They met at a housewarming party on Terrace Road, a housewarming party in a large white house with a barn behind it. The boy on the couch was named Jay, and he was the only one on the couch, just as he was the only one wearing a red sweater with a white collared shirt beneath it. He believed the latter fact was the reason for the former, but the reason for this reasoning was that he was twelve years old and perpetually uncomfortable with everything ranging from the crookedness of his pointer finger to the wrinkles in his white collared shirt, which was fortunately concealed under his red sweater. Jay was staring at the ceiling, determined to pick out something among its speckled expanse worth looking at, when Percy approached him.
“That’s an interesting book, you know, the one your mother gave us.”
And now Jay was not the only one on the couch, but he was still the only one wearing a red sweater with a white collared shirt beneath it. Beside him on the couch, her legs dangling inches from the carpet, sat Percy Bleecker, feet marked with scattered spots of dirt, which was typical of nine-year-olds.
“You’ve read it?”
Jay himself had not yet read The Grapes of Wrath, having been told it would be assigned in high school. High school—this was a concept he swore he would not dwell on until it snapped at his feet or at least until his eighth-grade graduation.
“Almost twice. I understand why she chose it, our arrival in Oklahoma and all, but it isn’t my favorite novel, not even my favorite Steinbeck novel.”
Jay was quite perplexed. Reading Steinbeck was not typical of nine-year-olds.
His mother came over and patted his head and said, “Jay, honey, aren’t you a little warm? Do you want to take that sweater off?”
Jay, being twelve years old and perpetually uncomfortable, particularly with his choice of clothes, felt his ears flush crimson.
“Jay,” Percy said, her feet now connecting with carpet as she stood up, “would you like to look at the barn?”
Jay turned away from his mother and nodded and left with Percy out the back door, and they were friends.