Election. Tom Perrotta
win?”
“I don't see why not.”
“But what about Tracy?”
“I wouldn't worry about Tracy. You're a lot more popular than she is.”
TRACY FLICK.
ALL RIGHT, so I slept with my English teacher and ruined his marriage. Crucify me. Send me to bad girl prison with Amy Fisher and make TV movies about my pathetic life.
(If I'd been on better terms with Mr. M., I could have explained to him that my punishment for sleeping with Jack was having to sleep with Jack. It pretty much cured me of the older-man fantasy, let me tell you that).
Until Paul entered the race, I was running unopposed. People understood that I deserved to win. They didn't necessarily like me, but they respected my qualifications: President of the Junior Class, Treasurer of the SG A, Assistant Editor of The Watchdog, statistician for the basketball team, and star of last year's musical (Oklahoma!, in case you're wondering). And I did all of it while conducting a fairly torrid affair with a married man, even if he did turn out to be as big a baby as any sixteen-year-old.
One of these days before I graduate and begin what I hope will be a brilliant career at Georgetown University, I'm going to get dressed up in high heels and a short skirt and head down to that Chevy dealership on the Boulevard. I'm going to ask for Mr. M. by name and make him show me all the shiny cars, the Camaros, Berettas, and Corvettes.
“What about gas mileage?” I'll ask him. “Tell me again about the antilock brakes.”
I swear to God, I'll make him suffer.
PAUL WARREN
YOU ONLY NEED a hundred signatures to put yourself on the ballot. I'd accumulated eighty-something my first half hour in the cafeteria when Tracy came charging up to my table in those amazing black jeans.
“Who put you up to this?” she demanded.
Tracy's kind of short and moon-faced, but something about her gets me all flustered. It's pretty simple, really: she's got this ass. Just ask any guy at Winwood.
Conversations stop every time she walks down the hall. She wore these cut-offs last spring that people still talk about.
“What?”
“I asked you a simple question, Paul. Or do you expect me to believe that you just woke up this morning and decided to run for President?”
“I've been thinking about it for a long time.”
She shook her head and smiled with pure contempt. I felt like I'd turned into a pane of glass.
“You're not a good liar, Paul.”
She surprised me then by plucking the pen out of my hand and signing the petition.
“I've been working toward this for three years,” she said, dotting the in her last name with her trademark star, “and if you think you can just jump in at the last minute and take it away from me, you're sorely mistaken.”
It's funny. She was trying to show me she wasn't scared, but the message I got was exactly the opposite. For the first time, I actually believed I might be able to win.
“Well,” I said, reclaiming my pen from her sweaty fingers, “I guess we'll just have to let the voters decide.”
MR. M.
THE ELECTION FOLLOWS an orderly, three-phase schedule. March is petition month. Any student can become a candidate simply by submitting a petition with the required number of signatures. The Candidate Assembly on the first Tuesday in April marks the official beginning of the race. The next two weeks are devoted to the campaign. The hallways and bulletin boards are plastered with signs and posters. Candidates greet their fellow students at the main door, passing out leaflets, shaking hands. The Watchdog publishes a special election issue. It's democracy in miniature, a great educational tool.
It's clear to me now that I was wrong to get so involved in Paul's candidacy. I don't think I admitted to myself how badly I wanted to see Tracy lose.
That girl was bad news, 110 pounds of the rawest, nakedest ambition I'd ever come in contact with. She smoldered with it, and I'd be a liar if I said I didn't find her fascinating and a little bit dangerous, especially after what I'd heard about her from Jack Dexter. She was a steamroller, and I guess I wanted to slow her down before she flattened the whole school.
My saving grace, or so I thought at the time, was simple: Paul Warren would make a terrific President. The office would be good for him, and he would be good for the school. And besides, he had as much right to run as Tracy did. Winwood High School was a democracy. The winner would be determined by popular vote, not my personal preference.
All the way through the last week of March, it looked like we would have a clear-cut, two-way race between Paul and Tracy, a race I had no doubt my candidate could win. So you can imagine my annoyance on March 29th when I walked into the cafeteria and saw Paul's little sister, a scrawny, morose-looking girl, standing behind a petition table, holding up a homemade sign.
“TAMMY WARREN,” it said. “THE PEOPLE'S CHOICE.”
PAUL WARREN
I'M NOT SURE what happened between Tammy and Lisa. They'd been best friends for a couple of years, but then they had a falling-out. When I asked Tammy about it, she screamed. I mean it. She threw back her head, opened her mouth, and shrieked. She couldn't have wailed any louder or more convincingly if a man in a hockey mask had attacked her with a meat cleaver. Mom came rushing downstairs like a maniac, holding the toilet bowl scrubber out in front of her like the Olympic torch, her right arm sheathed in an elbow-length orange rubber glove.
“Jesus,” she told me. “I thought you were killing her.”
Tammy likes nothing better than to persecute me and manipulate Mom. Now that she'd accomplished both goals in one fell swoop, a smile of angelic satisfaction spread across her face.
“Mom,” she said, “would you kindly tell this asshole to get out of my face?”
Mom sighed, and I felt sorry for her, a tired-looking woman with a dead marriage who couldn't even clean the bathroom in peace.
“Tammy, do you have to use that word?”
“For him it's a compliment.”
“Hey,” I said. “Excuse me for living.”
“Gladly,” she said. “Just let me know when you get a life.”
LISA FLANAGAN
I HONESTLY DON'T KNOW how I let it happen. It was like this huge mistake I couldn't stop making. I used to walk home thinking, That's not me. That's not who I am.
We were watching Oprah the day it started, this thing about women with implants. Mr. and Mrs. Warren were at work, and I guess Paul was at football practice. I remember gazing down the front of my shirt, shaking my head.
“I wish mine were bigger.”
“Let me see.”
“What?”
“Let me see. I'll give you an honest opinion.”
Tammy and I had spent a lot of time together, slept over each other's houses, sometimes in the same bed. We'd seen each other with our tops off. It didn't make sense for me to be so nervous. I pulled the front of my shirt up over my face so she could look. She was smiling when I let it back down.
“You're