Kelly's life continued to be eventful, and the Ames girls had new reasons to be proud of her.

In 2009, she made national news as adviser to the newspaper at Faribault High School. The student journalists at the Echo Echo were set to report that a middle-school teacher had been removed from the cla.s.sroom and was being investigated for alleged inappropriate correspondences with a student. (There were questions about text messages the teacher sent, and she ended up resigning. Police never found evidence of wrongdoing.) were set to report that a middle-school teacher had been removed from the cla.s.sroom and was being investigated for alleged inappropriate correspondences with a student. (There were questions about text messages the teacher sent, and she ended up resigning. Police never found evidence of wrongdoing.) The superintendent demanded to see the Echo Echo story before it was printed, and when the students declined, fearing censorship, he shut down the paper. Kelly supported her students' efforts to publish their story in a local newspaper and online, and they won several awards for their work to uphold the first amendment. "People don't want kids to be taught to speak up," says Kelly. story before it was printed, and when the students declined, fearing censorship, he shut down the paper. Kelly supported her students' efforts to publish their story in a local newspaper and online, and they won several awards for their work to uphold the first amendment. "People don't want kids to be taught to speak up," says Kelly.

On the personal front, Kelly also had news.

In a scene toward the end of The Girls from Ames, The Girls from Ames, Kelly vowed to find a love that equaled what some of the other Ames girls had. And so readers, moved by her optimistic declaration, have often asked about her love life. Kelly vowed to find a love that equaled what some of the other Ames girls had. And so readers, moved by her optimistic declaration, have often asked about her love life.

The update: Kelly ended up sorting through 1,200 matches on eHarmony, none of whom interested her romantically. But then at a restaurant in her hometown of Northfield, Minnesota, she met a divorced former Marine who now works in construction. He said he graduated from Faribault High School in 1995.

"That's where I teach," Kelly told him. She was teaching there in 1995, but never had him in cla.s.s and they didn't remember each other.

"He is thirteen years younger than I am," Kelly says, "and I'm a little uncomfortable with the age difference. I really bristle at the term 'cougar.' I wasn't out prowling for someone younger. But certainly there are advantages for someone like me who wants a lover and not necessarily a full-time partner."

Kelly says that this man didn't ask her to talk about her breast cancer and her treatment until she was ready. Given that she is scarred from her surgery, she says, "I have had a difficult time feeling like a whole woman. But he has helped me feel more confident about my body. Even if our relationship runs its course and I stop seeing him, I am grateful to have spent time with such a caring, sensitive and incredibly s.e.xy man."

The Ames girls have continued to visit North Carolina to see Angela. Though she had wanted a double mastectomy, her surgeon removed only one breast. He thought it best to get her right into radiation, without risking infection on both sides, and then remove her other breast in 2010. "When they do the other mastectomy, I'll also be able to have reconstructive surgery using my belly fat," Angela told the other Ames girls. "What a bonus-a tummy tuck and a b.o.o.b job at the same time!"

Unlike Kelly, who can't bring herself to show the Ames girls what her chest now looks like, Angela has done so. She feels it helps with the healing when a woman can expose herself: This is who I am. This is what I look like. "I didn't mind showing them," Angela says. "Every woman is curious. They wonder: 'If it happened to me, what would I look like?' I wanted them to see. It actually heals nicely."

Because her cancer is very aggressive, Angela has endured sixteen weeks of chemotherapy and thirty-three radiation treatments. But she feels lucky. Unlike her mother, she was properly diagnosed and treated very quickly. She's optimistic. Before surgery she was devastated; sad and crying. "But now that it's over, I realize, you can live through it. It's not so bad."

Jenny visited Angela five times, including once with Kelly and once with Karla. On her first trip down from her home in Annapolis, Maryland, she brought her four-year-old son Jack and her two-month-old daughter Jiselle. Her plan was to cook, clean, babysit Angela's daughter Camryn, and lend a hand in whatever way she could, physically and emotionally. However, because Angela was such a gracious host, "Angela was the one doing the cooking and cleaning," Jenny says. "I was the one who needed emotional support. I needed to be there, to see Angela, to talk to her and hear her voice. I needed rea.s.surances that she would be OK. So Angela was the one who needed to be there for me."

Karen and her eleven-year-old daughter Katie, who live near Philadelphia, and Diana and her ten-year-old daughter Gabi, who live in Scottsdale, Arizona, flew to Angela's on another weekend. Katie, Gabi and Camryn became fast friends.

