Winner Takes All (9 page)

For the first time ever, the mango-scented air in Ms. Perdomo’s office was making Celia feel queasy. It wasn’t any stronger than usual. It was just that Ms. Perdomo had called her here unexpectedly, the pass to the main office waiting in Celia’s homeroom teacher’s hand when she walked in the classroom that day—the day the seventh grade student rep election results would be announced.

As she’d walked into the small, bright room, she’d noticed that Ms. Perdomo displayed no pins on her lapel that day, which also made Celia nervous. The room was empty except for the counselor, and Celia worried that maybe Ms. Perdomo had changed her mind, that she was, in fact, super-mad at Celia for having lied and was
about to expel her from school for life. Celia would have to wander the streets (her mom would certainly kick her out of the house if she were a middle school dropout) and do science experiments on the sidewalk for passing pedestrians in the hopes of earning spare change.

Celia had just started worrying about where she would find cardboard boxes to build a house out of when Ms. Perdomo said, “We’re just waiting on Lazaro to get down here.”

Was Laz getting expelled, too? That didn’t make any sense. If Laz was on his way to her office, then Ms. Perdomo wasn’t about to yell at her—this must be about the election results, right? Celia decided to stop worrying for a little while—at least until she knew what was really going on.

Laz walked in a few seconds later, a huge grin plastered on his face as he turned and strolled through the door. When he saw Celia already sitting in one of Ms. Perdomo’s two office chairs, his smile faded a little bit.

“Hi, Celia,” he said, still standing. “Ms. Perdomo, you wanted to see me?”

“I wanted to see you both,” she said brightly. She extended her hand out to the open chair and said, “Please, have a seat.”

Celia hadn’t seen Laz since the debate on
Friday. She looked for him at lunch to try to explain everything, but she hadn’t spotted him or Raul in the cafeteria. She had seen Mari—she’d snuck into the dress rehearsal after school and watched from the very back seats of the auditorium as Mari delivered her lines flawlessly. She almost felt bad for Sami, who sat with her arms crossed in the front row, mouthing all of Mari’s lines along with her until Mrs. Wanza caught her and told her to stop because it was distracting the actors onstage. Celia had been so proud of Mari that she thought she would burst.

She’d seen Mari over the weekend, too, when she went over to her house and formally apologized. Mari didn’t even let her get out the words “I’m sorry” before she’d grabbed Celia in a hug and said, “I saw you in the back of the theater. Thank God you were there—I was so nervous.” Celia had been about to thank Mari for being that same source of confidence at the debate.

“You were so awesome,” Celia said of Mari’s performance. “I totally believed you were that Roxane lady.”

“No, you want to see really awesome? Let’s talk about you at the debate. You were totally the winner.”

“Shut up!” Celia said, blushing.

“No, really! You showed everybody that YOU were the one to vote for.”

During the debate, Laz had come off as unprepared and not very quick under pressure. Celia, on the other hand, got all her opinions across while still managing to crack a few jokes and addressing all the different groups of students. She had a thoughtful and thorough answer to each question, getting everything out before she ran out of time, whereas Laz got cut off by the two-minute buzzer almost every time. She’d felt good about her performance, but that didn’t mean she would win the election. After all, it was still a popularity contest. Laz had turned the buzzer’s ding into a joke by the end, trying to get cut off on purpose for laughs. He was still very likable, and when it came down to names on a ballot, more people would probably remember Laz Crespi than Celia Martinez.

After more hugs and apologies and promises, Celia and Mari spent that afternoon hanging out, watching some new-to-them episodes of
Dog Whisperer
, and laughing about how none of those tips would ever work on Poochie. They’d even talked about Laz: Mari confessed to liking him a little, but that she didn’t like him as much after
seeing him in the debate. “Not the sharpest tool in the shed,” she’d said, “but he’s pretty to look at.” They’d laughed all day, Mari’s mom made croquetas for them to eat for lunch, and Celia wished Monday morning—and the inevitable election results—would never come.

Once Laz was settled in the chair, Ms. Perdomo cleared her throat and said, “I’ve called you both in to hear the news from me first, in case there are any tears.”

