Five
Cassie: 1987
“Happy Birthday!” Squealed my best friend, Mandi Ruiz, on the other end of the phone.
“Oh my ears,” I moaned. “Do you have to scream like that?”
“Why aren’t you up already? You should be excited. You’re seventeen today. Didn’t your dad say he was getting you a car when you turned seventeen? Woo, hoo! We’re gonna party, party, par-tay!”
I didn’t know who was more excited about my birthday, Mandi or me. I could imagine her dancing around her living room, jet-black hair flying, and her brothers and baby sister staring at her like she was nuts. Ever since my dad joked about getting me a car so that he wouldn’t have to drive Mandi and me around, she’d been counting down the days to my birthday. Mandi and I had been friends since the eighth grade when her family moved from
