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ulcers, a bit wishy-washy and a softy at heart.
    Inggy swooped down and hugged me tightly. “My friend,” she said.
    “No, my friend,” I said.
    When the music stopped, Lauralynn Figuero, captain of our lame squad, shouted “Hey! You!” and we got into a line for attitude time.
    “Hey you,” we sang, pointing our fingers at the school across the field and shaking our hips.
    “Hey you, sitting over there
you’d better get your ass right out of that chair,
because I’m telling you once
and you better beware
we’re gonna fuck you right on up,
WE’RE-GONNA-FUCK-YOU-RIGHT-ON-UP,
we’regonnafuckyourightonup.”
    We danced, lifting our skirts and shaking our asses at the band as we shouted the chorus once again. No one paid attention to us, and we started knocking into each other, moving in cranky, drunken circles. The sky looked like it was ready to break open.
    Ben sat on the bench with ice on his leg, scanning the crowd as he chewed on a pretzel. He was a middle linebacker and one of my favorite people. Once he was my boyfriend for ten days until all the fun went out of it. Pamela Zlotkin, who stood in the bleachers with the drill team, waved to him and mouthed his name. Rumor was her parents spent a thousand dollars to send her to modeling school. Shewas no better-looking now; she was still an attractive girl in a horsey kind of way, and like a caribou she migrated in a herd to the water fountain, cafeteria line, wall mirror outside of the gym. She wasn’t a friend of mine but she was all right, I supposed.
    The rain started lightly. I felt it on the top of my head and the rim of my ears. Some kids in the band opened umbrellas. My muscles were tight and cold, and I kicked my leg up alongside my body to stretch it out. I did a sloppy back handspring and muddied my hands. I was restless and numb at the same time, and I let the rain soak me. From where I stood I counted three guys in the bleachers I’d slept with, another leaning on the fence. Then I counted Ben sitting on the sidelines and even Kipper Coleman, the waterboy, because he was kind of cute in a goofy way. I moved in half a circle and counted two more guys on the field and the assistant to the assistant coach, who didn’t really count because I only gave him a blow job. Then I lost count. I rubbed on cherry lip gloss, blinking into the rain. I’d never been in love. I wondered about love and was there a right love and a wrong love—was getting naked with a cute boy and watching his eyes soften and feeling my heart pound high in my chest—was that a little like the real thing?
    Yesterday, with one hand, Ben had swept his bed clean of socks and sweats and CDs. I stood naked beside him looking down at my breasts, feeling good.The small of his back was pimply; I touched him there as I had many times, and then we snuggled on the same warm and funky-smelling pillow, smoking what was left of a joint. It didn’t make me high, but it made me laugh inside my head for about thirty seconds. Ben’s mom, Connie, was coming home soon, and together the three of us would eat spaghetti and meatballs. The Stones sang in the background.
    I placed my palm over Ben’s heart and felt it beating there, strong and quick, rising up to meet my hand. A boy’s heart, I thought. The dark blue light of dusk filled the room. I kissed his collarbone, running my fingers over his chest until he leaned down and took my face between his hands. He looked at me hard, not like he thought I was pretty, but as if he were memorizing me. I let him look at me like that until I started to feel ugly. “Hey,” I said, squirming.
    He blinked, smiled, then kissed my forehead, my nose, my cheeks, my lips. “I like you, Dani,” he whispered.
    “I know,” I said.
    After the football game, Inggy and I walked the few blocks to my house, where we napped in my twin bed, sleeping head to feet. Later as we woke, untwisting ourselves from the sheets, we were crabby and raccoon-eyed with heads of