It wasn't planned, but the three young girls all had gifts for each other. Camryn gave Katie and Gabi pretty notepads and pens. Gabi brought board games. Katie went to a crafts store and bought yarn to make friendship bracelets.

Karen was very moved by Katie's eagerness to make those bracelets. It reminded her of the time, a decade earlier, when Christie had made friendship bracelets for the Ames girls' older children. "It just seemed so perfect, so right, like Christie was leading the way for all the younger kids," Karen said.

When the three young girls got together, they ended up making more friendship bracelets for each other. They did a lot of laughing together, too. Karen and Diana took turns driving Angela to her radiation appointments, while the other one stayed home to look after the girls.

"Camryn, Katie and Gabi had such respect for each other's feelings," Diana wrote to the other Ames girls. "It was so fun watching them play together, and heartwarming to witness Angela and Karen as the incredible mothers they are. Karen gained Gabi's trust when she needed to have her tooth pulled out, and I later saw her comforting Camryn when Angela was gone from the house, getting her radiation treatment. And I loved watching Angela teach the girls about the baby bluebirds in her backyard.

"When we got on the plane to go home, and I was putting our luggage in the overhead bin, I saw Gabi was sitting in her seat crying-and then sobbing. I a.s.sumed that maybe the woman in our row had said something that hurt her feelings, but when I asked Gabi what happened, she said she was crying because she was sorry to be leaving her new friends."

The Ames girls kept finding reasons to bring their daughters together. Sally, Kelly, Marilyn and their daughters had dinner together in Minnesota. Jane, Karla and their daughters bonded in Montana. Diana, Jenny and Karen all brought their daughters to see Angela and her daughter in North Carolina.

And so emails began flying: What if they made their 2010 gathering a mother/daughter weekend? Karen in suburban Philadelphia offered to host everyone. They could plan mother/daughter outings to Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell. They could even drive up to New York to see Wicked Wicked on Broadway. It would be a blast. on Broadway. It would be a blast.

"We'll get each of our girls a T-shirt," said Jane. "On the front of it we'll put the cover of The Girls from Ames The Girls from Ames. On the back, we'll have the words: 'The Next Generation.'"

This book began with a list of eleven names. Well, here are fourteen more: Jackie, Liesl, Emily, Hanna, Sara, Jiselle, Katie, Camryn, Katie, Lindsay, Alexa, Gabi, Maddie. And Christie.

None of them grew up in Ames, and they've always been far apart, all over the country. But all of them were born with Ames in their DNA, to mothers who've been blessed with the gifts of each other.

It sounds like the beginning of some beautiful friendships.

Acknowledgments.

When the Ames girls and I began this project, there was no road map. I knew of no man who had ever tried to immerse himself inside the friendship of eleven women. For their part, the girls had never had a journalist asking them such intrusive questions.

We mostly had a lot of fun, though at times, honestly, there were tense moments and hurt feelings. I pushed on certain fronts, making some of them uncomfortable or unhappy. Reading diaries or letters given to me by several of them, I'd learn details about the others that they hadn't intended to share. That led to debates within the group.

I watched the girls hash things out, issue by issue, and they'd almost always rally together into a united front. Though the book project became a test of their friendship, their great loyalty to each other always seemed to win out, and their friendship emerged as strong as ever. I thank them for everything they did, individually and collectively, to see this through to a finished book.

I am also grateful to their parents, siblings, spouses, children, former cla.s.smates and others in Iowa who graciously shared their memories and insights. Thanks to Lynn and Larry Zwagerman, Bernie and JoAnn Brown, Neala and Chuck Benson, Ingrid and Hugh Brady, Hanna and David Gradwohl, Hank and Kathy Bendorf, Barbara Derby, Sylvia McCormack, Meg and Vaughn Speer, John Highland, Warner Jamison, Justin Nash, Bruce Blackwood, Chris Johnson, Peggy Towner, Mary Calistro, Lynne Scribbins, Jeff Mann, Darwin and Jolene Trickle, Kevin Highland, Greg Brown, Jeff Benson, Steve Gradwohl, Polly McCormack, Jim Derks, Nancy Derks, Jim Cornette, Tom McKelvey, Jeff St.u.r.divant, Steele Campbell, Meg Schneider, Mark Walsh, Sunny Walsh, Mike Walsh, Susan Blowey, Liesl Schultz, Hanna Nash, Elwood Koelder, Carole Horowitz, Chuck Offenburger, Merle Prater, Pat Brown, Jahanshir Golchin, d.i.c.k Van Deusen and Kelly's students at Faribault High School. Special thanks to Marilyn's sister, Sara Hoffman, who offered wonderful advice throughout the reporting and writing.

