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the jocks.
    I told her all about Michael and our increasingly-strained long-distance relationship. Jessica claimed she admired me for sticking to it, that she could never do it. “I’m too jealous,” she said. “Kind of spoiled, too. Brent says I’m high-maintenance.”
    Though I didn’t know Jessica very well yet, I had to agree with Brent there. Jessica spent more time in the washroom than anyone I’d ever met. Every day after class, she’d head straight for the girl’s john, where she’d touch up her makeup, brush her long, gleaming hair, and make sure her clothes hadn’t somehow gotten stained or rumpled during class. She performed this ritual at least five times a day. Her purse must have weighed fifty pounds with all the crap she kept in there. One day she confessed to me that she got up at five-thirty every morning just to give herself enough time to get ready before the bus came at eight. I asked her what she did that took two and a half hours.
    “I have to iron my outfit for the day, shower, straighten my hair, do my makeup, paint my nails if they need it, pack my purse, feed my fish…” She ticked each item off on her fingers while my jaw dropped in disbelief. I woke up every morning at seven-thirty and was out the door by ten after eight. I’d given up on taming my thick, frizzy-in-humidity locks years ago, I rarely ventured beyond eyeliner and lip gloss, my nails were bitten down to the knuckle, and my clothes could benefit from a good ironing more often than not. Sometimes I wondered if my new friend secretly believed that I was a mess of epic proportions.
    She did give that impression a lot. For example: One day during the first week of October, as we were walking together to my locker after class, she told me I could really use some mattifying foundation to even out my skin tone.
    “It gives me zits,” I said as we descended the stairs to basement. There were some chemistry notes in my locker that I’d promised to let her copy. She came late to class at least twice a week, so Mr. McDowell, our mothball-scented teacher, had started sending her to the office every time she waltzed in five minutes past the bell. As a result, there were several chunks of notes missing from her binder. I’d told her she was taking a leap of faith with my notes, considering I only understood about half of what was going on in chemistry.
    “You must be using the wrong kind then,” she said, following me into the Dungeon. “Hmm, wait a sec.” She dug around in her bottomless purse and pulled out a small clear jar. “This is an all-natural mineral foundation. It won’t clog your pores.”
    I took the jar and mumbled a half-hearted, “Thanks.” Jessica seemed bound and determined to fix me.
    “Wear it tomorrow so I can see if it’s a good shade for you.” She surveyed the dim quarters of the Dungeon. “This area has horrible lighting. I’ve only been down here once, with Brent. We met Dylan here the other day. His locker is right there,” she said, gesturing to the locker four doors down from mine and Ashley’s.
    “Dylan,” I said, twirling my combination lock. “The guy in our chemistry class, right? The one who’s always so serious?”
    “He’s not like that all the time. I’ve known Dylan since seventh grade. He’s Brent’s friend too…they’re on the team together.”
    “I’ve seen him down here. I didn’t realize you were friends with him.”
    Then it occurred to me that this Dylan was the same guy Ashley had commented on about a week before. We’d been getting our books together at our locker at the end of the day when she’d suddenly elbowed me in the ribs.
    “Ow,” I’d yelped. “What?”
    She’d leaned in close and whispered, “He’s cute, isn’t he?”
    “Who?”
    She shushed me and cocked her head to the left of us. I followed her gaze to the nicely-built blond boy a few feet away, bent over his combination lock. I recognized him from chemistry as the guy who sat in