Excerpt: Nola Loves Jack

Nola sat on the bus stop bench again, but without company today. She took a long satisfied drag from her cigarette and blew it downwind where it drifted to the pale boy who was doing his best to ignore her. He was a good 5 feet from the bench, but every time she exhaled a cloud of smoke at him he would cough and shift his stupid gullible feet. Good. That meant he should go home smelling like smoke. She hoped it was a home in which no one smoked, and he got hell from his mother for smelling like an ashtray, and where did he get the cigarettes, and why would you do this you ungrateful little bastard...

Nola giggled as she swung her right leg which was crossed over the left. Her legs looked nice pale. Girls and women should be pale. Males should have color to them, not like this stupid, pale boy. She wondered if his mom was a crier or a beater. She was still debating the merits and which would scar the stupid boy more when his bus came and took him.

Crier, she finally decided after her own bus came and she was showing the pass to the driver. Beatings build resentment but crying heaped guilt in a crushing amount, which would be compounded by his dad telling him to look, he made his mother cry and was he happy now? She smiled at the bus driver and said hello, but he ignored everything but the pass. Rude. People said hello, made eye contact, even smiled. She saw them do it, to her and others. She did it, and if she could remember that is what you were supposed to do, how could someone who saw easily a thousand people a day not remember?