But that’s what came from living in a town the size of Venice.

Venice, Indiana, that is.

Liz sighed. Should she really have been surprised that her birthday was going so horribly? The day had started off badly, with her father joking about the “big surprise” that would be waiting for her in the barn when she got home from school.

Had Liz’s family been like any other, she’d have gotten her hopes up that the metallic blue Volkswagen convertible Beetle she’d always wanted would be parked in the barn when she got home, with a big white bow on the hood.

But because she knew her parents couldn’t afford extravagant gifts on what they’d been pulling in lately from the family farm, she was certain what she’d find in the barn after school instead would be something more along the lines of a laptop —most likely purchased secondhand and refurbished by her dad, who was good with his hands.

Or possibly, if she were very, very lucky, her parents would give her back her old cell phone.

Which was extremely unlikely, considering the bill she’d run up earlier in the semester, texting Evan every night. She’d sworn she’d pay her parents back, and she was still trying to, working weekends at the Chocolate Moose downtown and babysitting whenever she could.

Mostly, though, she was just mad that Evan, after first making her promise not to date other people while he was away at his freshman year of college, and then swearing that he himself wouldn’t desert her for some gorgeous religious studies major with naturally straight hair, had immediately gone and done so … … but only after stringing her along for seven weeks and twelve hundred dollars in texting fees (not to mention what Liz had paid for birth control pills the whole time they’d been going out … at least until she’d walked in on him and that religious studies major in bed together during a surprise visit to his dorm one weekend.

She’d paid another two hundred and eleven dollars in round-trip bus fare for that pleasure).

She should have known her day wasn’t going to go well when, that morning on the bus to school, Jeremy and Alecia had decided it would be funny to sing “Happy Birthday” to her.

But even that couldn’t have prepared Liz for Spank’s critique note during Mrs.

Rice’s fourth-period debate class.

“He’s disgusting,” Liz said to Alecia when school finally let out and they were heading toward their bus. Spank had just elbowed past them on the way to his Camaro in the student parking lot.

“Douglas?” Alecia pushed her glasses up her nose. “I thought you two got along.

Besides, I think he’s hot.”

“That’s because you were homeschooled for nine years,” Liz reminded her.

Spank chose that moment to notice whom he’d just pushed out of his way. He turned around and yelled, “Is it a half hour before dusk? Because Freelander’s got her headlights turned on!”

“Oh, hey,” Alecia squealed excitedly, grabbing Liz’s arm. “He’s talking to you!”

“Yeah,” Liz said. “He’s making fun of my nipples, all right? Just keep walking.”

“Oh.” Alecia smiled. “My mom says if a boy teases you, it means he likes you.

Isn’t that right, Jeremy?”

Jeremy made a face. “Uh,” he said. “No. In the case of Spank Waller, I suspect it just means he’s an asshole.”

Alecia’s lower lip jutted out. “That’s not what my mom says. She says that’s why Douglas is always making fun of my glasses and the fact that I wear such long skirts every day. Because Douglas likes me. And, Jeremy, you shouldn’t swear.”

“Yeah,” Liz said, shooting Jeremy an aggravated look. “That must be why, Alecia.

Because he likes you.” She grabbed her friend by her enormous backpack and steered her onto the bus. Jeremy, standing behind them both, gave Liz a perplexed look.

“Why’d you tell her that? You know Spank Waller doesn’t give a shit about her.”

“She’s got a crush on a guy who in a million years will never like her back,” Liz said. “She has so little. Let her have her fantasies.”

“Whatever,” Jeremy said with a shrug as he swung himself up onto the bus behind Alecia. “Spank thinks he can do whatever he wants, without consequence.

Because he can, and as you know perfectly well, he has. His dad is the sheriff.

Believe me, no good will come of encouraging Alecia’s crush on him.”

Liz rolled her eyes as she followed Jeremy to a seat toward the back of the bus.

“Guess where I’m going tonight?” Jeremy said as he sat down.

