When Eric finally let me up for air, though, I said, very indignantly (though admittedly through delightfully tingly lips), “What are you, crazy? Did you see who’s sitting in the corner booth? The entire Quahog football team!”

Eric had replied, “Notall of them. Don’t exaggerate, Katie.”

“Well, the ones who’d totally pound your face in, if they saw you doing what you just did.” I really couldn’t believe it. I mean, what had he beenthinking? You do not just go up to a girl and start kissing her behind the soda station. Especially when her boyfriend is sitting just a couple yards away.

Even if, you know, she really likes it. And wants to do it some more.

“What’s he doing here, anyway?” Eric had wanted to know. “I thought you said the fire was gone, and you were finally breaking up with him.”

HadI told Eric that the fire was gone between me and Seth? Probably. It had gone out pretty soon after we’d become a steady couple, and the excitement that Seth Turner, the most popular boy in school, had picked me — ME! — as his steady girlfriend had died down.

But how can you break up with a guy who’s just so…nice? I mean, what kind of awful person would do something like that? Break up with her boyfriend of nearly four years because he’s just…boring?

I must have told Eric that Seth and I were breaking up. Oh, God, what was happening to me? I couldn’t even keep all my lies straight anymore.

“Yeah,” I’d said. “Well, I haven’t gotten around to it yet. Obviously.”

“Katie.” That was when Eric reached over to take my hand and gazed meaningfully into my brown eyes with his gorgeous blue ones — the same blue as the Long Island Sound on a cloudless day. “You’ve got to break it off with him. You know you two don’t have anything in common. Whereas you and I — we’re artists. We have something special. It’s not fair of you to do this to him.”

The thing is, Eric was right. Well, not about him and me having something special — except, you know, that I think Eric’s totally hot, and a dynamo kisser.

I meant about the part where he said that Seth and I really don’t have anything in common. We don’t.

Well, except that I think Seth’s totally hot, and a dynamo kisser, too. I’ve thought that for as long as I can remember — well, the hot part, anyway. I didn’t know about the kissing part until the end of eighth grade, which is the first time Seth ever laid one on me, during a game of spin the bottle in Sidney’s basement rec room after a mid-summer pool party. It was like a dream come true for me — the boy every girl in school wanted actually wanted ME. We’ve been dating ever since.

But even so, Eric was one to talk.

“What about Morgan?” I demanded. “How are you being fair toher?”

Eric didn’t even have the dignity to look embarrassed.

“Morgan and I aren’t a couple,” he’d said. “So I can’t exactly be accused of doing anything wrong.”

“Neither can I!” I’d insisted, even though I’d known at the time that this was sort of untrue. “I so didn’t do anything. I’m just trying to take Mrs. Hogarth her birthday cake!”

“Yeah,” Eric said sarcastically. “Just like youso didn’t do anything today before your shift started.”

Oops. Well, yeah, okay. I had sort of made out with Eric at the employee bike rack behind the emergency generator before work.

But whatever! That didn’t mean he could kiss me while he was out with another girl!

“You get back to Morgan right now,” I’d said. “This is a terrible thing to do to her. She’s so sweet, too. I don’t even know why you brought her here. She’s a vegan. There’s nothing she can eat here, except salad.”

“I was trying to make you jealous,” Eric had said, his hands going around my waist. “Is it working?”

It was right then that Peggy rounded the corner holding an empty iced tea pitcher. She’d stopped dead at the sight of us. Because, of course, patrons aren’t allowed in Employee Only sections, such as behind the soda station. Or back behind the emergency generator, by the employee bike rack, either.

“Is there a problem, Ellison?” Peggy had asked in an astonished voice.

“No,” I’d said quickly, as Eric sprang away from me. “He was just looking for—”

“Salt,” Eric had said, grabbing a nearby salt shaker from the tray by the soda dispenser. “’Bye.”

He’d hurried back to his table while Peggy, meanwhile, narrowed her eyes at me.

“Ellison,” she’d said in a suspicious voice. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing.” I’d grabbed Mrs. Hogarth’s cake and held it out. “Do you have a lighter?”

“I thought you were going out with Jake Turner’s little brother,” Peggy had said in the same suspicious voice, after reaching into the pocket of her khakis and pulling out a lighter, then lighting the number nine and seven candles.

“Iam,” I’d insisted. “Eric’s just a friend.”

A friend I like to make out with when I get the chance,I’d thought, but didn’t add aloud.

