Election - Tom Perrotta

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my mom's idea. She thinks it'll give me some shape. A little support. I keep telling her there's nothing to support.”

      “I don't mean that. It's just so plain.”

      “Who cares? Nobody sees it.”

      She peered at me through her glasses, her mouth puckering into this flirty little pout.

      “Somebody might.”

      “Tammy,” I said, my voice trailing off in a weird giggle

      “Wait here,” she said. “I want to show you something.”

      She was gone for a couple of minutes. I tried to watch the show but I was too distracted.

      “Close your eyes,” she called from the bedroom.

      “Come on, Tammy. Don't play games.”

      “I mean it. No cheating. Close your eyes.”

      I did what I was told. Tammy was younger, but she was always the one in charge.

      “Okay,” she said. “You can open them.”

      You have to understand that she isn't really that pretty. She's kind of mousy, and her body gets lost inside those huge sweatshirts she wears (they used to be Paul's, and some of them hang past her knees). Her hair is nice, brown with red-gold highlights, but she does it all wrong, this misplaced ponytail rising like a fountain from the top of her head.

      “What do you think?”

      Her hair was down and the glasses were gone. I knew from swimming that she had a cute figure, but the red silk heightened everything. Her skin seemed to glow.

      “Wow,” I said.

      “I know.” She bit her lip and looked bashful. “I stole it.”

      She turned around. The slip was so short it didn't really cover her butt. I couldn't believe I was looking at Tammy.

      “Go in my room,” she told me. “There's something for you on the bed.”

      The thing I found there looked like a transparent bathing suit, filmy black and weightless. Slipping into it was like climbing into someone else's skin.

      “Turn around,” she said from the doorway.

      No one had ever looked at me like that.

      “You're so pretty,” she said.

      My body felt hot, like there was this tiny sun burning in my chest, giving off light and energy.

      PAUL WARREN

      YOU WOULDN'T exactly call Lisa “cute.” She's sarcastic-looking and her hair's too short. She's almost totally flat-chested and hardly ever wears makeup. Until she became my unofficial campaign manager, it never even occurred to me to think of her as a potential girlfriend. She was more the sisterly type, someone to tease and goof around with. But something changed between us that day in the cafeteria, when she glanced up at me while signing the petition.

      “Paul,” she said, “I think you'll make a great President.”

      It was kind of informal at first. We chatted in the hallway, ate lunch together, discussed various strategies for defeating Tracy. Then she asked me to come home with her one afternoon.

      On her own initiative, she'd designed five sample campaign posters, each one featuring a pastel portrait of me, along with a slogan she wanted me to consider.

      —A WINNER FOR WINWOOD

      —A CHOICE, FOR A CHANGE

      —THE RIGHT MAN FOR THE JOB

      —TRUE LEADERSHIP

      —PAUL POWER

      The portraits were all slightly different. In one I wore a shirt and tie, in another my football jersey. “PAUL POWER,” my personal favorite, was designed like a baseball card. Here I was grinning; there I seemed to be gazing into the distance. In every version, though, I had these deep violet eyes and a superhero jaw. Lisa saw me the way I saw myself in daydreams.

      “Earth to Paul.” She waved a sheet of paper in front of my face.

      “What's this?”

      “A draft of your speech. The Assembly's only two weeks away.”

      “Wow,” I said. It was embarrassing to realize that she'd spent more time thinking about my campaign than I had. “I wish I knew how to thank you.”

      She touched two fingers to her mouth and gave it a moment's thought.

      LISA FLANAGAN

      TAMMY STARTED to scare me, or maybe I started to scare myself. It was like an undertow that kept dragging me farther and farther out to sea, away from normal life and other people.

      We'd agree to stop, but then it would start right up again. It was hard to stay away from each other after school, when both our houses were empty and the only alternatives were TV or homework.

      “When did you realize?” she asked me one day.

      “Realize what?”

      “You know. I've known for a long time.”

      I felt sick inside when she said that, like someone had accused me of a crime.

      “I'm not like that,” I snapped, my face heating with shame. “I don't even know what I'm doing here.”

      I moved away from her and began sifting through the tangled pile of clothes on the floor, trying to separate my stuff from hers. I spoke without looking at her. My voice shook.

      “You think I don't want a boyfriend? Is that what you think? ”

      She didn't answer, but I heard her sobbing as I slammed the door. A week later I was back, modeling this pink camisole she'd stolen especially for me from Hit or Miss.

      Once, at the movies, we sat far away from everyone and held hands. Sometimes she slipped little notes through the vents of my locker. She kept inviting me to sleep over in her bedroom, insisting that no one would ever suspect. I couldn't bear the thought, not with Paul and her parents in the house.

      One day I noticed that a picture of me had appeared inside her locker, a snapshot from the previous Fourth of July. I was holding a hot dog in one hand and a burning sparkler in the other, looking happier than I actually remember being in my entire life. I ripped it off the door.

      “You can't just keep that there,” I hissed.

      “Why not?”

      “Someone might see it.”

      “So? It's just a picture.”

      “Tammy, please. Don't do this to me.”

      On Valentine's Day, when no one was looking, she gave me a red rose. She also placed an anonymous ad in The Watchdog.

      “L.F.,” it said. “Come watch Oprah with me anytime. Your totally secret admirer.”

      I have to admit, that made me happy. I must have read it a dozen times, thinking how nice it was to be remembered like that. All I gave her was a hard candy heart with a stupid message on it, “Sweet Stuff” or “Candy Girl,” something like that.

      Not long after that—I guess football practice got canceled or something—Paul walked in on us in the living room. We weren't really doing anything, just watching TV with my head in her lap. She liked giving me scalp massages.

      “Hey,” he said. “Look at the lovebirds.”

      I sat up like a gun had gone off. I thought I was going to die, but Paul just went into the kitchen for a soda.

      A couple

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