I wanted to tell her that I liked the way she licked her lips too, but that seemed like it might be edging into the creep zone, so I kept it to myself, which turned out to be the right move. We talked until closing time, and then she wrote her cell number on the back of my hand, and told me to text her if I ever felt like hanging out.
- 22 - Tracy Flick
For several days after my interview, I was dogged by a feeling of unease, a sense—a premonition almost—that in spite of all my hard work and meticulous preparation, I might be headed for another defeat. Why else would Buzz have treated me like an adversary? I’d assumed he was on my side, not only because he liked me and respected my work, but because Kyle and the Board were on my side, and Buzz supposedly followed their lead: He doesn’t wipe his ass without Board approval. Either Kyle was wrong about that, or Buzz knew something I didn’t about the Board’s actual preferences.
I got so anxious I called Kyle at home—something I’d never done before—to let him know what had happened and feel him out about my prospects. He didn’t seem too concerned.
“Buzz is a prickly character,” he said. “He likes to make a big show of independence before he falls in line. It’s the only way he can salvage some self-respect.”
“So there’s nothing going on that I need to…？”
“Stop worrying, Tracy. Everything’s fine.”
“Okay. Phew.” I felt my abs loosen a little. “I mean, for him to accuse me of elitism—it’s so unfair. I was raised by a single mom. We had nothing. I went to college on a scholarship. I worked and scraped for everything I ever got. I’m the exact opposite of an elitist.”
Kyle grunted in amusement. “You know what an elitist is? It’s just someone who—” He stopped abruptly, and I heard some mumbling on the other end of the line. “Hold on, Tracy. Marissa wants to talk to you.”
“Wait,” I said, because I wanted to hear Kyle’s definition of an elitist, but he’d already handed over the phone.
“Hey you.” Marissa’s voice was bright and familiar in my ear. “How’ve you been?”
“Not bad. Little busy.”
“Tell me about it. Listen, I know this is short notice, but Kyle’s taking the boys skiing this weekend, and I’m just hanging out on my own. If you’re free on Saturday night, I thought maybe we could have a glass of wine at my place, maybe go in the sauna if we feel like it. It’s up on the roof. It’s pretty cozy on a winter night.”
“Oh, wow. That’s so nice of you. But I have my daughter this weekend. I’m sorry.”
“Okay.” She didn’t sound too upset. “Guess I’ll just have to drink alone. Have a good night.”
“You too.”
I felt a little embarrassed when the call was over. It wasn’t actually my weekend with Sophia, and I had nothing planned for Saturday night. I’d used my daughter as an excuse, because it was easier than telling Marissa the truth, which was that I’d gotten out of the habit of making friends, and preferred to be alone, or maybe I’d never gotten into the habit in the first place.
- 23 -
Vito didn’t believe in love at first sight. He wasn’t even sure he believed in love period, though he’d said, I love you multiple times to all three of his wives—usually after they’d said it to him, but still—and to a few other women as well. It was part of the script, a phrase that needed to be uttered every now and again. Not a lie, exactly, more like a Hallmark card, a good thing you wanted to be true, like Number One Dad or The Most Wonderful Time of the Year. People liked when you said it, and they got upset when you didn’t, so why not throw them the bone?
So no, he wasn’t prepared to call it love at first sight. But it had been something, that jolt he felt when Paige walked into the basement of Holy Redeemer and took her seat in the Tuesday-night circle. She was pretty, that was part of it—she had a girl-next-door quality that he liked, a healthy glow that seemed out of place in that room full of slumped shoulders and worried faces—but it went deeper than that, the sense of recognition, or maybe relief, that washed over him, as if he’d been waiting for something for a long time, and now the wait was over. She seemed to sense it too, because she looked right back and held his gaze, but not in a flirty or playful way, because she was past all that and wanted him to know it right from the start.
Everybody at the meetings had a bad story to tell; that was why they were there. Paige’s wasn’t the worst, not even close. She’d been a party girl in college, a weekend binge drinker. There’d been a few blackouts, and more than a few regrettable hookups, but on balance, the fun outweighed the mess, all the way through her twenties. It wasn’t until she got married and had a couple of kids that she began to realize she had a problem. It was hard to admit, because she had an enviable life—her husband was ten years older, a Certified Financial Planner; they had a nice house, nice cars, a pool, all the goodies—but she was bored out of her skull, and she drank to take the edge off. At least that was what she told herself.
It was the opposite of bingeing. A little at breakfast, a little after yoga class, a sip or two at lunch, a few slugs while sitting with the other parents in the waiting area of Karate Mike’s Academy of Self-Defense, where it seemed like she spent half her life. Mostly it was vodka in the travel mug that was her constant companion. People teased her for being a coffee addict, and she was happy to encourage them. She got a lot of Starbucks gift cards at Christmastime.
One day she was running late after school, hurrying to get her kids to the dojo. She took a corner too fast, swerved to avoid a kid on a bike, and ended up plowing across a neighbor’s lawn, no casualties except an ornamental lemon tree and the front bumper of her SUV.
“I’d give you the gory details,” she said, “but you can just google ‘Obnoxious Drunk Driving Yoga Mom’ and watch the whole thing on YouTube. Then you can hate me like everybody else.”
There were murmurs of recognition from the circle. Apparently the video of her arrest had gone viral back in the fall. Vito had missed it at the time—he’d been distracted by his own problems—but he checked it out as soon as he got home.
The footage started after the accident had occurred, and a crowd of neighborhood busybodies had gathered to watch the fun. Paige was arguing with a pair of cops—she was wearing yoga clothes and a Marlins cap with her blond ponytail sticking out the back—and her two kids were standing nearby, looking stunned and teary-eyed in their karate outfits.
She didn’t resist when they cuffed her and walked her past the crowd to the patrol car. She just kept smiling and shaking her head, acting like the whole thing was a stupid misunderstanding. Then she stopped and turned towards the onlookers.
“Suck my dick,” she said in a cheerful voice. “All you assholes can suck my dick.”
“That’s nice,” a woman yelled. “Nice example for your kids.”
“Eat shit,” Paige replied as they ducked her into the patrol car. “I’m a good mother.”
A million and a half people had watched the video. The comments were brutal. They said she should rot in jail for the rest of her life. Her kids should be taken away. She was a disgusting foulmouthed bitch who might as well kill herself. She was the whitest white woman in the world, an embodiment of everything that was wrong with America, and she had no business wearing those yoga pants, not with that fat ass of hers.