Frannie and Tru by Karen Hattrup

friend goes to your new school, and she’s very excited for you to make friends at your new school, Frannie. Very excited .”
    This was exactly what I’d wanted, but I was still sort of annoyed. I had things to say about what I needed, about how he’d been treating me. But even as I tried to hold on to my anger, I felt it receding. I now suspected that when it came to this summer, to Truman, I had two distinct choices. I could choose my dignity, or I could choose Tru’s world.
    â€œAre we leaving now?” I asked.
    Tru raised the keys again, jingled a “yes.”
    We got into the minivan and Tru looked through the CDs in the glove compartment, this time picking U2. As soon as the van was out of the neighborhood, he rolled down the windows and turned on the music. He made some ugh noises, flipping past a few tracks, finally settling on “Bad.”
    â€œSo I saw the famous Jeremy Bell last night.”
    I waited for him to say more, but he said nothing. As he pressed on the gas, the van became an unbearable wind tunnel, warm air whipping our faces and tangling my hair. The bass bumped brokenly from the old speakers, creating a humming under my skin.
    â€œHe was at the party?” I asked dumbly.
    â€œYes, he was.”
    The car rolled on. The wind blew on.
    â€œSo did you talk to him?” I asked. “What happened?”
    â€œWhat happened?” Tru got that sneaky look, the one that was all in his eyebrows. “Veni, vidi, vici.”
    I was pretty sure I should know what that meant, but I couldn’t remember, and when he offered nothing else, I finally had to ask.
    â€œWas that—was that Latin? From class? How did you learn that so fast?”
    Tru looked out his window and laughed.
    â€œWell, that was some Latin I already knew. It’s a famous quote? Julius Caesar ? It means ‘I came, I saw, I conquered.’”
    â€œOh, right.”
    And I had known that. I’d heard it somewhere, I was sure, I’d just forgotten. I looked out the window, feeling stupid and trying now to commit the phrase to memory. Veni, vidi, vici. Veni, vidi, vici. The words tumbled around in my head, poetic and sharp. A whole minute passed before I actually thought about what he meant.
    When I finally did, my head swiveled back to him in an instant.
    â€œYou and Jeremy . . . ?”
    He rested an elbow on the open window, the fingertips of just one hand delicately directing the wheel.
    â€œDoes that surprise you?” he asked.
    â€œNo. I guess not. I just thought you said . . .”
    He cut me off with a laugh.
    â€œI’m kidding, Frannie. I didn’t do anything with Jeremy. Ididn’t even talk to him. But you’re right. He’s cute. I might keep my eye on him.”
    He turned the volume up high, higher, all the way to the max, as we drove north. We were headed for a nice part of town, just on the city’s border. We sped along, lashed by the wind, deaf from rock ’n’ roll, while I admired how easily he piloted our beast of a car.
    Tru drove fast, took turns smoothly.
    Sparrow’s aunt lived in a pretty but tiny stand-alone house with pink and white flowers out front, plus a newly planted tree, held up by splints. A Bartlett pear. The car in the driveway was shiny clean, a hybrid with bumper stickers about peace and recycling.
    â€œMy god,” Tru said, as we pulled in. “They’re hippies. Frannie, this woman is going to serve us kale chips and soy milk.”
    In fact, she offered us hummus with pita and diet soda. She wasn’t beautiful exactly, but striking, with hair sheared close to her scalp.
    She introduced herself as Regina, not Mrs. Jewell, and asked sweet, thoughtful questions about us. When she heard that I was going to the science and engineering school, she put out her fist for me to bump. She told me she was a public-health professor who did research and fieldwork with water. I longed for something