My mother was standing by the refrigerator in jeans and a cardigan, still licking chocolate off her fingers. She'd gotten her boss's permission to start work an hour later than usual.
“Wowee,” she said. “You look scrumptious.
” I spun in a circle, happy to be admired.
“Come on,” she said. “Cupcakes are in the car.”
As a precaution, we got to school at seven fifteen, a good half hour before the early birds would start showing up. (I wasn't about to let either of the Warrens beat me to a prime spot by the side entrance.) We'd set up the card table and unpacked two of the boxes when Mr. M.'s car pulled into the teachers’ lot over by the temporary classrooms.
I kept my eyes down, pretending to straighten a row of cupcakes, and didn't look up until my mother nudged me with her elbow. Mr. M. was about twenty feet away, a red gym bag in his hand, examining us with an expression of horror and revulsion I doubt I'll ever forget. It was shocking to see him so wild-eyed and disheveled, shirt rumpled and untucked, shoelaces untied. He looked like he'd spent the night in a bus station.
MR. M.
UNTIL I SAW THEM there, standing by that table full of goodies, I swear to God I'd forgotten all about the election. Tracy's red dress brought it all flooding back to me—her lies and threats, Tammy's suspension, the logistical nightmare I was about to face when all I wanted was to curl up under my desk and sleep the day away. I was well aware of the fact that I had not yet showered or combed my hair, and was in no mood to make small talk with Barbara Flick. Tracy smelled blood. I could see it in her smile.
“Mr. M.,” she said. “Looks like you could use a cupcake.”
10
TRACY FLICK
“ATTENTION!” The word exploded from the intercom speaker, garbled by static and strange gobbling noises. It sounded like someone was trying to eat the microphone. “This is your Vice-Principal speaking!”
A brief riot erupted in my homeroom, as it always did when Mr. Hendricks addressed the school. Wads of paper bounced off the wall near the speaker. Some kids pretended to tear out their hair; others made crosses with their fingers and hissed as though fending off a vampire. Shrieks of mock terror filled the air.
“Oh no!”
“Coffee Man!”
“Hide the Cremora!”
The humor of this ritual eluded me under the best of circumstances, and I happened just then to be suffering from a brutal stomachache, a wriggling knot of pain that made me wonder if the stress of the election had given me an ulcer. I shared a moment of sympathetic eye contact with Mrs. Jardine, who shook her head mournfully at the front of the room, waiting for the outburst to run its course.
“People,” she said. “This is for your benefit.”
Mr. Hendricks cleared his throat with a gross hawking sound, like a cat choking up a hair ball.
“As you know, this is a landmark day for Winwood High, and it … ah … behooves me to inform you of an important change affecting today's election. Effective this morning, you have only two choices for President. Due to disciplinary proceedings of a confidential nature, Tammy Warren has withdrawn from the race. I'd like to wish the best of luck to our two remaining candidates, Paul Warren and Tracy Flick.”
Every face in the room was a question aimed at me. I didn't know what Tammy had done, but I was pretty sure the Warrens had teamed up to pull a fast one at my expense. My stomach hurt so bad it just about killed me to smile.
MR. M.
THE LOGISTICS of a high school election are no laughing matter. At the same time you're educating your students about democracy, you're working to safeguard the process against fraud. It's sad but true: given half a chance, most kids will cheat to win. They're a lot like adults in this respect.
The voting was scheduled to take place outside the cafeteria during fourth, fifth, and sixth period. We had it down to a science. To obtain a ballot, a student would present an ID and sign a register, at which point his or her name would be crossed out on a master list. The ballot would be filled out immediately in our mock voting booth and dropped into a locked, slotted box. The votes would be counted during seventh period, the winner announced during eighth period assembly.
Walt called me into his office immediately after homeroom. He was smiling grimly, dressed in a blue polyester suit apparently meant to simulate denim. In the center of his desk was a fat manila envelope marked “BALLOTS.”
