Totally. Speaking of hair, what do you think of Lilly’s highlights?

She says J.P. prefers blondes. I don’t know. I never thought LILLY would be someone who’d change how she looks for a GUY. J.P. must be a total sexual dynamo.

TINA!!!! They haven’t Done It!!!!!

Oh. I just assumed.

OH MY GOD. WHY????

Well, he DID go to her place in Albany that weekend.

Whatever, that was just because his parents were checking out some summer stock companies upstate! If they’d Done It, she’d have told us. I mean, don’t you think she’d have told us?

She’d have toldyou, maybe. She’d never tell ME. Lilly thinks I’m a goody-two-shoes.

She does not!!!!

Yes, she does. But that’s okay. I AM a goody-two-shoes. I don’t even want to SEE It. Let alone Touch It. Could you imagine having one? I’d die. Do you think Lilly’s touched J.P.’s?

NO WAY!!!! She’d have told me. I mean, it’s true I haven’t seen her since I got back from Genovia for the summer. But still. She’d have told me if she’d…you know. At least Ithink so…

She touched Boris’s.

WHAT????? Also AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!! WHY DID YOU TELL ME THAT??????

Well, I didn’t want to know either!!!! Boris told me!!!!

WHY DID HE TELLYOU THAT????

Because of that book my aunt gave me—you know,Your Precious Gift.

Oh, right. That one about how your virginity is a precious gift you should only give to the person you marry, because you can only give it once, and you don’t want to give it to someone who won’t value it.

Yeah. Only the book doesn’t say anything about what you’re supposed to do if after you marry the person you find out that he’s gay, something you might have known before you went to all the expense of a wedding if you hadn’t waited. But whatever. Boris saw thee book on my shelf and was worried I might be upset that Lilly had touched it before I did. Even though he’s still, you know. A virgin. It was just touching.

Did she touch it OVER or UNDER the pants?

Under.

I’m sorry, Tina. I know Boris is your boyfriend. But I am totally going to throw up now.

I know. Let’s face it, Mia. You and I are going to be the Last Virgins at Albert Einstein High.

Wow. That sounds like the title of a book.

You should totally write it!!!!THE LAST VIRGINS.

—Two girls cursed with Israeli-trained bodyguards, paid by their fathers to protect their daughters’ precious gifts…with theirlives !

No man shall know them—UNTIL PROM NIGHT!!!!

Oops, Sperry’s looking this way. I guess we should pay attention. Do you have any idea what she’s talking about?

Who cares? This is way more interesting.

Totally. So…you really think she’s touched J.P.’s, too?

I already told you! I think they full-on Did It!

No. She’d have told me. Don’t you think she’d have told me?

You’re the one who’s known her since first grade or whatever. Only you would know the answer to that. But she IS blond now.

Hey! I’m blond! And I still have my Precious Gift!

Oh, yeah. Sorry. I forgot.

Tuesday, September 7, French

I can’t believe Tina thinks Lilly and J.P. Did It over the summer. That is just ridiculous. Lilly would TOTALLY have told me if she had given away her Precious Gift.

Wouldn’t she?

Besides, J.P. still hasn’t even said the L word to her. Would Lilly really have sex for the first time with someone who hasn’t even admitted he loves her? I mean, she’s told him she loves him, like, nine million times, and all he ever says isThank you. Or sometimesI know.

But Lilly thinks that’s just his way of paying homage to Han Solo.

It’s pretty obvious J.P. has intimacy issues. I mean, he and Lilly have been going out for six months now. And he still doesn’t even refer to her as his girlfriend. He just calls her Moscovitz.

Michael used to call me Thermopolis. But that was BEFORE we started going out.

Would Lilly have sex with someone who calls her Moscovitz and introduces her to people as his “friend,” and not his “girlfriend”?

No way. Not Lilly.

Although shedid go blond. She SAYS it’s because one of the producers who optioned her TV show told her that having light hair around her face makes her features look less irregular.

But it’s no secret that J.P. likes blondes. I mean, Keira Knightley is, like, his dream girl. He’s the only guy I know who sat throughPride & Prejudice as many times as Lilly and Tina and I did. I thought it was just because he admired the screen adaptation, but later he even admitted it was because he admired a certain tall, skinny blonde (which is weird because Keira wasn’t even blond in that movie).

Poor Lilly. She can lose weight and dye her hair, but she’ll never STRETCH. At least, not to be five-seven, like Keira.

Hey, I wonder if THAT’s what Michael wants to talk to me about tonight at dinner…that he found out Lilly and J.P. Did It!

