was almost completely full. I'm still not sure what possessed me to open my mouth.
“Should I pull in?”
She didn't laugh or feign shock. Her gaze was level, her voice tight and serious.
“Don't ask me again,” she said. “Not unless you really want an answer.”
TRACY FLICK
WINWOOD'S A RICH TOWN , but not everyone who lives here is rich. Since my parents split up six years ago, my mother's supported us on the money she makes as a legal secretary. My father helps out, but not as much or as often as he should (he's got a new wife now, and a two year-old son). If it weren't for loans and scholarships, you can bet I wouldn't be going to an expensive school like Georgetown.
It's not like we're poor. It's just that we've learned to do without a lot of things that most people around here take for granted—nice vacations, new cars, expensive clothes, even cable TV. The house we live in is a big Victorian on Maple Street, one of the prettiest blocks in town. We rent the whole second floor for only five hundred a month, about half the goingrate. Winwood's a commuter town, and nice apartments don't come cheap.
“Our landlord's a saint,” my mother tells people every chance she gets. “If it weren't for him, we'd probably be living on the street.”
LISA FLANAGAN
“IT'S OKAY with Tammy,” he'd assured me. “She says it's no big deal.”
But it wasn't okay with Tammy. We were sharing the backseat and she didn't even look at me when I climbed in and wished her a happy birthday. She just kept staring out the window in the wrong direction, as if fascinated by the gray house across the street.
Mrs. Warren turned in the passenger seat, trying to smooth over the awkwardness. She looked older than I remembered, and her smile was tense, an effort of will. “Oh Lisa,” she said. “It's so nice to see you again.” “It's nice to see you too, Mrs. Warren.” It was weird how stiff and artificial we sounded. Only a year ago Mrs. Warren and I had been able to giggle and gossip like girlfriends. But so much had changed since then that our shared past seemed to have happened to other people, or not to have happened at all.
That went double for me and Tammy. It didn't seem possible that we'd ever held hands at the movies or kissed until we were dizzy. If we'd been on speaking terms, I might've told her that I'd come to think of sex as this long dark tunnel that turns friends into strangers, strangers into friends.
TRACY FLICK,
OUR LANDLORD IS Joe Delvecchio, chief of the maintenance crew at Winwood High. He's a familiar figure around the school, wandering the halls with a bottle of Windex or a screwdriver in his hand, whistling some dopey tune from the fifties.
Janitors fall into a gray area at school. They're adults, but they don't really count. They can't discipline you or give you bad grades. They shuffle around in their blue uniforms, condemned to mop floors, erase graffiti, clean bathrooms, and suffer abuse at the hands of teenagers. It's almost like they're put there as a warning, to remind you of what might happen if you don't pay attention in class or do your homework.
Joe's different, though; he's a janitor by choice rather than necessity. He used to be a cop, but he retired with half pay after hurting his back in a scuffle with a shoplifter.He hated sitting around and eventually escaped his boredom by signing on as janitor and all-around handyman at the high school. He says it keeps him young.
At home, Joe and I are friends. I help him shovel the snow and take care of the lawn; he and his wife do all kinds of favors for my mother and me. At school, though, we don't have a lot of contact. We'll smile and say hello, but that's about it. Watching us in the hall, you wouldn't know that we exchange Christmas gifts, or that he likes to call me “princess.”
TAMMY WARREN
DAD WAS SITTING alone at a big round table, pretending to read the menu, looking for all the world like the sad thing he was—a
“Should I pull in?”
She didn't laugh or feign shock. Her gaze was level, her voice tight and serious.
“Don't ask me again,” she said. “Not unless you really want an answer.”
TRACY FLICK
WINWOOD'S A RICH TOWN , but not everyone who lives here is rich. Since my parents split up six years ago, my mother's supported us on the money she makes as a legal secretary. My father helps out, but not as much or as often as he should (he's got a new wife now, and a two year-old son). If it weren't for loans and scholarships, you can bet I wouldn't be going to an expensive school like Georgetown.
It's not like we're poor. It's just that we've learned to do without a lot of things that most people around here take for granted—nice vacations, new cars, expensive clothes, even cable TV. The house we live in is a big Victorian on Maple Street, one of the prettiest blocks in town. We rent the whole second floor for only five hundred a month, about half the goingrate. Winwood's a commuter town, and nice apartments don't come cheap.
“Our landlord's a saint,” my mother tells people every chance she gets. “If it weren't for him, we'd probably be living on the street.”
LISA FLANAGAN
“IT'S OKAY with Tammy,” he'd assured me. “She says it's no big deal.”
But it wasn't okay with Tammy. We were sharing the backseat and she didn't even look at me when I climbed in and wished her a happy birthday. She just kept staring out the window in the wrong direction, as if fascinated by the gray house across the street.
Mrs. Warren turned in the passenger seat, trying to smooth over the awkwardness. She looked older than I remembered, and her smile was tense, an effort of will. “Oh Lisa,” she said. “It's so nice to see you again.” “It's nice to see you too, Mrs. Warren.” It was weird how stiff and artificial we sounded. Only a year ago Mrs. Warren and I had been able to giggle and gossip like girlfriends. But so much had changed since then that our shared past seemed to have happened to other people, or not to have happened at all.
That went double for me and Tammy. It didn't seem possible that we'd ever held hands at the movies or kissed until we were dizzy. If we'd been on speaking terms, I might've told her that I'd come to think of sex as this long dark tunnel that turns friends into strangers, strangers into friends.
TRACY FLICK,
OUR LANDLORD IS Joe Delvecchio, chief of the maintenance crew at Winwood High. He's a familiar figure around the school, wandering the halls with a bottle of Windex or a screwdriver in his hand, whistling some dopey tune from the fifties.
Janitors fall into a gray area at school. They're adults, but they don't really count. They can't discipline you or give you bad grades. They shuffle around in their blue uniforms, condemned to mop floors, erase graffiti, clean bathrooms, and suffer abuse at the hands of teenagers. It's almost like they're put there as a warning, to remind you of what might happen if you don't pay attention in class or do your homework.
Joe's different, though; he's a janitor by choice rather than necessity. He used to be a cop, but he retired with half pay after hurting his back in a scuffle with a shoplifter.He hated sitting around and eventually escaped his boredom by signing on as janitor and all-around handyman at the high school. He says it keeps him young.
At home, Joe and I are friends. I help him shovel the snow and take care of the lawn; he and his wife do all kinds of favors for my mother and me. At school, though, we don't have a lot of contact. We'll smile and say hello, but that's about it. Watching us in the hall, you wouldn't know that we exchange Christmas gifts, or that he likes to call me “princess.”
TAMMY WARREN
DAD WAS SITTING alone at a big round table, pretending to read the menu, looking for all the world like the sad thing he was—a
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