My seventeenth birthday was on Thursday, the twenty-first, and I planned to have a party Saturday night. For some reason, the entire school had picked up on it and the general consensus was that it was going to rock. I wasn't wildly popular or known for amazing parties, but usual y any party at my school stirred up a fair amount of buzz. That was what happened in a suburban Detroit high school like Bloomfield Hil s, I supposed.

"Yeah," I said tiredly. "We just need to keep the number of guests down. My parents are going to kil me if a hundred people show up."

"Too late," Kate chimed in. "This is the first party of our senior year, so of course everyone is going to be pumped about it. And Homecoming is next weekend, so we need a good party to start the semester off right. The masses are growing restless. It's not like you're Leper Girl or anything. People do like you."

"And you invited Josie, remember?" Landon nudged. Oh yeah. Josie Newport. Our moms had been close in high school and they stil talked sometimes. Josie and I had played together a lot when we were little, but things change. She was very popular at school, but outside our moms'

engagements, we rarely spoke and never hung out together. I had invited her to my party when we ran into each other at the salon a couple of weeks back. I never understood the stereotype that al the popular, gorgeous girls were complete bitches. Josie was a real y nice girl. She was perhaps a little clueless, but she'd never be cruel to anyone on purpose. I had to admit, though, she had some friends I couldn't say the same thing about.

"And Josie has to take her posse with her everywhere she goes, right?" Kate added. "That includes half the school, El ."

I made yet another face and shut my locker. "I'l figure it out." Of course, I wasn't actual y going to do anything. I wasn't going to walk up to Josie Newport and say, "Oh, by the way, when I invited you, I meant just you and maybe a friend or two. Not everybody and their cross-eyed cousins."

"Maybe she thought she was doing you a favor?" Landon offered. "Boost your popularity or something?"

While that sounded cool, I didn't suspect that it was probable. Josie wasn't going to do me any favors. Most likely, if the party sucked, Josie would simply move her entourage elsewhere. They would be like a party within a party. If mine sucked, then Josie would just make a new one. She'd already have enough people to do it.

"Al right, I'm out," I said, happy to end the conversation and get out of school and go home, even if it was just to study.

"Okay, I'l see you in an hour," Kate said.

"Adios, ladies," Landon said, mock saluting us. "Why don't you study for me, too, so I don't have to?"

Kate gave him a sarcastic thumbs-up before turning and making her way to the student parking lot. She'd had her license and her car since she was sixteen, like most of the kids I knew. I had my license too, but not a car yet. Kate's daddy had bought her a red BMW for her birthday. I found it to be an absolute miracle of God that Kate hadn't pancaked it yet. She drove like a blind person going into diabetic shock.

I waved good-bye to Landon, scooped my long, dark red hair out from under my backpack strap, and headed out through the school's front doors to meet my mom.

As I crossed the front lawn, I spotted a boy I'd never seen before lounging against a tree. He wore a brown shirt and jeans, and his hair, which waved around his face in the breeze, looked black until the sun caught the walnut shine. He actual y looked a little too old to be in high school, maybe twenty or twenty-one years old. As I looked at him, I felt a certain fondness deep in my heart, but I shook the feeling off. I didn't know who he was. Maybe he had graduated a year or two ago and I'd seen him in the hal s at some point? My school was pretty big. There was no way for me to know everyone who went here. I watched him for several more seconds until I noticed that he was watching me back. I blushed fiercely and looked back to the roundabout ahead where the parents' cars were idling. It was strange how he was just hanging out there, but I had to assume that he was waiting for a younger sibling.

My mom's Mercedes was nearly indistinguishable from every other silver Mercedes lining the roundabout. I peered through windshields until I spotted my mom. She and my dad look nothing like me. Mom's hair was more of a light brunette than my rich chocolate red. People asked me al the time if I had my hair colored this way, as if it were hot pink or some other unnatural shade. No, my hair just came this way. Also, she didn't have any freckles. A lot of people think al redheads are completely covered in freckles. Not true. I only have six on the bridge of my nose. You can poke at my face and count them. There are six.

I climbed in and we exchanged our typical after-school conversation.

"How was your day, El ie Bean?" my mom asked, like she did every single time.

"I didn't die," I answered, as usual.

"Wel , that's good news" was always her reply.

I looked back out the passenger window to the tree where I'd seen the boy, but he was gone. My eyes scanned the lawn, but I couldn't see him anywhere.

"What are you looking at?" Mom asked as we pul ed away.

"Nothing," I replied distantly.

My mom shouted an obscenity at the driver in front of her who was taking too long to turn at the light. Wiping her expression clean of anger the next moment, she smiled at me. "I'm so happy this is the last week I wil ever have to pick your butt up from school."