“She is here only.”
“Meaning?”
“She slept here.”
“Here where?”
“Upstairs. Hina Khala said she wasn’t well. The story goes that she was there at our rally day before and got injured.”
“This is too confusing. Fahad. In one line — Is there something fishy about what happened yesterday?”
“No. Why?”
She went silent, thinking, trying to understand.
“Anyway,” she shook her head. “Go, get on with your day. Let’s consolidate and go over the numbers. Atharva will be needing them before breakfast for sure.”
“Already happening,” he pointed to his own team of interns. Amaal couldn’t believe that her intern now had his own interns. But he still called himself an intern.
“What happened with Khalil Khan yesterday?” He asked.
The question brought the thought of Samar in that mood last night.
Amaal clawed her hair back and bundled it up in a high ponytail, suddenly feeling hot in the heated interiors. “I wouldn’t say it was a day wasted because the outcome was good. He is ready to send his star journalists to cover our big events. Even Toru Ray is on the table. We haven’t worked out which events yet, but the ground-level stuff can be dealt with as and when the need arises. I was thinking of calling her for something like ‘A Day with Atharva Kaul.’ Maybe on the manifesto launch day?”
“Hmm…”
“Don’t hmm,” she scolded. Then, in a voice loud enough for the whole room to hear —“Nobody in this room will use the reaction ‘Hmm’ in front of me ever again. Understood?”
They all looked at her like she had grown two heads. With the way she had slept after last night and woken up to this crazy world, she might as well have.
“Go back to work.” She turned. And came face to face with Atharva.
“What got you so worked up?”
“Nothing. What’s going on with this new writer?”
“Let’s talk in my office.”
She glanced at his peacoat and then at his put-together appearance. “You seem to be on your way out.”
“I was. Let’s finish this and then I will head out.”
She followed him.
————————————————————
“Tell me.” Amaal sat down in front of him as he walked behind his desk and picked out a stapled bunch from the mess.
“Iram.” He handed her the bunch. Amaal glanced at the sheet, scanning his yesterday’s speech. “She has been a blogger. Nothing in politics. Check out her blog. It’s fiction and some poems. Earns through ads on her blog. Background is still running but I have offered her the position for Staff Writer.”
“Hmm.”
“Let’s try with her. We have had a string of writers come and go, maybe she will stay.”
“This is too random.”
“At this point, do you have another option?”
