An hour later, everyone had arrived, and the party had begun.
Jocelyn stood at one of the picnic tables, tuning the radio and looking through her mixed CDs. She looked up for a moment, and surveyed the crowd that had formed in their area of the park.
Benjamin Pham arrived in his usual attire of jeans and a dark T-shirt with Chinese characters on it, this time with the characters for "Dragon." He seemed to have gained quite a few more white hairs since they all last saw him.
Felix Vo and Daniel Ho arrived at the same time. Felix looked the same, as Jocelyn and Amber already knew. His look never changed. His hair was kind of long and split in the middle, and his glasses were the same wire framed ones he had in middle school. His clothing, of course, never changed: black Dickies work pants and a black T-shirt. Danny, as usual, had his hair spiked up and was in khaki shorts and a green and white striped polo shirt. They, along with Ben, were at the grill, barbequing the meat that Rachel had brought.
Guess some things never change…Jocelyn thought as she scanned the crowd.
Jennifer Chen, Jessica Wong, and Karina Ma were in their own little group, as usual, along with Lisa Tran, Katherine Thoi and Jenna Trieu. Jennifer had recently taken an interest in athletic styled clothing because of her love for tennis, and this was no exception today. Jess wore her favorite American Eagle outfit of jeans and a T-shirt, and Karina and Lisa were the glamorous ones, with their designer jeans and makeup. Kat and Jenna wore their usual outfits of jeans and a T-shirt, nothing really all that special. All were sitting at one of the other picnic tables, and they all looked the way they always did: cute little hairstyles and cute little outfits with their cute little cell phone charms dangling out of their pockets.
Jocelyn inwardly gagged.
She knew it wasn't fair to think that way about them, they being her friends—correction, family– after all, and she herself being half Asian, but she couldn't help it at times. That group seemed to be the group of perfect Asians at Robinson, and though they were close friends for quite a while during their freshmen and sophomore years, Jocelyn couldn't help but at first feel a pang of jealousy for never really being able to fit in with them. Now the jealousy was just plain bitterness towards most of them, though she knew they were still friends deep down. However, nowadays it seemed that only Lisa and Jess still treated her like a good friend, as she had them for so long.
Jocelyn continued to look around. Over at the table next to hers, where all the fireworks lay, Rachel and Amber were sitting and catching up with Amanda Hua and Nicole Trinh. Both were dressed similar to Jennifer, Jess, and the others, but these two were far more modest than the others were; wearing loose fitting tank tops and loose fitting jeans, as they did in school.
Jocelyn smirked and looked over to the other table; on her left. All the food and sodas were being placed at that table, so it was no surprise to see her "little brother" Mark Salinas and her current crush, Thomas Tam (whom everyone called Tom), sitting there. What did surprise her was their lack of notice of the food that sat before them. They were engaged in what seemed to be an intense conversation.
And then there she was, pretending to be busily looking for CDs to play later on throughout the day as an excuse not to talk to anyone. She mentally rolled her eyes at herself. This was a party! She should be having fun! Mingling with friends!
She looked around again. Yep. The party had definitely started. Everyone was here!
Well, everyone, that is…
Except one.
Mike, of course, had not shown up.
Jocelyn pushed the angry and hurt feelings out of her mind. She couldn't believe she had actually expected him to show up this time! Every time has been the exact same thing: whenever she was there, he didn't show up or made an excuse not to go. Everytime she couldn't go, guess what the conversation was the next time she saw any of the family members?
