"I'm fine, Mama."
"You don't look fine. You look like you're about to go into battle."
"I'm about to go into high school. It's basically the same thing."
Her mother laughed, a short tired laugh, and reached over and squeezed her knee.
"You got your system?"
"I got my system."
"You got your tryout clothes?"
"In my bag."
"You got your ankle brace? Your water? Your snacks? Your—"
"Mama." Alana turned and looked at her. "I've done this six times. I'm good."
Renée looked at her for a long moment over the top of her reading glasses, which she had found that morning on top of her head.
"I know you are," she said. "That's the thing about you, Alana Grace Johnson. You're always good. You've been good since you were a baby. You were good when we moved you away from your best friend in second grade, and you were good when your daddy missed your thirteenth birthday because he was somewhere we couldn't call, and you were good when we left Chula Vista eleven weeks after you won that medal." She paused. "Sometimes I wish you'd be a little bit less good. Just so I'd know you were human."
Alana did not know what to say to that. So she leaned over and kissed her mother's cheek, which smelled of hospital soap and hand cream, and opened the car door and got out.
"Text your daddy," her mother called after her. "He made me promise you'd text him."
"I will."
"And Alana."
She turned back.
"They're going to be lucky to have you," said Renée Johnson. "Whether they know it yet or not."
Alana smiled and closed the car door and turned and walked up the path toward the wide stone steps and the white columns, her backpack on one shoulder and her gym bag on the other, in jeans and white sneakers and a plain gray long-sleeved top with nothing written on it, looking at faces.
She was halfway up the steps when the three girls stepped into her path.
They did it smoothly, the way people do things they have done many times before. One moment the steps in front of her were empty, and the next moment three girls were standing on the step above her, side by side, blocking her way, and she had to stop or walk into them.
She stopped.
The one in the middle was tall, taller than Alana, who was five foot six, and very blonde, a smooth, expensive, honey-and-platinum blonde that had clearly been done in a salon by someone who charged a great deal of money, falling in long glossy waves past her shoulders. She had a narrow, pretty, symmetrical face with high cheekbones and a small straight nose and wide-set gray-blue eyes, and she was wearing a cropped white cardigan over a pale pink tank top and a short pleated skirt in a soft gray plaid and white sneakers so clean they looked as if they had never touched the ground. Her nails were long and perfect and painted a pale shell pink. She was holding an iced coffee in a clear plastic cup with a green straw. She was smiling. It was a good smile, wide and white and polished. It did not reach her eyes.
The girl on her left was shorter and rounder-faced, with brown hair pulled back in a high ponytail tied with a white ribbon, wearing a Westfield Colonials Cheerleading hoodie in navy and gold. She was looking Alana up and down with an expression of frank, unconcealed appraisal, the way you look at something in a store window you have already decided not to buy.
The girl on the right was thin and pale and redheaded and was looking at her phone, though Alana noticed that the phone was angled toward her and that the little red light of the camera was on.
"Hi," said the blonde girl brightly. "You're new."
It was not a question, so Alana did not answer it. She waited.
"I'm Madison," said the blonde girl. "Madison Cross. I'm kind of, like, the welcome committee." The girl with the ponytail snorted softly. Madison did not look at her. "I'm head cheer captain. Senior class vice president. My mom's on the school board. And my dad owns Cross Construction, which built, like, half the buildings in this town, including the new wing on the back of this school. So if you ever need anything, you know, directions, or whatever, you can just ask me." She took a sip of her iced coffee through the green straw without taking her eyes off Alana's face. "What's your name?"
"Alana."
"Alana what?"
"Johnson."
"Johnson." Madison repeated it slowly, as if tasting it, and then let it go with a little shrug of one shoulder. "Huh. Very common." She smiled again, the same bright empty smile. "Well. Welcome to Westfield, Alana Johnson. I hope you find what you're looking for."