Not that J.P. is that kind of boy, Mom hastened to explain. But you never know. He might turn into one. The prom does funny things to boys.

I had to try really hard to keep a straight face the whole time she was talking, because I took Health in tenth grade so I already know boys won't explode if they don't have s.e.x. There was also the small fact that what she was talking about was SO NEVER GOING TO HAPPEN IN A MILLION YEARS.

Except, of course, the day before yesterday, it actually kind of sort of was, since having s.e.x with J.P. after the prom had been my idea in the first place.

So, she did have a point. Not, of course, that I was going to have s.e.x with him anymore. At least, if there was the slightest chance that I could get out of it, which, of course, there was. By just saying no. Which I had every intention of doing.

Although I really didn't want to hurt his feelings.

I really wished I could ask her how I could do that, but then, of course, she'd know I'd been thinking about Doing It, and there was no way on G.o.d's green earth I was bringing THAT up, even though, of course, she was.

Then Mom went on to say that the prom does funny things to girls, too, and that although she knew that I'm a very different kind of girl than she'd been when she'd been a teen (back in the eighties, when no one had ever heard of abstinence, and Mom had lost her virginity at the age of fifteen to a boy who'd later gone on to marry a Corn Princess), she hoped that if I got carried away tonight-though she'd prefer it if I didn't-I'd at least practice safe s.e.x.

"Mo-o-om," I said, cringing with embarra.s.sment. Because this is the only appropriate response to such a statement.

"Well," Mom said. "Give us parents some credit, Mia. When you come straggling home after breakfast the day after the prom, we all know where most of you have been, and it isn't an all-night bowling alley."

Busted!

"Mom," I said, in a different voice. "I-er-uh-okay. Thanks."

Thank G.o.d the buzzer just went off. Here he is.

And here I go.

Saved by the bell.

Literally.

Or not.

I really don't know, actually.

I can do this. I can totally do this.

Sat.u.r.day, May 6, 9 p.m., the Waldorf-Astoria, ladies' room I can't do this.

Don't get me wrong, J.P. is being totally sweet. He even got me a corsage-just like he said he would-to wear on my wrist.

Fortunately Grandmere remembered to get J.P. a boutonniere (I never thought I'd be so grateful to her), since I completely forgot. Mom got a lot of pictures of me pinning it onto his lapel.

Which wasn't too embarra.s.sing, or anything.

I guess she can be like normal moms, when she wants to.

Anyway, we got here-I managed to act pretty normal on the ride over, not giving away that I'd been making out with my ex-boyfriend yesterday-and the room is beautiful. The Waldorf-Astoria ballroom is gorgeous, with its huge high ceilings and lusciously set, foofy tables and sumptuous decor and thick carpets. The prom committee outdid themselves with the welcome signs and the AEHS memorabilia and the DJ and whatnot.

And J.P. is totally into it. I mean, I thought I used to be into it, back when I was a freshman and I lived and breathed prom, prom, PROM!

But J.P. loves it. He wants to dance every single dance. He ate every bit of his chicken (rubbery, just as I suspected) and he ate mine, too (I'm a flexatarian, but not that flex). He brought his digital camera, and he's taken 8,000 pictures-we're all at a big table together, Lana and her date (a Westpointer, in full uniform), and Trisha and Shameeka with theirs, and Tina and Boris, and Perin and Ling Su and some guys they dug up somewhere for the benefit of their parents. Every five minutes, J.P. is like, "Smile!"

Which isn't so bad. But as we were coming in, he made me stop and pose for the paparazzi with him outside the hotel (which...I'm trying to understand. I mean, first Blue Ribbon...then my party...then his play...now the prom. Is it just me or is it like TMZ has LoJack on my boyfriend?).

But that's not the worst part. Not by a long shot. Oh, no. The worst part is, the boys at the table were all bragging about what hotel rooms they'd gotten for after prom (which, no offense, but except for J.P. and maybe Boris, I happen to know the GIRLS all made the hotel room reservations), and showing off their keys, and J.P. whipped his Waldorf key out like it was nothing-right in front of everybody.

