Lexie finally smiled. “I bet you got your butt kicked.”

“A few times, but I won a few fights of my own.”

“I’ve never been in a fight. Today was the closest I’ve ever come.”

“What made you apply to come here?” Soleil asked.

She remembered what Lexie had written in her application essay, but she wanted to hear the girl’s own words. Lexie was her least likely applicant, a resident of the wealthy Oakland hills who attended a prestigious private school. Her life was far removed economically, if not geographically, from the communities where Urban Garden worked to transform empty lots into organic gardens for communities that didn’t have easy access to fresh, local produce.

“I don’t like driving through bad neighborhoods on the way home and feeling like I’m not a part of the solution to the problems around me. It’s like, I’m the opposite of the solution, you know?”

“I don’t blame you for feeling that way.”

Lexie wasn’t interested in being soothed. “It’s stupid, because people like Angelique don’t even want my help.”

“Maybe she does and maybe she doesn’t. That doesn’t change the fact that we need you as much as we need her.”

The girl said nothing as she stared at the ceiling. Stretched out on the bed, her curly black hair was almost dry, and she wore a pink T-shirt in place of the one that had been soaked with milk. Her faded jeans still bore a few milk splatters, and in spite of her simple attire, there was no way for her to disguise the fact that her jeans were expensive, and her T-shirt was designer. She had an elegant polish that made it clear she was an upper-middle-class kid.

Soleil felt her pain, but she couldn’t help but sympathize with Angelique, too. It was hard for such an idealistic kid to understand how the world could dole out disparities in life to people who’d done no more than be born to unlucky circumstances.