Tracy Flick Can't Win (Tracy Flick #2) (18)

Wow, they’d say, examining me a little more closely, as if maybe they’d missed something. Lucky you!

Lucky him, I always wanted to say, though I never did.

Philip was my first real boyfriend in ages, and the only one in my entire life who’d lasted more than a year.

Things were fine between us—light and casual—until this past summer, when he started pushing in a more serious direction, inviting me on double dates with his married friends, trying to interest me in romantic weekend getaways to Hilton Head or Nantucket, and then getting upset when I said no, or canceled at the last minute.

I want to spend more time with you, he said. Is that so crazy?

I didn’t know what to tell him. I always looked forward to our movie nights. I liked snuggling with him on the couch, and I liked having sex with him, but the minute we were done, I just wanted him to get dressed and go home. I didn’t want to cuddle and whisper in the dark, and I didn’t want him to sleep over. We’d tried that once, at his insistence, and I’d hated it, waking to the dead weight of his arm on my chest, the awkwardness of morning conversation.

“Okay,” he sighed. “Could you please call me back, Tracy? We need to make a decision.”



* * *



By the time I realized I was pregnant, Daniel and I were out of touch. I was all set to get an abortion—I didn’t think I had a choice, a single woman with a full-time job and a dissertation to write—but my mother begged me to reconsider. Her health wasn’t good, and she was worried about what would become of me when she was gone and I was alone in the world.

You’ll love your child, she told me. You won’t believe how much.

I decided to go through with it, as much for her sake as my own, though I’m not sure I admitted that to myself at the time. I thought having a grandchild might extend my mother’s life, keep her tethered to the world a little while longer. At the very least, I knew it would give her some joy, which had been in short supply for a long time.

Oh, honey, she told me. You won’t regret it. Not for a minute.

I didn’t want to tell Daniel, but again my mother disagreed. She’d always felt guilty about being a single parent, chronically short on money and time. She thought Daniel should be held accountable—made to pay his fair share—and believed my daughter would benefit from the presence of a positive male role model; she said it might save her from a lifetime of searching for father figures and mistaking them for romantic partners. It was hard for me to argue with that.

I thought Daniel would be upset by the news—he was already reconciled with Margaret at that point—but he surprised me. There were no recriminations, not even a trace of hesitation. He said of course he’d pay child support, and do whatever he could to help. He had only one condition—that he be allowed to visit his daughter and have a relationship with her.

She’s mine too, he said. I’d love to get to know her.

I was grudging at first, but single motherhood was hard, and child care insanely expensive. And then my own mother died—Sophia was only eight months old—and it was such a godsend to be able to hand the baby over to Daniel when I needed some time to myself. Margaret helped a lot too. She fell in love with Sophia, and she was always kind to me, as if I’d never done a thing to hurt her.



* * *



The football game was as tedious as I expected. I spent most of it sitting behind the Booster Club merch table with Ricky Pizzoli, selling T-shirts and bumper stickers that said Go Larks! and Proud Lark Parent and I Love My Lady Lark. Ricky was a local landscaping magnate, a big man with a white mustache who severely overestimated his own charm. Unfortunately, he was also on the School Board, so I did my best to look interested while he ranted about the humiliating decline of our football program—we were having another terrible season—and the excruciating incompetence of our coach, Skippy Martino. Ricky was a former GMHS football player himself, a proud veteran of the Golden Age, back when Larry Holleran was Head Coach, and Green Meadow was one of the best teams in the state.

“You remember Larry, right?”

“Sure,” I said. “I took over for him when he left.”

Ricky looked puzzled for a moment, but then he did the math.

“That’s right, I forgot he was Assistant Principal. He was always just Coach Holleran to me.” His face got a little dreamy. “I’m telling you, Tracy, he was the most inspiring man I ever knew. Kind of a Vince Lombardi type. No excuses, that was his whole philosophy. You keep your mouth shut and you execute the plan and you win games. It’s not that complicated.” He glared at me, as if I’d suggested that it was, and then heaved a wistful sigh. “Man, I wish we could get him back here. He’d turn this ship around pretty fast, I’ll tell you that.”

“Maybe so,” I said, though it wasn’t very likely. Larry Holleran had left Green Meadow to coach football at a small college in western Pennsylvania, and according to Jack he was loving every minute of it.

“What can you do, though?” Ricky said. “You can’t blame an outstanding guy like that for moving on to bigger and better things.”

“No.” I forced a smile. “I guess you can’t.”



* * *



Still, I was glad I went. A lot of people stopped by the table to say hi and shake my hand, students and alums and parents alike, and they all seemed happy to see me. I chatted briefly with Mayor Milotis, and also with Charisse Turner, the only Black member of the School Board. Jack Weede gave me a thumbs-up, and Kyle Dorfman introduced me to his wife, Marissa.