Election (7 page)

“No overalls,” I said, thinking again how cool she looked, and how exotic with that secret birthmark.

“Nope.” She reached into one of her many pockets and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. “Want one?”

“Sure.”

We had to go out on the deck because of Jason's allergies. I lit my cigarette off hers and smoked it in tiny puffs that felt like razors going down my throat. Dana was even clumsier than I was, choking on every other drag.

“I only smoke at parties,” I said, admiring the sophistication of the remark.

“Same here,” she said. “Only when I drink.”

The night was chilly, but I didn't mind. I'd forgotten how good it felt to get out of the house, to escape into something new.

“I guess I should warn you,” she said. “Jason's got this really big crush on you.”

“On me?” I laughed too loud, as if this were the most ridiculous thing I'd ever heard.

She nodded gravely. “He talks about you all the time.”

Dana flicked her cigarette into the yard. I did the same, relieved to get rid of it. They landed just a couple of inches apart in the grass, burning through the darkness like two orange stars.

ANOTHER WOMAN
I fantasized about was Sherry Dexter, but with her I was slow and careful, a healer of sorrows. It was especially exciting for me because we spent so much time together in real life.

Diane and I drove to her house almost every night and stayed until ten or eleven, doing double duty as friends and babysitters, giving Sherry a chance to take a shower, eat a meal in peace, maybe run a quick errand without having to worry about Darren. She said it was heaven to go to the supermarket by herself; she felt so streamlined and free gliding up and down the aisles without a baby in tow, so much like a real person.

It was marvelous to watch the transformation she
underwent in our presence. She answered the door in a food-stained sweatsuit, hair pulled back any which way, her face pasty and frazzled. After a few minutes of small talk she escaped upstairs for a shower that sometimes lasted as long as a half hour. I could imagine the luxury of it, the steam and privacy, the chance to be alone in her own body for the first time all day without worries or distractions.

She was a different person when she came back down. Her wet hair was loose, freshly combed, her skin rosy. The smell of shampoo clung to her like a warm aura. Sometimes she got dressed, but I preferred the nights when she rejoined us in her crimson terry cloth robe, a garment that had figured prominently in a couple of my fantasies.

A strange intimacy seemed to have sprouted up between us that spring, as if she'd somehow gotten wind of the things we did together in my head and wanted me to know that she approved. She smiled at me on the flimsiest of pretexts, spoke my name as if it belonged to another Jim, a witty, fascinating man whose company brought her immense pleasure.

If Diane noticed, it didn't seem to bother her; she only had eyes for Darren. As soon as we arrived, her eyes lit up with fresh wonder at the sight of his scrunched and quizzical face, so eerily reminiscent of Jack's. For the next hour or two, until Darren grew cranky with
exhaustion, they played together on the floor—sorting shapes, reading nursery rhymes, building the same four-block tower over and over again—leaving Sherry and me free to continue our flirtation at a slightly higher altitude, safe in the knowledge that it couldn't really go anywhere.

One night, though, about a week before the election, Sherry came down from her shower dressed to go out. On what seemed like the spur of the moment, she invited Diane to drive with her to the mall.

“I need to pick up a housewarming gift for my sister,” she said. “I hate to drive all that way by myself.”

Diane didn't answer right away. She was kneeling on the floor, adding the last alphabet block to a precarious tower as Darren looked on, gleefully awaiting her permission to demolish it.

“Take Jim,” she said offhandedly. “I'm happy right here.”

Sherry and I exhanged a swift glance of collusion and alarm. The color deepened in her cheeks and throat.

“Oh no,” she said. “I'm sure he'd be bored to death.”

“Not at all,” I told her. “I'm happy to be your escort.”

DANA HAD A
VCR in her bedroom and her own copy of
Truth or Dare.
We sat on her bed in the flickering darkness beneath a huge poster of Jason Priestley, watching in almost religious silence. Whenever a song came on we jumped off the bed and started dancing around like maniacs.

