Then I ate the first of what would turn into countless dinners at Sarah's house with her family. Her parents were mellower than mine, not low involvement exactly, but laid back. When they asked questions, they weren't the kind my parents asked, probing, social, embarra.s.sing. They were like, what we thought of health care reform. Literally.

They called us when the pasta was almost ready, asked us to make a salad, but didn't boss us about how. I spun lettuce in a plastic white spinner while Sarah sliced red peppers into slivers. She made sure to cut all the white stuff out of the insides, and washed off every seed, then cored a tomato and chopped it into pieces as tiny and even as jewels. Sarah's a meticulous person, that's the funny thing about her. You wouldn't have thought so to look at her, because of her whole ripped fishnets thing, but even those were artfully constructed. She tore them up herself, deciding first exactly where the holes would go and then cultivating them. Whenever the tears were the wrong size, or in the wrong places, or just too numerous, she threw the tights out.

Goth Sarah's dad was a pale blond giant, lumbering around the kitchen in a friendly way, joking and small-talking while he handed stemless mushrooms to Ann. He threw the stems out, washed the cutting board, wiped the counter, and opened a bottle of red wine, saying he would "let it breathe" on the counter. He surprised me by putting five winegla.s.ses on the table. Apparently, Sarah and her pimply, totally silent, chess-playing brother were adult enough to have wine. As soon as I met Josh, I thought he would benefit by meeting Sam, even though Sam was younger by at least a year. Sam wasn't cool either, but he was so much cooler than Josh that it was sad.

We all sat sipping wine and eating pasta and salad while her parents talked about politics and a trip they were planning to South Africa for Christmas. They both taught at U of M, her dad history and her mom environmental science. It turned out her little brother was an actual chess nerd genius of some sort, so they spent part of the evening planning out a tournament they were taking him to in October, while he scarfed his food like a wolf and then bolted from the table without saying a word. Sarah asked if we could be excused, and we went back to her room and watched old Michael Jackson videos on YouTube until it was time for me to go, when she drove me home in her mom's car. I was interested that they let her, considering we'd sipped some wine, but it had only been thimblefuls. I didn't say anything, of course. Sarah said on the way to my house that she thought her parents were about to surprise her at Christmas by giving her the car for her own, but she wasn't sure yet. She had to prove she could drive it around for a few more weeks without crashing or anything. I told her I thought my parents were going to get the pedals in our car raised soon, so I could drive too.

At home, I went straight to my bedroom, happy, the promise of my new friend and a week of D'Arts and Kyle Malanack floating above me like a pink candy cloud. It was nice to have had a distraction from thoughts of Kyle, but now that I was alone in my room, I was thrilled to be able to go back to thinking about him again, safely and quietly. I hummed Rickie Lee Jones's "Lucky Guy" while I packed homework and books in my leather backpack. Then I set out a yoga mat so I could stretch in the morning, and hung my Monday outfit up-jean skirt, red tights, and a soft, striped sweater.

The week flew. I was at least an a.s.signment ahead in every cla.s.s except AP bio, and I had so much to think about that I spent the days in a happy fantasy. Goth Sarah and I sat together every day at lunch, and on Thursday, Molly joined after volunteer-tutoring someone in precalc. D'Arts was big into "students as teachers," which meant smart people helping stupid people during lunch. When Molly arrived at lunch, she was like, "Why can't people just work harder?"

Molly thought everyone had equal talent, and whether you were good at stuff was a question of whether you were a lazy sack of s.h.i.t or not. I sometimes wondered what she thought of me. Mostly, I was glad for her company, because it was good not to spend lunches or weekends in solitary confinement or even just with Sarah anymore. I mean, even though it makes me a bad person, I was a little b.u.mmed about the whole being BFF with Sarah so fast, if I'm being totally honest about it. I still wanted to be friends with Ginger, and my friendship with Goth Sarah disqualified me for ones with girls like Ginger. Everyone the least bit glittery had lost interest in me entirely. As usual, I should have appreciated what I had when I had it. And even though it's counterintuitive, Molly made that problem better, since when she was around, there were three of us, so it was more like we were a group, and less like the two friendless freaks had found each other and latched on. Whenever Molly wasn't tutoring during lunch she sat with us and sang weird songs about food and people in our cla.s.s, and talked about who had said what in American lit and her mysterious crushes on Chris Arpent and Tim Malone, the cla.s.s fat guy.

