"Hey!" the Incredible Hulk shouted in a menacing voice, "why don't you look where you're going? You girls think you own the place, don’t you?"
Joyce and I exchanged surprised looks. "Listen, bozo," Joyce said pointing her finger toward his massive chest for emphasis. "You bumped into my friend. You owe her an apology!"
The good-looking guy didn't say a word; he just walked past with what seemed to be a superior, preoccupied look. His hulking friend sneered and walked away too.
Joyce got down and helped me put my stuff together. "I really hate those jocks!"
"How do you know they were jocks?" I asked.
"Are you kidding? Wasn’t it obvious? Anyway, I've seen that no-neck on the football field. And the handsome Adonis is our adored quarterback, Gar Hansen. Everyone knows who he is."
I didn’t, but then I wasn’t into sports. "He is something, isn't he? Too bad he’s got attitude." I let a deep sigh escape.
"I agree," Joyce said. "I've heard he's totally stuck-up. People talk to him and he just walks by as though he thinks he's too good to bother with them. Like he did now. Just because he's an outstanding athlete and a top student, he's got no right to act as if he's better than the rest of us."
"No one has a right to be inconsiderate no matter how great he thinks he is. I feel like telling him that," I agreed, my indignation growing.
Right," Joyce said. "I'm boycotting the football games this season, not that I went very often anyway."
I shrugged. Sports meant little to me. In fact, neither Joyce nor I were much into athletics. Joyce was into science and I was into art. My stepfather watched football. My mom said he played in high school. He remained a big fan. Mom would pop corn and sit down to watch college and pro games with him on the weekends when she wasn’t working. I never did.
After I signed up for tutoring, Joyce and I took the bus to her house. I had the window seat and watched the landscape kaleidoscope by as my mind rambled. Wilson Township where we live is nestled in South Central New Jersey. It's large in area and a lot of it is still undeveloped. Thirty years ago, Mom says, it was hardly more than farmland. The old sections have place names that date clear back to before the American Revolution. Sometimes I think our house is that old, but Mom says it was built about sixty years ago when people thought the shore area of our town could be something of a resort. Erosion ended that idea long ago.
Our house is really not much more than a cottage. Joyce's house isn't as old as ours and it's a lot nicer. Her father is a police detective in Wilson. He had the house custom built, doing a lot of the work himself. I like their house because it has a sense of identity and individuality, not like the luxury condos and townhouses that are being thrown up all around our township for commuters from New York City. We seem to have been getting a lot of New Yorkers moving in.
I don't mind the wide mix at the high school, but I feel awkward with some of these rich city kids who dress so well and have a lot of money to throw around. With my family, money is always tight. My mom is frugal; she has to be. I can't remember a time when she didn't work hard to supplement my stepdad’s disability payments.
Still, Mom won't let me work until I'm sixteen. I try to help by not asking for things that I know we can't afford. It's not so hard, because after awhile, doing without becomes a way of life. Mom has always made it like a game, managing to live decently on their combined income. We always look for bargains and sales in the supermarkets and at clothing stores.
I've seen Mom work long hours for minimum wage ever since I was very little. Every Sunday, I help her clip coupons for the supermarket from the newspaper. And Mom is the family barber. She says she wouldn't go to a beauty parlor, because the beauticians call everybody "honey," and once Mom passed thirty, she found it annoying. But I think the real reason is that she considers it an unnecessary expense. Not that I wouldn’t mind having my hair done professionally once in a while!
Still, we don't live badly. There's always food in the house. Mom says there’s plenty of people poorer than us. She considers herself lucky to have a job, what with so many folks unemployed. As for me, I've decided I'm going to get an education so I can find a better paying job. I haven't discussed my plan to go to college with Mom because I know that would only worry her. Finding the money to pay for college, even a state school, wouldn’t be easy. I’d have to earn a scholarship. I wish I was smart like Joyce!
I have dreams of becoming a commercial artist and going to work in advertising. I'm not really sure right now. All I know is I want to go to a good art school. My art teacher says she thinks I have talent, but having money for tuition would help too. I'm trying to keep my grades up so I'll qualify for a scholarship, except sometimes I think it's just a wild dream that will never come true. I get this awful fear that I will spend my entire life ringing up milk and newspapers in a convenience
