Chapter 72 – The election

Friday, Sept 7, 2016

As the class entered the homeroom, Ms. Smith was at the door, handing each student a ballot as they entered. Rachael looked at hers, which had her name and Sapphire’s in black boxes, with a circle beside the name in white to mark the ballot. Once the entire class was in and seated, the teacher explained that you mark the ballot with an X next to the name of your choice and then fold the paper so the names are hidden on the inside. Most students in Grade 9 had never voted before, so this was a learning event for them.

When the ballots were marked, Ms. Smith collected them and took them to her desk, where she sorted them into two piles. It was quickly apparent that one pile was much larger than the other. Finally she stood and announced: “The new class representative to the student council is Rachael Barron.” She then placed all the ballots into a manila envelope.

The class moved to their next class: English for Lullana and Rachael. As she worked her way to the class, many students stopped to congratulate her. Part way along she met Carla, who announced that she won her class position, and later Mikki showed up, and she had also won her class vote.

“Three for three, that is pretty sweet,” Rachael said. “Four for four,” a deeper voice from behind said. It was Robert. “I won too.”

In English she got a silent alert on her phone, and saw that it notified an email from the Grade 11 Civics teacher, one of the two faculty advisors for the student council. It congratulated her on her election, and said that the council meets on Fridays after class. There was a long PDF file that explained the rules about the council. She managed to skim through a bit of the 60-page document during her first two classes. Luckily the third class was computers, and she was able to open the document on the screen and read it while the class was doing other things she was already familiar with. I mean, why on earth would the teacher think that DOS commands were necessary in 2016?

At lunch she and the other election winners got more congratulations, and she looked around to pick out the three winners from Grade Nine that she didn’t know, two boys and a girl. After lunch she went to see Sapphire.

“Coming over to gloat?” the girl said bitterly.

“No, actually I’ve come over to ask your help,” Rachael said.

“And why would I want to help you?” Sapphire snapped.

“Well, I got some information from the student council, and apparently each class gets three representatives: the one who was voted in, and one each for the athletics committee and one for the social committee. I offered the athletics position to my friend Larissa, who is big into basketball. I wondered if you would be interested in the social committee. It organizes and decorates for dances and stuff like that.”

“What? Seriously?” Sapphire said excitedly. “That is the main reason I ran for student council. Organizing dances and stuff. Why would you offer it to me? Especially after I was so mean to you yesterday.”

“Well, you did come second in the vote,” Rachael said.

“Yeah. I saw Ms. Smith counting the ballots just like you did. Almost everyone voted for you. How do you make friends so fast?”

“By being nice to everyone, I guess. So are you interested?”

“Sure. And thanks. You are pretty cool, Rachael.”

The rest of the afternoon went pretty fast, and soon it was time for the student council to meet in the library. The older classes had met before, but for the seven Grade Nine reps it was their first meeting. A pretty Grade 12 girl, who looked almost like an adult, was the president and welcomed the new members. She pointed out the Vice-President Social and Vice-president Athletics, as well as the secretary, who was busily taking notes, and the treasurer. All were from the two senior years. She noted that the social and athletic committees meet on Wednesday and Thursdays respectively, and said that it was expected that each rep would appoint at least one classmate for those committees, if not two. The elected rep would also be allowed to go to the committee meetings if they wanted, and would have full voting rights.

The rest of the meeting went fairly quickly. First the secretary read the minutes of the last meeting, held in June, and then the treasurer gave her report, noting that last year the council had spent $200 more than was raised. She said that the events of the coming year would have to make a profit, or at least break even. The VPs then made reports, with the VP Athletic noting that they would need to raise funds somehow to pay for the school teams to go to tournaments and away games. The VP Social said she wanted to have at least one event every month, with May Prom and dances for Valentine’s Day and St. Patrick’s day already on the calendar.

Finally the president adjourned the meeting, and Robert, Carly, Rachael and Mikki went to the back of the library, where Lullana was reading a book. The five then walked to the bakery, where they each got a treat. Mike had been experimenting again, and had some delicious donuts: he had taken Rachael’s idea from the spring and had lemon, strawberry, blueberry, and vanilla filling in hole-less donuts covered in icing sugar.