The second time we ever hung out at lunch, she was eating tidy rows of sushi from a plastic box her mom had clearly packed and she was suddenly like, "Do you guys want to hear a poem I wrote?" So we were like, "Okay, sure," and she took a folded piece of paper out of her pocket and cleared her throat and read this crazy thing about giant spiders that live underground and come out at night to hunt and eat chickens. The poem was called "Housekeeping," because the spiders keep this pet frog who eats ants and mites and other bugs they don't like. I think her point was that even though the frog is trapped, the spiders love him, and maybe he loves them, because she ended it like, "Beloved frog, you are the definition of a pet. Eat your grief quick, keep kept."

Sarah was like, "Wow. What's that about?"

"Brazilian spiders and their pet frog," Molly said, smiling, and I couldn't tell if she was being secretive or if that was just the whole thing of it.

It was a pretty good poem. Molly was like, good at being good at everything, but also bizarre and unpopular enough not to be annoying. She had gone to a private school in Atlanta called Atlanta Girls School, and apparently her dad didn't think D'Arts was "academic enough," so he was teaching Molly history on the weekends, kind of like homeschooling. It sounded horrible to me, but Molly said her dad was a genius, that he had written four books on American history and was a practicing lawyer and taught "the law," too. Whenever Molly talked about what her dad did, she always said, "the law." She was very proud of him.

When Molly invited me and Sarah over for a sleepover, we consulted and then said yes. Molly's house was kind of like mine, except bigger and fancier. There were papers and pieces of mail on all the surfaces in the study and kitchen, but they were stacked neatly. And the living room was completely, fanatically clean, with a white couch and some expensive-looking lamps and gla.s.s sculptures on the shelves and tables. But the den was full of stuffed bookshelves and soft chairs. Molly's mom was in the kitchen, cooking complicated Thai food and wearing high heels. When we were upstairs, Molly said her mom was a "housewife," and Goth Sarah, unable to refrain, was like, "Um, I think, it's 'homemaker' or 'stay-at-home mom,' " and Molly shrugged. "My mom says 'housewife,' " she said, and Sarah managed to keep quiet, although later, when Molly went to the bathroom and we were alone, she told me she thought Molly's frog poem was actually about her mom. I wasn't sure.

Molly's dad came home while we were all eating shrimp curry and cuc.u.mber salad. He was very tall and formal, wearing a suit and a scarf. He had a man bag, too, that might have been a purse on someone else, but I couldn't imagine anyone making fun of Molly's dad.

"Hi, Robert," Molly said to him. Sarah and I looked at each other with wide eyes. Meanwhile, Molly's seven-year-old sister, Susanna, leapt up and knocked her chair over backwards to get to him, shouting, "Daddy!" He kissed her h.e.l.lo, then took his coat off, loosened his tie, and came over and kissed Molly and her mom on the tops of their heads. At dinner, he asked Goth Sarah and me about D'Arts and our life goals. Molly's mom, whom Molly called Barbara, asked a bunch of questions too, mostly about what we were reading. She had read everything. I felt nervous, like I was at a job interview or something, because her parents were so dressed up and intense. I longed for my house, where my mom danced around the kitchen in her socks and Sam put his feet on the table and made airplanes and "food people" out of potatoes and chicken legs. Maybe Molly was worried that we might be uncomfortable, because we all ate fast, excused ourselves, and went upstairs. Molly's room was cream and maroon, with a painting that looked like two giant boxes of color stacked on top of each other. She didn't have the embarra.s.sing baby-room problem Sarah and I did. Maybe because she had moved here recently. Or maybe she was born a grown-up and her first words were Barbara and Robert instead of Mama and Dada. Or my first word, which, to my mom's great delight and pride, was ood, or Judy. My mom says this was because I always knew exactly who I was.

