Read Election for Free Online Page B

track.
    “I'm going to be alone,” she said, in a voice so sad and puny it made me want to cry.
    I reached for her hand, the one that still had the wedding ring on it, and gave it a squeeze.
    “Don't worry, Mom. You'll be okay.”
    “Be nice to your brother,” she told me. “He's the only one you've got.”
    She tucked a piece of hair behind my ear with a melancholy sigh, then got up and trudged back to the kitchen. I didn't even miss Final Jeopardy.
    After that I had three full days to watch soap operas, write in my journal, and explore the empty house. My brother, I discovered, kept his condoms in a hollowed-out paperback dictionary secured by a red rubber band. There were five of them, lubricated Trojans in blue foil pouches. For about an hour after finding them I felt sick to my stomach. Then I had this fantasy of pricking one of them with a needle, making this tiny imperceptible hole. It pleased me to imagine Lisa waddling through the halls of Win wood, pregnant with the President's baby. I wondered how Mr. Hendricks would feel about that.
    The second afternoon I read one of those Sweet Valley High books I used to love so much. All through seventh grade I'd been captivated by the Wakefield twins and their many friends, perky California girls and hunky, well-to-do boys who cruised in fancy cars, kissed on the beach, and confronted the difficult dilemmas of growing up with dignity and courage.
    It seemed like a total dreamworld to me now that I was in high school myself. I could only imagine Elizabeth Wakefield's shock—she was the good twin, theone I had the crush on—if she were to spend a week or two in the real world. She'd go back to Sweet Valley with cramps, a filthy mouth, and a bad case of acne. Not even her sister would recognize her.

PAUL WARREN
     
    A PART OF ME —one I never expressed to anyone—thought it might be better if Tammy won the election. She needed the boost a lot more than I did.
    If you're a guy who's good at sports, your social life just sort of falls into place. I never had to search too hard for girlfriends, people to hang out with, or places to go on Saturday night.
    It wasn't like that for Tammy. She wasn't too popular or outgoing to begin with, and hadn't found any new friends to replace Lisa. Night after night she hung around the house with Mom, sulking in front of the TV. The phone never rang for either of them.
    As far as I knew, my little sister never had a boyfriend, had never even been kissed. I thought about this a lot when I was with Lisa, who turned out to be so much wilder than you would have imagined from looking at her. It made me wonder if Tammy was the same way, if she had a secret life I was just too dense to notice.
    One night, after Lisa and I had experimented for the first time with oral sex, I asked her point-blank: “Is Tammy like you?”
    The question startled her.
    “What's that supposed to mean?”
    “Does she do stuff like this?”
    Lisa seemed uncomfortable.
    “Stuff like what?”
    “Like we just did.”
    We were sprawled out on her bedroom floor, naked except for T-shirts, the summer seashore taste of her still faintly on my lips. I'd been scared to do it at first, but now I was exhilarated, eager to try again. Her mother was at a singles' meeting, and wouldn't be home for at least another hour.
    “Why are you asking me?”
    “I'm just trying to figure out if she's as innocent as she looks. I thought you might know.”
    Lisa didn't answer. I kissed the pale oval scar on her right knee. Aside from that small, eye-shaped blemish, her body was perfect, unmarked, as lean and smooth as a little girl's, except for the subtle curves of her hips and the unexpected fullness of her ass. She leaned back on both elbows and watched my tongue wander up her quadricep. Her legs were strong and sculpted from running, and she seemed to like having them licked.
    “Oh,” she said, very softly.
    It's funny about sex. Once you start, you can't remember how you got along