Chapter 14

The moment she drove into the parking lot at the school, Wanda realized that it had been the right thing to do after all. The alternative would have been sitting around her apartment waiting for the clock to move, the polls to close and the vote count to start coming in.

She had visions of herself climbing the walls and of visitors throwing her bananas and peanuts while she shrieked jungle sounds.

People she met as she walked down the hall looked more than a little surprised to see her. In each case, they stopped to wish her well in the election, then hurried away as if they expected her to crack up.

Can I really look that bad? she asked herself. In the rest room, she looked into the mirror and decided she looked just fine. The trouble, she realized, is with them. They're so sure I'm coming apart with nerves that they can't consider the possibility of my being perfectly relaxed.

If they had been through this campaign, she thought, they would be able to understand the perfect relaxation that comes with the end of it. All that remained was the vote counting and Wanda knew already that win or lose, she wouldn't cry.

She still wanted to win, still saw an outside possibility of pulling it off, but there was no life or death aspect to it now.

If she won, she knew, then she would fight all the appropriate fights and do the best possible job. If she lost, then she would have the consolation of knowing that she had not only tried, but had given it everything. Either way, she was glad it was over.

Without even checking her schedule, she went to talk to the dean. It seemed obvious that her classes had been given to others for the day as they wouldn't have expected her to be in on election day.

"Hello, Wanda," he greeted her calmly. "I'm pleased to see you looking so good."

"Thank you," she answered. "I'm pleased to see someone who doesn't regard me as a freak today."

"Ready to go to work and produce another crop of dedicated social workers who will batter their brains out against the walls of indifference out there?" he asked, ignoring her observation.

"Ready, sir," she saluted. "I regret that I have only one life to give to my school."

They went over the schedules together and Wanda retrieved the classes that had been given to others to handle in her absence. As she did, she wondered how she ever could have thought of taking the day off.

If anything, the first class she took showed more understanding than she had found in the lecturers she had met on the way in. They were obviously aware of what she was going through, perhaps exaggeratedly so, but they gave no indication of it.

Her other classes before lunch followed pretty much the same pattern. At lunch, she saw Sam Gold for the first time that day.

"I guess neither of us wanted to sit at home and count the minutes," he observed with his usual shy smile.

"It looks that way," she answered. "In my case though, I guess I'd have been counting the rain drops and damning every one of them."

"I know what you mean, Wanda. It's going to work pretty hard against you, isn't it?"

"Let's be philosophical," she shrugged, "perhaps the rain will give me an alibi for the licking I was going to get in any case. It could come in handy."

"You don't need any alibis," he smiled, "and you know it as well as I do. Win or lose, you scared the hell out of the machine."

Something in the way he said it told her that Sam didn't think she was going to win. She liked him even more for that.

"How does it look for you, Sam?"

"Terrible," he answered with a grimace. "I'm afraid I'm going to win."

They were still laughing when Wanda saw Mike Hanson walking across the cafeteria with a very long face.

"Hello Mike," she greeted him. "You look as sad as that weather out there."

"The weather is a big part of the reason my smile died when I looked out the window this morning," he answered as he picked up a tray. "Do you think Paulson and his machine have drag with the big meteorologist in the sky?"

"It's more likely their influence is in the opposite direction," Sam answered.

"It figures," Mike grinned a little. "It sure is one hell of a day for an election."

By mutual, unspoken consent, they steered the conversation away from the weather and the elections while they ate. Only when they had finished and were looking at the clock for what seemed to all of them like the millionth time did Sam bring the talk back to the subject of which they were all very much aware.

"We'll understand if you pass up this magnificent opportunity, Wanda," he began almost nervously, "but Mike and I are going to watch the returns at my place this evening. Care to join us?"

"Thanks for giving me the out, Sam," she smiled. "I do appreciate the offer though."

"I'll never understand why a woman in love ever got into this crazy campaign anyway."

"I'll have you know, sir," Wanda frowned, "I didn't just get involved in it. I was led astray by a pair of evil companions. Besides, I wasn't in love then. That just happened along the way when I wasn't looking."

Mike went back to his office then and Wanda and Sam moved on to pick up their next classes. The afternoon passed a lot faster than she would have expected.

Almost before she knew it, the school day was over and she was receiving good wishes all through her long walk down the hall.

Outside, it was still raining lightly, just enough to keep a lot of potential voters away from the polling booths, she told herself.