Election (12 page)

My reverie dissolved in a sudden burst of applause as Mr. M. came trudging up the steps to join us on stage, looking pale and haggard. I tried to make eye contact with him, but he shuffled past us without a glance and
took his place behind the podium. Tracy grabbed my hand.

“I'm so nervous,” she whispered. “I think I'm going to wet my pants.”

I LEANED MY BIKE
against a tree and sat down on the curb across the street from the main entrance, momentarily startled by the sight of my skinny legs poking out from the skirt. I straightened my droopy socks and wiped some dirt from the tip of my shoe.

It felt good to be far away from Win wood, the treadmill of familiar faces and boring routines, the strait-jacket of people's expectations. The school always reminded me of a warehouse or factory, this long low rectangle set far apart from everything, surrounded by an enormous parking lot and acres of athletic fields. The building itself is plain and impersonal, with no real ornamentation except these gleaming ventilation units rising like silver mushrooms from the flat roof.

Immaculate Mary was built on a more human scale, a two-story brick building on a tree-lined street near the edge of downtown Cranwood, with a sloping lawn and a flight of wide concrete steps leading up to the main entrance. Above the door was a marble frieze of the Virgin
Mary gazing sadly upon the world, the wrinkles of her robe so real-seeming you could hardly believe they were made of stone.

Aside from Jason, who didn't really count, I doubted anyone would miss me in all of Winwood, least of all Lisa. I would disappear and that would be it. No one would stop by my locker and scratch their head, wondering where I'd gone. I was tired of that, tired of being Nobody, Paul's Sister, the Girl Who Made the Speech. All I wanted was a chance to go somewhere new, make some real friends, be my true self. It didn't seem like too much to ask of the world.

The bell rang at two-thirty, and the girls of Immaculate Mary came streaming out the door and down the steps, fanning across the lawn like a flock of blue-gray-and-white birds, heading for the fleet of school buses parked at the corner. The afternoon swelled with their voices and laughter.

I picked myself up and strolled across the street into the thick of the crowd. Moving against the flow, I threaded my way through a maze of unfamiliar faces—black, white, and brown girls, girls with pimples, smiling girls, fat girls, all of them dressed like me, all of us part of the same happy exit.

Dana was standing at the base of the stairs, talking to a chubby girl with frizzy red hair. I stopped for a few seconds to admire her and gather my courage. She
wore black tights instead of knee socks, and had a navy cardigan draped over her shoulders, the empty sleeves flopping across her chest. One of her shirt cuffs was unbuttoned, and it flapped around her wrist every time she moved her hand.

I walked right up and tapped her on the shoulder. Her mouth opened slowly into a question she couldn't seem to ask. The red-haired girl looked worried.

“Oh my God,” said Dana.

“I know,” I told her.

I SHOULD'VE REALIZED
I was in trouble as soon as Mr. M. made his entrance. It was Larry's job to announce the winner, and he wouldn't have surrendered the opportunity to speak my name and hug me in front of the whole school unless something was seriously amiss.

But who was thinking of Larry or trouble? I was too busy concentrating on my acceptance speech, making sure I struck the right notes of gratitude and modesty and mentioned the names of all the people whose help and support I might need in the future. Though I'm told I'm a natural, public speaking has never come easily to me. The prospect of doing it always puts me in
a weird hyper state. I can't really focus on anything but the words in my head; the rest of the world dissolves into a thick dreamy fog.

“Some contests are so well fought it seems unfair for someone to have to win and someone to have to lose.” Mr. M.'s voice reached my ears with a wobbly quaver, as though he were speaking through water instead of air. “Both candidates before you are highly qualified; both embody the virtues of leadership and integrity we expect and deserve in a school President. Either one of them, I believe, would make an excellent chief executive.”

God
, I thought,
would you get on with it! Shake Paul's hand
, I reminded myself.
Walk slowly to the podium. Try not to look too happy …

“That said,” he continued, “the whole point of an election is to choose a winner, and that you have done, by the margin of a single vote. You the people have spoken; you the people have selected your next President.”

