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about her dress (and it was all Liz could do to bite back an “I told you so”) and hopelessly uncomfortable at the party. Liz didn’t get it. From the moment they’d met, Gaia had seemed to her like a girl who could more than hold her own. It was her badass, couldn’t-give-a-shit attitude that had attracted Liz to Gaia in the first place. But suddenly Gaia was jittery and unsure of herself. Liz just wanted to check in and make sure she was doing okay.
    Standing on the front steps of the school entrance, she spotted Megan, Tammie, Laura, and Melanie congregated. All four wore nearly identical boot-cut, dark rinse jeans and crisp, stretchy button-downs. Like they were extras in a music video, just waiting for Avril to arrive so theycould assume their positions for the line dance. No doubt headed out for some after-school group excursion from which she was excluded. It didn’t matter; Liz knew this was her “punishment” for having been caught bringing Gaia to her father’s party after telling the rest of the girls that she herself wasn’t even invited. Whatever. She certainly wasn’t going to be intimidated by a bunch of wannabe backup dancers. It would take little more than a well-directed approach to finagle her way back into their good graces. That was the beauty of dealing with a group of social lemmings. She squared her shoulders and marched over to the group.
    â€œYou guys have plans?” she asked, breaking into their circle physically and almost daring them to say no. She knew that, annoyed though they were, they weren’t going to rebuff her. That wasn’t the way these things worked.
    â€œWe, uh, we’re going to pick up Megan’s prom dress at BCBG” Laura stammered, aware of the nasty looks she was getting from her friends. No one wanted to be the girl who
wouldn’t
talk to Liz—it was generally accepted that she was far too cool to be ostracized—but no one really wanted to be the one to make it easy on Liz, either. She could read them like a book—or at the very least, like a well-thumbed copy of
Us Weekly
.
    â€œCool. I told Chris I’d meet him. Errands forMom,” she said, letting them off the hook. She wasn’t interested in dragging her ass to SoHo, anyway. She rolled her eyes. “Parents.”
    The girls all laughed conspiratorially, palpably relieved to have the tension behind them. This was the signal that the social balance had realigned, that Liz was forgiven. As though the issue of her forgiveness had ever really been a question…. “Really” Laura agreed.
    â€œFunny running into you the other night,” Liz continued, bringing the sore point in question smack into the open when it was clear no one else would. “It turned out Dad had some extra tickets, and Gaia was around and free, so we decided to check it out.”
    â€œYeah, totally, we understand” Megan said as the FOHs echoed their agreement in the background. “How could you pass that up?”
    Liz grinned to herself.
Liars
. They understood. Please. They would have avoided her for days if she had let them.
    â€œWas it fun?” Tammie asked.
    â€œTotally. Although I’m not sure if Gaia had such a great time. She seemed a little nervous. Or maybe just bored by my dad’s lame business associates and stuff.” She laughed.
    â€œYeah, well. Gaia’s got a lot on her mind lately,” Megan explained, lowering her voice as if they werebeing watched. “I think she’s worried about things with Jake.”
    This was news to Liz. From the little she’d seen, Jake was clearly crazy about Gaia, and though she didn’t think Gaia was much for the mush factor, she could tell Gaia was equally into Jake. “What about things with Jake? I saw them in the hall before, holding hands and laughing. It sure didn’t look like anything was wrong.”
    â€œI don’t know,” Megan