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detention just about every day. She wasn’t interested in boys. She was interested in guys. High school guys. She particularly liked flirting with guys who worked in the mall or in stores, like the supermarket we went to for sleepover munchies. Not that we had many sleepovers. Two or three. Once I asked her why she liked fooling around with different guys, and she glared at me and said, “The lame-o shrink my mother’s making me see has a few idiotic theories. Why don’t you ask her?” End of that conversation.
    See, I used to be friends with Dora Twistler, right when she became really weird and wild, just a year before she morphed into Theodora Twist, superstar. We were friends for five weeks and then she dumped me without an explanation and never spoke to me again, except to tell me to “get the hell out of her face.” When I’m watching one of her movies (a new one, Family, is coming out this weekend), I don’t see Dora Twistler. I don’t think, Wow, I actually admitted to that person that I couldn’t figure out how to use a tampon. (I was twelve and had just gotten my period). Or Wow, I now live in the house she grew up in until she moved to L.A. to seek her fortune (a piece of trivia that made me very popular for ten minutes late in my freshman year after her first film came out). I can’t really connect the Dora I knew and the movie star. They don’t look alike, even when she’s not made up to look like she’s twenty-five. How is that possible? I look like me no matter how much blush and eyeliner I slather on.
    There are posters for the prom all over the place. Time is a-wasting. I avoid looking at Zach’s locker and head over to Todd, thinking positive.
    “Hi, Todd.”
    He turns around fast, as though he can’t believe a girl is speaking to him. He really does have gorgeous eyes. How have I not noticed Todd’s eyes were so blue?
    “Could Mathers have given us more homework?” I say, sighing for dramatic effect.
    As Todd puts his books in his locker, his pouf shakes. “I know. I’ll be solving proofs all weekend.”
    Ah—he’s given me a good in. “Or . . . you could go out with me instead,” I say, feeling my cheeks burn. “To the movies, maybe.”
    He stares at me. “You’re asking me out?”
    He looks so incredulous that I relax and smile. “Yes, I am.”
    He eyes me. Up, then down. He’s losing points on the nice meter fast.
    “Sure,” he says. “That would be great. Cool.” He gestures at his Theodora montage. “Her new movie is opening Friday night. Wanna go?”
    Deep sigh. “Sounds great.”
    “Bye, Mom, I’m leaving,” I call out with a hand on the front door.
    It’s Friday night and I’m meeting Todd at the theater in fifteen minutes. My mother is nowhere to be found. Earlier she was on the phone for at least an hour while Stew watched Sophie (very unusual). Then she and Stew disappeared behind closed doors for another hour. I have a feeling the call was my mom’s former boss and the “behind closed doors” was “Should I or shouldn’t I go back to work?” Whatever she decides, I just hope she’ll be happy. And go back to being herself.
    “Mom, I’m leaving.”
    “Okay, sweetie, have fun at Belle’s!” she calls down from upstairs, probably from Sophie’s nursery. I know from personal experience that when you’re changing a baby’s diaper, especially a gross one, you can’t drop what you’re doing and have a ten-minute conversation.
    Still, two days ago I told my mom I had a date. How can she not remember?
    She appears at the top of the landing, rocking Sophie in her arms. “Honey, can you pick up a new pacifier at Rite Aid on your way home?” she whisper-calls to me. “Oh, don’t you look nice,” she adds, eyeing my low-slung denim skirt and baby blue T-shirt with tiny rhinestones dotting the V-neck. “You and Belle and Jen going to a party?”
    “I’m going out with Todd,” I say. “Remember?”
    She knocks her forehead with her spare hand.