Molly's sister, Susanna, wanted to hang out with us all night. She was clearly weirded out by me, and made a lot of references to how high she could reach, maybe wanting to say that she was taller than me but realizing that it would be rude. Their mom made her put on Disney princess pajamas at 8:00, but said she could stay up until 9:00, and Molly painted her nails sparkly pink and let her play until their mom came to get her, so it was their mom's fault and not Molly's. Molly never said anything impatient or made her leave, even though we kind of would've been happier talking about D'Arts and whatnot. I liked Molly for being nicer to her sister than she was to us-that was right of her, you know? Even when Susanna finally stopped hinting about how she could get a book from the highest shelf and asked Molly straight out, "Why is Judy so short?" Molly didn't scold her. She just said, "You should ask Judy." So Susanna looked over and I said, "That's how I was born," and she accepted it the way kids do. Kids like facts.

I looked over at Goth Sarah and Molly to see if they were like, looking at each other with pity for me, but they weren't. They didn't even seem to think it was a big deal or that I might not like having it come up like that. They had a lot of faith in me.

Sunday morning we woke up at eleven and walked downtown. I'm probably not the first human being to have noticed that being in a herd is better than being alone and having to gnaw your leg off to escape your own loneliness. But I felt strange that morning, anxious to go home and be alone for real. Maybe because sometimes loneliness happens precisely when you're with people who should make you unlonely.

It was freezing out, so we went to a cafe, and while we were waiting to order, this old lady came up and asked Molly for help. At first I didn't get why she did it, but Molly knew immediately, the way I know when someone's about to be like, "Oh, aren't you cute," to me. She a.s.sumed Molly worked there, and Molly was polite about it; she just pointed to where the counter was, so the old lady could see the person you're supposed to order from-a blond girl in an ap.r.o.n. And the old lady kind of knew to be embarra.s.sed, because she said, "Oh! I'm sorry, I thought you were helping these two," and pointed at Sarah and me. We weren't sure whether to be, like, horrified or apologize on behalf of the old lady, or what, but as soon as she was out of earshot, Molly was like, "Can I get you two anything? Ma'am? Ma'am? How can I help you?" to me and Sarah and we laughed, part politely, part for real since Molly was very funny about it.

After we sat and drank cocoa for a little while, I was finally like, "Well, I gotta get home," or something equally unconvincing and lame, so we all got up. Then, on our way out, we saw Mr. Luther, our long-suffering precalc teacher, run by. He was wearing yellow terry-cloth shorts with running tights underneath and a sweatshirt that said, "Team-Building Math Camp 1996." Before we could pretend not to see him, he waved. We all waved back. And no one said anything mean, even after he jogged away with his shorts riding up so high he looked like he was naked. Maybe simply because it would have been too easy. And all I can say about that morning is-how did we three know instinctively where the lines are between being funny and being brutal? I mean, why is it that everywhere I look, other people seem to be crossing those boundaries constantly? Jumping, falling, leaping over the line from banter into cruelty. Sometimes it's on purpose and other times it's by accident, but in any case, people savage each other. Maybe because they can't help it.

6 Sarah's parents were going to be out of town for her gangly brother's chess tournament, so she decided to have a Halloween party at her house. Every day after senior voice, she came to discuss the details, who we would invite (it would be open, we finally decided, that was cooler), whether we'd decorate (a little, not so much that we were like in sixth grade), who would get drinks (we'd have to rely on Chad, who had a fake ID and older friends in the fraternity he was rushing at Michigan). Molly joined in on these conversations, partly because she wanted to help with the party, and partly because she liked showing up at SV so she could see Chris Arpent. She was pretty brave about it, often came right over and was like, "Hey, Chris," even when he was standing with Carrie and Amanda and Alan. I would never have done that; I could barely bring myself to wave to Carrie, even after she was nice to me that one time.

The other funny thing about Molly was that she always came by right before her karate cla.s.s downtown, and she preferred to change in the D'Arts locker room, so she was usually already in her white pants and jacket with her yellow belt tied all tight around her waist. To say that I would never, ever, in several hundred thousand light-years have put on a karate costume and bounced up to Chris Arpent in the hallway, and been like, "Hi, Chris! Look at me in my tight white suit. I'm on my way to practice an East Asian art you probably think is a cartoon, and now that I'm leaving, you'll likely do that stupid thing guys do where they lip-sync bad dubbing while faking kung fu" is the biggest understatement of all time. But that's not how Molly thought of it. I once asked, gently, if she thought those guys made fun of her karate costume.

"It's not a costume," she told me.

"Well, your whatever, suit."

"Why would I care?"