I wanted to die. I mean, I don't even know Lana's, Trisha's, and Shameeka's dates! Can we not show a little discretion? Especially since- Wait a minute.

How did J.P. get a room at the Waldorf when Tina said the hotel was sold out so many weeks ago? And J.P. only called this past week?

Sat.u.r.day, May 6, 10 p.m., Waldorf-Astoria, table ten I just marched back up to our table and asked J.P. about the hotel reservation.

And he told me, "Oh, I called, and they had a room. It was no problem. Why?"

But when I asked Tina what she thought about it later, after J.P. had gone to get me some punch, she said, "Well, I guess...maybe...they had a cancellation?"

But wouldn't they have had a waiting list?

And how could J.P. have been at the top of the waiting list, calling that day?

Something just didn't seem right about his answer. It's not that I don't trust J.P. But that...that seemed weird to me.

So I went to my source for all evil and duplicitous scheming (now that Lilly is basically out of my life): Lana.

She stopped sucking face with her date long enough to go, "Duh. He must have made the reservation months ago. He was obviously planning on getting with you tonight all along. Now go away, can't you see I'm busy?"

But that can't possibly be true. Because J.P. and I never even discussed the possibility of having s.e.x tonight-until I texted him about it the other day. We've never even gotten to second base before! Why would he a.s.sume I'd want to have s.e.x on prom night? He didn't even ask me to go to the prom until last week. I mean, isn't making a reservation for a hotel room on our prom night without even having asked me to go to the prom a little bit...presumptuous?

So. Yeah. I started freaking out. Just a little. About that. I mean, could J.P. really have been planning, all this time, for us to have s.e.x tonight? When we've never even talked about it?

The thing is...I can tell by his play and all that he's planning on marrying me and becoming a prince someday. He even called his play A Prince Among Men. So...it's not like he doesn't plan for the future. He's even gotten me a gigantic ring.

And maybe it isn't an engagement ring.

But it's the next closest thing.

And that's not all. When we were dancing just now, I said, just casually commenting, really, because it's something I've been thinking about since my close call with the carriage ride yesterday, "J.P., do you think it's weird how everywhere you and I go together, the paparazzi show up? Like tonight, for instance?"

And J.P. said, "Well, it's good press for Genovia, don't you think? Your grandmother's always saying every time you appear in the papers, it's like a free tourism ad for your country."

And I said, "I guess. But it's just strange because they show up so randomly. Like when I went to Applebee's the other night with Mamaw and Papaw, I was terrified the paps were going to show up and get a shot of me. And that would have ruined Dad's chances in the election. Can you imagine if TMZ or whoever had gotten a shot of me eating in an Applebee's? But they didn't."

And they didn't show up yesterday, when I was in the old-timey horse carriage with Michael. But I didn't add that part out loud. Obviously.

"I just don't get how sometimes they know where I'm going to be, and sometimes they don't," I went on. "I know Grandmere's not tipping them off. She's evil, but she's not that evil-"

J.P. didn't say anything. He just kept holding me close and dancing.

"In fact," I said. "They mostly only seem to show up when I'm with...you."

"I know," J.P. said. "It's so annoying, isn't it?"

Yeah. It is. Because it only started happening, really, when I started going out with J.P. My very first date with J.P., when we went to see Beauty and the Beast together. That was the first time the press got a shot of us, coming out of the theater, looking like a couple, even though we weren't.

I'd always wondered who'd called and told them we were there together. And every other subsequent date we'd gone on, many of which there'd been no way they could have known about in advance-like when we'd gone to Blue Ribbon Sushi the other night. How had they known about that, a casual sushi date around the corner from my house? I go out to eat around the corner from my house all the time, and the paps never show up.

Unless J.P. is there.

"J.P.," I said, looking up at him in the blue and pink party lights. "Are you the one who's been calling the paps and telling them where they can find us?"

"Who, me?" J.P. laughed. "No way."

I don't know what it was. Maybe it was that laugh...which sounded just slightly nervous. Maybe it was the fact that after all this time, he still hadn't read my book. Maybe it was the fact that he'd put that s.e.xy dancing scene in his play, for everyone to laugh at. Or maybe it was the fact that his character, J.R., seemed to want to be a prince so very, very badly.

