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was a group of young moms wheeling their babies in expensive carriages while wearing designer sweatpants and ankle weights.
    I thought about it. I liked her. She’d always been nice to me. But I didn’t feel like spending a month, or however longshe wanted, tricking her dad. It would definitely require some work on my part and take me away from my real goals—leaving my loser status and snagging Chuck. How would being her pretend boyfriend help me become his real one?
    She kept talking. “Every time I leave the house, I’m scrutinized. But if my dad thinks I’m meeting you, he won’t care. I can go out every night.”
    “And you’ll meet Chuck instead,” I said enviously.
    “Well, I’ll meet both of you.”
    WHAT?
    “Both of us?” I managed to get out.
    “Well, I can say I’m meeting you for dinner with some friends. Those ‘friends’ will be Chuck.”
    I’d be hanging out with Chuck every night? “Um …,” I said slowly. I didn’t want to sound too desperate. Plus it’s hard to talk with drool in your mouth.
    I swallowed. “What if your dad finds out Chuck is with us?”
    She shook her head. “I actually don’t think he’d care. He is so certain you’re perfect for me, an actual bio whiz, he couldn’t imagine I’d still be interested in Chuck.” She looked me up and down. “You represent total trustworthiness to him. I don’t think he sees you as a threat to my virginity.”
    That was truer than he even thought.
    “As long as people think we’re dating, he’ll let me off his tight leash.”
    “What do you mean ‘people’? Who besides your parents?”
    “Justin! The only way to make this valid is for everyone to believe it … not just my dad.”
    All the kids in school were supposed to believe I’m dating Becky? I’m known as the school poster boy for gayness. And out-of-shapeness. No one would believe that Becky was into me.
    She snapped in front of my face to bring me out of my trance. “I know what you’re thinking, and we just have to do that Nazi shtick.”
    What? I’m Jewish! I’m certainly willing to pretend I’m straight to gain popularity, but a member of the Third Reich? Am I that desperate?
    “What kind of a Nazi shtick?” I asked. “The fun Mel Brooks kind? Or the unfun Joseph Goebbels kind?”
    Becky laughed. And an angel got her wings. “I don’t
literally
mean be a Nazi, silly!” She said it kind of loudly, prompting a glare from a passing elderly couple. “I mean we have to adopt that technique we just learned about in social studies.”
    Oh! She meant the Nazi Big Lie technique. The Nazis would make up a lie and repeat it over and over fervently, without wavering, until people started believing it. We also learned that it was a technique used by our own Bush administration. Hmm … I guess that was one way they kicked it old-school. I tried it only once on my mom (“I was
not
on YouTube watching old Tony Award clips until three a.m. on a school night!”) but discovered that it doesn’t work when yourmom literally walks in on you watching said Tony Award clips at three a.m. on a school night. That was my only foray into using that technique and it had failed miserably. Dare I try it again? Would any kid in this school buy me as being straight? Or believe that Becky would choose me after the hotness that is Chuck?
    As if Becky read my mind, she said, “Let’s see if it works. Here comes Savannah Lichtenstein.”
    Savannah is wealthy and gorgeous, with perfectly highlighted blond hair, but despite her money and looks, she’s stuck in a high-middle social echelon because her mom fancies herself an undiscovered designer and makes all of Savannah’s school outfits. Her clothes are actually always great-looking but obviously never have any of the designer labels that the girls at our school covet. In fact, the only label her clothes sport is a big
Lichtenstein
that her mother sews onto every outfit, always in a different spot. It doesn’t quite