She said this in a totally matter-of-fact way, not even defensively. She actually genuinely didn't care if they made fun of her or not. I considered calling my mom and dad Peggy and Max, and asking them to homeschool me on the weekends, so I could be above the fray too. Needless to say, I never brought up Molly's karate outfit again, except to congratulate her when she graduated to a green belt. And then, amazingly, one day Molly ran by SV, wearing the green belt, and Chris was like, "Moving up in the world, huh, Moll? Don't kick my a.s.s, you green belt, you." And she gave me a big I-told-you-so grin.

Every day after Molly left, Goth Sarah walked me down to the practice rooms. Then she did homework in the library while I practiced, and drove me to the Grill. She had nothing else to do after school and needed the extra driving practice since she was still showing her parents she could drive their car without crashing. I kind of missed having my mom and dad pick me up at school, but they liked it when I showed up with Sarah, because it made me seem like a popular teenager or something, so it was okay for all of us. And I was cool enough not to insist that my parents keep picking me up once I had a friend who could drive and offered to take me every day.

The night of our big party was one of those terrible subzero Halloweens that always happen in Ann Arbor. I felt sorry for all the little kids trying to trick-or-treat with their parkas ruining their costumes. When Chad and I were kids we used to try to come up with costumes that involved parkas-Michelin man, cloud, fat person, cotton candy. Weak, I know, but otherwise we'd end up working really hard on a costume and then put a huge coat right over it.

Goth Sarah and I had already decided to dress up as s.e.xy witches, and had gone to Value World in Ypsi, where they have used dresses for like two dollars. It's hard to find s.l.u.tty black dresses since I have to shop in children's departments, so I bought a long dress and cut it off. Sarah frayed the hem for me. Molly, doing her own weird thing as usual, was going as Mulan. She pulled her curls back into a tight ponytail and wore her karate suit, which was a little uninspired considering she'd been parading around school in it. But it was kind of tight and flattering, and she had a little plastic dragon necklace that was very cute. She looked like she could scale walls and sail over bamboo forests.

We spent the afternoon carving pumpkins, burning the seeds horrifically, while Molly made up a song about carving pumpkins with her friends who were b.u.mpkins, and Sarah was like, "You're the one from the South," and Molly was like, "Atlanta is not the South, and there are way more b.u.mpkins in Michigan," and Sarah said, "Not Ann Arbor, though," and then we strung up a few orange streamers and balloons, but they looked shriveled and depressing, so we tore them down and threw them out with the incinerated pumpkin seeds. We lit candles in our pumpkins' faces, put a giant bowl of candy out for trick-or-treaters, and hung a skeleton and two bats in the window. Chad had agreed to get as much liquor as he could with the $180 Sarah and Molly and I had pooled from allowances and clothing money and babysitting and various other embarra.s.sing revenue streams. Chad had said, only half joking, that he would get us drinks only if he was invited, and I knew he meant he wanted to stay and watch out for me.

"Yes! Come and stay!" I said. "And maybe bring some of your friends?"

If Chad and his guy friends hung out there even just for a while, it would add a coolness quotient that is impossible to exaggerate. And maybe I would get some credit, since the U of M guys would be my contribution. Chad said he'd see what he could do.

I had told my parents I was sleeping at Sarah's, which was so commonplace that they didn't even think to ask whether her parents were there. This was lucky for me, because in spite of all the disastrous things I've now done, I always tried hard not to lie directly. For example, if my mom had asked straight out, "Are her parents out of town?" I would have had to say yes. And if they had asked, "Is she having a party?" I would have had to say yes to that, too, and they wouldn't have let me go. I don't know why I'm such a Goody Two-shoes in this way, but there it is. My parents have embedded in me a sense that straight-out lying is a terrible crime. Omission's just not as bad.

At seven o clock, after we'd eaten some leftover pizza and opened a bottle of Sarah's parents' wine, one we hoped wasn't too fancy, we started painting our fingernails and getting into our costumes. We were feeling very s.e.xy, standing in our stockings with our nails drying and wine staining the sides of thin-stemmed gla.s.ses. Sarah's dress was a filmy, hot pink thing, and she was wearing fishnets with seams up the backs. She put on platform shoes so enormous she looked like some kind of bizarre animal with hooves, and then, perhaps thinking I might be offended if she was literally ten feet taller than I was, she took them off. "Too hard to walk in," she said.

