Characters in Graduation Afternoon

… She has managed this social hat-trick with Bruce Hope, also known as Buddy. And when they were coming up from the basement media room after playing video games—most of the others still down there, and still with their mortarboards cocked back on their heads …

… She is Janice Gandolewski, who will have her own graduation day—from Fairhaven High—two weeks from now, after Buddy has left with his three best buddies to hike the Appalachian Trail.

out on Route 219, which had been fourwalled for the occasion by Jimmy Frederick’s dad and mom, pursuant to the mandatory designated-driver rule …

… When she graduates there will be a much smaller party, probably at Aunt Kay’s restaurant, and of course she is bound for educational halls far less grand or traditional, but she has plans to go farther than she suspects Buddy goes even in his dreams.

… Her friend Marcy keeps asking her what she sees in him at all—Buddy, she all but sneers, wrinkling her nose. What do you do all weekend? Go to garden parties? To polo matches?

… In fact, they have been to a couple of polo matches, because Tom Hope still rides—although, Buddy confided, this was apt to be his last year if he didn’t stop putting on weight.