Spadework

You prune and tend and fertilize, and you go on with your life.

You toddle on over to campaign headquarters, sling a 12-pack of Diet Coke into the fridge for everyone, get the orders of the day and sit down and dial.

You might be looking for volunteers, or for undecided voters, and you dial and talk and encourage and persuade the very best you can, because you truly believe that if things go wrong in 26 days, you will never forgive yourself if you didn't do everything you could.

On your several lists, this being the place it is, are an English-born writer with 11 novels (an avid supporter, you quickly and gladly learn, who volunteers to knock on doors for the first shift of the Saturday canvass -- click this, click that, and the system schedules her), a legend of a pollster, an old Conch politician facing jail time for a horrid drunk-driving accident who won't let you off the phone, a state rep, an incredibly supportive restaurant owner you know. . . .

You make a few hundred calls and go home. Where you discover that the mussaenda you pruned those few days ago has gone about its own vital mission and generated a new bloom finally big enough for you to get a picture of, maybe an inch across.