Laz laughed out loud at this, but Ms. Perdomo shot him a stern look and he stopped. Celia was sure now that she had lost the election. This kind of move on Ms. Perdomo’s part was clearly directed at her, not at Laz. She tried to make herself feel better by thinking back to hanging out with Mari that weekend and by remembering that they were tighter than ever for having gotten through all the election craziness together.

At least she’d gotten over her crush on Laz thanks to the campaign. She never had to think about him again, except that she’d be hearing him on the morning announcements a lot more now that he was seventh grade rep. But she’d get used to it. Another bright side: She’d gotten to meet and talk to a lot more of Coral Grove’s students
than ever before—like Raul. In fact, it was through Laz that she’d come to appreciate Raul and his campaigning smarts.

“As you both know,” Ms. Perdomo went on, “the votes were tallied over the weekend. I have the results here.”

She held up an already opened envelope.

Celia actually felt relieved that this would all be over with soon. Maybe Laz would ask for her input on things. She could still work to get her ideas heard; there was no reason this had to be the end of Celia’s involvement with politics and student government. Besides, she always had science to fall back on, and that wasn’t a bad place to be. Maybe now that the campaign was over, she could embrace her nerd-dom the way Mari had embraced her drama persona.

Just as Celia decided she had enough positive arguments for losing the election to keep herself from crying in front of Laz, Ms. Perdomo looked at her and said, “Congratulations, Celia.”

She honestly thought her ears were stuffed with something, because Laz jumped in the air and said, “Yes!” But then he froze and stared at Ms. Perdomo with the same shock that was all over her own face.

“You mean Lazaro, right?” Celia said, believing, as Laz did, that he’d won.

Ms. Perdomo shook her head no.

Laz sat back in the chair, one hand on each of the armrests. He was clearly stunned, but was trying not to show it.

“It was a very close race,” Ms. Perdomo said, “but Celia, you won. Your classmates voted you their official seventh grade representative.” She could tell that Ms. Perdomo was holding back a smile to spare Laz’s feelings. “It was, as I said, a very close race. Lazaro, I congratulate you on running an interesting and engaging campaign.”

Celia couldn’t believe what she was hearing. For the first time in Coral Grove Middle School’s recent history, a certifiable nerd had just won a popularity contest. And that nerd was her! So it
was
possible! She couldn’t believe she had doubted the voters—and herself—as much as she had.

“Celia, why are
you
crying?” she heard Laz say.

She reached up to her face and realized that she was, in fact, crying—she was just so shocked and happy, she was crying tears of joy. She jumped up from her chair and hugged Laz, who stood to keep Celia from falling on top of him.

“Oh my God oh my God oh my God,” she heard herself saying. She felt like she was watching herself on TV. “I can’t believe it. I can’t believe they voted for me!”

Laz returned the hug despite looking like the air had just been sucked out of him. Now that Laz’s back was to her, Ms. Perdomo gave Celia a huge, toothy grin and a double thumbs-up. But then she caught herself and slapped her own hand for revealing who she’d been rooting for all along.

“I’ve got to submit these results to the principal for them to be official,” Ms. Perdomo said as she rose from her desk. “Once he signs off on them, we can make the announcement to the whole school. I just wanted you both to hear them first—I’ll be right back!” As she left the room, she saw Ms. Perdomo doing a little celebratory dance in the hallway.

Once Celia freed Laz from her victory hug, he said softly, “I can’t believe this.”

“I know, it’s like a miracle!” she squealed back. “This is so awesome!”

He wrinkled his eyebrows at her, the dark furry lines looking sad and defeated. She suddenly remembered what her winning meant for him.

“Oh, right. I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean—I wasn’t trying to be a jerk.”

She lowered her head and playfully slugged him in the shoulder. She felt so much more comfortable around him now that she just thought of him as a friend.

He gave her a shrug and said, “It’s okay. I kind of knew the minute the debate was over that you would make a better representative than me, anyway.” He was trying to stay cool, but Celia saw in the way he slumped forward a little that he really was disappointed. She smiled at the compliment. “Raul thought so, too,” Laz added.

