“Great to meet you,” I said, keeping the smile on my face despite the ache in my cheeks.
“I have an interview with Mr. Burliman next, so I hope you don’t mind if we dive right in.”
“Not at all,” I told her.
“Excellent.” She flipped to a new page in her notebook and readied her pen. “And you met Ms. Imbali on her way out, I assume?”
“Ms.—”
I froze, remembering the silky voice, the vaguely familiar features. Remembering that I’d asked her to vote for me.
Suck it up, cheeks, I told them sternly as I forced them yet higher. “Yes, I did. It was wonderful to meet her.”
“Good, good. So, Mr. Cass, why are you running for school board?”
“I’m—” I cleared my throat and touched the notecard in my pocket as though it would help me remember. “I’m running for school board because I don’t think our children are getting the education they deserve.”
She blinked. “Mmm,” she said.
I pressed on. “I think that, in order to raise the next generation of leaders and citizens, our children deserve more rigorous standards, especially in math and language arts.”
Her eyes flicked towards the clock and then back to her pad.
“And I also think we need to do an overhaul of our faculty hiring and firing systems.”
She started doodling. Even I wasn’t paying attention—all I could think about was Jasmine Imbali, and my complete and utter mishandling of our first meeting. And how much the two women had been laughing just a few minutes before.
“But actually,” I said, “the reason I’m really running for school board goes back to my college days. See, I was kidnapped in Bolivia.”
Her eyes snapped up to mine. “Kidnapped?”
My smile suddenly didn’t feel so forced. “Yes. It all happened on a hot, muggy day in July…”
***
“I thought you swore me to secrecy about that fountain pen,” Amy said over the paper a week later.
I sipped my coffee. “Yes, well. I figured my father’s wrath was easier to deal with than the boredom of Patti Blake. Especially after Jasmine Imbali had just charmed the pants off of her.”
“Literally?” she asked without looking up from the paper.
“I assume figuratively, but what do I know?”
The sounds of One Direction and the hairdryer competed for volume dominance upstairs as Lindz got ready for school.
“Well,” Amy said, “I like this part about hurrying to get home so you could propose to me. Even if it was technically another six months before you popped the question.”
“We’ve been over this before. I was planning—”
She grinned at me over the paper. “I’m just teasing you. You declared your love for me in a local paper. That’s good enough.”
“Hon, if you want, I’ll shout it from the rooftops. Hey, everyone!” I shouted. “I’m married to the most wonderful, beautiful, sexy—”
“Eww!” shouted Lindz from over the music.
The phone rang.
“Hello?” said Amy. She bit her lip, her eyes dancing with laughter, and covered the receiver. “It’s your dad. You might want to shout your love for him from the rooftops while you’re at it.”
***
On Sunday night, I walked into the living room where Amy and Lindz were sitting together on the sofa, poring over an algebra textbook that lay open on the coffee table.
“So, should I go with the striped shirt and the red tie, the blue shirt and the striped tie, or the white shirt and the polka-dotted tie?”
Two heads swiveled to look at me with equally skeptical expressions.
“Just kidding,” I said, dropping the brighter items on the love seat and retaining only a crisp white shirt and a solid red tie. “How’s this? Candidate-y enough?”
Amy smiled. “Perfect. And it’s even Cardinal red.”
“It’ll look nice, Dad,” Lindz chimed in. “Nice in person, nice on camera.”
I let out a sigh of relief. “That’s the plan,” I said, hoping my jaunty tone wouldn’t give away the three hours I’d just spent combing through my wardrobe in search of something appropriate for the upcoming debate.
“How about your talking points?” Lindz asked. “Are you all ready to go, or should we ask you some practice questions?”
“No, no,” I said hurriedly. “I’m fine. All set. Thanks, though.”
Amy bit her lip to hide a smile, while Lindz made a face.
“Fine,” Lindz said. “What about your eyebrows?”