“Let me guess,” Liz said. “Kate Higgins’s house, for her birthday blowout.”

“No. Your house. Your mom’s having a surprise party for you.”

Alecia, seated in a row ahead of theirs, squealed, “Jeremy! You weren’t supposed to tell! Now you’ve ruined the surprise.”

Liz blanched. “Tell me you’re shitting me.”

“Liz!” Alecia looked scandalized.

“High School Musical theme,” Jeremy went on. “Your mom got matching hats and plates and everything half off from Party Kaboose. You know Debbie Freelander always knows what the cool kids are into.”

“Seriously,” Liz said. “This has been the worst day of my life. I think I’m going to slit my wrists.”

“Liz!” Alecia cried. “Don’t even say such a thing! You know you can’t get into heaven if you kill yourself. And I want to be your best friend in heaven, too, the same as I am here on earth.”

Liz looked at Alecia and wondered if she could somehow get a new best friend for her birthday, in addition to a whole new life.

“Seriously,” she said to Alecia and Jeremy. “Don’t come.”

“Oh,” Jeremy said, “I’m coming. I want to see your expression as you cut into your Troy ’n’ Gabriella cake.”

“Don’t,” Liz said as the bus engine roared to life. “Please. Not Troy ’n’ Gabriella.

You’re making that part up.”

“I’m going to come,” Alecia assured her. “But if it’s all right with you, I’m going to leave a little early, to go to Kate Higgins’s party. My mom said she’d pick me up from your party to take me to Kate’s. Because I’ve never been to a party with boys before. No offense, Jeremy. I mean, I don’t really think of you as a boy.”

“None taken,” Jeremy said amiably.

Liz, however, frowned. It wasn’t, she knew, that Alecia didn’t think of Jeremy as a boy. It was just that she and Alecia had spent so much time over the years in Jeremy’s company, either at his house or one of theirs, that it wasn’t easy to think of him as someone in whom one might have a romantic interest, even though he was their age.

Lately, though, Jeremy had started to look quite … There was no other word for it: manly. He’d taken up tae kwon do, and breaking large piles of wood with his hands and feet had caused some undeniable muscle definition.

How could Alecia have failed to notice? Liz had been going out with someone else for almost a year, and even she hadn’t been able to help noticing.

“So,” he said when they got off the bus at their stop. “See you at your surprise party later?”

“Jeremy!” Alecia yelled from the bus window, where she was eavesdropping on their conversation. Her stop wasn’t for another few miles. “You’re ruining it!”

“See you then,” Liz said unenthusiastically, and turned to start down the long gravel driveway to her house.

Though she looked for unfamiliar tire tracks, a clue that her family might be hiding a metallic blue Volkswagen convertible Beetle in the barn, all Liz found when she got home was her mother busily preparing for the surprise party that Liz knew no one but her friends Alecia and Jeremy would be attending (and Alecia was leaving early for Kate Higgins’s party).

Her mother bustled around the kitchen with a happy air, forbidding Liz from having an after-school snack (“You’ll spoil your appetite for dinner!”), while Mr.

Freelander, done suspiciously early with work around the farm for the day, sat in the living room pretending to be engrossed in a spy novel, giving Liz the barest of glances as she breezed by on her way to her room. She didn’t remark on the High School Musical party blower in the front pocket of his shirt.

Upstairs Liz discovered her younger brother, Ted, hanging around the open door to her room.

“You’re really going to like your birthday surprise,” he said.

“Is it a car?” Liz asked, knowing it wasn’t.

“No,” Ted said. “It’s better.”

“There’s nothing better than a car,” Liz said.

With a car of her own, she’d no longer have to get up at five forty-five in the morning in order to catch the bus at six thirty, often in the pitch black of predawn, in order to make it to school by eight.

With a car of her own, she could go into town whenever she wanted and not be dependent on her parents for rides.

With a car of her own, she could finally get the hell out of Venice.