At Gotham Books, I am indebted to Bill Shinker, who enthusiastically embraced the concept of this book, and to Lauren Marino, who truly nurtured it. After Lauren read an early draft of The Girls from Ames The Girls from Ames, she sent me a sixteen-page, single-s.p.a.ced memo of suggestions that was an absolutely beautiful essay about friendship; my wife even cried reading it! I am also grateful to Lauren and Bill for their support when I took a break from this book in order to coauthor The Last Lecture The Last Lecture.

I thank publicist Beth Parker for her diligence and hard work, her smart and creative promotional ideas and her constant good humor. I am equally grateful to Lisa Johnson, who expertly oversaw the book's launch, and to Brianne Mulligan, who patiently and cheerfully held my hand through editing and production.

Others at Gotham and Penguin who deserve thanks for all their efforts: Philip Budnick, d.i.c.k Heffernan, John Lawton, Adenike Olanrewaju, Susan Schwartz, Melanie Koch, Ray Lundgren, Julia Gilroy, Cara Bed.i.c.k, Gail Schimmel Friedman, Sabrina Bowers, Sarah Bergren, Rick Willett, Glenn Timony, Fred Huber, Tim McCall, Kent Anderson, Mark McDiarmid, Katya Shannon, Chris Mosley, Diana Van Vleck and the great team of sales reps, Harsh Patil, Melinda Hubik, Matthew Pavoni, Norman Lidofsky, Patrick Nolan, Don Redpath, Trish Weyenberg, Don Rieck, Sharon Gamboa, Richard Adamonis, Lisa Pannek, Ray Lundgren, Andy Dudley and Judy Moy.

I am supremely grateful to my agent Gary Morris for his friendship, his sense of humor about everything, and his advice and support at every step. Thanks also to Gary's colleagues David Black, Susan Raihofer, Leigh Ann Eliseo and David Larabell.

I am grateful to Randy Pausch for all his good wishes regarding The Girls from Ames The Girls from Ames. He knew I had set this book aside to work on The Last Lecture The Last Lecture, and he was supportive when I returned to it. Thanks to Jai Pausch, too, who read short excerpts from this book early on and was encouraging.

Thanks to photographer Teness Herman and videographer Scott MacKinnon. At The Wall Street Journal The Wall Street Journal, thanks to Neal Boudette, Mike Radakovich, Mike Miller, Eben Shapiro, Robert Sabat, Ernie Sander, John Blanton, Kelly Timon, Krishnan Anantharaman, Glenn Ruffenach, Lee Hawkins, Kate Linebaugh, Mike Spector and John Stoll.

Of course, there aren't enough words to thank "The Girls from West Bloomfield"-my wife, Sherry Margulis, and daughters Jordan, Alex and Eden-who showed me their great love and patience as this book came together. Likewise, I am grateful for the loving support of my parents Harry and Naomi Zaslow; in-laws George and Marilyn Margulis; and siblings Darrell and Sherri Zaslow, Lisa and David Segelman, and Randy and Debby Margulis.

Among friends who offered advice or read early drafts: Beth Kujawski, Fred Siegel, Jay Boyar, Mitch Gerber, Gayle Goodman, Hilary King and Miriam Starkman.

I want to acknowledge Pam Schur and her friends in Illinois, who first set me on this road to writing about friendship in the Chicago Sun-Times Chicago Sun-Times more than two decades ago. And I thank the hundreds of women who wrote to me in response to my more than two decades ago. And I thank the hundreds of women who wrote to me in response to my Wall Street Journal Wall Street Journal columns about friendship. Their warm and heartfelt emails helped me realize the power of women's friendships and led me to write this book. columns about friendship. Their warm and heartfelt emails helped me realize the power of women's friendships and led me to write this book.

As for the Ames girls themselves: I hope they all know how much I've come to admire them, and how extremely grateful I am that they shared themselves within these pages. At the reunion at Angela's house, they invited me to join them in one photo taken in the tobacco field out back. I was a bit emotional standing there with them, and I will treasure that photo. It's a picture of me with friends.