“Jim,” he said, “I've got a little project for you.”
Due to an unusual outbreak of competence in the front office, the ballots had been prepared a week in advance and locked in a secure filing cabinet. Walt had retrieved them that morning only to realize that we'd been betrayed by our own efficiency—Tammy's name appeared on each and every one of them.
“We've got to get rid of her,” he said. “It's a nightmare to count these things as it is.”
“You want me to type up a new one?”
Walt didn't answer right away. He poked his pinky in his ear and swirled it around with a thoroughness that made me look away.
“I'd hate to waste the paper. We're way the fuck over budget as it is.” He examined his pinky for a second or two, then renewed his excavation. “I swear to Christ, people must wipe their butts with letterhead around here.”
There were 750 sequentially numbered ballots. While my students caught up with their reading during first and second period, I sat at my desk with a Magic Marker, blacking out Tammy's name with the diligence of an FBI censor. It was tedious, mind-numbing, idiot labor, just what the doctor ordered. I only wished the ledger of my own life could be so easily set aright, with a series of fat black lines drawn neatly through my sins and errors.
TAMMY WARREN
“SUSPENDED” WAS a good word for the way I felt. In between. Nowhere. I had abandoned one part of my life and not yet begun another. I had jumped up and not come down, except in fantasies.
I was possessed by a vision of myself as a Catholic schoolgirl, Dana's best friend and secret love. In the Immaculate Mary of my mind, we held hands and skipped down the hallway in matching uniforms, causing no consternation among the smiling nuns and shyly beautiful French girls who watched us pass. (For some reason, many of our imaginary schoolmates were French, with heart-shaped faces and silky hair. Their lips were full and pouty and they spoke English with just the slightest trace of an accent.)
Shortly after ten o'clock I got on my bike and rode through the empty streets into the corny, Colonial-style business district of West Plains. The morning was damp and cool, the sky a bright pearly gray. The world seemed to tremble on the edge of spring, and I pedaled as hard as I could, as if I could somehow speed its arrival.
Bells jingled as I walked through the front door of the Little Sally Ann Shop, the store Dana had told me about. Behind the counter, a gray-haired woman with reading glasses pinching the tip of her nose smiled and put down her knitting. She didn't seem surprised to see a girl my age wander in in the middle of a school day.
“Yes, dear?”
I told her that my family had just relocated from California and that I would soon begin classes at Immaculate Mary. Naturally, I was curious about the uniforms.
“Of course,” she said. “Come with me.”
The skirt was lightweight gray wool, pleated and soft, the blouse stark white with a sweet rounded collar. I'd remembered to wear my own knee socks and saddle shoes, a souvenir from an ill-advised tryout for the jayvee cheerleading squad freshman year.
Smiling at the transformation, I stood before the three-paneled mirror in my new outfit, studying myself from every angle. I looked good. I'll be happy now, I remember thinking. Everything will be better.
“You'll like it at Immaculate,” the saleslady told me. “The public schools around here are going down the toilet.”
“Oh please,” I told her, twisting my hips to flare the skirt. “You don't have to tell me.”
PAUL WARREN
YOU SEE these pictures all the time, the grinn
ing politician emerging from behind the curtain, flashing a thumbs-up to TV land, and it seems like the most natural thing in the world: in the privacy of the booth, with a clean conscience and boundless optimism, this man has just pulled the lever next to his own name.
I never gave it a second thought until Larry DiBono handed me my ballot that afternoon. I ducked into the goofy “voting booth” they rigged up every year—it was really just a wooden desk surrounded by a wraparound shower curtain—uncapped my pen, and was overcome with disgust. All at once, the idea of voting for myself seemed utterly repugnant. It was selfish and unfair, like a defendant sitting on his own jury, or an author reviewing his own book.
If I can't win this thing without my own vote, I told myself, then I probably don't deserve to be President. I scrawled “None of the Above” across the bottom of the ballot, folded the paper in half, and slipped it into the box.
