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into Tristin—we’re not
just friends
.” Melia grinned like the cat that’d swallowed the canary.
    “Understandable,” Evangeline said, kicking a fallen branch off the sidewalk. Tristin Quin was a transfer kid from the Midwest. He was really good-looking—tall, wavy brown hair, and gorgeous hazel eyes. He hung out with the lacrosse jocks, fascinated with the sport (even though he didn’t know how to play), and he was really popular. He’d needed tutoring in math and Melia was a math whiz, so Mrs. Cranmar had asked her to tutor the kid. One thing had led to another. Melia said Tristin told her it was a turn-on that she was so smart. And it was obvious why her best friend liked Tristin. Who wouldn’t?
    Evangeline was the first to admit that she was more than a little jealous. Melia was super-cute with all the right curves. Boys loved her and although part of that was because she was a huge flirt, most of it was because she was pretty, funny, and smart. Evangeline and Melia had known each other since they were little kids; sometimes Evangeline wondered why Melia had ever stayed her best friend once they got older and Melia became so popular.
    “Hey!” Tristin called. Carrying a lacrosse stick one of his buddies had loaned him so he could learn the game, he loped across the street, and casually draped his arm around Melia’s waist, hand sliding into her jeans pocket. The trio continued to walk toward the bus that would take them to Jefferson High School.
    “It’s E’s sixteenth birthday,” Melia told Tristin.
    “Sweet—what’d you get from your folks?”
    “It’s just me and my mom,” Evangeline said. Tristin raised an eyebrow. Evangeline’s words began to tumble out before she could stop them because that’s what happened when you were bashful and you held all your words in—sometimes they just escaped in a messy, embarrassing jumble: “My mom got pregnant young and the guy split. I never knew him.” She finally paused, her cheeks burning.
    They reached the bus stop and Tristin flicked stones across the street with the lacrosse stick. “Don’t you ever want to try to find your dad?” he asked.
    “She asked her mom about him once,” Melia said, over sharing, “but she doesn’t know where he is.”
    Evangeline looked away. What Melia didn’t know was that her mom had looked so sad that she hadn’t had the heart to ask for any details. Her father’s name was Richard—that’s all she knew or was ever likely to know.
    “Dads are overrated,” Melia said.
    Easy to say when you have one, Evangeline thought. Not only didn’t she know her father or his family, but there was no one left living in her mother’s line. Her mom’s own mother had been a famous prima ballerina named Cleo who’d died in a car accident when her mom was seventeen. It turned out that Cleo had spent much more than she’d ever made and owned none of the extravagant jewels she wore or mansions she lived in. The expensive boarding school Olivia was attending kicked her out when she couldn’t pay the tuition. The bank took Cleo’s clothes, furs, and cars to pay back some of what she owed them—although they generously allowed Olivia to keep her mom’s cat.
    All that was left to Evangeline’s mom from some distant and long-dead aunt was a small bungalow in Portland, Oregon, so she moved there right after her mother died—alone, and with only $9000.00 and a beat-up guitar to her name. A week later, she discovered that she was pregnant. She tried to contact her boyfriend (the owner of the guitar), but it seemed his dad had been transferred to Europe and the kid hadn’t even bothered to tell her he was leaving school or give her an address or telephone number or anything.
    It was pure luck that Samantha Harris, a local Portland art dealer, discovered Olivia at a Saturday Market where she was desperately trying to make some money to support herself and her new baby. She’d resorted to painting flowers on glass bottles