Mia: The curls were cute, so let’s give it a high score.

4 out of 5 gold Drews

Donnie Darko

Tina: Wait—Drew was in this movie?

Mia: I totally don’t remember her. All I remember was Jake.

Tina: I know. He was so hot in this.

Mia: Let’s give it a high score for Jake.

Tina: Totally. And my parents won’t let me seeBrokeback orJarhead.

5 out of 5 gold Drews

Ever After

Tina: Best movie ever.

Mia: Agreed. When she carries the prince—

Tina: Shut up!!! I LOVE THAT PART!!!!

Mia: Just—

Tina:—breathe! EEEEE!

5,000,000 out of 5 gold Drews

The Wedding Singer

Tina: Drew looks so cute in her waitress outfit.

Mia: I know! And when he sings that bad song—Tina:—

she’s still nice to him.

5 out of 5 gold Drews

Bad Girls

Tina: This movie is so bad it’s kind of good.

Mia: I know. But I think when Drew is captured and they tie her to the bed and she’s facedown—

Tina: It’s called Turkish style.

Mia: Whoever says romance novels aren’t educational is a liar.

4 out of 5 gold Drews

The Amy Fisher Story

Tina: The made-for-TV movie! And Drew plays a homicidal Long Island teen!

Mia: Brilliantly, I might add.

5 out of 5 gold Drews

Irreconcilable Differences

Tina: A very young Drew in a very cute role!

Mia: Love it. Love her.

4 out of 5 gold Drews

Firestarter

Tina: I know you love this movie, so I’m not going to say anything.

Mia: Shut up! How can you not like it? She’s so good!

Tina: She’s extraordinary for her age. It’s just…the story is so silly!

Mia: People can totally start fires with their minds if they’re emotional enough. Look what you keep saying about J.P.

Tina: True.

4 out of 5 gold Drews

E.T.

Tina: She’s so cute in this!

Mia: And such a good actress. It’s like she’s ad-libbing her lines, they come so naturally.

Tina: Face it. Drew’s a genius. I wish she’d get her own talk show.

Mia: I wish she’d run for president.

Tina: President Barrymore! YEAH!!!!

5 out of 5 gold Drews

We are taking a break now betweenThe Wedding Singer andEver After while Tina makes popcorn. During the boring non-Drew parts ofThe Wedding Singer Tina asked me if I’d heard anything from Michael, so I told her about his e-mail, and she was rightfully indignant on my behalf. I mean, that Michael would try to pretend like we were just friends and tell me about his egg-sandwich-finding hardships and not tell me instead how much he misses me or how much he wishes we could get back together.

But then I pointed out to Tina that I’d agreed to just be friends. Also that the whole thing was my fault in the first place for blowing up over the Judith Gershner Affair, instead of playing it cool, the way Drew would have.

Which Tina was forced to concede was true. She also agreed that it was good I hadn’t written back.

“Because you don’t want to seem like you’re sitting around at home with nothing better to do than answer e-mails from your ex-boyfriends,” she said.

Even if that’s actually true.

Although it’s not really. I feel kind of guilty not telling Tina about how I spent my day—you know, with Lana and Trisha. I don’t know why. I mean, Grandmère has pointed out a million times that it’s totally rude to tell someone about an outing on which you went but to which they were not themselves invited. So there’s no reason I SHOULD tell Tina about Lana and Trisha.

Still. It was LANA.

I—

What’s THAT? I think I just heard Tina’s doorman buzz up that there’s someone in the lobby—

Sunday, September 19, 2 a.m., Tina Hakim Baba’s bedroom

Oh. My. God.

So Tina was just finishing pouring melted butter over the low-fat microwave popcorn to make it actually taste like something when the doorman announced that Boris and “a friend” were down in the lobby.

Tina flipped out, of course, because she’s not supposed to have boys over when her parents aren’t home.

But Boris got on the intercom and said he was only dropping something off, a present for us. So, of course, Tina couldn’t resist letting them come up. Because, as she put it, “Present!!!!!”

But if you ask me the present was just an excuse so that Boris could come up and make out with Tina. Because all “the present” was was a couple of containers of Häagen-Dazs. (To be honest, they were our favorite flavors, vanilla Swiss almond and macadamia brittle. But still.)

The real surprise—at least to me—was that the “friend” turned out to be J.P.

I didn’t even know J.P. and Boris hung out that much. I mean, outside of the lunchroom.

