At a chic cafe in the West End neighbourhood of Washington, a young waiter knew that the incoming US VP lived "upstairs", as he noted by gesturing to an upscale condominium building overhead, but said he had not seen her lately.
"The Secret Service sometimes stops me from taking out the trash," he added, stating that agents closed off the building's alley when their protectee came and went from its garage.
Around the corner, two black Suburbans with federal licence plates were parked by the building's entrancethe only visible clue to the nearby presence of VP-elect Kamala Harris.
In the days since he prevailed in the election, President-elect Joe Biden has made several public remarks and released summaries of his calls with foreign leaders. But Ms Harris has barely appeared on the public radar since her acceptance speech two Saturdays ago, when she declared "a new day for America".
It's not unprecedented for a VP-elect to keep a low profile in an election's aftermath.
"You've been fairly invisible since the election," ABC News host George Stephanopoulos told Mr Biden in an interview more than a month after his own election as Mr Barack Obama's VP.
Mr Biden replied by insisting that he had "been in the room" for every one of Mr Obama's important transition meetings. But because of coronavirus social distancing restrictions, Ms Harris has no such luxury, at least not in the physical sense.
After spending election week in Delaware, she has returned to her two-bedroom Washington condo. From there, she is in regular touch with Mr Biden, by text message or telephone, according to aides with the Biden-Harris transition team.
One focus of her time is the quantum leap that Ms Harris is soon to make from the legislative to the executive branch.
Whereas Mr Biden will have virtually no learning curve upon returning to the White House after eight years as VP, Ms Harris has spent little, if any, substantive time at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
That process is made no easier by President Donald Trump's refusal to acknowledge the election results and authorise an official transition process in which Ms Harris and her aides would have access to White House officials and documents.
Ms Harris has not been contacted by her departing counterpart, VP Mike Pence.
Days after the 2016 election, Mr Biden hosted Mr Pence for nearly two hours at the official vice-presidential compound at the US Naval Observatory.
Like Mr Biden, Ms Harris also has her own staff to buildanother task potentially made more challenging by her relative lack of Washington experience. While Mr Biden, after nearly 50 years in the capital, has a network of hundreds of previous Senate and White House aides, Ms Harris has a smaller circle, though she is expected to hire several familiar faces from her Senate office and 2020 campaign.
On social media, Ms Harris has stayed rigorously on message, posting on Twitter several times concerning the coronavirus and her determination to work with Mr Biden to contain it.
"In just a few months, we will swear in a new president who is devoted to getting the pandemic under control: @JoeBiden," she tweeted last Saturday.
Ms Harris has ventured out in the Washington area at least once since the election. On rainy Veterans Day, wearing blue jeans and a black raincoat, she and her husband Douglas Emhoff dropped by Georgetown's Dog Tag Bakery, which was founded to help support veterans. She has otherwise been out of sight at her condo building.
"No great thing is created suddenly," reads an inscription on the building, a quote from the Greek Stoic philosopher Epictetus.
Mimicking a sad face, the server at the Bluestone Lane cafe on the building's ground floor said he hoped she would visit again soon.
NYTIMES