
the polling centers had closed and that results would start coming in very
soon.
It was a tense moment for her but she tried to
enjoy being pampered and taken care off. That always helped her get a bit more
relax. Besides, she really needed to be refreshed because of all that she had
done that day: visit a school, then greeting the military and visiting a
factory. And all of that had happened before noon. Afterwards she had done so
many things that she was sure she couldn’t even remember them all.
The first state had been called within the
next five minutes and it was for her rival. Then the second and the third, also
for her rival. Her team reminded her that those territories did not make part
of their plans, so it was a predictable thing that they hadn’t gone their way.
Another two were called as they blow-dried her
hair: another for her rival and one for her. They celebrated but the cheers
were not precisely happy because of the disadvantage she was in. Amy thought to
herself that, if she had to make a speech from a loser’s point of view, she
could even pull it off in a better way than if she had won. Maybe all of that
fancy politics stuff wasn’t just for her and she needed to go back to the city
council and stay there.
Two more states were called: both for her. As
they finished preparing her and changing her into a new, more modern dress, the
race became an almost tie. It was really going to be close and everyone in the
room was as tense as they could be. When she was done, they all watch the TV
screens together and waited until it came the time to go out to the stage.
At least half of the votes had yet to enter
the race and Amy realized she might become president. She might be the one to
lead a whole country. And she knew that it would be difficult and hard on her.
She didn’t know if she was the best for the job. But there she was. Only a few
more votes…