MR. M.
LARRY DIBONO DROPPED the ballot box on top of my desk. We had thirty-five minutes to tabulate 641 votes, and I was tired. Tired the way you might expect a person to be who had spent the night in his car. Tired the way you get when you know you haven't even begun to face up to the gravity of a bad situation. I scowled at the box.
“Maybe we should just get some lighter fluid and torch the thing,” I said. “Save us a lot of trouble.”
Larry laughed uneasily, more startled than amused. Being an election monitor was not something he took lightly.
“You want me to look for Mr. Hendricks?” he asked.
We'd already wasted ten valuable minutes waiting for Walt outside the cafeteria. The regulations stipulated that three people had to be present at all times during the handling of the ballots—the SGA President, the faculty advisor, and the Vice-Principal.
“I'll go find him,” I said. “In the meantime, why don't you get started on your count.”
Larry hesitated, unable to conceal his discomfort. He was a straight arrow who believed in following rules, but he was also a brownnoser who derived great pleasure from obeying orders. As usual, the brownnoser won out.
“Are you sure it's okay?”
“Sure,” I said, handing him the key to the box. “Just don't light any matches.”
I can still remember how good it felt to step into the hallway, as if my body had somehow sensed the danger packed inside that box of votes. The feeling of freedom—of reprieve—was so intense that I had to stop myself from breaking into a run, sprinting like a fugitive down that gleaming tunnel of lockers and linoleum and Tracy for President, bursting through glass doors into the safety of the hazy afternoon.
Instead of running away, I permitted myself to indulge in the cheap luxury of hope. Maybe Sherry's come to her senses, I thought. Maybe she misses me and wants to get together. After all, you can't expect a situation as complicated as ours to fall into place without a hitch, etc. It's painful to look back on a moment like that, to watch yourself play the dual role of con man and dupe, gulping down the snake oil you've just brewed for your own consumption.
Ducking into the phone booth around the corner from Walt's office, I reached into my pocket and fished out a handful of change, including several quarters. This struck me as a good omen, because I almost never have quarters on hand when I need them. My fingers trembled as I pushed the buttons.
Sherry wasn't home and she hadn't gone to work. The only other place I could think to try was my own house.
“Hello?” She answered like a guest, tentative and too polite, but her voice made everything real again.
“I love you,” I told her.
The silence on the other end was frosty and careful, not what I needed it to be.
“Don't,” she said. “You know it's not true.”
“It's the only true thing I know anymore.”
I waited again, breathing in the teenage fragrances of gum and sweet perfume wafting up from the mouthpiece.
“I can't do it, Jim.”
“Do what?”
“We made a mistake. Let's not make it worse.”
“A mistake?” The word was so wrong it was almost comical. “That was no mistake.”
This time the pause was longer, more substantial. “I was lonely,” she said. “You took advantage.”
A new kind of bitterness flooded into my mouth. It was like nothing I'd ever tasted in my life.
“Me? I took advantage of you? Do you remember what you were wearing?”
I heard a sharp intake of breath, followed by a dial tone and the merciless voice of the phone company. If you'd like to make a call, please hang up and try again … If you'd like to make a call…
I stood in a kind of trance in the upright coffin of the booth listening to that inane recording over and over. I might have passed the rest of the afternoon in there if Walt hadn't shoved open the Plexiglas door and grabbed me by the shoulder.
“Jesus, Jim. Here you are. I've been looking all over.”
When we got back to my room, Larry had the votes sorted into three neat piles of approximately equal height. He seemed relieved to see us.
“Well?” said Walt. “What's the verdict?”
Larry looked shocked, as if Walt had just inquired as to the size of his penis.
“I—I'm not supposed to tell you. We're each supposed to make an independent count.”
Walt shook his head slowly, with a combination of disgust and admiration.
“DiBono,” he said, “you're a real piece of work.”