He withdrew the envelope from his back pocket and began tearing it open. I'm not sure why they do it like that, maybe to make the whole process seem more official or something.
Smile at your constituents. Thank them for this incredible honor …

“Without further ado, it's my pleasure to announce the next President of Winwood High. And the winner is—”
He hesitated just a second or two at the crucial juncture, long enough for me to completely lose my patience. In that unexpected bubble of silence, as if my name had already been called, I rose from my chair and stood smiling in my red dress in front of the entire school.

“—Paul Warren!”

I SMILED
like a bad actor through Paul's acceptance speech and clapped along with everyone else. You go on autopilot at moments like that, blanking out all the things you can't possibly afford to think about, knowing you'll have time enough later for shame and regret.

When it was over, all I wanted was to flee the mess I'd made, to rush out of the building like waking from a bad dream, but I was too careful for that. I forced myself to return to my classroom and retrieve the missing ballots. There was no getting around it. As long as they existed, I was vulnerable.

It seemed like a simple enough operation—reach in, grab, and go. Once in my possession, the ballots could be disposed of in any number of ways: I could burn them,
drop them down a storm drain, rip them into confetti, flush them down a toilet.

Detective stories are right about one thing, though: once you've committed a crime, nothing is simple. The whole world bends to your exposure. Before you know it, you're on the eleven o'clock news, wearing a jacket on your head.

The moment I reached into the can, someone knocked on the door. I withdrew my hand as carefully as possible, praying as I turned that it wasn't Walt or Larry. Luck was with me. Paul and Lisa smiled through the window, their faces glowing with triumph. I signaled for them to come in.

Lisa hung back a step as Paul marched up to my desk and thrust out his hand. It was cool and dry, a striking contrast to my own.

“Thanks, Mr. M. If it wasn't for you, none of this would have happened.”

“Don't thank me,” I muttered. “You earned this on your own.”

“It was her,” he said, reaching for Lisa's hand. “She was the heart and soul of this campaign.”

Lisa seemed giddy, like she'd been drinking champagne.

“I can't believe we pulled it off. By a single vote, it's so crazy. I almost feel sorry for Tracy.”

With the tip of my shoe, I nudged the wastebasket farther under my desk. The ballots were huge in my mind, as obvious as money.

“It can't be easy for her,” I said. “She's a real competitor.”

Paul's face clouded over with sympathy. “I tried to talk to her, but she wouldn't even look at me.”

Lisa gave a small shudder, hissing sharply through her front teeth.

“It was
so
embarrassing, the way she stood up like that.”

“Like what?”

She seemed surprised by my question.

“When you announced Paul's name, Tracy stood up. Didn't you hear everyone laughing?”

“I missed it,” I said. “So much was happening at once.”

An awkward silence overtook the conversation. I had a feeling they expected something from me.

“Well … congratulations.” I rose to my feet. “To both of you. I look forward to working with you next year.”

I stuck out my hand, but Paul didn't take it. A bashful smile seeped across his face.

“Mr. M.,” he said, “could I give you a hug?”

How could I say no? I stepped forward and limply
accepted his embrace. I felt small in his arms, hollow when he slapped me on the back.

“Thanks so much,” he whispered.

I saw them to the door, checked both ways to make sure the coast was clear, then hurried back to my desk to finish what I'd started.

The only explanation for what happened next is that my nerves were shot. I couldn't think at all, let alone straight. Instead of reaching for the ballots, I slumped forward onto the desk, resting my forehead on the cool green of the blotter. It felt good to close my eyes and forget.

I woke with a start a few minutes later. Walt was clutching my shoulder, grinning like a madman.

“Jimbo! Caught you napping!”

“Not really,” I mumbled. I had to stop myself from swatting at his arm. “Just gathering my thoughts.”

“Come on,” he said. “It's been a long day. Let me buy you a drink.”

“No thanks. I've got some quizzes to grade.”

