I try not to unfold the note too quickly or look like I'm scared.

Liliana, Congratulations on the play. I'll see you at rehearsal.

-Paolo.

That's all. I flip it over to look at the other side. There's nothing there, nothing about my dad, nothing at all. I let out a big, slow breath. Why do I expect everything to be bad all the time? Maybe, just maybe, I've figured this Paolo guy wrong. I chew on the end of my pen, make little bite marks in the white plastic. I write thanks on the other side of the paper and try to think of something else to say, but all I can some up with is: Are you in it too? What's your character?

And then I decide that sounds too dorky: What's your character? Like I'm a psychologist or something trying to discern whether he "deviates from the norm." Olivia says we all deviate from the norm, that there is no norm. She wants to be a psychologist and work with incarcerated sex offenders. She says they are the toughest to heal, and she likes challenges.

I know there's no way; that they can't be healed. I don't tell her that, though. Then she'd want to know how I knew, and some things I just can't tell.

I fold up the piece of paper that has Paolo's note and my stupid response on it and stuff it in my pocket. I'll show it to Nicole later so that she can analyze his writing. I take out a new clean sheet of paper, wasteful and bad for the environment but I won't tell Sasha, and write: Thanks. Why will I see you there?

I fold it up and put the note on the floor and kick it to the girl next to me. She pushes it past her right shoe and then gives it a good shove with her left so that it skitters across the linoleum floor and plops right against Paolo's white Nike sneaker. He reaches down and grabs it. It's always hazardous passing notes this way. You never know when someone might not want to play along, and snatch it up and read it themselves even if their name isn't on it. People can be like that. The creeps.

Pretty soon the note comes thudding back to me. Beneath my two sentences he has written: I'm in it too. Looking forward to it!

I smile, wonder at what the exclamation point means, and then decide to forget it and just reread the Flannery O'Connor story we were assigned for English. It will help me not think about things, like whether or not I'll suck at being Nellie, and whether or not that cute Tyler Reed boy is in love with Sasha and if I should tell Nicole, and whether or not Mike O'Donnell will be there when I get home, and whether or not my sister will tell my mother that she's about to be a grandma.

After study hall Paolo rushes up next to me and smiles.

"Hi," I say.

"Hi."

We walk through the door together and bump sides. Something in me goes all electric-sockety.

Paolo says, "Sorry."

"It's okay."

He bumps me again on purpose, teasing. "Sorry."

I bump him back.

"Oops!" I fake apologize and make my eyes all big the whole time, thinking, I am flirting. I am flirting with Paolo.

We keep walking and he bumps me one more time, which is just rich. "So, you're a lead."

"Yeah. Are you?"

Paolo laughs. "I'm just Sailor #5 or something."

"You'll be a great sailor #5," I say.

"Thanks."

"Really."

"I'm cool with it. I've never even been in a play before. So, you know, it'll be an experience." He blushes again when he looks at me. His cheeks are a little stubbly. I want to touch them and see if they feel like sandpaper.

Instead I say, "I was surprised you tried out."

"Because?"

"Because I kind of think of you as a jock. I know that's wrong."

"People think running is all I do."

"Yeah, sort of. That's wrong obviously."

He just laughs and shakes his head, which makes me feel like a total idiot. We bump by some people. Paolo says in a lower voice, "So, um, I saw you talking to Sasha and Stuart."

"Yeah. They got leads too."

"I know. I was wondering ..."

I shoulder up for it because I'm so ready to hear him ask it. Even though my stomach is falling out of my body and the world is woozy, I am so ready to hear him ask me about Sasha. Of course, he must like Sasha. That's probably why he tried out for the play and everything.

I miss what he says.

"What?"

He moves his books to his other arm and leans in closer to me so I'll hear him. "I was wondering if you and Stuart had something going on?"

"Something going on?" I choke and laugh and choke at the same time.

Paolo snaps back to standing all rigid tall. "What?"

"It's just so funny. Back in seventh grade, he asked me to this CCD dance."

"In the basement of St. Elizabeth Seton?"

"Yeah."

"Those always sucked," Paolo said. "My mom would chaperone."

"Yeah," I say. "This one was my worst. Stuart and I danced a couple of times."

"And?"

And he even got hard, down there and everything, which was embarrassing, and I kept trying to move away from him when we were dancing so that no one would see, but he kept moving closer and brushing it up against me. I do not tell Paolo this.

Instead, I tell Paolo, "So, after a while I said I was tired and I sat on one of the metal folding chairs by the bathroom. He sat down next to me and said, in that real dramatic way of his, moving his chair so it was right across from me and everything. And he goes, 'Liliana, let's face it neither of us are winners in the looks department, but we're smart and funny and I think we should make do with each other, because I can't see us getting anything better.'"

Paolo stops walking. "No, he didn't."

"He really said that. My first date." My heart thumps heavy and hard just thinking about it. "I should not be telling you this."

"He's an idiot."

I cover my eyes with my hand. "I can't believe I'm telling you this."

