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browser’s back button, and now we were back on the invitation. His finger was extended toward the screen, aiming directly at the party’s address. It was a few blocks from where I lived.
    â€œHow the hell is everybody going to get there?” I said, ignoring the larger and more logical question of how in the hell did North Shore kids know that the Yards even existed?
    Vadim had an answer for that one, too. I should not have been surprised.
    â€œEither the bus system is doubling its output overnight,” he said, “or kids who live in more financially gifted neighborhoods are allowed to drive way before the legal minimum. Well——either that, or they all have absolute suckers for parents.”
    Vadim scrolled down.
    â€œYep, I was right.” He cleared his throat and read, “‘If u need a ride, give me a call. And please’—this part is in all caps—‘DO NOT MENTION ANYTHING ABOUT THIS TO MY PARENTS!!! They are OUT OF TOWN for the weekend!’ I wonder why she’s not having the party at her own house, then?”
    â€œDon’t be depraved,” I said, swigging the bottle of warm Jolt. “She’s probably saving that for her own private after-party. Or for her boyfriend of the moment. That’s what popular people do.”
    â€œYou think the rest of the school was meant to see this?” Vadim asked. He lowered his voice, although I bet he didn’t even realize it. “Or do you think it was just meant for her friends?”
    â€œDoes it matter?” I finished the Jolt with one final, belch-inducing gulp. “I think we’ve seen enough to consider ourselves invited.”
    I got home that night at 7:00, almost a half hour after the factory closed. With thoughts of Devin’s party still filling my head, I wrapped both my hands around the two-foot-tall door handle and swung open the single heavy door.
    Or, at least, I tried to. It took me a minute of pulling and grunting before I realized it was locked. Padlocked. From the inside.
    â€œHold on,” came my father’s voice, sounding distant and distorted as it came through the sheet metal. “Is already locked up for night. I open.”
    â€œWhy the hell did you lock the door, Dad?” I called through it.
    â€œYour mother she does not want the door open so late. Also,have been break-ins in the area lately. Also, we don’t know what time you get home. Also—”
    The door, with a massive nerve-rending squeal, slid open.
    â€œI do not intend leaving open for the whole night long, waiting for you.”
    Without saying a word, he let go of the door, turned, and started to walk away, back toward the house area of the factory—the small alcove with partly upholstered sofas and a TV; the makeshift kitchen that had been makeshift for years, with plywood countertops marking its borders; the second-floor foreman’s office, looking over the assembly line and the main room of the factory, which was converted into my parents’ bedroom.
    Yeah, this was where I lived.
    Seven years ago, but I still remember it. The three of us sat in a gloomy, drab-looking room that looked like both the airport in Russia and the North Shore principal’s office. We sat in a line: my father, me, my mother. I had never been on the same level with them, physically, before. Even at the doctor’s office, one of them was always standing. And I had never before seen them looking as glum as they did now, facing a huge, monstrous desk, and a balding man whose glasses seemed to be larger than his head.
    He was from the Jewish Federation. He was from the organization that, as far as I could understand, had brought us here. To America.
    He spoke a lot. Occasionally, one of my parents would interrupt. I only gleaned a few words: housing developments and integration into normal American neighborhoods and there’s simply no room for more families.
    I kept thinking, He keeps