Jersey Tomatoes are the Best Read Online Free

smashes into a zillion little pieces.

Chapter Three
HENRY
    Y ou’ve got to have attitude if you’re from New Jersey. At least, that’s what Eva says.
    Face it: Jersey jokes probably outnumber Polish jokes and lawyer jokes combined. Even our cars, with “The Garden State” license plate logo, get laughs. “Don’t you mean ‘The Chemical State’?” people sneer, referring to the stretch of the New Jersey Turnpike just south of New York City, where the refinery fumes are so bad they set off the smoke alarms in passing RVs. “What exit?” they cackle, when you tell them you’re from Jersey. “Do you glow in the dark?” they laugh, referring to the countless gallons of toxic waste produced by and deposited in New Jersey, aka the Armpit of New York. After a while it gets to be a drag.
    When I was little I wished we were from Montana (their license plate says “Big Sky Country”) or Maine (“Vacationland”). But Eva keeps telling me there’s no point wishing for things you can’t change. So put a smile on your face and just keep saying to yourself: “Jersey Tomatoes Are the Best.”
    That’s Eva Smith, Best Friend Forever and fellow Jersey Girl.
    “If we can survive New Jersey, we can survive anything,” she likes to say. As if she’s some sort of survivor, which I don’t quite get. She says it now, the day following my tournament. We sit in her kitchen, blending strawberry smoothies and discussing the dubious honor of being a New Jersey State Champion of Anything, let alone tennis. Eva is convinced that I am bound for glory, especially because some recruiter from a tennis academy in Florida called our house after the match. He’s planning to be at states in a couple of weeks.
    I’m wondering whether reading my name above the fold in the sports section of the
Bergen Record
qualifies as glory. I’m
so
suffering from an attitude deficit today.
    Usually Eva and I spend postmatch days hanging out. If I win, that is. On the rare occasions when I lose, I spend the afternoons calling the dogs.
    As in Penn, Wilson and Dunlop. It was a game I made up, pretending the balls my father fired at me from our ball machine were dogs. Starting when I was … I don’t know … eight? I’d stand on the baseline of our backyard clay court, waiting for a fresh feed, and he’d fill the machine with all the different brands. I had to see the seams, he said. Call out the manufacturer’s name just before I hit.
    “Here, Wilson! Here, Penn!” I’d shout as I slammed forehands. “Roll over, Dunlop!” I’d exclaim, nailing a topspin backhand. Dad loved it, and whenever he wanted me to practice with the ball machine, he’d say, “Time to call a few dogs.”
    Of course, as many hours as I’ve logged on a tennis court, Eva’s logged more in a dance studio.
    She was wearing a leotard, tights and rubbery ballet slippers the day we met: in the grocery store. We were six. I was shopping with my mom, tagging along as she wheeled our metal cart along the aisles. Ahead of us I spied this girl acting weird.
    She had one hand on her mother’s cart and one arm curved over her head. She had her eyes closed, her nose tilted toward the ceiling, and she kept rising up and down on tiptoe. As her mother pushed their cart forward, rapidly tossing boxes of frozen pizza and icy bags of peas and corn into the cart, the girl minced slowly along, oblivious to the groceries flying past her head.
    “Eva, we don’t have time for this,” her mother said impatiently. “Lessons start in fifteen minutes.”
    My mom and I had just pulled parallel with them. The girl opened her eyes, and her gaze fell immediately on me.
    “Oh. Hello,” she said without hesitation. “I’m Eva.” I just stood there, slack-jawed with surprise. I’m good at that. “What’s your name?” she persisted.
    “This is Henry,” my mother filled in for me kindly. “That’s a very pretty leotard you’re wearing. Are you a dancer?”
    Eva nodded solemnly. Her