Announcements were a lot more fun on Monday so long as they kept the work up. "...Littlejohn, the rookie goaltender only allowed one score on Friday's game, while Montgomery led offensively with a goal and an assist, while Jared Landry scored once and spent much of the game marking the opponent's star center, Jacob Jacobs, which closed down the Sabretooths' offense. The next game is against West Fresno two weeks from now..." The fist bump when the stats got read off by Hector South were the only obvert celebration performed in Ms. Andrews' class, but other classes were louder; the hockey guys in the hometown just grinned, which was a little humbler than the football guys. "So maul 'em Bears. Until then, however, the Winter Formal is scheduled for this Friday night at the the Fresno Marriott hotel. It is open to Juniors, Seniors and their invited guests. Dress code is available on home room bulletin boards and online, tickets can be pre-purchased at lunch." It was something to look forward too; but Gabe brought him back to reality. "Still got practice, man." --- This win happened in front of the school, so a lot of people were suddenly introduced to hockey and wanted to talk to Jared about it. The cheerleader table questions from now-respectful boyfriends of the girls was more gratifying, but Jared was starting to feel stretched thin as the day wore on; but Heather wasn't quite interested in hanging around the hockey team, or at least, Gabe. That made it awkward, especially when wondering why Jared wasn't captain. That line went from the head cheerleader to the other cheerleaders, no matter how much he tried to quell it politely. From the cheerleaders, that talk spread a bit. The reality was that between trying to keep the grades up for college, because his mother insisted and he figured it was a good idea to score a scholarship if he could by any means necessary, and hockey, he had more than enough on his hands. Captaining was out, from an economic standpoint, and Gave had more freedom to do his thing and settle for slightly less grades. Hockey scholarships existed, but Jared didn’t think of banking on that idea – an injury could take you out in a lot of cases. Romeo, for example, was still limping around after a surgery, and even if he spent a season redshirted at USC, he’d be expected to eventually show something or lose the scholarship. He didn’t try to explain this to Heather, because it would bring up something – he didn’t have a lot of money. He had a good bit of savings from the Cane Corso; while Carl bought himself a car, Jared kept saving for the future, remembering those days with his mother where the food came through assistance or the generosity of grandparents, or sometimes, when his father paid the occasional child support check. It fueled a resolve not to fall into the same rut, and to save very carefully. But sometimes, it caused a bit of embarrassment because this school, particularly, seemed very well off. He’d dipped in more than he wanted for a more formal sort of attire, but justified it as good clothing to wear in interviews with college admissions officers and for other situations where he might need a good tie and shirt outfit, but a car seemed out of reach when a bike would do for what he needed. It wasn’t a reason to seethe, but he wasn’t sure Heather wanted to hear this – in a sense, the Golddigger thing, stupid as it was, got one thing right in that it very accurately identified Jared Landry’s financial predicament. Of course, his mother was doing better now and they were living in a nicer place with slightly more room and she had a car and was presumably making money, but saving was still a thing with them as people who had lived hand to mouth for so long. Carl’s answer, “That’s what you get for dating rich white girls, homie.” “Maureen isn’t precisely poor either.” “Yeah, but she knows what the struggle actually is. Heather Voss? Well,” Carl just started laughing. “Shit.” “So what else can you do? Open up the pocketbook, man, you’ve got funds.” “Yeah, but I’m saving that money for college.” “You mean you don’t think you’re gonna get a scholarship for athletics? What about academics?” “I’m not relying on either,” Jared admitted. “I get it, the struggle is real with you, but seriously man…you are not out of money. You just don’t want to spend any. But it’s senior year man, it only comes once.” “I’ll keep that in mind,” but Jared knew that argument just didn’t hold water. -- Because they were on a bye week, Jared had time to get home early that afternoon and took advantage – it was good time to actually get work done and handle things on the assignment that he and Ricki had to do; e-mail worked for supplying the revised script and keeping up on the other courseload. He didn’t notice, in the course of feeding himself salad greens and roasted chicken, a staple of the diet Dubois