I frowned. “What about my eyebrows?”
“Uh, they look like mad scientist eyebrows.”
“They do not!”
“Actually, hon,” Amy interjected, “they could use a little trim before the debate.”
“Shaping,” Lindz said, pointing. “Right around the top edges on the insides, there.”
“Hmm,” said Amy thoughtfully. “You might be right.”
Lindz jumped up. “I’ll get the tweezers!”
I clapped my hands over my eyebrows protectively. “You’ll do no such thing! My eyebrows are staying just the way they are, thank you very much.”
Lindz pouted and plopped back down on the couch. “But Dad. They’re going in like eight different directions. Each.”
“One of my nurses gets his trimmed,” Amy put in. “He calls it manscaping.”
I narrowed my eyes. “You’re not helping. No tweezing, no shaping, no manscaping. And that’s final.”
Amy shrugged, and Lindz said, “Okay. Your call.”
“Thank you,” I said, gathering up my extra clothes to take them back to the closet.
“Your election to lose,” said Lindz, her voice following me up the stairs.
I growled softly under my breath, went into our bedroom, and put the shirts and ties away with more force than necessary. Then I grabbed my nice black shoes and my shoe polish and went into the bathroom.
Where my eyebrows immediately caught my attention in the mirror. I scrunched my eyes closed and took a deep breath—and then leaned forward to take a closer look.
***
As a political scientist, I’ve always supported Town Hall Meetings and candidate debates and other public fora. They’re places for involved, informed citizens to come together and present ideas and concerns democratically, taking a personal role in the government of their city.
It took about ten seconds after walking into the auditorium at Paly on Wednesday evening, though, to realize something important.
Those involved, informed citizens? The ones who come to school board debates? For the same reason that political scientists love them, they’re precisely the people the candidates would prefer stayed home.
Even walking up to the stage, I could hear grumpy old men and women and young, tattooed activists discussing the questions they planned to ask.
“I think we should ask them their stance on razing Crescent Park Elementary in 1983,” one woman, by the looks of it at least a grandmother if not a great-grandmother, said to her husband.
“I want to know why the school gardens don’t have more native California plants,” said a middle-aged man.
“Does pot count as native?” said a guy in the next row to his buddy, both of them wearing identical Greenpeace t-shirts. They snickered.
I smoothed my freshly trimmed eyebrows, my new nervous habit. Then I noticed what I was doing and shoved my hands into my pockets instead.
The other candidates were already milling around on the stage, wearing their campaign smiles and hobnobbing together. Doug Burliman, dressed in a jacket and tie and looking as relaxed as you’d expect for a shoo-in incumbent, was chatting with Miriam Soo, who was wearing a flowy tie-dyed skirt and some sort of kerchief in her hair. Jasmine Imbali had traded her pantsuit for a skirt and blouse, and she was talking to a good-looking guy in a tailored shirt and jeans.
I was two rows away from the stairs up to the stage when I heard a fami
liar voice.
“Well, well, well, if it isn’t our very own loser.”
I took a deep breath, reassured myself of the stability of my smile, and turned to my left.
“Hello, Erickson. I’m touched that you’re here to support me.”
He chortled. “Support you? Cass, look at my campaign button.”
I looked. The red and blue button read, “I support Jasmine Imbali,” but under that, in Sharpie, were the words, “and whoever’s running against that idiot Cass.”
I broadened my smile. “I support your democratic right to vote for the candidate you think would be best for this school district.”
“And I support your democratic right to stick your head up your ass in front of everyone up there. In fact, I can’t wait to watch it,” he added with a sneer worthy of early Hollywood.
With dignity, I nodded to him, turned, and walked onto the stage.
“Professor Cass!” said someone on the stage, and I looked up to see the tailored-shirt-and-jeans guy smiling at me.
A grin stretched across my face. “Steve the Slugger! Great to see you! What are you doing here? Please tell me you haven’t decided to run against me.”