“These are great,” Mikki said. “I am going to be so fat if I hang around you guys.”

“I don’t know,” Carly said. “You look like you have lost some more weight this summer.”

“Yeah,” Mikki responded. “Another 10 pounds. Tony’s Mom says I am skinny.”

“You know,” Robert said, “what if we sold these donuts at school, to raise money for the council. We could sell them for $1.25 and make a quarter each.”

“I bet if we buy in bulk Dad will give us a deal, and we can make even more money. I’ll talk to him tonight,” Rachael said.

The girls walked home and for the last block to the new house, were accompanied Elizabeth Lajoie, who was walking her dogs. She had three kids following her, with Ariel holding a leash and Mark pushing his sister Tanya in a stroller.

“I thought the dogs were Bobbie’s job,” Rachael said when they met the tiny piano teacher.

“Oh he took them out earlier, with Mark and his friends,” she said. “But I needed a break, and they can always use more exercise. All that food you folks have been buying means they are getting a bit chubby. Plus the kids need to get out.”

Rachael bent down as Larrisa and Mikki continued walking. She felt the dogs, and found that they were indeed getting chubby.

“I think we need to put them on a diet,” she said. “How much are they eating now?”

“Two cups of the dry food every day, and a can each on Sundays. Not to mention when the kids are playing with them and give them treats. I don’t want to scrimp on them: they are my darlings.”

“Yes, but you want them to be healthy. If they get fat it will shorten their lives. Which days does Bobby feed them?”

“Most days, except Sundays,” she said.

“Well, we’ll tell him to cut them down to 1.5 cups a day,” Rachael said. “I won’t have you doing it, because if they look at you with their puppy eyes, they are sure to convince you to give them more.”

When they got to the houses, little Mark took the leashes. “Is Ali around?” Rachael asked.

“No, she is at the new restaurant,” Miss Lajoie said. “She is a waitress while Chef is cooking.”

“Oh, that’s right,” Rachael said. “They opened this week. Has Chef proposed to her yet?”

“Just last night, at the restaurant,” the piano teacher said. “Apparently everyone eating there applauded when she said yes.”

“So will you need a new roommate when they move out?”

“Oh I hope not. I love those three little ones so much. But with Chef and Ali both working nights, they are in no rush to move out. They are paying me to babysit, so the piano lessons are not so important anymore. Between the rent and the day care, I am doing quite well. Although I would tend those three for free: they are such good kids.”

“I think Dad is taking us there tonight for the buffet,” Rachael said.

* * *

Lullana froze when she entered the restaurant. This had happened once before, when Rachael had first taken her to the big supermarket. But that had been packaged food. Now she was looking at the huge buffet of prepared food on tables against the wall. Chef was standing behind a large roast of beef, with a ham next to him, and then a bird that looked like a chicken, but three times as large. All that food would feed her village for a week, she thought.

“Is everyone taking the buffet”, Ali asked as she led them to the big table Geoff had reserved. The entire family was there, Maria and Rachael, and Bobby, whose eyes looked as big as Lullana’s at the sight of all that food. Grandma Barron was there too, along with Mike and Jane from the Bakery.

They put their bags and jackets on the chairs and went up to the buffet, where several other people were working their way down the line. You picked up a warm plate from the stack, and just started filling it with food. Lullana recognized most of the plates, but still mostly copied Rachael in what she scooped onto the plate. There were mashed potatoes, fries, roasted, and scalloped ones, and the girls selected the scalloped. Then came the veggies, with corn, peas, carrots, beans and tomato slices. Lullana took corn. It was different from the corn from Africa: with bigger kernels and sweeter. In August they had enjoyed corn-on-the-cob at the Barron’s dinners and barbecues several times, and Lullana loved eating it, with butter. The kernels on the cob were big and arranged into straight rows, without the gaps that corn back home had. This corn was just the kernels, but Lullana still had to have it.

There seemed to be no limit on what you could take, so both girls took several sides, with Lullana also taking peas and carrots. Then they came up to Chef, who asked what type of meat they wanted: beef, ham, or turkey. Rachael asked for a bit of beef and a bit of turkey. Lullana could see that Bobby had chosen a huge turkey leg. She asked for beef, and then carried her heaping plate to the table, picking up a roll she recognized as a “Cloud” from the bakery. It was somehow kept warm in the dispenser it was in.

