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“Who set you on fire?” Jessica asked.

“Never mind. Sasha, what did you do to Shayne?” Sydney asked. Everyone turned to me.

“Nothing. Why?”

“He’s telling his friends you treated him like . . . how did he put it? Like a nobody,” she said with glee. “You acted as if you didn’t know who he was when he called you? Perfect. When did he call you, anyway?” she asked, obviously wondering if he had called while they were still technically a couple.

“Well, nobody called this morning,” I said.

“So, when did he call?”

“I just told you. Nobody called this morning,” I said. She stared a moment, and then she broke into a hysterical laugh, and so did everyone else. That, I knew, was going to be the quote of the day. Nobody called this morning. Sydney, who was a good student, especially in English, walked around reciting Emily Dickinson’s poem, especially when she was in Shayne’s hearing range. I’m nobody! Who are you? Are you nobody, too?

It was turning out to be another fun day for me. Any of the girls who hadn’t heard the story caught up with me in the hallways between classes to find out what was going on. As casually as I could, I described Shayne calling me to pick him up and my refusal. I made it sound like nothing, which in my mind it was, but often the most trivial things became important at Pacifica. Maybe that was because most everybody had a father or a mother to solve serious problems for them.

In any case, it felt good to be the center of everyone’s attention, the subject of all the busy-bee buzzing. I couldn’t wait to get home and to my computer to describe it all in an e-mail to Kiera. I knew how much she would appreciate my actions and the results. I didn’t know why it had become so important to me to please her. If there was anyone in the world I should enjoy displeasing, it was Kiera. Perhaps I was still trying to prove myself to be as exciting and as popular as she was. I suspected she didn’t enjoy that. This was just another way to demonstrate it.

And then something happened that replaced the headlines about Shayne and me before the day had ended. That afternoon, there was a new buzz about two new students who were entering the school. Cora Hatch, who helped Mrs. Knox, Dr. Steiner’s secretary, during her free period, was rushing around with the breaking news. It reached me at the start of chemistry class. Cora came right to me as I was taking my seat.

“Guess what? Bradley Garfield’s kids are transferring into Pacifica,” she said, nearly out of breath. “One is in the eighth grade—his daughter, Summer. And his son, Ryder, is in our class, a senior.”

“Did you say Bradley Garfield?” Lily Albert, who sat behind me, asked. She had big eyes as it was, but at this moment, they looked as if they would pop and ooze all over her face like broken egg yolks.

“Yes.”

“The Bradley Garfield?”

Cora nodded.

I wasn’t into soap operas the way most of the girls in my class were, but I knew Bradley Garfield was a lead on Endless Days, the top new soap opera. During his television acting hiatus, he starred in a big movie with Julie Thomas, who had been nominated for an Academy Award last year. The movie was a blockbuster love story, Reflections of a Broken Heart. There was already chatter about a possible Academy Award nomination for him, too.

“Don’t these two have a mother, too?” I asked Cora. “Or did he give birth to them, as well?”

“Oh, yes. She’s an actress, or was. Don’t you know who she is?”

“I forgot to renew my subscription to Hollywood Gossip Girls.”

“Very funny. She works on and off, but she still models and does commercials. Beverly Ransome. She’s beautiful. She was in People last month. She’s the one who brought them here today. I said hello to her. She’s even more beautiful in person, but I was too shocked to ask for her autograph.”

“I’m sure Mrs. Knox wouldn’t have liked it if you had,” I said.

There were other children of people in the entertainment business attending our school. Making them self-conscious about their fame was an unwritten no-no, but I did really know that Bradley Garfield was the flavor of the month. His picture was on billboards throughout the city, and he was on the covers of dozens of magazines. I couldn’t help but wonder what it was like to be the son or daughter of someone like that. Would it make them arrogant? If there was one thing this school didn’t need more of, it was arrogance. It was practically seeping out the doors and windows.

I didn’t have long to wait to find out. Just after our class began, Dr. Steiner escorted Ryder Garfield to our room. Our teacher, Mr. Malamud, stopped his introduction to the day’s lesson instantly, and all eyes turned to the doorway. I could almost hear the chorus of heart throbs beginning. Even my own heart felt as if it shuddered and skipped a beat.

Ryder Garfield had inherited most of his father’s good looks. He was easily six feet tall, with a tennis player’s firm-looking but lean body. He wore his light brown, almost amber-colored hair long but swept back neatly on the sides. He was dressed in a leather jacket with a black T-shirt and straight-leg jeans and a pair of black cowboy boots. He didn’t look timid or nervous to me. He looked bored, even a little disgusted, as if he entered a new school on a weekly basis or something.

“Excuse me, Mr. Malamud,” Dr. Steiner began. “I’d like your class to welcome a new student, Ryder Garfield.”

“Sure,” Mr. Malamud said. “Welcome to Pacifica, Ryder. Were you taking chemistry in the school you had attended?”

“Of course,” Ryder said.

Mr. Malamud nodded and quickly looked around the classroom. He reached behind himself to pluck a textbook off the shelf and then walked down my aisle. There were two empty desks in the classroom, one to my right and one in the rear on the left. He put the textbook on the desk to my right and smiled at Ryder, who lowered his head a little and slipped onto the seat. He was carrying a briefcase and opened it immediately to take out a notebook.

“That’s what I like. Someone who comes prepared to get right to work,” Mr. Malamud told the class. Ryder didn’t move a muscle or lift his head. “Does the textbook look familiar?” Mr. Malamud asked him.

Ryder looked it over as if he were considering buying it and nodded. He didn’t smile or look up at Mr. Malamud. He clicked a pen open and then sat back. He didn’t look at anyone else, either, but I could see the tightness in his jaw. It radiated through his shoulders and into the stiff way he held his upper body. He looked like someone readying himself for a head-on crash.