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admits. “I saw Twilight seven times,” she says proudly.
    “Maybe you like movie stars because your mom won’t let you go out with real-life boys.”
    “Probably. I can’t believe you have an actual stranger living in your house. A guy . My parents would never allow it.”
    “He’s down in the rental, like, two floors away from my room. It’s no different from having neighbors in an apartment building. And your mom allows that .”
    “I guess. But you know my mother. It’s all in the interpretation.”
    “Well, suck up to her and get her permission to come over for dinner on the roof.”
    “Are we ordering in?”
    “Yep. Andrew is coming.”
    “I’ll ask.”
    I get a tired feeling whenever Caitlin has to ask her mom for permission to do anything, because I’m absolutely sure it’s going to be a Big No, and that’s depressing. Then I hear the bell on my laptop. I’m relieved when Andrew’s name pops up.

    AB: What’s happening?
    Me: Incoming.
    AB: Your boarder?
    Me: Yep. He’s here.
    AB: I can’t come over tonight.

    Now I’m totally annoyed. What happened to my friend who couldn’t wait for me to get back from boarding school? Was it something I said? Did I grow out my bangs and therefore lose a friend? I’m going to go right out on a limb and ask him why.

    Me: Are you serious?
    AB: Have to go to Long Island. My cousin’s house.
    Me: You’re leaving me here with a stranger?
    AB: Can Caitlin come over?
    Me: Not until her mom checks with Homeland Security.
    AB: You’ll be okay.
    Me: Clear the weekend?
    AB: Can do.

    One thing is for sure about Andrew—if he says he’s going to show up, he shows up. But what’s bothering me is that he never needed an invitation before, and now it seems like he does. I hope he hasn’t become that kind of boy, and therefore I have to be a different kind of girl. I don’t want to set myself up for disappointment.

    Me: We have things to do before you go to camp. Mermaid Day.
    AB: Would not miss it.
    Me: Have fun on Long Island.

    I had this crazy dream when I was in boarding school. New York City was frozen over in my absence under a clear glass shell, like a snow globe. The skyline was just a bunch of tall, empty buildings with no light coming out of the windows.
    Drifts of snow covered the streets; all was silent: no cars and no people. The rivers were solid sheets of silver ice, and you could walk across them. It was only when I became frustrated and hacked a hole in the dome of the snow globe with the needle I had snapped from atop the Empire State Building that the city came back to life.
    The sun came out, the snow melted, and people began to appear in the streets. Life as I remembered it resumed in full. I had finally made it back home. The world as I knew it was the same. I woke up relieved.
    In real life, the city did not freeze, no one waited for my return, and in general, things went on just fine in Brooklyn without me. Our house was the same. Sal’s Pizzeria had the same specials nine months later: one calzone with your choice of two fillings and a soda, five bucks. My friends had a good year. They missed me, and I missed them, but that didn’t stop anything; life went on just like normal.
    So much for frozen dreams.
    “I can come over! And you won’t believe it! Mom and Dad gave me permission to spend the night!” Caitlin shouts into the phone. Then she whispers, “I think Mom realizes how much I missed you, and she’s being lenient.”
    “Great,” I tell her. “Andrew can’t make it.”
    “Just us?” she says.
    “I’m going to invite Maurice up for dinner. Mom is, like, totally making me responsible for him.”
    “No problem,” Caitlin says.
    “There won’t be if you don’t say anything to your parents. Do not tell your mother there will be a foreign guy here. If you do, she’ll have him frisked and bodyguards sent over, or even worse, she’ll keep you at home.”
    “Got it.”

    Here’s what I love about cold sesame noodles