It wouldn’t have to be a nice car. It could be any old car. Jeremy had been working on the engine of his grandfather’s old Cutlass Supreme, trying to get it running again, just so he could have something of his own to get around in, something other than his mother’s minivan or his father’s pickup (which both his parents were notoriously stingy about loaning).

It was horrible, living as far out of town as they did and not having cars of their own.

“It’s way better than a car,” Ted assured her.

Liz looked at him tiredly as she pulled her homework out of her backpack.

“Nothing’s better than a car,” she said.

“This is,” Ted said.

“Would you want it?” Liz asked.

“Yes,” Ted said.

Her parents were definitely, Liz thought, giving her old cell phone back to her.

When her mother called her down to dinner, Liz went into the bathroom and applied a quick layer of lip gloss, then fluffed out her hair. Not that she cared about how she looked in front of Jeremy. Why would she? It was only Jeremy.

But still.

She came down the stairs, through the living room, and into the dining room. Her mother had taped streamers that said High School Musical 3! on them all around the room. In the middle of the big round dining table was a sheet cake that, just as Jeremy had assured her, had a photo image in icing of Troy Bolton and Gabriella Montez from High School Musical on it. Liz’s mother, father, and brother all stood on the far side of the table, wearing High School Musical party hats and blowing High School Musical party horns excitedly as Liz walked into the room. Not far from them stood Jeremy and Alecia. Each of them wore a party hat as well, though Jeremy was wearing his around his face, so it looked like an enormous beak.

Alecia was squealing anxiously, “Surprise! Surprise! Aren’t you surprised, Liz?

You didn’t suspect a thing, did you?”

“Oh, my gosh,” Liz said. “I’m so surprised.”

“Are you really, honey?” Mrs. Freelander asked, beaming. “I was sure you knew.

When you wanted something to eat and I wouldn’t let you because I said it would spoil your appetite for dinner, I was sure you knew.”

“Heck, no,” Liz said. “I had no idea.”

Liz could tell Jeremy was smirking behind his party hat by the way the skin around his eyes was crinkled up. He refused to take the hat off his face, even when Ted begged him to show him a bandal chagi, or crescent kick.

“No tae kwon do in the house, boys,” Liz’s mother reminded them as she came out of the kitchen with her homemade lasagna, Liz’s favorite. This was rapidly consumed on High School Musical paper plates. “I know you’re too old for High School Musical, honey,” Mrs. Freelander explained. “But it was that or Dora the Explorer at Party Kaboose. And I wanted your party to be festive. A girl only turns seventeen once.”

Then it was time for cake and presents. Liz took a big bite out of Zac Efron’s head. Her gift from her parents was a brand-new cell phone. It was the kind that, unlike her old one, could download music, take pictures … everything.

“Oh,” she said, genuinely surprised. “Oh my God, thank you.”

“Happy birthday,” Mr. Freelander said in his quiet way. “You’ve been working so hard to pay us back what you owe, so your mother felt—”

“You’re on the family plan,” Mrs. Freelander interrupted him. “So don’t be texting … well, everyone you know, all night long.”

She knew what her mother meant by “everyone.”

“No worries,” she said. Everyone was long gone. She and Evan hadn’t spoken since that day she’d paid that surprise visit to him, walked into Edmondson 212A, seen him in the arms of that girl, and walked out again without another word.

Liz stared down at the bright orange gadget. If this was in her hand, then what was in the barn?

In the distance a car horn honked.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Alecia said, apologetically gathering up her jacket. “That’s my mom. She’s picking me up to go to Kate’s. Liz, here’s your present. It’s a gift certificate to buy music for your phone. Your mom told me what you were getting.”

“Oh, great,” Liz said. She gave her friend a hug good-bye. “Thanks so much.

Have fun!”

“I will,” Alecia said. She had an excited sparkle in her eye, and was wearing her best denim ankle-length party skirt and Mariah Carey party T-shirt. Her waist-length hair had been brushed to a sheen. “Bye!”