had them all on, that his mother had arrived home a bit later than usual, and it was more than one car. “Hey Jared,” Moira called from the door, “Howabout you come out here for a minute?” It was unusual; usually Moira came in, exhausted from what she was doing, and commenced with the work of mothering; cooking, cleaning, folding laundry. He’d help as he could, especially when she was still putting down a part time job along with the associate professor job, pulling down nearly excremental pay and having to add hours just to handle the bills. It was tough to make it out there, but since California and getting tenure at Fresno, not to mention consulting for police agencies in courts, and charging the fees for it, she was working less and making considerably more. It never really occurred to him. He’d come to California experienced as a dishwasher, because he started working as early as the state minimum allowed, and busser, and Tasha’s dad, Ray, promoted him to server quickly enough. Turns out that there were two cars, one of them was driven by Rick. Moira was smiling, but a little uncomfortable, “Look, Jared, I know your dance is coming up and you’re dating this girl and…well,” she seemed a little flustered, but managed to get it down; with light blonde-red hair and freckles, and significantly shorter than her son, she still managed to give off the impression of someone that didn’t get flustered easily, “…the thing is that you didn’t have a lot of the sort of birthdays and Christmases other kids got, kids that had, I dunno, more money? And Rick said you were worried about getting a car to take this girl…” She managed to continue, “Well, I’m not sure about the girl, but things are doing better now and Rick got a really good deal off a police auction vehicle. So this is an early Christmas present because we haven’t had it easy, but we’ve gotten through and you’re almost a man now and it’s probably a good idea to get some wheels…” She didn’t mention the part about David Livingston trying to kill him on his bike, but apparently that played into it as well. But it was a strong expression of love and pride; the buy wasn’t just for him, but for her own demons that she brought out with her to California, the haunting thought that life did not go perfectly. That she’d had a baby with a man that turned out to be a fucking loser. That she’d had to raise that kid on her own, reading, as a psychology grad and PhD student, about how childhood set a kid up for success and failure, and the inevitable worry that she was getting it wrong, “…and I didn’t want to send my boy off to a carpool for his first big dance.” Jared didn’t even really get a good look at the car, because he nearly had his mother crushed in a hug. -- Carl was surprised by the text of ‘I’ll pick you up tomorrow’ but a little shocked at what Jared’s mom and her boyfriend, the state trooper managed. “So this was a dealer’s car or something?” “Well, sure, it was on auction…” “Some auction. How much they pay on that kind of thing?” “Only a couple thousand. Rick had an in with the auctioneer and…I don’t wanna know all the details. It was a decent deal.” “Damn, I’d say…” It was a ’69 Ford Mustang with a removable hardtop, painted a dark red. It was an older model, but the addition of newer items inside brought the price down in the eyes of collectors. It didn’t matter, the car was cool and someone had gone over it real carefully in making sure that everything worked as it should. The engine was refitted and the whole thing had that classic feel. The car wasn't spacious, but Jared kind of figured he could work with it if he had to, because it was a secondary thing for him; growing up, he'd always wanted a really classic boss car like this, but always figured it was a project for later in life. Well, it probably was -- maintaining it would require tools and knowledge, though his Uncle Danny had given him some pointers on how to do a lot of this shit, as a mechanic over in West Lynn. It was hard not to be smiling behind the wheel with a pair of sunglasses on as the sun came up early morning before school started, hauling ass down the road, though Rick made sure he knew how to drive stick and handled it right, as a state patrolman, before releasing him to drive a thoroughly awesome car. “Well damn, looks like your mom came through for you on Heather Voss. This is definitely going in style.” “That’s the funny thing. She didn’t want to send her boy off to a dance with a hot girl with no car, but she doesn’t even seem to like her that much.” “Well, she clearly loves you boy. Think I can get adopted?” That, he’d never doubted, even with the hard times and the rough Christmas days where she’d cried her eyes out a bit and he tried his best not to be disappointed. “Not sure you want to join an Irish-Catholic family from Boston, Carl. There’s a high chance of becoming a cop.”