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"Can we please drop this?"

"Okay," she said. "I’m sorry."

I unclamped my teeth and made my mom an offer I knew she wouldn’t refuse.

"Why don’t we fight the masses at the mall and do dinner afterward?"

"Just the two of us," she said, her face brightening.

"Just the two of us," I said.

"I’d love that," she said. "Shopping with you."

"Yes," I said. "We’ll look for an anti-homecoming dress."

And my mom laughed.

the twenty-second

I was finishing up a brisk walk around the neighborhood when I heard a voice calling me from across the street.

"Hey, Jess!"

Bridget was standing in her driveway, waving me over. But I was totally baffled by why she would be trying to get my attention. We hadn’t spoken all month. And as far as I knew, she still held me personally responsible for her breakup with Burke, even though I wasn’t the one who snaked her man.

"Jess! Come here. I’d like to talk to you."

She appeared to be unarmed. So I slowly walked across the street.

"Hey," she said.

"Hey."

She grabbed her ponytail and started stroking it. She was nervous.

"Are you like, doing anything right now?"

"Uh, not really."

"Can you come in so we can talk?"

"Sure," I said. "Okay."

I hadn’t been inside her house in a very long time. There was more Precious Moments knickknackery than ever. But it smelled exactly as I had remembered it, a combination of Pine Sol and decades of cigarette smoke.

"Can I get you something to drink?"

"Sure," I said. "Is your fridge still filled with nothing but Diet Coke and condiments?"

She laughed and opened up the fridge. Inside were two cases of Diet Coke, half-empty containers of mustard, ketchup, and mayonnaise, and a few indistinguishable foil-wrapped objects.

"Some things never change," she said.

"Is your mom around?" I asked.

"Is my mom ever around?"

I took that to mean that Mrs. Milhokovich was as absent as ever. Bridget’s parents were divorced. Even though her father was good about alimony, Mrs. M. still had to work long hours as a hostess at the Oceanfront Tavern to make ends meet. It was a typical Jersey Shore establishment, with $12.99 surf-and-turf specials, and bathrooms designated by driftwood signs painted Buoysand Gulls in nautical blue. When we were growing up, Bridget almost always came over to my house to play.

"Some things never change," I said.

We walked upstairs in silence. At each step, there was a different school picture of Bridget, framed and mounted on the wall. The higher we got, the younger she got. When we got to the top, we were greeted by a grinning pigtailed preschooler in pink-and-white checkered Osh Kosh B’Gosh overalls. That’s the Bridget I remember best.

I barely recognized her room. Gone is all B. and B. paraphernalia, replaced by posters of matinee idols: Marilyn Monroe, Audrey Hepburn, and James Dean.

She sat on the very edge of her bed. Very businesslike. I flopped down on a beanbag chair, trying to appear as cool and casual as possible.

"I know you’re like, wondering why I asked you here," she said.

"Well, yeah," I said.

"Remember that first editorial you wrote? ’Miss Hyacinth Anastasia Wallace: Just Another Poseur’?"

"How could I forget the article that caused the infamous cheerleader catfight?"

She giggled nervously. "Oh yeah."

Bridget got up and turned on the radio. Orlando’s latest (and lamest) prefab boy band warbled about a girl who was 2 Good 2 B 4 Me. I sipped my Diet Coke. It tasted like ass and needed three sugar packets. At least.

"I totally got what you were trying to say the first time I read it," she said. "I just never told you because, like, everything blew up before I had the chance to."

"Right."

"Anyway, I found that paper when I was cleaning my room today. I was about to throw it out, but I read it again instead."

"Uh-huh."

"And when I reread it today, I was like, duh! It’s stupid for me to be mad at you," she said.

"Really?"

"I never asked you to tell me the truth about Burke," she said. "I, like, did the total opposite. I went