“Yeah,” I said. “I know. I’ve always liked Harold. He’s nice. Like when you mess something up in computer lab, he doesn’t get all, Well, did you make a back-up disk? the way some of the TAs do.”

“Aw,” Lucy said. “That’s sweet. I can’t believe he’s not more popular. I mean, how come I’ve never met him before, like at a party or something?”

“Um,” I said. “Because guys like Harold don’t get invited to the kind of parties your friends throw.”

“What are you talking about? My friends aren’t exclusionary.”

I raised my eyebrows. This was clearly an SAT word, courtesy of Harold.

“Um,” I said, again. “Yeah. They kinda are.”

Lucy didn’t like hearing that. I could tell, since she looked right at me and went, “Well, thanks for the calculator. I better get back to Harold.”

Then she left, before I even had a chance to thank her for what she had loaned me. Well, not loaned me, exactly, since I highly doubted she wanted any of it back….

It was right as I was thinking this that my cell phone went off.

I so wasn’t expecting it to happen—my cell phone to ring and all. I’m still not completely used to it—that I totally screamed, causing Rebecca, in her room down the hall, to call, “Do you mind, Sam? I’m at a really crucial stage in this larvae dissection.”

Which, actually, I would rather not have known.

I could see from the caller ID that it was David calling. David, with whom I hadn’t spoken—sort of on purpose—since last night’s discussion beneath the weeping willow in my front yard. I had already ignored two of his messages. I had to pick up.

Only…what was I going to say?

“Hi,” seemed like a good way to start.

“Hey,” David said.

Except that this was no simple “Hey.” Never, in fact, had more been conveyed in such a short word in the entire history of time. All of David’s happiness that I’d finally answered, as well as his frustration over not having heard back from me in over twenty-four hours, and—I really don’t think I’m imagining this—even his lack of certainty about how I felt about his invitation to “play Parcheesi” with him over Thanksgiving weekend was in that Hey.

I’m pretty sure.

That’s lot of stuff in a single word.

“Where have you been?” David went on to ask. Not in any sort of angry way. Just curious. “I left two messages. Are you all right?”

“Um,” I said. “Yeah. Sorry. Things have just been crazy.” I noticed the brown bag containing Lucy’s “gifts” to me sticking out from under the bed and quickly toed it back so that the dust ruffle covered it. Don’t ask me why. I mean, it wasn’t like David was there in the room with me. Except that he was. Sort of. “With school, you know. And work.”

“Oh,” David said. “Okay. Well, what did they say?”

For one second, I honestly forgot what he was talking about. “What did who say?”

“Your parents,” he said. “About Thanksgiving.”

And it all came flooding back.

“Oh, Thanksgiving,” I said. Oh my God. Thanksgiving. He wanted to know about Thanksgiving.

Well, of course he did. I mean, that was why I’d been dodging his calls for the past twenty-four hours. Because I knew he wanted an answer about Thanksgiving.

It was just that I wasn’t sure I was ready to give him one.

“Um,” I said, glancing at Manet, who as usual was collapsed across my bed, completely oblivious to the fact that his owner’s life was being turned completely upside down and inside out. Dogs have it so easy. “Yeah. Sorry. I…I haven’t had a chance to ask them yet.”

Okay. Just lied to my boyfriend. For the first time ever. More or less.

“Oh,” David said.

Just like with his “Hey” a few minutes earlier, that “Oh” conveyed a lot. It actually had been less of an “Oh,” than an “Oh?”

I was so dead.

“It’s just,” I said, suddenly speaking a mile a minute. “It’s Lucy. She bombed her SATs and now my parents have made her quit cheerleading and get a tutor and everyone is freaking out.”

“Whoa,” David said. He sounded as if he believed me. Well, why shouldn’t he? That part was the truth, anyway. “How badly did she do?”

“Really badly,” I said. “So now isn’t the best time to ask. If you know what I mean.”

“Totally,” David said. “I hear you.”

The thing was, for a guy who was waiting to find out whether or not he was going to, you know, get to have sex with his girlfriend next week, he sounded awfully…calm. I mean, not like the guys in those books of Lucy’s, who are always all, “Phillippa…I must have you. My loins burn for you.”

I was fully not getting any burning-loin vibe from David. Like, at all.

