Tracy Flick Can't Win (Tracy Flick #2) (59)
“Diane Blankenship and Vito Falcone,” I said. “As long as this building stands and this community exists, you will not be forgotten.”
Nate Cleary
Before Vito got his plaque, they turned off the lights and showed a short video celebrating his high school football career. This was the moment I’d been waiting for. The video was my baby—I’d found the footage, I’d done all the editing, and I’d chosen the soundtrack, a bunch of cool songs from the early nineties—Nirvana, Weezer, U2, that kind of thing.
The highlights were amazing, one spectacular play after another: Vito lofting a perfect forty-yard pass to Reggie Morrison, who leaves the defenders in the dust; Vito scrambling for a touchdown, dodging one would-be tackler after another; Vito launching an off-balance Hail Mary that Reggie catches with one outstretched hand to win the State Semifinal in 1993. I added cool graphics and cut in lots of images of the cheerleaders and the band and the scoreboard and the crowd going crazy and the refs signaling for another touchdown. I concluded with a full minute of Green Day’s “Good Riddance (Time of Your Life),” played over a slide show of Vito as a little kid, Vito in his Pop Warner uniform, Vito at the prom, Vito in a cap and gown, Vito and Reggie with their arms around each other after the last game of their undefeated senior year, both of them sweaty and joyful, grinning the biggest grins you’ve ever seen, and then the screen goes black and all it says for like five whole seconds is DIRECTED BY NATE CLEARY, and I can’t even tell you how good that felt.
Tracy Flick
I didn’t watch the video very closely. I was contemplating my future, thinking that maybe everything would work out for the best, that every setback was really a new opportunity. Maybe now I could go back to law school, pass the bar, live the life that I’d meant to live. It wouldn’t be easy, starting a demanding new career in my midforties, competing with all the young hotshots, but nothing had ever been easy for me. I would just have to work harder than everyone else and prove myself to the skeptics, the way I always had, and simply refuse to take no for an answer.
I knew I could do it. I was strong and I was smart and I was a fighter. And I believed in myself.
Tracy Flick would be fine.
When the lights came on, I turned away from the screen and found myself staring straight at Vito Falcone. To my surprise, I saw that he was sobbing—his shoulders were heaving and tears were streaming down his face—and at almost the same moment, I realized that I was sobbing too, though I wasn’t sure if I was grieving for his squandered promise or my own.
Jack Weede
I hadn’t been feeling well all day. I blamed it on stress—it had been emotionally exhausting, spending the night with Diane, trying to imagine what would happen when Alice got back—but my symptoms worsened during the ceremony. My chest started to ache and I couldn’t catch my breath. I should’ve slipped offstage while the video was playing, but I just sat there, because standing up didn’t seem like such a great idea, either.
And then the lights came on, and it was too late. The fat cop—Glenn Keeler, the one who’d pulled me over—was moving down the aisle, heading for the stage, and I could see it in his hand. I tried to warn them, but it felt like there was a heavy leather belt strapped around my chest, and it just kept getting tighter and tighter, and when I opened my mouth…
Lily Chu
I didn’t know where to look. Dr. Flick was crying, Principal Weede was making this weird gurgling noise, and this other man was standing in the orchestra pit, screaming at Vito Falcone. Front Desk Diane grabbed my hand and pulled really hard just as the Principal pitched forward and the man started shooting.
Tracy Flick
Vito was on the floor. His shirt was wet with blood and his face was wet with tears. I was kneeling beside him, pressing on the wound, trying to keep the blood inside his body, but it wouldn’t stay there.
“Tracy,” he said, very softly, and I was surprised that he remembered my name.
He mumbled something else, but I couldn’t hear him—my ears were ringing and someone kept screaming, Get out of the way! Get out of the way!—so I leaned my face a little closer.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered. His eyes were cloudy and confused. “Please forgive me.”
I was about to tell him that I didn’t need to, that he hadn’t done anything wrong, not to me, but something must have happened, because I wasn’t kneeling anymore, and the words just…
EPILOGUE: One Year Later
- 32 - Lily Chu
I got invited back for the second Hall of Fame ceremony—they’re inducting Principal Weede and Dr. Flick, and completing the presentations from the first year—but I’m going to college in Minneapolis, and it’s midterms that week, so I won’t be able to make it, which is totally fine with me. I don’t ever want to set foot in that auditorium again for as long as I live.
Most of the time I’m okay; I don’t even think about what happened that night. It helps being in a new place, surrounded by people who’ve never even heard of Green Meadow High School. I did tell my roommate; I kind of had to. I was having nightmares at the beginning of first semester, and woke up screaming a few times. I also confided in this girl I was seeing in the fall—it didn’t work out between us, and I regret sharing my secret with her—but otherwise I’ve kept it to myself. It feels wrong to turn it into an anecdote, like, Hey, did I ever tell you about the time I almost got murdered?