At the table there was little conversation at first, but a cacophony of silverware dancing across plates. Bobby was using both hands on his turkey leg, until Rachael made him put it down while he ate some of the other food on his plate before it got cold.

Finally both Mike and Geoff got up and went through the line again. The women started to chat as the eating frenzy slowed.

“That is Hunter,” Rachael said to Jane, pointing to a tall, slim man who was acting as maître d’.

“He’s nice-looking,” Jane said. “Is he the one that is seeing your neighbor Miss Lajoie?”

“Yes. He took her to church for the first time last week,” Rachael said. “Chef brought him to the house last month to do some mending of the woodwork. He is a finish carpenter. A good one too: we had him to our house the following week.”

“That first day, Chef had offered him a meal along with money for his work, and Miss Lajoie was a bit scared of him. But after the meal he helped her with the dishes, and then they all played Monopoly with the kids. Miss Lajoie held little Tanya, Linda’s baby on a chair. I guess watching Hunter with the other little kids softened her.”

“He came over the next week for dinner after fixing our place up, and presented Elizabeth with a single Rose, and she just melted. He is over there all the time now. The next week he made her this beautiful jewelry box, with a rose carved into the top. She admitted to having no jewelry, and he said ‘A pretty lady should have pretty things.’ Now he brings over something every time they meet. Not expensive stuff, but little things like earrings or a charm bracelet. She wore it all to church last weekend, and it looked wonderful.”

“How sweet,” Jane said. Just then Linda came by pushing a dessert cart. Bobbie’s eyes went wide and he selected a chocolate pudding with three chocolate chips on top. The women all claimed to be stuffed, but make a selection anyway. Lullana took a vanilla cake, Rachael had a brownie, Maria took a Nanaimo bar from the bakery, while Jane took a crème brulee. None of the women took more than a small bite from their dessert, and then sampled bites from the others. Finally Bobbie devoured the remainders, to his great pleasure.

The family headed out to the van while Geoff paid Bill Strong at the till. There were people waiting for a table at the door, so Linda and Hunter quickly cleared their table, and pulled the three tables apart so that another three groups could come in.

“I guess Bill is doing all right, for a first week,” Geoff said. “He said that it was slow for the first days of the week, but tonight has been packed. We will have to do this again, in a month or so.”

“And maybe you and Mom can do a date night on Monday,” Rachael hinted.

“And I’ll have to take my special lady on my day off,” Mike said, looking lovingly at Jane.

“Yeah, right,” Maria said sarcastically. “When have you ever taken a day off?”

“Soon,” Mike said. “Now that I have someone to go with.”

In the back of the van Rachael whispered to Lullana.

“You didn’t tell me how your date went on Thursday? Is Steve still the one?”

The dreamy look in Lullana’s eyes said more than the simple nod she made. “He took me to that new place: Hawt Dogs and More. I really, really like hot dogs: little sausages in a big bun that tasted like the bakery. But it was the stuff they put on it. First a red sauce, and then a yellow one. Green relish and fried onions, it was so pretty I didn’t want to bite in. But when I did, wow.”

“What did you have to drink?” Rachael asked.

“Oh, that was even more wonderful. Steve called it a strawberry milkshake. It is like liquid food. Ice cream you can drink. I loved it. We also shared a little plate of potato sticks with that red sauce on them. It was good too, and Steve said there is a version called poo-teen that we will try next time.”

“You should treat him next time,” Rachael suggested. “We are both working in the bakery on Saturday mornings, so you will have money of your own next week. We are each working eight hours, from seven to two. You should earn around $100 a weej after taxes are taken off.”

Lullana’s eyes went wide at the thought of so much wealth. “I need to send the money back home to Momma. It will help her so much. I wonder how I can get it to her?”

“Well, the church sends money to Pastor Stillwater on occasion. You could have yours included in that and I’m sure he will pass it on to your mother. But you don’t need to send it all. You should keep back $25 or $50 a week, for dates and to buy clothes and other things,” Rachael said.

“I will have to think about that,” Lullana said.