Dana did a great Madonna imitation. She knew most of the routines pretty much by heart, except for the really complicated parts, and didn't seem embarrassed about running her hands up and down her body.

“Don't worry,” she told me. “I won't do the masturbation scene.”

The first time I saw
Truth or Dare
was in a movie theater, and I was totally hypnotized by Madonna. She was all I remembered: Madonna at her mother's grave, Madonna putting that bottle in her mouth, Madonna sad and lonely in a beautiful hotel room. It was like she gave off this exclusive brightness, blinding you to anyone and anything that wasn't her.

On the smaller screen she was less dazzling, more like a human being. I found myself paying closer attention to the other people in the movie—the dancers, the chubby makeup girl, the childhood friend who asks Madonna to be her baby's godmother. I tried to imagine what it would be like to be a member of her family, how
hard it would be to keep your spirits up, to wake up in the morning and actually believe you have a life worth living.

One of her brothers worked for her, and one had just gotten out of rehab. Her father seemed both awed and frightened by who she was and what she did in front of thousands of people. The father's wife didn't like Madonna very much. It must have been strange for her, marrying a completely ordinary man whose daughter turns out to be the most famous person in the world.

I thought about my own father, and how satisfying it would be to bring him and Mrs. Stiller to one of my concerts, then invite them back to my dressing room afterward so they could get a close-up glimpse of what a huge star I was. I also thought about Paul, how I'd spent so much time resenting him for being so handsome and clueless and successful, when he was really just another nobody. Madonna wouldn't have given him the time of day.

“I can't believe she does this with her dad in the audience,” Dana marveled. “It's so weird.”

Madonna was writhing on the bed, pretending to give herself an orgasm. My breath quickened as I watched, my blood beginning to hum. Dana and I were a couple of inches apart. We didn't look at each other or move a muscle. We just sat wide-eyed, staring straight ahead until it was over.

SHERRY SMILED
at me as we pulled away from the curb.

“Well,” she said. “Here we are.”

“Yup,” I replied. “Here we are.”

The humid smell of her shampoo wafted through the car like a mysterious tropical breeze. I breathed deeply, taking as much of it as I could into my lungs.

“It's been a long time since I've been out with a man,” she told me.

“Don't worry. I'll behave myself.”

She laughed merrily.

“I know,” she said. “That's what worries me.”

THE TAPE WAS
rewinding when Lance and Jason pushed open the door and asked if we wanted to play spin the bottle.

“No way,” said Dana. “There aren't enough of us.”

“Sure there are,” said Jason.

“Forget it,” said Dana. “I'm not kissing you.”

“You don't have to,” he assured her. “I can kiss Tammy. And both of you can kiss Lance.”

Lance snickered. “And you two can kiss each other.”

I had the weirdest feeling then, like it might really happen. Dana stood there, shaking her head.

“You guys are pathetic,” she said.

SHERRY BOUGHT
a toaster. I behaved myself. Both of us seemed relieved as we slipped back into the car, as if we'd passed some sort of test.

“Thanks,” she told me. “I appreciate the company.”

“No problem.”

“You guys are great friends. I don't know what I'd do without you.”

If we'd made it home on that note, everything would have been okay. But fate conspired against us. We happened to catch a red light just outside the Benedict Motel, one of those hourly-rate places that exist solely to provide a haven for illicit sex. Nine o'clock on Thursday night and the parking lot was almost completely full. I'm still not sure what possessed me to open my mouth.

“Should I pull in?”

She didn't laugh or feign shock. Her gaze was level, her voice tight and serious.

“Don't ask me again,” she said. “Not unless you really want an answer.”

WINWOOD'S A RICH TOWN
, but not everyone who lives here is rich. Since my parents split up six years ago, my mother's supported us on the money she makes as a legal secretary. My father helps out, but not as much or as often as he should (he's got a new wife now, and a two year-old son). If it weren't for loans and scholarships, you can bet I wouldn't be going to an expensive school like Georgetown.

