* Myself & Kase Masako *

My name is Michael Goldman, and at the start of this story I was 18 years old as of that morning. I was born at 4:17 AM on the 25th of September 1986 in the maternity ward of Contoocook Valley General Hospital in Peterborough, New Hampshire, and had lived in that sleepy back country town my entire life. A long time ago Peterborough was a minor industrial center, with water powered mills and a rail line, but these days it was mostly a tourist/vacation destination and/or bedroom community for Boston, MA.

Peterborough was lucky enough to have won the right to have a full 1st-12th grade school system, including "Contoocook Valley Regional High School", (Go Wildcats!), where I was a Senior. As might be guessed by the name, Contoocook Valley Regional High School served the entire Contucook Valley, an area of some nine surrounding towns: Peterborough, Greenfield, Antrim, Dublin, Hancock, Sharon, Temple, Bennington and Francestown. This makes dating somewhat awkward for students as your boyfriend/girlfriend might live up to an hours drive away along the winding and twisty roads of the granite state. Because of this I didn't have a girlfriend at the point in time where this story is starting.

As I've said, that day was my 18th birthday, and the guests were starting to arrive: all my friends from school and work. (I'd been holding down a summer / weekends part-time job at the local video store since I turned 16.) One guest however was not someone I'd put on the list I handed to my mother for review the week before: one of Contoocook Valley's three foreign exchange students. I'd of course SEEN Kase Masako during lunch and a few other classes, but I didn't actually KNOW her.

"Mom?" I whispered, with a hand on her shoulder and leaning into her ear, "Why is Masako-Tan here, we're not friends..."

"Do you mean 'not-friends' like you don't know her that well, or 'not-friends' like you dislike each other...?" Mom whispered back.

"That first one." I replied, and Mom shrugged.

"Mrs. Masters, her guardian, asked me to invite her so she could see an American Birthday Party. Just be polite and make her feel welcome; she brought a big present." Mom finished with a shrug.

Understanding what was going on now I left the kitchen to mingle...