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She had questioned me sternly, and I’d lied, saying Rena had made them for me. Apparently Denise hadn’t mentioned them to Mom or I’d have been in trouble.
    â€œLet’s go talk to him,” Rena said.
    I quickened my step. “What will we say?”
    â€œSomething hip!”
    â€œSomething cool!”
    We broke into a run. The tramping of our feet and our shrieks of laughter caused him to turn. I grabbed a wad of the loose material on Rena’s shoulder and yanked her around the corner of the Drogstore Cafe. “Why do we have to hide?” she whispered.
    â€œI don’t know!” We were anything but cool. Just trying to be cool made it impossible to be cool.
    I peered through the side and front windows of the Drogstore, over the rows of antique apothecary jars. My hippie and his two companions were waiting at the trolley stop. “What if they get on?” I asked.
    â€œThen we get on,” said Rena.
    â€œWe’re either on the bus or off the bus,” we recited together.
    When the trolley arrived, the three guys settled in seats toward the front, while we scurried past them and sat toward the back. As we rambled through the city, the three guys talked loudly to one another and shifted in their seats. Whenever my hippie turned to look at the guy behind him, we ducked. I didn’t know why.
    Rena began, “The guy with the beard, sitting next to your guy—”
    â€œShhh!” My face burned at the expression “your guy.” I was acting like a silly teenybopper, but I couldn’t help it.
    â€œâ€”looks like Gus Abbott of Roach.”
    â€œGet real! A rock star riding the streetcar? He’d have a limo.”
    The trolley made stops throughout the North Beach: first on Washington Square near all the coffee shops and Italian restaurants, then on diagonal Columbus Street, notorious for its topless clubs and the improvisational theater troupe the Committee, then near touristy Fisherman’s Wharf. On Beach Street, a few blocks west of Ghirardelli Square and the Cannery, one of the guys reached up and pulled the cable to request a stop. They stood to get off the trolley, but my hippie abruptly turned and walked down the aisle of the car to exit through the back door.
    As he passed us, he flashed a peace sign and his beautiful smile. His eyes looked into mine, and I thought I detected a spark of recognition, which sent shivers through my body.
    The guys crossed the street, entered an opened gate, and climbed a steep walkway leading to a large, shabby Victorian.
    Now I was pretty sure I knew where he lived. I sighed deeply. Rena giggled.

Chapter
Three

    Practicing Beethoven’s “
Pathétique
” sonata, I bogged down in the long, difficult development section of the first movement. I had started practicing at two o’clock, needed to go to four, but it was only three-twenty. I was bored, restless, wanted to be done. I leaned back so I could look out the bay window. I wanted to be outside searching for
him
. I sighed, stared back at my music. If I truly wanted to be a concert pianist, I had to sit there, suffering and struggling through.
    Since the second grade, I had taken piano lessons from Mrs. Scudder, who lived in the neighborhood, on Cole Street. She was sweet and encouraging and never lost patience. When I passed a piece, Mrs. Scudder allowed me to select a sticker from her sticker tray, lick it, and attach it to my music. When I learned ten pieces by heart, she gave me a four-inch bust of a composer, and after nine years, a couple dozen of them were crowded on a shelf in my bedroom.
    Last year Mrs. Scudder hadn’t had much to say during my lessons. It didn’t seem like I was getting any better, nothing close to Suyu Li, a neighborhood girl a year older than me. At our school’s spring talent show, Suyu had whipped through Chopin’s Revolutionary Etude with such tremendous speed, accuracy, and passion that the