His face softened into a pout even as his fingers tightened on my arm.

“Come on, Jimbo. Don't make me beg.”

I'M THE HEAD
of Maintenance. I supervise the crew, purchase the supplies, sign off on the time sheets. It's not my job to clean the toilets or empty the waste-baskets.

What happened that afternoon, Howie Garber took a two-hour liquid lunch and came back shitfaced, ranting about his mother. I yelled a little, then sent him back to my office to sleep it off.

Howie's like a lot of guys on my crew, a good worker when he's not pissed off at the world. You might be pissed off, too, if you were a forty-year-old janitor who lived with your mother and spent your days cleaning the school you used to attend and the kids snicker behind your back ‘cause you're overweight and your pants have a tendency to slide down and expose the crack of your ass. I tell him all the time, “Howie, pull up your goddam pants. Have a little dignity.” So he gets drunk a few times a year and sleeps it off in my office.

That's a major part of my job, putting out these employee brushfires. Eddie won't work with Dinger' cause he farts too much. Ellis refuses to tuck in his shirt. Lou Fillipo gets into a shoving match with a football player who steps on his mop. Steve Piasecki gets caught stealing a carton of erasers, don't ask me why. Stupid, petty shit like that, pointless rebellions.

So anyway, that's why I'm on trash patrol that afternoon. Because it's Howie's job and Howie's fast asleep in my office, recuperating from lunch and his mother who won't get off his back. And the truth is, I don't mind cleaning toilets and emptying wastebaskets every now and then. It's a welcome break from the paperwork that seems to take up more and more of my time. Not to mention that you shouldn't ask someone else to do shitwork if you're not willing to do it yourself.

I can tell you one thing: Howie was a lot more on my mind than Tracy when I walked into McAllister's classroom. I knew she'd lost the election, but I figured it might do her some good in the long run. If you asked me, winning meant too much to her, like she herself was worthless without all her awards and prizes.

This attitude came straight from her mother. They're my tenants and they're both good people, but my own personal feeling was that Barbara pushed her daughter too goddam hard. The girl didn't have any friends, and she didn't have any fun. I thought it might loosen her up a little to find out that losing wasn't the end of the world.

What happened is this: I grabbed the basket, flipped it over, and shook the contents into a heavy-duty plastic bag I was dragging from room to room. A couple of balled-up papers missed the opening and landed on the floor. I'm not really sure what possessed me to pick them
up and see what they were. Some combination of boredom and curiosity, I guess. I like to know what people are up to.

One of the papers was a memo about a teacher's meeting. The other was actually two papers, both of them election ballots with an X next to Tracy's name. It didn't seem like a big deal at first. The election was over, so maybe the ballots get tossed. But that didn't seem right once I thought about it. It would take more than one little trash can to hold all the ballots from a schoolwide election. Just to be on the safe side, I smoothed them out and tucked them into my shirt pocket.

THE BLUE LANTERN
was dark and restful, the same as the day before. Walt and the elderly lady traded kisses through the air; the expressionless bartender poured without speaking, as though administering a sacrament. Walt and I touched glasses.

“Careful,” he told me. “You'll be a regular before you know it.”

There was a hopeful note in his warning, and the image it conjured made me laugh in appreciation.

“We'll be like Cliff and Norm.”

He didn't get the allusion, so I tried to explain.

“You know, the guys on
Cheers.
The fat one and the postal worker.”

This time he managed a wan smile as he swirled the bourbon in his glass, holding it at eye level for a better look.

“I wonder what got into DiBono,” he said. “He's not usually such a prick.”

“Beats me. Maybe he was embarrassed to make a mistake.”

Walt's shrug could have meant anything.

“Personally,” he said, “I'd have preferred Flick.”

“Really?”

He put down his glass and transferred his hand to my wrist. His eyes were bright, his voice confidential.

“Jesus, Jim, you ever see the ass on that girl?” He shook his head in silent tribute. “It would almost be worth losing your job for a caboose like that.”