Larry's ears turned an unfortunate shade of red, but he showed more backbone than I expected.
“Those are the rules as they were explained to me, Mr. Hendricks. If they've changed in any way …”
“DiBono, we're not choosing the fucking Pope here. The fate of the world doesn't exactly hang in the balance. So I'd appreciate it if you spared me the bullcrap, okay?”
Larry hung his head.
“It was a squeaker,” he said. “I've got Tracy by a vote.”
TRACY FLICK
THE SUSPENSE WAS killing me. How was I supposed to concentrate on Trig when my political future was hanging in the balance?
I clutched my stomach and moaned. A lot of kids stared at me, but Mr. Sperigno just kept scribbling on the blackboard. My second moan was unignorable. Mr. S. turned around, eyeing me with a certain amount of skepticism.
“Someone call a priest,” he said. “I think there's a demon in our midst.”
He didn't really believe that I was suffering from “acute gastritis,” but he wrote me a pass to the nurse's office anyway. Mr. S. is good that way. Some of the other teachers will quiz you about your symptoms right in front of the class, as if they're trained medical professionals.
By coincidence, Mr. M.'s room happened to be right on my way to the nurse's office. How could I not stop by the door and take a peek?
It's always disappointing to see stuff like that in real life. You imagine a big scoreboard, your name in lights, crowds of reporters milling around. But what you get is Mr. M. sitting at his desk, playing solitaire with the ballots, while Larry and Mr. Hendricks stand a few feet apart by the window, sharing a lovely view of the parking lot. So much for democracy in action.
I had to wait a long time before Larry finally turned around. I waved and his face lit up in a dopey smile. Larry had a crush on me—a big, hopeless crush. He asked me out on a regular basis—I always said no—and wrote me the kind of letters you'd die to get from Mr. Right, but are totally embarrassing coming from anybody else, especially a sweet dorky guy like Larry. Despite the fact that I'd broken his heart a hundred times over, we'd somehow managed to remain on pretty good terms. He was one of the few people at Winwood I knew I could count on.
I crossed my fingers by my ears and mouthed the word, “Well?”
Larry glanced from side to side. M. was counting the votes. Hendricks was still memorizing the view. Larry flashed me a double thumbs-up.
“Really?” I mouthed.
He nodded, eyes wide with confirmation.
r /> You know that moment when they announce the winner of a beauty pageant? When Miss Texas or whoever suddenly realizes she's Miss America and all she can do is scream and weep and hug the losers? I had mine in the hallway, with no one to hug but myself.
MR. M
LARRY HAD SORTED the votes into three categories—Paul, Tracy, and Disregard.
If you want to get technical, Disregard actually won the election with 230 votes. About half of these were write-in votes for Tammy—which tells you something about her support—and most of the remainder were split among celebrity write-ins—Bart Simpson, Shannen Doherty, Long Dong Silver—and true confessions—I'm Gay, I Had an Abortion, I Want to Die.
Judging from the ballots, a plurality of our students were scared, angry, lonely, and in desperate need of role models.
My count of the other two piles worked out exactly the same as Larry's: Tracy had won the election by a single vote, 206 to 205.1 had her last two votes in my hand and was about to announce my tally when I happened to look up and see her face in the window of my classroom door.
The sight of her at that moment irritated me in a way I can't fully explain. Part of it was that she was spying, but mainly it was her expression that made me furious. She was wide-eyed and jubilant, like she somehow already knew she'd won the election. And innocent, too. Looking at her, you'd have no idea she'd scratched and clawed her way to the top, lying and cheating when necessary. You'd think she was just a sweet teenage girl who deserved every good thing that had ever happened to her.
She realized I was staring and darted out of sight. Larry and Walt were standing at the window, facing away from me. As quietly as I could, I closed my fist around the two ballots in my hand, crumpling them into a compact wad that I deposited in the wastebasket beneath my desk.