I was restless, looking for an adventure, a way to prove to myself that the story wasn’t over. And Diane was right there in front of me—not young, but a lot younger than I was, and pretty, and emotionally adrift. No kids, abandoned by her jerk of an ex-husband. I could feel the dark energy pouring out of her, a familiar desperation. We teamed up like Bonnie and Clyde, and went on our little crime spree.
At least we didn’t kill anyone.
Happy people don’t do what we did. They don’t fuck in the Principal’s office in the middle of the day, with a bunch of co-workers on the other side of the door. They don’t sneak off to the parking lot during halftime. She threw pebbles at my window one night at two in the morning, and I snuck downstairs and let her into the garage. She knelt down on the cold cement floor and gave me the best blowjob of my life, my wife asleep in our bed, my daughter home from college.
I don’t know what would’ve happened if Alice hadn’t gotten sick. There’s a very good chance that Diane and I would’ve been caught; I could’ve lost my job, lost my family, ended my career in shame. Maybe Diane and I would’ve tried to make a go of it, to be a real couple in the real world instead of a pair of outlaws. Who knows. Maybe it would’ve worked.
It’s all moot. You can’t have an affair while your wife—the mother of your children—is dying. I mean, some guys can—Newt Gingrich did, if I remember correctly—but not me. And anyway, there was no point anymore. I had all the drama and adventure anyone needed, right in my own house. The real thing, life and death, sickness and health. Fucking your secretary is nothing compared to that.
Diane understood. She was a grown-up and a good person. The only thing that surprised me was that she stuck around at the main office. I thought she might give her notice, because it was awkward and painful for both of us, having to work together after everything we’d been through, to turn off those other feelings. I knew it was unfair, my assumption that she was the one who should leave, but it made sense: there were tons of jobs for secretaries and administrative assistants out there, many of which paid a lot more than she was making at the high school, and very few openings for Principals, especially for a man my age. But she was stubborn; she stayed right where she was—Front Desk Diane to the bitter end—and all the life went out of her. That was my fault, at least partly—I couldn’t deny it—but there was nothing I could do to make it better, except leave her alone as much as possible.
Well, she’d finally outlasted me. In a few months, I’d be gone, and she’d be working for Tracy Flick, and I hoped that would be a comfort to her.
* * *
Right after Lost Meadow Village, I got on the Parkway and headed north to complete my journey. It was a humbling experience, merging the RV onto the highway, stomping on the gas pedal, waiting for a power surge that never arrived as everyone else zoomed past like I was standing still. It felt like the perfect metaphor for getting old and falling by the wayside.
I took the Grover exit and headed through the quaint downtown, feeling a familiar urgency in the region of my bladder. It was often like that, a race to get home and rush into the bathroom, one more indignity of advancing age. Of course, I could’ve stopped and availed myself of the pristine toilet on the RV, but I hated the idea of sullying it for the first time when I was only a few minutes from home.
I’d just passed the movie theater when an unmarked police car appeared in my rearview with exquisitely bad timing and flashed its lights. Despite my rising sense of alarm, I was able to pull over without too much trouble, though I did scrape my right front hubcap against the curb.
The cop was in plain clothes, a short, squat guy who moved with an unhurried swagger, leading with a belly other men might have tried to conceal. When I asked what I’d done wrong, he removed his sunglasses and grinned.
“Morning, Mr. Weede.”
Oh God, I thought.
When you’re the Principal, all the kids know you, but you can’t possibly know all of them. And even if you did know them back in the day, you might not recognize them now. Fifteen or twenty years is a better disguise than a floppy hat.
“Help me out,” I said. “I’m bad with names.”
“Glenn Keeler. Class of ’97.”
“Oh wow,” I said, though the name meant nothing to me. “Glenn Keeler. How about that? It’s been quite a while.”
“Sure has,” he said. “I hear you’re getting ready to retire.”
“Yeah, I’m gonna miss it.”
“Good to be the king, right?”
“Sometimes. When the crown’s not too heavy.”
He nodded, a little vaguely, and rubbed his stomach in a leisurely circular motion, as if he’d just had a very good meal. I held up my wallet.
“Do you, uh… need to see my license and registration?”
“Nah.” He waved me off, a little sheepishly. “Just wanted to say hi. It’s not every day you get to pull over your old Principal, right?”
“I guess not.” I chuckled, not very convincingly. “If you don’t mind, though, I really have to get going. I’m a running a little late this morning.”
“Oh, sure,” he said. “No worries. I didn’t mean to—”
“It’s okay.” I started the engine, trying not to think about the pressure building inside of me, threatening to burst. “It was nice to—”
“Just one quick question,” he said. “Are you really gonna put Vito Falcone in the Hall of Fame?”
“We haven’t decided yet. There’s a meeting next week.”
“But it’s gotta be Vito, right?” He gave me a searching look. “I mean, who else could it be?”
It was none of his business, but I really didn’t have time for a big discussion.
“Just between us,” I said. “I think Vito’s got a very good chance.”
“And he’s coming to the ceremony?”
“I hope so.” I shifted into gear and let up on the brake. “Wouldn’t be much of an event if he didn’t.”
“That’s what I figured,” Glenn said, and then he muttered something else, but I wasn’t listening anymore. I was too busy inching the RV away from the curb, a delicate maneuver that took all the skill and concentration I could muster in the best of times, and this was not the best of times.
- 16 - Tracy Flick
The holidays were hard for me. I went through the motions for my daughter’s sake—we trimmed the tree, we watched Charlie Brown and the Grinch, we went caroling with the neighbors—but we both knew that her real Christmas was with Daniel and Margaret and their extended family （two of their three adult children were married, and there were a couple of grandkids, which technically meant that she was “Aunt Sophia,” though no one ever called her that）。 We’d tried alternating years for a while, but it was sad for her when she got stuck with me and had to miss out on all the fun at her father’s house, three generations under one roof, not to mention Boomer. At her request, we switched to our current system, in which she joined me on Christmas Eve—that was when we opened our presents—and then I dropped her off at Daniel’s, so she could be where the action was in the morning.