It's not like we're poor. It's just that we've learned to do without a lot of things that most people around here take for granted—nice vacations, new cars, expensive clothes, even cable TV. The house we live in is a big Victorian on Maple Street, one of the prettiest blocks in town. We rent the whole second floor for only five hundred a month, about half the going
rate. Winwood's a commuter town, and nice apartments don't come cheap.

“Our landlord's a saint,” my mother tells people every chance she gets. “If it weren't for him, we'd probably be living on the street.”

“IT'S OKAY
with Tammy,” he'd assured me. “She says it's no big deal.”

But it wasn't okay with Tammy. We were sharing the backseat and she didn't even look at me when I climbed in and wished her a happy birthday. She just kept staring out the window in the wrong direction, as if fascinated by the gray house across the street.

Mrs. Warren turned in the passenger seat, trying to smooth over the awkwardness. She looked older than I remembered, and her smile was tense, an effort of will. “Oh Lisa,” she said. “It's so nice to see you again.” “It's nice to see you too, Mrs. Warren.” It was weird how stiff and artificial we sounded. Only a year ago Mrs. Warren and I had been able to giggle and gossip like girlfriends. But so much had changed since then that our shared past seemed to have happened to other people, or not to have happened at all.

That went double for me and Tammy. It didn't seem possible that we'd ever held hands at the movies or kissed until we were dizzy. If we'd been on speaking terms, I might've told her that I'd come to think of sex as this long dark tunnel that turns friends into strangers, strangers into friends.

OUR LANDLORD IS
Joe Delvecchio, chief of the maintenance crew at Winwood High. He's a familiar figure around the school, wandering the halls with a bottle of Windex or a screwdriver in his hand, whistling some dopey tune from the fifties.

Janitors fall into a gray area at school. They're adults, but they don't really count. They can't discipline you or give you bad grades. They shuffle around in their blue uniforms, condemned to mop floors, erase graffiti, clean bathrooms, and suffer abuse at the hands of teenagers. It's almost like they're put there as a warning, to remind you of what might happen if you don't pay attention in class or do your homework.

Joe's different, though; he's a janitor by choice rather than necessity. He used to be a cop, but he retired with half pay after hurting his back in a scuffle with a shoplifter.
He hated sitting around and eventually escaped his boredom by signing on as janitor and all-around handyman at the high school. He says it keeps him young.

At home, Joe and I are friends. I help him shovel the snow and take care of the lawn; he and his wife do all kinds of favors for my mother and me. At school, though, we don't have a lot of contact. We'll smile and say hello, but that's about it. Watching us in the hall, you wouldn't know that we exchange Christmas gifts, or that he likes to call me “princess.”

DAD WAS SITTING
alone at a big round table, pretending to read the menu, looking for all the world like the sad thing he was—a family man who had somehow misplaced his family. My mother clutched my arm.

“Help me get through this,” she whispered.

He'd grown a beard since I'd last seen him. It was neatly trimmed, flecked with gray, surprisingly distinguished. You might have thought he was a professor or a movie director instead of a man who sold unbreakable windows to stores in bad neighborhoods.

Mom flinched at his lame kiss. He helped her into
her chair, then turned to me with this expression of bogus wonder, like he was too moved by the sight of me even to speak.

“The name's Tammy,” I told him. “I'm your daughter.”

That wiped the cornball look off his face. He didn't get mad, though.

“Oh yeah,” he said, smiling like an actual human being. “I thought you looked familiar.”

He and Paul hugged like brothers, clapping each other three times on the back before letting go. He greeted Lisa with one of his deeply sincere, two-handed Dale Carnegie handshakes.

“Ms. Flanagan,” he said. “Don't you look lovely today.”

And she did, too. She was wearing a short yellow skirt with black tights and a stretchy black top, and you couldn't help but notice how sleek and graceful she was. It hurt me just to look at her.