"No. I'm glad you told me. But he's obviously an idiot."

I wave his words away. "It's not a big deal. The point is that Stuart and I are definitely not a thing. We will never be a thing. Ever."

We're standing outside New England History class. Nicole's inside at her desk, mouth wide open, staring at us.

"I should go in," I say. "You're going to be late."

The bell rings.

Paolo laughs. "Yep."

He grabs my arm with his free hand just as I'm turning. "Lily. Stuart is an idiot."

"Yeah." I shrug. I stare at Paolo's fingers that are so thick and different from my fingers. He's touching my arm. My arm! "I know."

He swallows. He squeezes my arm just a tiny bit and lets go. "You are definitely a quote-unquote winner in the looks department."

He smiles a tiny smile and my mouth drops open. He laughs, touches my chin so I know it's happened. I clamp my mouth closed. Oh my God. I am so played out. He pivots away and he's gone, moving between people like he was never there.

Once I get to my classroom I slam into my seat while Nicole stares at me.

Truth is, I can still remember the sound my metal chair made when it scraped across the floor at that stupid dance. It was a sound like a scream. I ran into the bathroom and hit the stall with my hand. Bang. Bang. Bang. It was cold. Then a mother came in, Stuart's mother actually, and asked if everything was okay.

"Yes," I'd said, cradling my throbbing hand, trying not to smell the pee/mold smell of the bathroom, trying not to cry. "Just practicing my boxing."

Then I smiled a good movie star smile. You'd have been proud.

I'd never lied in a Catholic church before. Although it was technically just the bathroom. Nicole says I'm much better looking now than I was in seventh grade. I know I'm a lot skinnier, not as skinny as Nicole or Sasha because I have breasts, but I don't have any of that baby fat crap any more. I hate how they call it baby fat. When you're in seventh grade, you are not a baby.

Wow. Did Paolo really say I was a "winner in the looks department"? Because that is so cheeseball and so, so, good.

Sometimes I like to imagine I'm out in the prairie and there's no one but me. I scan the long grass. I look for the eagles soaring overhead. It's quiet. It smells like sage and tumbleweed, but then this new smell wafts in from the west. It's the smell of fear. I pull out my gun. Nothing is ever as it seems. Right, Mr. Wayne? Inside a whole lot of people is an awful ball of hurt that just gets bigger every time they swallow. It just wedges inside a little bit more. No matter how much ice cream you get during a day, no matter how many parts you win, you know that at the end of the day, you're gonna have to go back home and there's gonna be a tough hombre waiting there for you. That's why you always ride with your pistol at your side.

Saddle up.

In New England History class, Mary Bilodeau actually turns around and says to me, "I heard you got the lead. You're so cool."

I smile at her. What else can I do?

She stares at me for a while. The way Nicole stares at Tyler Reed, aka Fire Man.

I mumble, "Thank you."

She keeps staring. Next to me, Katie Igsalis starts to giggle. Carly Bernhardt looks at me and smiles like she knows how it feels. Mary followed Carly everywhere. When Carly asked to go to the bathroom, Mary would ask to go a minute afterwards and sneak into the stall next to her and listen to her pee. Carly said she would have told her off if she didn't feel so bad for her. How can you tell off someone like Mary?

You just can't. There's a code a person's got to live by, and telling off the needy breaks that code.

"Mary," I say as nicely as I can. "Mr. Johnson's coming. You better turn around before he gives you detention."

She looks panicked.

She smiles at me real quick and says, "We're wearing the same shirt."

I look. We are. Only mine fits and hers is real big, like she's trying to cover up all her troubles in it.

"We're twins," Mary says.

Because there is nothing else I can do, I nod.

Katie Igsalis giggles again and Mr. Johnson comes in.

Mary sits forward again, but I can still smell her: chicken soup with way too much garlic, cheap jasmine soap and perfume from China.

I try to see how long I can go without breathing. It isn't long enough, and every time I gulp a breath I gulp in Mary.

At lunch Nicole grabs me by the shoulders and says, "What are we going to do?"

"About what?"

"About the musical," she says, shaking her head like I'm a supreme idiot.

"I got the part," I tell her and glance away. Travis Poppins and her brother are at the next table trying to burp the alphabet. They are on H.

"I know! Now, what are we going to do?" Nicole drops her arms and slams herself down on the bench at the cafeteria table.

I shake my head.

"Lily! Can you belch the alphabet?" Travis Poppins shouts at me.

I look at him. "No, but you make me want to vomit the alphabet."

He rolls his eyes and starts over from A.

I put down my books and sling my legs over the bench and watch Nicole. I kick at the air, since my feet don't touch the ground. She's laughing. Then she turns back to me. "This is a really big deal. This is identity-crisis big-time stuff. You are going to be a theater geek forever."

This just annoys me.

"I will not."

She nods. "Forever."

I check my pocket for a dollar. It's time to get away and get a bagel. "Sometimes you don't know what you're talking about."

She stares at me as I stand up. She doesn't have to look up far because I'm so short.