My former student—and a notable Major League pitcher—laughed along with me. “Naw, man. I’m moderating tonight.” He gave me a bro hug and I slapped his back in return.
“Wonderful! It’s great to see a friendly face.”
He grinned. “Yeah, well, don’t expect me to throw you any softballs, Professor.”
“Call me Jon,” I told him. “And I’ll take anything you throw at me, as long as it’s not a curveball.”
His smile dropped off his face in a heartbeat and my stomach plummeted as I realized my mistake.
2012. The final game of the College World Series. An errant curveball, and a loss for the Cardinal.
“Uh,” I said, “I mean—”
“Mr. Morioka?” said a young woman in an official-looking headset. “Cameras are rolling in five.”
“Thanks, Marcie,” he said, flashing her another broad smile and turning to follow her—but not without shooting a dirty look over his shoulder at me. I swallowed hard.
A warm hand touched my shoulder and I turned to see Miriam Soo behind me.
“I recommend nadi shodhana for stress,” she told me.
“Um,” I said. “I’m sorry?”
“Nadi shodhana. Alternate nostril breathing. Here, like this. First you plug your right nostril with your thumb and breathe in. Then hold your breath, switch to plugging your left nostril with your middle finger, and then breathe out.”
I looked at her, looked out at the audience, and said, “Thanks, Miriam, but I think I’m good.”
“Suit yourself,” she told me on an exhale. “But it always works for me when I’ve made a huge faux pas. In front of everyone. Including television cameras.” She gave me a small, sharp smile, her middle finger still extended, and turned away in a swish of skirts.
My hand inched its way towards my eyebrows, but I forced it down and into my pocket as I turned to face the audience. The television cameras did appear to be rolling. Hopefully they were just testing things and not actually broadcasting yet.
Burliman walked over and held out his hand. “You must be Jon Cass. I’m Doug Burliman,” he told me.
“I know,” I told him. “It’s nice to meet you.”
He grinned back with a smile that surely required little cheek dumbbells outside of campaign season to keep up. “I always enjoy meeting new people with new ideas. Our polity thrives on your input and enthusiasm,” he said, sweeping a hand out to the audience and around to me. “Oh, we’re about to start. Great to meet you again, James.”
“It’s Jon,” I muttered under my breath and allowed myself to be herded towards a chair by Marcie and her headset.
I took my seat between Soo, who took a pointed breath in through her nose, and Imbali, who smiled and said, “It’s great to see you again, Jon.”
“You too,” I managed to get out, touched by her evident sincerity, and then looked forward as Marcie hurriedly placed large-print signs with our names on the floor in front of each of us. She counted down five seconds on her fingers, and then pointed to Steve Morioka.
“Good evening, ladies and gentlemen of the audience, and our viewers at home,” he said with another winning smile. “Tonight we’re here with the four candidates for the board of the Palo Alto Unified School District. We’ll be hearing from them about their plans for this great city, learning more about how they would help to educate our young people, and, of course, taking questions from you. First, I’ll introduce myself, and then the four of them.”
While Morioka laid on the charm, the four of us smiled at the audience and into the camera.
I crossed my legs, then uncrossed them, then crossed them at the ankle, then uncrossed them again. I wondered what Imbali was doing with her legs, and then I immediately resolved to stop thinking about that.
I smiled more broadly, and tried to look both intelligent and humble, when Morioka read a short blurb about me.
Then, as he moved on to Imbali’s intro, I scanned the audience, looking for any friendly faces. In the second row, Amy gave me a thumbs-up and Lindz even looked up from her phone to stick her tongue out at me. Near the back, I saw Nick, who gave me a smile and a little wave, but I also spotted Erickson near the front, who was staring intently at Imbali.
Ugh, I thought, fighting a shudder. He’s old enough to be her father!
“Alright,” said Morioka. “Now that we have the pesky preliminaries out of the way, let’s play ball!”
