XXIX 
The local newscasters practically lived on campus now. Other stations began slowly trickling in, to weigh in on the story.
It became a ruthless round-robin, a sort of “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” for reporters having a slow news week.
The increased press brought out the protesters and wack jobs, who, in turn, garnered more attention in the press, which only . . .
Well, you get the picture.
And once my family’s “founding father” connections came to light, the story made another leap up the news chain and became even more newsworthy.
My cross-dressing candidacy was becoming a big-time, statewide story, moving from the back page “news of the weird” up to the Metro section and on up to the third, then second page. Next stop: front page!
I began getting e-mail and fan mail from people all over, wishing me good luck and telling me they were rooting for me (which is always a day-brightener). I heard from other drag queens and transgender types, who told me about similar ordeals they went through in high school, and the horrific torture THEY endured. (And that’s always reassuring.)
I even got quite a number of love letters and marriage proposals from weird old men—HA!—as well as a number of increasingly graphic love letters from someone who claimed to be a student at the Eisenhower Academy! Can you imagine? These letters always started off sweet and gushing, telling me how he’s been crushing on me from afar, and wishes he could spend time with me, and possibly more? Then there is a weird shift in the tone, and suddenly, he starts berating me for being too open, too gay. I’m ruining it for him. I make him sick. Then the letters get downright nasty and threatening. . . .
They give me the shivers.
So I just brushed those letters aside when they came, and concentrated on the fun stuff.
NEWS BULLETIN
With just two weeks left until the election, two new students have announced their candidacy for homecoming queen!
Yes!
Just like that!
Henny Nickerson and Alma Doty have qualified as official write-in candidates, with the requisite number of signatures and club sponsorship.
Henny, of course, is the captain of the equestrian team, Junior League committee co-chairman, and was third-place runner-up in the Pepsi Poem for Peace competition. She plans to attend Radcliffe in the fall, and intern at Modern Bride magazine over the summer.
Alma . . . um . . . played trombone in the freshman band and enjoys C-SPAN, bird-watching, and diagramming sentences in her spare time. (That’s according to the Eisenhower Dispatch.)
Both are considered dark horses. Henny sounds like a threat on paper, but nobody really likes her. She’s too horsey-looking—reminds people of Celine Dion. Plus, she smells like manure. And nobody wants an ugly queen who smells like shit. Please. This is Eisenhower.
Alma is, you guessed it, a shadow girl who is stepping out of the darkness for the first time. Sweet little thing. Wouldn’t say boo! to a goose. This is a big step for her. “Yea, Alma! You go, girl!” She’s way outside her comfort zone here, but feels it’s important to bring down the oligarchy and end the tyranny of WASP primacy.
These two new entries are mostly symbolic threats. They show that Lynnette’s unanimous wall of support is eroding, and that surefire victory she’s been braying about might not be so surefire, after all.
Yes, yes, slowly the tide is turning.
Alliances are shifting. Sure bets suddenly aren’t. There are sudden defections, secret backroom pledges, last minute switcheroos.
Every day, people are won over by me or turned off by her. More and more, the Billy supporters are equal to, or outnumber, the Lynnette-lovers.