"Right."

"Let me see your dress," she said, and I turned to face her. I had gotten dressed in the corner of the room, and she and Molly had politely looked away while I did. Now they looked me over. The dress was quite tight around the chest, with spaghetti straps and a diving, scooped-out neckline that made me look like a mini Dolly Parton. It was short, so short that it made my legs look long, or at least longer anyway, and I had cute sheer stockings with the faint hint of white bones etched on them, a little Halloween touch that made the dress less of an obvious excuse to look hot. I planned to wear my best dress shoes, because they had the highest heels I was allowed in. I hadn't put them on yet, but I thrust my chest out.

"Don't gloat about it," Sarah said. "You look great. He'll definitely notice."

"Who?" I said, innocently.

Sarah and Molly looked at each other and rolled their eyes.

"Do you think we're both blind?" Goth Sarah said.

"Hunh?"

"I'm Kyle Malanack," Molly said, and then she half closed her eyes and batted her lashes before doing a little sleepy-looking dance, which ended with a flourish. "I am hot, hot, hot, I am tired but I'm hot. I'm your heart attack, Kyle Malanack, and I'm hot, hot, hot," she sang, thrusting her hips from side to side with each beat.

I could feel the blood rise up the roots of my hair. "That is so not him," I said.

At this, they both laughed so hard that I had to laugh too. Then Sarah looked at me seriously. "I mean, we're your friends. You can admit it."

"This is a safe s.p.a.ce," Molly joked, grabbing her wine violently and then taking a delicate sip. Molly had an odd combination of grace and raucousness in her gestures. She could do a staggeringly accurate imitation of someone's way of moving, or dance across the room so lightly it looked like she was levitating or flying-but when she reached for things, there was a high risk of her dropping or shattering them.

"Whatever, Kyle's okay, I guess," I said, shrugging.

Molly stood up on the bed, and did her Kyle Malanack dance again, but this time she said, "I'm okay, okay, okay," instead of "hot."

When she was finished, Sarah clapped. The truth is, it was a very cute dance. Then Sarah turned to me. "You have a cardiac arrest every day when he walks into American lit."

"Or the lunchroom," Molly said.

"Or the hallway," Sarah said.

"Or the bathroom."

"Enough! He's cute, Okay?" I said. Then I waited what I thought was an adequate amount of time before asking, "So, do you guys think he's coming tonight?"

Sarah began doing the Kyle Malanack dance with Molly, who was now singing, "Hey, look over here; you can't smile! You must give it up, because I'm KYLE!"

She paused to throw me a black witch hat, which I caught and put on. I looked into Sarah's mirror and twirled, so that the frayed edge of my witchy skirt blew out like Marilyn Monroe's. I felt electric, about to have a party Kyle might come to. Sarah came and joined me at the mirror, and we slathered our eyelashes with mascara and painted our lips dark red. When Molly said, "Congratulations, you look like professional hookers," we made her take a dozen pictures of us on Sarah's phone. Meanwhile, Molly demurely slipped on silver flats and wrapped her green belt around her waist.

"Why not wear a black belt?" I asked.

"Because I'm only a green belt."

"It's Halloween. The point is you get to be what you're not in real life. Do you think I'm an actual s.e.xy witch?"

"I don't feel good about wearing a black belt until I've earned one," she said.

This time Sarah and I laughed and rolled our eyes. I mean, who wants to go as a green belt for Halloween? How can anyone be that ethical?

"What will Chris think?" I asked.

"He'll think I'm about to kick his a.s.s with my hot karate," Molly said.

"And he'll be right," Sarah said.

"Do you guys know about his dad?" Molly asked us.

"What about him?" I asked.

"That he, like, totally walked out on them when Chris was a baby?"

"Really? How do you know that?" Sarah asked her.

"I overheard Carrie and some other girls talking about it, I guess. Carrie was all like, 'He's, like, abandoned, with no male role model! It's so sad!' "

"Wow," I said, "that's horrible."

"Maybe it's why he looks so tortured." Molly closed her eyes halfway and gave a little-lidded, Chris Arpent look that was pretty convincing.

