“Why don’t you just ask her?” my friend Leah said. “My parents helped me get one.”
“Because my grandma counts every grape she puts in the cart,” I said. “She’s not exactly car-money kind of person.”
Still, the jealousy ate at me.
One night, I tried anyway.
“Everyone at school drives,” I said.
She sat at the kitchen table sorting bills into neat piles. Her reading glasses were halfway down her nose. The chipped mug with the faded flowers sat beside her.
“I think I need a car.”
“The car can wait,” she said.
“I could get a job,” I argued. “I could help.”
That made her pause.
“You will help,” she said. “Just not that way.”
“How long?” I snapped. “Until I’m the only senior still on the bus?”
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