Election (11 page)

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.”

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.

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.

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.

“Larry,” I said, “I think we have a problem.”

I REGRETTED IT IMMEDIATELY
, but even that was too late. Larry and Walt were watching; there seemed no recourse but to finish what I'd started.

“I've got Paul by one. Two-oh-five to two-oh-four.”

“That can't be.” Larry was adamant. “I double-checked. Tracy won by a vote.”

“Maybe I'm wrong,” I told him, “but that's my tally.”

Walt frowned at the clock. Fifteen minutes remained in the period. I expected him to throw a tantrum, but he just withdrew a handkerchief from his coat pocket and blew his nose.

“Tell me,” he said, pausing to switch nostrils. “Why does everything have to be such a goddam melodrama around here?”

Walt usurped my desk to count the votes, so I had little choice but to join Larry by the window. He didn't look at me or say a word, but I could sense his hostility, the angry bewilderment of a teenager who suddenly suspects that the fix is in from the adult world. Under different circumstances, I might have tried to comfort him.

At least for the moment, though, Larry's agitation had the paradoxical effect of calming my nerves. Seeing myself through his eyes brought me back to the rock-bottom reality of the situation: he was the student; I was the teacher. If it came down to my word against his—absent any physical evidence—I would win.

For several minutes, the only sounds in the room were Walt's heavy breathing and the whispery shuffle of paper. At the far end of the parking lot, students in gym clothes volleyed lazily on the tennis courts, reaching and swatting at a swooping green dot. It was ballet from this distance, pointless and beautiful.

My regrets just then ran in a couple of directions. I wished I hadn't done what I'd done, and I also wished I'd thought of a less obvious place to dispose of the ballots. Even my pants pocket would have been safer than the trash can. But the truth, of course, was that I hadn't thought at all. I just saw my opportunity and took it.

Walt cleared his throat and stood up.

“Jim's right. Paul Warren's our new President by a
single vote. I can't remember an election this close in all my years at Win wood.”

Larry turned slowly away from the window, shaking his head with a bitter certainty that froze the moment.

“No way. It doesn't make sense.”

“Sorry.” Walt dismissed him with a shrug. “My figures work out exactly the same as Jim's. Two-oh-five for Paul, two-oh-four for Tracy.”

Larry wasn't buying it.

“How many Disregards?”

Walt referred to the palm of his left hand.

“Two hundred thirty.”

“See?” Larry spread his arms wide for emphasis. He was turning into a lawyer right in front of our eyes. “It doesn't add up. You counted six hundred thirty-nine votes. But our ledger shows that six hundred and forty-one people voted.”

Walt looked pained, as though he were attempting the math in his head.

“Two votes are missing,” Larry added helpfully. “You can check the register.”

“He's right,” I said. “Two people must have pocketed their ballots in the booth. There's really no way for us to prevent that.”

“They were
there,”
Larry insisted. “I counted six hundred and forty-one votes.”

I patted him on the shoulder, a fatherly and forgiving gesture.

“It happens, Larry. People make mistakes.”

He glared at me, offended by my touch.

“I didn't make a mistake. Every vote was there when you sat down.”

“Whoa.” Walt's voice carried a sharp note of warning. “Easy, DiBono. Don't say anything you'll regret in the morning.”

Even then, Larry wouldn't back down. He was starting to scare me.

“I'm telling you, Mr. Hendricks. Every vote was accounted for.”

“Okay,” said Walt. “Take it easy. Let's use our heads here. Where could they have gone?”

Larry drilled me with a look of undisguised contempt.

“Under the blotter,” he said. “Maybe they slid there by accident.”

Walt lifted the blotter and shook his head.

“Check inside the ballot box,” I suggested.

The bell rang, signaling the end of seventh period. Walt turned the box upside down and gave it a shake. Nothing fell out.

“Under the desk.” Larry spoke quickly, knowing we were pressed for time.

A powerful adrenaline rush shot through my body
as Walt knelt to the floor. For the first time all day, my head was clear. For the first time in what felt like months, I made a smart decision.

“Don't forget the garbage can,” I called out.

Walt stood up after only a few seconds had passed, not long enough for him to make a thorough search of the wastebasket, which was filled with a day's worth of wrappers, memos, and paper cups. He dusted off his pants and straightened his tie.

“Sorry, gents. Negative on both counts.”

IT WAS LIKE
the Oscars, only worse. Tracy and I were made to sit together on stage in front of the whole school so everyone could watch our reactions when Larry announced the winner. It was a needlessly cruel arrangement, and I vowed to abolish it if I were lucky enough to be elected.

Tracy seemed like a different person now that the voting was over, no longer the fierce opponent I'd come to fear and dislike in recent weeks. She smiled as I took my seat and graciously offered her hand.

“However this turns out,” she told me, “I want you to know that you've run a wonderful campaign. It's been an honor competing with you.”

I shook her hand without hesitation, moved by the generosity of the gesture. It's probably a defect in my personality, this eagerness to forgive and forget.

“It's been a long road,” I said. “I'm kind of glad it's finally over.”

“Not me.” She took a moment to survey the rows upon rows of faces spread out below us. “I'll miss all the excitement.”

“I guess I like it dull.”

“Huh.” She made a face. “Your life doesn't seem all that dull to me.”

“All this glitz and glamour's just a smokescreen,” I told her with a laugh. “At heart, I'm a very boring person.”

She leaned closer. Her expression was hard to read.

“I get so jealous watching you and Lisa in the hallway. It's been a long time since anyone kissed me like that.”

I tried not to show it, but I was startled by her remark. Not only because she'd been watching me and Lisa, but also because I was pretty sure she was referring to Mr. Dexter. He'd disappeared overnight, without a word of explanation, but everyone knew that it had something to do with Tracy. In one story, her mother caught them fucking in her bedroom; in another, a janitor opened the door on a supply-room blow job. Neither story sounded quite right to me, but even so, it
was a strange moment to raise such a delicate subject, the two of us on display in front of close to a thousand people.

I felt guilty, too, because I didn't really deserve the benefit of even that much of her trust. Like everyone else at Winwood, I'd gotten a lot of mileage out of last year's scandal, mostly at Tracy's expense. Mr. Dexter was one of the most popular teachers at school; for weeks my friends and I had obsessed over the riddle of his behavior.

“How could he fall for Tracy?” we asked ourselves over and over, in the incredulous tone we reserved for unsolved mysteries of the highest order. “
For Tracy!”

But just then, to my immense surprise, I thought I understood what he saw in her, aside from that amazing body. It was something that had never occurred to me before: she was unhappy. On stage that afternoon, this simple fact struck me with the unmistakable force of truth. Tracy Flick needed someone to cheer her up. So did Lisa, now that I thought about it; so did Tammy and my mother and my father. Maybe that's what we look for in the people we love, the spark of unhappiness we think we know how to extinguish …