I was busy putting my heels on, and when Sarah noticed this she immediately put hers back on and then we stood in the mirror for a moment, posing and flexing our calf muscles, Chris's tragic childhood already a distant memory. By the time Chad pulled up, I was lightheaded from half a gla.s.s of wine. He was with Phil, whom Chad introduced as "the Philster," and Santana, two friends from his frat. They were wearing Michigan sweatshirts and baseball hats backwards, and I thought about how stupid and obvious that was and then remembered that we were "s.e.xy witches," and wondered if they thought that was stupid and obvious. Of course, we didn't have names like Philster and Santana. Guys always have stupid nicknames.

Sarah cat-walked down the stone path in her front yard to meet them, the cold air whipping her hot pink dress up and freezing her nipples so they greeted my brother and his friends before she did. Molly and I hung back at the porch, feeling shy.

"Hi, guys!" Sarah called out, and her voice sounded amazing, and I realized how modest she was. Sarah barely talked about herself, or the fact that she was musical and talented. Until she met Chad and his friends, I'd never seen her be so forward, and it was funny, but now that she was dressed in a Halloween costume she looked more normal than she normally did in her weird goth getups. I also thought suddenly that it was a waste that she was punk at all, how if I'd been Sarah, I'd never have dressed in anything but tight jeans and T-shirts that showed off how great-looking I was. Maybe I'm shallower than she is. I mean, maybe she's making some deeper point with the way she looks than just "I'm pretty."

By eleven, the house was mobbed with people, half of whom we'd never even met. s.h.i.t was getting broken and barfed on left and right, so Sarah and Molly and I were like, super worried but also proud that our party was such a success. We had never imagined that everyone from Darcy would show, including all the senior girls, Chessie, Amanda, Carrie, and everyone. I had just seen Ginger and was making my way over to her when Kyle appeared, looking flushed, maybe from cold, or maybe he'd already had a beer.

"I'm so glad you could come!" I told Ginger. My words slurred together in a way I found attractive. I had drunk two gla.s.ses of wine, the most I'd ever had. My cheeks were hot.

"Thanks, Judy," she said. "Great party."

"What are you supposed to be?" I asked.

She was dressed in jeans and a pale blue b.u.t.ton-down blouse open almost to her chest. She had a baseball cap on, her long blondish hair hanging out the sides of it. At the opening of her shirt, her bra, also pale blue, was visible. It looked girlish-was probably one of those Calvin Klein wisps with no wire. She was impossibly tan for November.

"Um, myself," she said. She shrugged.

"If you turn the hat around, you could go as a frat guy," I told her.

She turned her hat around and smiled. I noticed she had no drink. I went to get her a wine cooler, and when I came back she was talking to Santana, gazing up into his college eyes. He had taken his cap off, but she was still wearing hers, backwards.

"Here," I said.

She reached her hand out for the drink. "Thanks, Judy. This is Santana."

"I know," I said. "He's my brother's friend. Where's Chad?"

"Dunno," Santana said, barely looking at me. "Wanna dance?" he asked Ginger. She nodded and handed me back the wine cooler. Santana led her into the pack of sweaty, grinding people and began to hump her leg. I was watching them with dismay when I realized I was standing next to Kyle. He was also looking in the direction of the dancers.

"That guy's in college," I told him.

"Pathetic," he said.

I laughed.

"Do you want to go sit somewhere?" he asked.

I looked up at him to see if he actually meant it, nodded.

I grabbed my jacket from Sarah's hall closet and we went outside, where throngs of kids were gathered on Sarah's parents' back deck even though it was literally freezing. Everyone was smoking. Kyle found two chairs in the corner, pulled them up to a dusty table no one was using.

"So what are you?" he asked, gesturing to my dress. I had left my jacket open, in case he hadn't noticed yet how cute I looked.

"A dwarf," I said.

He laughed. "You're pulling it off," he said.

Then we sat there until I thought I'd die of either awkwardness or hypothermia.

"So, uh, what are you doing for Thanksgiving?" I asked.

He shrugged, like he didn't know. "You?"

"I guess I'll spend as much time as I can with my little brother, Sam. I guess I've kinda been ignoring him because I'm too busy with voice rehearsals and schoolwork and piano lessons and stuff." I said this not only because I couldn't shut up, but also because I wanted to remind Kyle that I was in senior voice, and that I was brilliant in school. That way how could he resist me? Kyle looked at me for a weirdly long time.