We drove straight to the Winnebago dealership on Route 36. We knew the exact model we were looking for—it was part of the fantasy—and they had one in stock, a sleek Class A behemoth in dark maroon, a lumbering vacation home on wheels. After we signed the papers, I went home and wrote a letter to the School Board, advising them of my intention to step down at the end of the current academic year, bringing my long and productive career at Green Meadow High School to a close.
Tracy Flick
Two days after Jack announced his retirement—the news had caught me by surprise, and filled me with a cautious sense of elation—Kyle Dorfman invited me out for a drink at Kenny O.’s Bistropub and Tavern. Normally I would’ve declined—I tried to avoid mixing work and after-hours socializing—but Kyle was the newly elected President of the School Board, and I needed him in my corner.
People make fun of Mike Pence for refusing to dine alone with women who aren’t his wife, but he’s not completely wrong. There’s always something a little date-like about a man and a woman meeting in a restaurant at night, no matter how much they’d like to pretend otherwise. I was wearing a simple summer dress with a light cardigan over it—very understated—but I could feel Kyle checking me out as I took my seat, dispensing a subtle nod of approval.
“Dr. Flick,” he said. “You’re looking lovely tonight.”
“Thanks,” I said. “You’re looking well yourself.”
Kyle wasn’t especially handsome—he was balding and a little bug-eyed—but he kept himself in good shape, and radiated a relaxed but unmistakable aura of self-confidence. It made sense: he was the richest person in Green Meadow, a tech nerd who’d made a fortune in Silicon Valley and then returned to his hometown in New Jersey, where he’d built a ridiculous mansion on the site of his family’s old ranch house, and then thrown himself into local politics.
We made a few stabs at small talk, but our hearts weren’t in it. As soon as the drinks arrived, we went straight to the main item on the agenda.
“To Principal Weede,” I said. “He’ll be missed.”
“Good Old Jack.” Kyle touched his bourbon to my margarita. “May he enjoy his retirement to the fullest.”
We drank to Good Old Jack, and then he offered a second toast.
“To Tracy Flick, the next Principal of Green Meadow High School.”
“From your lips to the Superintendent’s ears,” I said.
He waved lazily at the air, as if the Superintendent were a minor nuisance, beneath our consideration.
“Don’t worry about Buzz. He doesn’t wipe his ass without permission from the Board.”
I grimaced in spite of myself. Buzz—Superintendent Bramwell—was a pudgy older man who was always impeccably dressed. I didn’t want to visualize him with his pants down.
“Sorry,” he said. “I meant that metaphorically. I’m sure his hygiene is beyond reproach.”
I was feeling a little agitated, so I took a sip of my drink and glanced around the restaurant, stealing a moment to re-center myself.
“You’re going to have to do a search, though, right? Interview some other candidates?”
“Pure formality,” he assured me. “As far as I’m concerned, the job is yours. You’ve earned it.”
I felt a smile coming on, but I kept it in check. It’s not a good idea to let people see how badly you want something.
“Okay,” I said. “I hope it works out that way. I’ve been getting some feelers from other districts, so…”
He nodded vaguely, the way men do when they’re no longer paying attention.
“Listen, Tracy. There’s something I’d like to run by you. Something I could use your help on.”
Kyle Dorfman
When I call myself a visionary, I don’t mean that in a grandiose way. I just mean that my best ideas arrive as visualizations rather than abstract concepts. For example, Barky came to me in a dream. The whole interface was right there on a phone screen the size of a highway billboard （it was an actual billboard in the dream, glowing fiery red around the edges）。 Luckily something woke me—probably my own excitement—and I was able to make a quick sketch on the notepad I kept on my nightstand before drifting back to sleep. The rest, as they say, is history.
I wasn’t sure how much Tracy knew about me, so I gave her the thumbnail history: Grew up in Green Meadow, graduated high school in 1998, headed to the Bay Area for college （UC Berkeley）， and stuck around to become an entrepreneur. I had a few failures and one big success, but I grew disenchanted with the false promises of digital technology and social networking. It wasn’t bringing us together; it was making us lonelier and more selfish, less connected to our flesh-and-blood neighbors. I came home because I loved growing up in Green Meadow and wanted my boys to have that same experience. I swear, it was like Mayberry back then, an idyllic little community where people looked out for one another and kids were allowed to be kids without adults breathing down their necks all the time. That freedom made us strong and confident, able to think for ourselves and blaze our own trails in the wider world.
Okay, I know, I’m probably romanticizing it a bit. I do that sometimes. My wife certainly thought so, but Los Gatos wasn’t working for her, either, and she was willing to make the change once I agreed to let her design our new house with the architect of her choice （she went with Althea Gruenbaum of Gruenbaum & Vishnu; they had a mind meld in the first five minutes and that was that）。 The result is bigger and more eye-catching than I would have chosen on my own, but sometimes being in a relationship means making compromises. And I do love the roof deck—it’s just me and the treetops and my hot tub up there.
I’m not going to sugarcoat it, though—there was some culture shock. The town looked pretty much the same as it used to, but it felt different. Older. Less vital. More pessimistic about the future. The event that really crystallized it for me was the referendum to finance construction of a new high school. It should have been a no-brainer. The current building was a dump back when I was a kid, and now it’s an ancient dump with a leaky roof. The computer lab alone should make every adult in Green Meadow hang their heads in shame. And the gym—it’s like that Tenement Museum in Lower Manhattan, where you get to relive the squalor of the past; you can smell adolescent body odor from 1972 hanging in the air. So it was a bitter wake-up call when the votes got tallied and a majority of my fellow citizens said, Our kids can go to hell. We’re fine the way we are.
Marissa and I thought about moving again, but where would we go? We liked our new house, and the boys were thriving, making friends, riding their bikes all over town, just like I did （except they had better bikes）。 The only solution that made sense was to stay and fight.
“Tracy,” I said. “Have you ever been to Cooperstown?”
“I don’t even know where that is.”
“Upstate New York. Home of the Baseball Hall of Fame. You should go if you ever get a chance.”
She wrinkled her nose. “Not really a fan.”
“Me neither,” I said. “That’s the funny part.”