J.P. looked shockingly…well,good as he followed Boris into Tina’s apartment. I don’t know what he’s done to himself, but he looks all tall and…guylike.

The thing is, I don’t normally notice this kind of thing about any guy except Michael. I don’t know what’s the matter with me. Maybe it was just the shock of seeing J.P. in a setting outside of school, or in jeans instead of his school uniform or theater-going clothes. Maybe it’s just all the people who keep telling me how hot J.P. is, rubbing off on me.

Or maybe I’m just hot-guy-deprived, on account of not having had Michael around for so long, or something.

Still, it was weird. J.P., in addition to looking hot, looked kind of abashed, too. He shuffled in and said hi to me, while Tina was squealing over the ice cream and running to get spoons.

Tina is not the hardest person to please when it comes to presents. Case in point, she will practically faint over anything from Kay Jewelers.

“Hi,” I said back. And I don’t know why (well, I do know why: it was the hot thing), but it was weird. I guess mainly it was weird because J.P. had asked me what I was doing tonight and I’d sort of blown him off and…well, there we were together.

But also because of the hot thing.

And things got progressively weirder. Because even though at first things were cool, and we were all eating the ice cream and watchingEver After (Tina told the guys they could stay for ONE movie, but then they had to go, because if her parents found them there, they’d kill her. Well, her dad would, anyway. He’d probably kill Boris, too, and in a particularly painful way he’d learned from Tina’s bodyguard, Wahim, who’d been given the night off, along with Lars, since they’d been informed we were “in” for the evening).

But then Tina and Boris stopped paying attention to the movie and started paying attention to each other. A LOT of attention. Like, basically their tongues were in each other’s mouths. Right in front of J.P. and me! Which wasn’t TOO embarrassing (not).

After a while I couldn’t take the slurping noises anymore (even though I kept turning up the volume on the TV. But even Drew’s pseudo-British accent couldn’t drown out those two).

So finally I grabbed the melting ice cream containers and said, “Somebody should put these in the freezer before they make a mess,” and jumped up to leave the room.

Unfortunately—or maybe fortunately, I don’t know—J.P. said, “I’ll help you,” and followed me. Even though how hard is it to return two ice cream containers to the freezer? I totally could have done it by myself.

Inside the Hakim Babas’ cool, clean kitchen, with its black granite counters and Sub-Zero appliances, J.P. grabbed a root beer from the fridge, then pulled out a kitchen counter stool and slid onto it while I fought to find space in the crowded freezer for the ice cream. There were a LOT of Healthy Choice frozen dinners in there (Tina’s dad is supposed to be watching his calories and cholesterol).

“So,” J.P. said conversationally. In the background, we could hear the television from the media room, but not, thank God, the slurping noises anymore. “You missed a lot of school last week.”

“Uh,” I said, as I wrestled with what looked like a frozen beef tenderloin. “Yeah. I guess I did.”

“How are you doing now?” J.P. wanted to know. “I mean, you must have a lot of make-up work.”

“Yeah,” I said. The truth is, I’ve barely looked at all that. When you’re sunk as deep in a hole as I am, homework doesn’t seem all that important. Not as important as new jeans, anyway. “I’ll get to it tomorrow, I guess.”

“Yeah? What’d you do today, then?”

I was so busy jamming the meat deeper into the freezer that I didn’t even think about my reply. “I went shopping with Lana,” I said with a grunt. Then, FINALLY, the meat gave way, and I was able to slide the ice cream into the freezer.

It wasn’t until I slammed the freezer door shut and turned around, brushing ice shards off my hands, that I saw J.P.’s expression and realized what I’d just admitted.

“Lana?” he echoed incredulously.

I glanced toward the hallway to the media room. Empty, fortunately. Boris and Tina were still, um, occupied.

“Uh,” I said, feeling my stomach lurch.What had I done? “Yeah. About that…I don’t know where that came from. I wasn’t going to tell anybody.”

“I can see why,” J.P. said. “I mean, LANA? On the other hand, is she the one who picked out that shirt?”

I looked down at the silky babydoll top I was wearing. I’ll admit, it was pretty cute. And low-cut.

And, amazingly, with one of my new bras—and my new chest size—I actually had a tiny bit of cleavage in it. Nothing trashy, but definitelythere .

“Uh, yeah,” I said, feeling myself blush. “Lana’s a really good shopper….” Which might just be about the lamest thing I have ever said. And I mean ever.