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it.” She leans over to kiss Liv’s cheek, then turns back to me.
    “J-Bear.”
    There’s no stopping her from using that nickname or from flinging her arms around my neck, burying her nose in my ear, and whispering how proud she is of me.
    Minutes pass, and she’s not letting go.
    “Mom,” I say.
    Liv has hopped out of the car and our friends are beginning to gather on the sidewalk, whispering, laughing.
    “ Mom . Everyone’s waiting.”
    Finally—and I can tell how hard this is for her to do—she tears herself away.
    A lot of my friends would be rolling their eyes by now, saying, God, Mother. There’s a reason teenagers don’t let their parents drive them to school.
    But I don’t say that. Instead I say, “It’s just another school year.”
    My mom nods, smiles a little. “I know.” She eyes the shirt I’m wearing, gauzy and white, with the lace camisole underneath—tight, but not too tight. “Are you sure you don’t want a sweater? I have a sweater in the—”
    “ Mom ,” I say.
    “OK, OK.” She holds up her hands.
    “Just . . . I’ll be fine.”
    “I know.”
    “OK?”
    She nods.
    “I’ll stop by the store tonight.”
    “Sounds good.”
    “Good,” I say, and hop out of the car to join my friends.
    My mother beeps, waves, drives away.
    And what do I feel? Relief. OK, and a tiny sprinkling of guilt on top. But that is not going to stop me, let me tell you. This is my junior year! My junior year, and I have no intention of screwing it up.

    I sit in the back row of Mr. Catenzaro’s homeroom, between Kimmy Gustofson and Lorelei Hill, who screamed when they saw me and launched right in, telling me every detail of their summers. They were both lifeguards at Lake Wyola (big shocker there; Kimmy and Lorelei have been attached at the hip since kindergarten). They both dated fellow lifeguards (uh-uh). Total hotties (of course). Who just so happened to be twin brothers: Andy and Randy (ach).
    Fluorescent lights crackle overhead. The air is a potpourri of chalk dust, armpits, and those wood shavings the janitor throws on the floor when someone pukes.
    I notice that Mr. Catenzaro, who is the only teacher I know who wears jeans to school, seems to have gone one denim shade darker and two sizes tighter since last year. Liv thinks Mr. C is hot. She says he looks just like John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever —the same olive skin; dark, feathered hair; chin dimple. She imagines him tossing off his blazer after school, unbuttoning his shirt, and doing the hustle on his desk. I’m not sure how she comes up with these things, but she does.
    It’s not just Mr. C, either. Liv thinks a lot of the male teachers are hot. Even Mr. Arble, the assistant principal, with his cheesy goatee, makes it onto her crush list. Forget high-school boys , Liv is always telling me. Too immature. The last guy she dated, Avi, a counselor at her drama camp, was twenty-one: a real man.
    The truth is, twenty-one sounds old to me—skeevy. I like boys . I like that Matt Rigby was a bit unsure of himself that night on my porch, fumbling with the hook on my bra, embarrassed when our noses bumped. If he was twenty-one instead of seventeen, he might not have been so—
    “Josephine? . . . Josephine Gardner?”
    Mr. Catenzaro must have been calling my name for a while, because now everyone is looking at me. I can feel my cheeks heat up.
    “Here,” I say.
    Mr. C grins. “Are you sure about that?” His teeth are big and square and white. “Sure you’re not still on the beach somewhere?”
    Porch swing, actually.
    I bob my head like an idiot, telling myself: No—the whole class did not just watch a slow-motion reenactment of Matt Rigby de-bra-ing you on New Year’s Eve.
    Mr. C finishes attendance and moves on to announcements. My cheeks return to room temperature. After a million years, the bell rings.

    By some scheduling fluke, the entire Makeup Mafia ends up in fourth-period gym with me and Liv.
    “So their coach talked to