God, that BETTER not be it. If Lilly Did It and she told Michael, I will never freaking hear the end of it.

Oh, great. We’re supposed todécrire un soir amusant avec les amis in 200 words.

Un autre soir palpitant, et mes camarades et moi nous nous sommes installés devant la télé. Les choix ont paru interminable, les chaines, san fin. Avec le cable, n’impote quoi a été possible. Et qu’est-ce que nous avons vu? La chaine des nouvelles? La chaine des sports? La chaine des “rock-videos”? Non—la chaine douze. Oui! La chaine religieuse et ridicule—

61 words. 139 to go.

I passed Lana in the hallway on the way to this class. She hasn’t changed a bit over summer break, except, if possible, to get snottier.

Oh, and she seems to have acquired a tiny clone, some Lana Wannabe who looks exactly like her, but is just a little shorter.

Anyway, as I went by, Lana looked at my head, elbowed her clone, and started laughing.

“Look, it’s Peter Pan!” she yelled, for everyone in the hallway to hear.

It’s good to know that, however Lana spent her summer, she managed to retain the charm and wit she is so widely known for throughout Albert Einstein High.

Do I really look like Peter Pan with this haircut?

Est-ce que je vraiment ressemble Peter Pan dans cette coupe de cheveux?

Tuesday, September 7, Lunch

TOTALLY grabbed Lilly by the taco bar and asked her if she and J.P. Did It over the summer.

Her very unsatisfactory answer: “Do you really think if I did I’d tell YOU, Bigmouth Bass?”

I have to admit, this hurt. I have faithfully kept every secret she ever told me. I never told about the time she snuck her mother’s copy ofThe Happy Hooker out of the apartment and brought it to school in the fifth grade, and read the sex parts out loud to us at recess, did I?

And what about that time she told Norman, her stalker, that if he got her tickets to seeAvenue Q she’d send him her Steve Madden platform flip-flops, and Norman got her the tickets but she never sent him the shoes, because she’s never even owned a pair of Steve Madden platform flip-flops?

And I never told anyone how Lilly threw my Strawberry Shortcake doll on the roof of her parents’ country house and I never saw it again until the next summer when Michael was cleaning out the gutters and he threw it down into the yard and poor Strawberry’s eyes had been chewed out by squirrels and her hair was all moldy and her face had been melted by the sun into a silent scream. Even though the sight of it emotionally scarred me for life. I really loved that doll.

But I didn’t want Lilly to see how much her comment hurt me, so I just shrugged and said, “Whatever. I know you touched Boris you-know-where. He told Tina.”

But Lilly, instead of gagging, as would have been the proper response, just looked up at the ceiling and said, “You are so juvenile.”

“Seriously, Lilly.” I couldn’t help but let a little of the hurt I felt creep into my voice. “I can’t believe you didn’t tell me.”

“Because it was no big deal,” Lilly said.

“No big deal? You TOUCHED one.”

“Do we really have to discuss this in the middle of the caf?” Lilly wanted to know.

“Well, where else are we going to discuss it? Back at the lunch table, in front of your BOYFRIEND?”

“All right,” Lilly said, turning back to the taco bar. “So I touched one. What do you want to know about it?”

I couldn’t believe we were having this discussion over vats of sour cream and shredded cheddar cheese. But it was Lilly’s fault. She couldn’t have brought it up at one of our slumber parties, like a normal girl. Oh, no, not Lilly. She had to keep it this giant secret, until BORIS, of all people, spilled the beans.

The thing is, even though it was totally embarrassing and sort of gross and all…I really wanted to know.

I know. It’s sick. But I did.

“Well,” I said. Fortunately there was no one else around, as everyone seemed to be going for the stir fry. “For starters, what did it feel like?”

Lilly just shrugged. “Skin.”

I stared at her. “That’s all? Just…skin?”

“Um, that’s what it’s made out of,” Lilly said. “What would you expect it to feel like?”

“I don’t know,” I said. It’s kind of hard to judge these things through layers of denim. Especially button-fly. That is a lot of rivets. “In Tina’s romance novels, they always say it feels like molten satin over a steel rod of desire.”

Lilly considered this. Then she shrugged again and went, “Well, yeah. That, too.”

“Okay,” I said. “I’m officially going to throw up.”

“Well, don’t do it in the guacamole. Will you go away now?”

“No,” I said. “What does Michael want to talk to me about at Number One Noodle Son?”

“Probably,” Lilly said, “that he wants you to Touch It.”