Chapter 2

THE NEW GIRL(WITH THE BROKEN ARM)

WHEN THEY DECIDED TO leave San Diego, my parents had two priorities: education and community. They wanted good schools for Andy and me, and they wanted our family to be in a Jewish community. That led them to Beverly Hills, where they rented an apartment on South Elm Drive. Beverly Hills was unlike anywhere I had lived: the affluence and the hyperawareness of financial status took getting used to. New acquaintances would immediately ask my address. I’d wonder,Why do you need to know where I live? Are you coming to visit? Of course, they were trying to size me up. As soon as they discovered that I lived on the south side of town, in the “flatlands,” in an apartment, no less, they knew there was nothing exciting to come and see at my house—no screening room, no fountains, not even a pool.

When I arrived at Beverly Hills High School for my junior year in the fall of 1973, I knew exactly two people: a boy I’d met and dated at USC’s debate camp that summer, and his sister, who was in my class. But I have never been accused of being shy. I didn’t hesitate to approach classmates and introduce myself, so I connected almost immediately with a group of friends, most of them residents of the south side of town. Those classmates became my friends for life. Decades later, we still talk and get together.

Though I found it easy to make friends, what shocked me was how competiti