Before long

　　Before long, I didn't see how I was going to be able to stick it out there eight hours a day; and I nearlydidn't. I remember one night, I nearly quit because I had hit the numbers for ten cents-the first time Ihad ever hit-on one of the sideline bets that I'd made in the drugstore. (Yes, there were several runnerson the Hill; even dignified Negroes played the numbers.) I won sixty dollars, and Shorty and I had aball with it. I wished I had hit for the daily dollar that I played with my town man, paying him by theweek. I would surely have quit the drugstore. I could have bought a car.
　　Anyway, Laura lived in a house that was catercorner across the street from the drugstore. After awhile, as soon as I saw her coming in, I'd start making up a banana split. She was a real bug for them,and she came in late every afternoon-after school. I imagine I'd been shoving that ice cream dish underher nose for five or six weeks before somehow it began to sink in that she wasn't like the rest. She wascertainly the only Hill girl that came in there and acted in any way friendly and natural.
　　She always had some book with her,fake uggs boots, and poring over it, she would make a thirty-minute job of thatdaily dish of banana split. I began to notice the books she read, They were pretty heavy school stuff-Latin, algebra, things like that. Watching her made me reflect that I hadn't read even a newspapersince leaving Mason.
　　_Laura_. I heard her name called by a few of the others who came in when she was there,Link. But I couldsee they didn't know her too well; they said "hello"-that was about the extent of it. She kept to herself,and she never said more than "Thank you"' to me. Nice voice. Soft. Quiet. Never another word. But noairs like the others, no black Bostonese. She was just herself.
　　I liked that. Before too long, I struck up a conversation. Just what subject I got off on I don't remember,but she readily opened up and began talking, and she was very friendly. I found out that she was ahigh school junior, an honor student,Discount North Face Down Jackets. Her parents had split up when she was a baby, and she had beenraised by her grandmother, an old lady on a pension, who was very strict and old-fashioned andreligious, Laura had just one close friend, a girl who lived over in Cambridge, whom she had gone toschool with. They talked on the telephone every day. Her grandmother scarcely ever let her go to themovies, let alone on dates.
　　 But Laura really liked school. She said she wanted to go on to college. She was keen for algebra, andshe planned to major in science. Laura never would have dreamed that she was a year older than Iwas. I gauged that indirectly. She looked up to me as though she felt I had a world of experience morethan she did-which really was the truth. But sometimes, when she had gone, I felt let down, thinkinghow I had turned away from the books I used to like when I was back in Michigan.
　　I got to the point where I looked forward to her coming in every day after school. I stopped letting herpay, and gave her extra ice cream,UGG BOOTS SALE. And she wasn't hiding the fact that she liked me.