A Song for Julia

It’s kinda fun that way. If you ever responded, I’d kick your ass. But if you like this girl … you should go after her.”
    “I wouldn’t even know where to start.”
    She gave me a sideways, half-amused look. “Okay. Where are the aliens that kidnapped my friend? You don’t know how to start going after a girl? Seriously?”
    I chuckled. “My usual method is to just grab. Works great at shows.”
    She looked at me, puzzled. “True. You know, you’re normally such a pig. I can’t figure this out.”
    “That’s the sweetest thing anyone’s ever said to me.”
    She grinned. “It’s true and you know it.”
    I shrugged. “I’ve never pretended to be anything I’m not, Serena. I don’t do relationships.”
    “So, what’s different now?”
    I shook my head and laughed. It was a hollow laugh. Because the fact was, lately I’d felt lonely, even when I had a pretty girl in my bed. “Maybe it’s because I can’t have her.”
    “Ooooh,” she said. “That sucks.”
    “Yeah, whatever.” Time to change the subject. “Oh! Did you see my new wheels?”
    She said, “Changing the subject?”
    “Yes.”
    “Are your wheels the broken down old Toyota out front?”
    I nodded.
    “Fancy,” she said. “Ten years old?”
    “Fifteen, almost. But it’s mine. And paid for.”
    She stood up. “So your car’s settled? Then let’s round up the guys and go practice. We’ve got a show Friday night. And I want your new song to be perfect.”
    I sighed. “Let’s go.”

CHAPTER FIVE

    Julia, where did you go? (Julia)
    When you’ve moved around every couple of years of your life, sometimes making friends becomes a routine. I don’t suppose diplobrats, as we’re sometimes called, are much different from military kids in that way. You make friends quickly, but they are often superficial friendships. I remember my one year in public school outside Washington and envying the girls who had best friends—people they could care about and trust. I had that briefly, I thought, with Lana, who had befriended me in Beijing. But Lana was erratic, often irrational, and when we fought not long before my departure, she’d betrayed that trust. After that, I gave up on the idea of having friends. That was the price of my father being a diplomat, as well as the price of my own stupid mistakes.
    My dad’s career was unusual for an ambassador. Sometimes becoming an ambassador is a political plum, given to favored donors or others who have somehow done a favor to the President. But my dad was career Foreign Service. First Harvard, then the Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown, and then into the State Department. I grew up hearing that mantra because it was expected I’d follow the same route. He met my mom in Spain when he was posted there as a junior diplomat, and I was born in Brussels. Two elementary schools, two middle schools, and two high schools. Each time, I left behind friends and quickly had to make new ones. Since most of the kids I went to school with were also the children of diplomats, it wasn’t so bad. We all knew the deal—at least until my senior year in high school. Stranded in Washington because of a Senate hold on my dad’s nomination as Ambassador to Russia, I spent my final year of high school at Bethesda Chevy-Chase high school just outside Washington.
    As public high schools go, BCC is one of the best. In truth, it wasn’t that different from the private schools I’d attended all over the world. My classmates overseas were mostly the children of diplomats or the wealthy and privileged. In Bethesda, there were few Foreign Service kids, but plenty of wealthy ones.
    It didn’t help, however, that the most popular girl in the senior class was also slated to be valedictorian, and when I arrived, I edged her out by a tiny fraction of a point. She made it her mission in life to make me miserable, and most of the senior class fell into line behind her. When the rumors broke from China, thanks to Lana? That’s all it took. I spent my last year of high school as a social pariah. Not invisible … no, I prayed to make myself invisible. No one was listening to those prayers. I became a target.
    Every day, walking the hall, I’d hear the whispers.
    Slut.
    Whore.
    Baby-killer.
    I’m sure there were other kids in my senior class who were targeted and bullied. I don’t know, because I was too wrapped up in just trying to survive. And worse, I couldn’t go home and talk about it because my