Peggy had rolled her eyes. She’s been managing the Gull ’n Gulp for ten years. I guess she’s seen it all. Heard it all, too.

“I knew I was wrong not to make you go home and get a sweater,” was all she’d said.

Like if my bra straps hadn’t been showing, I’d have somehow managed NOT to get caught kissing Eric Fluteley behind the soda station?

But Peggy wouldn’t have toldSidney about what she’d seen me doing. Peggy doesn’t gossip (and she busts her employees’ chops when she catches them doing it).

So how had Sidney found out?

Could she have seen me outside by the bike rack earlier today?

No way. Sidney doesn’t even own a bike. She never goes anywhere at all unless it’s in Dave’s Camaro or the white convertible Volkswagen Cabriolet Sidney’s dad got her for her sixteenth birthday.

“I’ll tell you why Morgan was there,” Sidney said knowingly into the phone. “She’sspying. On the competition.”

Oh, God! The competition for Eric’s affections? That’s totally me!

Except that if Sidney knew, why hadn’t she said anything to me? I mean, Sidney’s not exactly reticent with her opinions, and if she found out I’ve been macking behind an emergency generator with Eric Fluteley, you can bet she’d have a few things to say about it. Sidney thinks Seth and I are the perfect couple, and is looking forward to her and Dave and Seth and I being the It Couples of our senior year. My getting caught macking with Eric Fluteley would totally ruin Sidney’s plans for the prom, et cetera.

“I mean, her sponsor’s the Oaken Bucket,” Sidney went on. “How much do you really think they’re contributing to her campaign? Whereas you actuallywork for your sponsor, so they’ve got, like, a vested interest in actually promoting you….”

Oh. Oh my God.

I sagged down onto the side of the bathtub in relief. Okay. Sothat was what Sidney was talking about. Not Eric. Nothing to do with Eric.

“And, seriously, does she really think anyone’s going to vote for a Quahog Princess who doesn’t even eat quahogs?” Sidney wanted to know.

I can’t believe I almost forgot. That there’s another type of quahog. I mean, besides the clam and the football team.

There’s the town’s annual contest for Quahog Princess.

Which I’m running for.

And so is Sidney. And so is Morgan.

Which is why Sidney can’t stand Morgan, even though Morgan is really sweet once you get to know her. Which I did, because Morgan, who has been taking ballet since she was, like, four and is a shoo-in for the Joffrey Ballet Company in the city someday, danced Laurey’s dream sequence in the drama club’s production ofOklahoma! last spring (Eric played Jud. And let me tell you, he was the hottest, most brooding Jud ever. A lot of girls — like me, for instance — thought Laurey should have gone with Jud instead of that stupid Curly, who was played by Brian McFadden, who is kind of a girl), and I had to photograph her for the yearbook and the school paper.

Morgan was super nice about doing her grands jetés over and over, since I couldn’t quite get the shot right with my digital Sony, and her legs kept blurring. (I finally got an excellent shot of her in midair, with her legs perfectly parallel to the stage. It looks like she’s flying, but she’s got this calm expression on her face, almost bored, like “Ho hum, I defy gravity like this every day.”)

Morgan’s doing that same dance for the talent portion of the Quahog Princess pageant.

And can I just say that one of the things Sidney dislikes most about Morgan is the fact that Morgan’s talent is way better than Sidney’s, which is singing a Kelly Clarkson song — not to mention mine, which is the worst beauty pageant talent of all…playing piano?

Although, the fact that Morgan’s got this long, skinny neck and no body fat and never talks to anyone doesn’t exactly endear her to the Sidney types of the world, either. It isn’t that Morgan thinks she’s better than everyone, as Sidney insists. She’s just really shy.

It’s scandalous that Eric was trying to use her to try to make me jealous. I am fully going to have a talk with him next time we make out behind the emergency generator.

“Oh,” I said to Sidney, laughing with relief when I finally realized she was talking about Quahog Princess, and not Eric. “I don’t think she was there to spy on us. I think that’s just where Eric took her. It wasn’t like she could say anything. He had to have made that reservation a week ago.”

“Yeah, and what is up with that, anyway?” Sidney wanted to know. “Who makes a reservation at theGull ’n Gulp?”

Sidney, I knew, wasn’t dissing the Gulp. It’s just that no local would ever deign to make a reservation there, unless it was a special occasion, like Mrs. Hogarth’s birthday party.