The memory of Raul flailing his arms from the audience just before the debate flashed in her head. She said gently, “I saw him in the front row trying to get your attention right before the debate started. What was all
that
about?”

“Oh.
That
,” Laz said. She could tell that he was deliberating in his head whether to tell her the truth or not. He let out a long breath and sat back in the chair.

“The truth is,” he finally said, “at first he wanted me to protest the debate and refuse to continue because, you know, it was supposed to be Mari up there, not you.”

Celia slowly lowered herself back into her chair. “That’s smart of him,” she admitted. Raul’s quick thinking kind of amazed her. “That’s
really
smart. You totally would have had the right to do that. Why didn’t you?”

“I don’t know,” he said. He was staring at Ms. Perdomo’s empty chair. “I didn’t think of it until after he told me, but even if I’d known I could do that, I guess I just wanted to debate you. In a way, I was happy it was you, ‘cause you’re, like, the toughest person to beat. I wanted to prove myself by facing you, I guess.”

Celia was so flattered she knew she must have been blushing. Laz said, “Don’t let that go to your head, now. It’s not like I had a lot of time to make that choice. Besides, Raul changed his mind after he heard your apology.”

That’s when Celia remembered another apology she’d meant to give.

“I’m sorry you didn’t know until that second,” she said. “I came clean to Ms. Perdomo that morning, and there wasn’t any time for me to—”

“No, I totally understand,” Laz said. His eyes flickered with recognition. “I’m not saying anything, but I sort of understand what you guys were going through.” A shy look came over his face, but he rushed past it. “I wasn’t so into the idea myself at first, but Raul…he kind of—helped—me with my campaign. In fact, it was kind of his idea I run in the first place.”

Celia froze in her seat, suddenly realizing that she and Raul, who was unfairly known in school as little more than Laz’s sidekick, may have had the same idea about wanting to run, just with different results. Celia seemed to have more in common with Raul than she first thought—no wonder she’d felt close to him ever since that day on the basketball courts! She decided right then on a new plan, one that made everything up to Mariela and Laz (and maybe even Raul).

She turned to Laz, who was still contemplating the empty desk chair, and said, “How would you and Raul like to join me and Mariela for ice cream after school? My treat.”

He gave her the first real smile she’d seen from him all morning. Celia imagined the same smile on Mariela’s face once she heard the election results—and their after-school celebration plans.

“That would be sweet,” Laz said. “I know Raul will be down, too. He thinks you’re pretty amazing. Don’t tell him I told you that.”

Celia gasped. She felt her heart speed up and her hands tingle. She thought back to that day at the basketball courts when she’d “accidentally bonded” with Raul, of the way he’d blushed when he saw her in the main office on the day of the candidate speeches, of the way he’d stared at her
from the edge of his seat during the debate. She couldn’t help but smile.

“Meet me by our palm tree?” she joked, finally figuring out how to make Laz laugh without simultaneously being mean to him.

There was a knock behind them. Both of them turned to see Ms. Perdomo and the principal poke in through the door.

“No carnage?” Ms. Perdomo said. “Excellent. We’re about to make the morning announcements, so Laz, if you want to hide out here, that’s totally up to you.”

“No thanks, Ms. Perdomo, I’m good.” He turned to Celia and said, “I want to be in homeroom when we get the great news that Celia is our rep.”

Celia slugged him in the shoulder again, smiling so hard her cheeks hurt. “He’s done crying, anyway,” she joked to Ms. Perdomo.

They all laughed as Laz slipped out of the room, waving good-bye and winking at Celia as he left.

“I’ll see you over by the PA system,” the principal said as he shook her hand. “I’m cutting the Proclamations down a bit today to give us time to announce your victory.”

“Thank you, sir,” Celia said.

“You’re very welcome,” he said, saluting her.
He walked away, stopping at the front desk to pick up his notes.

Ms. Perdomo bumped her hip into Celia’s side, knocking her over a little. She regained her balance just as Ms. Perdomo said, “Are you ready, Ms. Representative?”

Celia looked up at her and smiled, nodding eagerly.
Ms. Representative
, she thought,
I definitely like the sound of that.