But somehow, I just knew: That "No way" was J.P. Reynolds-Abernathy IV's Big Fat Lie Number One. Actually, make that Number Two. I think he was lying about the hotel room reservation, too.

I couldn't stop staring at him, gazing down at me with that nervous smile on his lips.

This, I thought, wasn't the J.P. I knew. The J.P. who didn't like it when they put corn in his chili and who kept a creative writing journal that was a Mead composition notebook exactly like all of mine and who'd been in therapy for way longer than I had. This was some different J.P.

Except it wasn't. This was the exact same J.P.

Only I knew him better now.

"I mean," J.P. said, with a laugh. "Why would I do that? Call the paparazzi on myself?"

"Maybe," I said, "because you like seeing yourself in the paper?"

"Mia," he said, looking down at me with the same nervous smile on his face. "Come on. Let's just dance. You know what? I heard a rumor we might get voted prom king and queen."

"My foot hurts," I said. This was a lie. But for once, I didn't feel guilty about it. "These are new shoes. I think I have to sit down a minute."

"Oh, no," J.P. said. "I'll go see if I can find you a Band-Aid. Stay here."

So J.P. is looking for a Band-Aid.

And I'm trying to figure this out.

How could J.P.-J.P., who is so big and blond and good-looking, the guy with whom I have so much in common, the guy everyone liked so much better for me than Michael-be someone it turns out I may have nothing in common with at all?

It can't be possible. It can't be.

Except...what was Dr. Knutz talking about the other day?

His story about his horse, Sugar. The thoroughbred, who looked so good on paper, but in whose saddle he could never find a comfortable place? Dr. Knutz had to give up Sugar, because he never wanted to ride her, and it wasn't fair to Sugar.

I get it now. I so get it.

Some people can seem perfect...everything about them can, on paper, be just right.

Until you get to know them. Really know them.

Then you find out, in the end, while they might be perfect to everyone else, they just aren't right for you.

On the other hand...

What's so wrong about a guy who loves his girlfriend getting a hotel room for the two of them on prom night, months in advance? Oh, big crime.

So he screwed up with the play? If I ask him to, I'm sure he'd change it. I- Oh my G.o.d. There's Lilly.

She's in black from head to toe. (Well, so am I, actually. Only somehow I don't think I look like a trained a.s.sa.s.sin, the way she does.) She's heading for the ladies' room.

Okay, I think this might const.i.tute stalking. But I'm going in after her. She dated J.P. for six months.

If anyone will know if my boyfriend's a great big phony, she will. Whether or not she'll even speak to me is another story.

But Dr. Knutz did say, when I figured out what the right thing to do was, I'd do it.

I really hope this is it....

Sat.u.r.day, May 6, 11 p.m., the Waldorf-Astoria,

ladies' room

Okay. I'm shaking. I have to stay in here until my knees stop trembling long enough for me to stand up again. For now I'm just going to sit here on this little velvet settee and try to write this down so it makes some kind of sense- In any case...

I guess I finally know why Lilly was so mad at me for so long.

I walked into the bathroom and there she was putting bright red lipstick on in the mirror.

It looked exactly like blood.

She glanced at my reflection and sort of raised her eyebrows.

But I wasn't going to back off, even though my heart was pounding. Grant me the courage to change the things I can.

I checked to make sure we were the only people in the room. We were. And then I went, to her reflection, before I could lose my nerve, "Is J.P. a total fake, or what?"

She very calmly put the lid back on her lipstick and slipped it into her evening clutch. Then she said with an expression of total disgust, turning around to look me in the eye, "Took you long enough."

I won't say it was like she plunged a knife into my chest, or anything dramatic like that. Because the part of me that used to think I loved J.P. had stopped thinking that as soon as I spilled the hot chocolate on Michael last week, and I realized that whole loving J.P. thing had just been wishful thinking. I mean, I guess I could have trained myself to fall in love with J.P. eventually, if Michael Moscovitz had never come back from j.a.pan and then been so nice to me and made me realize I'd never fallen out of love with him.