Which I guess I can understand. I mean, it’s good he isn’t getting his hopes up too much. Because it’s not like, when we Do It and all, I will actually know what I’m doing, in spite of having read up on contraceptive foam usage.

Of course, he won’t know what he’s doing, either. Because it’s not like he’s any more experienced in the boudoir than I am.

But still. There’s a much stronger possibility of me messing things up than him. I am not the world’s most coordinated person. I barely passed P.E. (well, to be fair, that’s because I’m so non-competitive that I refused to participate most of the time. I just didn’t see the point. Catch the ball, chase the ball, throw the ball. Who cares? It’s just a stupid ball.).

I guess I was just going to have to trust that, when—or if—the Big Moment came, my body would tell me what to do. I mean, it hadn’t let me down so far.

Except for that whole rope-climbing thing in P.E.

“Well, listen,” David said, still not sounding like a guy whose loins were aflame, or whatever. “Just let me know. Oh, and about tomorrow night?”

Tomorrow night? What about tomorrow night? Were we supposed to be doing something tomorrow night?

Oh, that’s right. Tomorrow was Saturday. Date night. Oh my God, were we going to go out? If we went out, would he bring it up? The whole Thanksgiving plan, I mean? Tomorrow’s too soon! I can’t decide about all of this by tomorrow! I’m still getting used to the idea! I don’t know! I don’t know what I want!

“Um,” I said, amazed I could sound so calm about the whole thing. “Oh, right. Tomorrow. What about it?”

“My dad’s got a thing all day at the Four Seasons. It’s a Return to Family thing, to garner support with some special interest groups, and so he wants me there, because…you know.”

“Right,” I said. “Family and all.”

“Right. But you can totally come, if you want to.”

So I can sit next to you in front of a plate of gross congealing hotel food I didn’t even order myself while listening to another one of your dad’s boring speeches on the off chance that we might get a chance to make out in my front yard later? Um, no thanks.

That’s what I wanted to say. Instead, I said, “Gosh, that sounds fun. I think I’m busy, though. Have a good time.”

David laughed. “I thought that’s what you’d say. Okay.”

And just like that, I was off the hook. For the whole Thanksgiving discussion.

“I know things must be weird,” David said, “with Lucy and all of that. But call me, will you? I really miss you.”

“I miss you, too,” I said. That wasn’t a lie, either. I did miss him.

“Love you, Sharona,” David said.

“Love you, Daryl,” I said. And hung up.

And thought, God. I am the worst girlfriend on the entire face of the planet.


 

Top ten ways you can tell that your boyfriend really loves you:

10. He puts up with your weird mood swings, even the one where you have PMS and you accuse him of liking Fergie of the Black-Eyed Peas better than he likes you, although you know perfectly well he’s never actually met Fergie.

9. He lets you pick the movie most of the time.

8. Ditto what dessert you guys are going to share.

7. He knows your friends’ names and asks how they’re doing (although in David’s case this isn’t exactly hard, since I basically have only one friend).

6. He makes sure (to the best of his ability) that when you come over for dinner, the White House chef is serving something you will actually eat.

5. He calls, often, just to see what you’re doing.

4. He thinks you look great even when you don’t have any makeup on.

3. He listens when you whine about your problems and tries to offer you viable solutions for them, even if most of the things he suggests are totally stupid and would never work because he’s a guy and he just doesn’t understand.

2. He doesn’t get upset when he overhears you going on with your best friend about how hot you think that new guy on Gilmore Girls is.

And the number-one way you can tell that your boyfriend really loves you:

1. He doesn’t make a big deal out of it when you opt to spend your Saturday night in front of the TV instead of with him.


6

Except that I didn’t get to. Spend Saturday night watching National Geographic Explorer with Rebecca, I mean. Because at around three o’clock, the phone rang, and when I picked it up, I was surprised to hear Dauntra on the other end.

“Sam?” For some reason, she was yelling. I soon realized why. Wherever she was, it was really noisy in the background.

“Dauntra?” I was kind of surprised to hear from her. Dauntra had never called my house before. I didn’t even know she had my number. I mean, all of the Potomac Video employees’ phone numbers are posted on the bulletin board in Stan’s office, but I didn’t know Dauntra had copied mine down. “What’s all that noise? Where are you?”

“Some police station,” Dauntra yelled. I heard someone in the background going, “Put that down, or the cuffs are going back on.”