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With little more than two hours to go, how much trouble could Phoebe get into?

    Afraid her mother might hear the rumbling of the bus, Phoebe quickly ended the call and switched the phone to vibrate, then stuffed it deep into one of several pockets she’d sewn onto her jeans jacket. She gave Emma and Jessie a thumbs-up. The alibi had worked. Well, sort of. At times like this Phoebe wished she could be more like Jessie, who had no qualms about lying to her mother, though Mrs. Littleton was so lax Phoebe couldn’t imagine why she’d have to.
    â€œFive Guys is that way,” Jessie said, pointing down the street. Jessie amazed Phoebe; she seemed to know everything: innocent lies to tell your mom, the location of Five Guys in Adams Morgan, how to get Noah to invite her to the fall dance . When she’d pondered this after lunch, Jessie had said, “Just kiss him and see what happens. I bet he’ll ask you.”
    Now she could hardly wait to meet not only Noah and Dylan, but also Nick and Sam. She had wondered a bit about why Noah would be hanging out with Nick and Sam, who were part of the fast crowd, while Noah had always been known as more of a geek. Well, whatever the reason, going to this Five Guys and not the one in Georgetown had caused her anxiety over the course of the day. Emma had shed light on the subject – Sam lived in Adams Morgan – but this had only sent Phoebe’s mind spinning.
    â€œWhat do you think we’re going to do?” she now asked again, feeling her stomach tighten at the thought of kissing Noah, and what that might lead to. She wasn’t ready for anything more yet, though she knew the same might not be true for Jessie or Emma. Nick and Emma had gone out a few times over the summer, and she’d admitted to him having finger-fucked her, which sounded gross to Phoebe, who’d hardly even kissed a boy. And she knew that it had been no big deal for Jessie and Emma to hook up with guys at the movies, and at a few parties.
    â€œWho knows? And who cares. I just want to be with Dylan,” Jessie said.
    They talked a little about the possibility of the guys inviting them to the fall dance, though they agreed that might be awkward for Sam, since there were only three girls and four guys. For some unspoken reason Emma smiled mysteriously, then brushed off Phoebe and Jessie’s demands to know what she knew, and insisted on taking a few photos to commemorate the afternoon.
    â€œRight over there,” she said, pointing at a colorful window display of balloons, paper plates and napkins, which reminded Phoebe of the joint birthday party she’d agreed to. Maybe she ought to break the news to her friends now. Then, instead of mentioning it, she begged Emma not to post the photos on Facebook. “My mom’ll go ballistic if she finds out I was here.”
    â€œYeah, yeah,” Emma said, and they all burst into laughter. Emma, with her Modigliani-like curtain of hair, dark smoldering eyes, and nose, brow and ear piercings, wrote poetry and endlessly aimed her phone or camera at events surrounding her, often posting them on Facebook and YouTube. Her Facebook profile claimed she aspired to record their teen lives much the way Edward S. Curtis had chronicled Native Americans. Though hopefully “we’re not a dying breed,” she’d written.
    The three girls arrived at the glass doors of the fast-food restaurant, and after a quick glance at their reflections and some last minute primping, they stepped inside. The guys were crowded around a table in a back corner, where they seemed to be in the midst of a heated exchange. At the sight of the girls, they fell back in their chairs and waved them over.

    â€œYou have appointment?” the young man with bronzed spiky hair asked Isabel as she approached him. He was Vietnamese, like all the petite, dark-haired women in the shop.
    â€œYes, yes,” she said and aimed at her name in the