Laughter from the audience and—more forced sounding—from the candidates.
Morioka continued, “We’ll start with some easy questions, just to get everyone all limbered up. These questions will be the same for all four of you. Let’s start with Mr. Burliman and go down the line. First question: If you had to sum up your goals for the school board and our children in one phrase, what would it be?”
Okay, I thought to myself. I can do this.
“Continuity of our strong foundation,” said Burliman.
“Peace, love, and recycling,” said Soo, lifting her hands, palms together, to her forehead and bowing slightly.
Just sum up all your bullet points into a pithy sound byte, Jon. Not hard at all.
“Rigor in the classroom,” I heard myself say.
“Inclusivity, acceptance, and growth of the whole person,” said Imbali.
Great, I thought to myself. Everyone has a lovely happy feel-good answer except for me, the white male tiger mom.
“Excellent,” said Morioka. “Next up, if a generous donor gave a million dollars to the school board with instructions that you and you alone got to decide how to spend it for our children, what would you spend it on?”
Maybe I should have let Lindz ask me some practice questions, I thought to myself.
“A scholarship fund to cover books, extracurriculars, and other assorted expenses for the neediest families in our district,” said Burliman.
Which I thought was really a little much. I mean, the guy was already going to win. Couldn’t he leave the good answers to the rest of us?
“Weekly yoga, mindfulness meditation, and green smoothies for all our students,” said Soo.
“Recruiting the best educated, most highly trained teachers in the country, especially in math and language arts,” I said.
There, I thought. That wasn’t so bad.
“A comprehensive non-violent communication program for our middle school and high school students to help them learn respect, tolerance, and mature ways to settle conflict and reach agreements.”
Wait, why are people nodding and smiling at her answer? Not even that guy with the beard in the front row looks bored anymore…
“Final lightning round question,” said Morioka. “If you could be anywhere in the world right now—other than right here, of course,” he said, to chuckles from the audience, “where would
you be and what would you be doing? Honest answers, now, folks.”
“Having a great steak and a glass of wine at Sundance,” Burliman said, winking at the restaurant’s well-known manager who was sitting in the front row of the audience.
“Standing in tree pose in my favorite yoga studio,” said Soo.
“Eating tapas with my wife in Barcelona,” I said, without thinking. And then remembered who I was sitting next to. My hand went to my eyebrow before I could stop it.
“Helping teach my young cousins how to read,” said Imbali.
I glanced at her, wondering if someone would call her on the overly political answer. But given the gorgeous, wide smile on her face, she was either a really good actor or her answer had been honest.
You’re toast, Cass. Blackened, inedible toast.
On my other side, Miriam Soo let out a long, Zen-sounding exhale.
***
“Come on, Jon,” said Amy that night. “It wasn’t that bad.”
I replied through a mouthful of cotton.
She removed the pillow from my face. “Come again?”
“Imbali and Burliman ate me alive,” I repeated.
“Well, you knew going in that Burliman would win. That doesn’t count. And Miriam Soo came off looking like a complete loony. So you’re ahead of her, at least. I mean, an initiative to replace all soda with acai juice in the cafeterias?”
“Yeah,” I conceded. “And singing Imagine together in the park all afternoon on Election Day?” Then I frowned. “Though Imbali managed to turn Soo’s idea into a great community event,” I said, sneering the words. “And now I have to hang out in the park on Election Day with Burliman, who will just smile at me patronizingly the whole time.”
Amy rubbed my arm reassuringly. “At least Imbali’s event plans don’t involve singing.”
I made a face. “It comes down to one simple truth: Third place doesn’t cut it in this race. It’s second place or bust. And I think Imbali has that wrapped up with a tidy bow.”
“Well,” she said. “There are almost three weeks until the election. You have a few more speeches scheduled, plus that campaign rally at the community center. That’s plenty of time to turn things around and whip that pretty little butt of hers.”
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