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traditionally they depict hell as this fiery underground cavern with little red men holding pitchforks, but it turns out hell is a woodsy summer community where—”
    “I fooled around with Brad Lander last night!”
    I always thought it was an exaggeration when characters in books describe their blood running cold, but now I actually felt it happen: my body temperature dropped several degrees. “You what?!” There was no planet on which I could imagine Laura fooling around with her brother’s best friend, Brad. I’d only left Salt Lake City thirty hours ago. How had the universe as I knew it shifted so dramatically?
    “Okay,” she said, “I know you don’t like him, but—”
    “I don’t not like him,” I said quickly, thinking, I thought we both don’t like him.
    “He’s really nice,” said Laura. “He was telling me about how he misses his brother because they were on the football team together last year, and now that his brother graduated it just doesn’t feel the same without him. And it was, like, sooo nice. He’s really … I don’t know …”
    I forced myself not to supply the word dumb .
    “He’s just really … sweet,” Laura finished. “I was hanging at home last night and totally missing you, of course. And he came upstairs because he thought Tom was supposed to be home, but naturally my stupid brother had screwed up and he was at the gym, so Brad and I just sat there talking for, like, an hour . And then he said he’d always kind of had a crush on me, only he thought I thought he was too much of a jock and everything, and then I said, ‘I don’t think that,’ and then he said,‘Really?’and then he kissed me. And Kate, I’m not joking, he is such a good kisser. And we went outside and sat by the pool and he gave me his sweatshirt to wear because it was kind of cold, and he said he’s totally going to explain everything to Tom and”—she screamed—“I just totally like him!”
    “Wow,” I said. “That is just so—” Brad and Tom had once held a contest to see who could hock a lugie farther across the pool.
    Brad won. “I know!” She screamed again. How was this happening? How had my best friend gotten a boyfriend and I’d gotten … Sarah. “So,” I said, racking my brain for something to say that wouldn’t reveal how totally sorry for myself I was feeling, “are you—”
    I had no idea how I was going to finish my sentence, so I didn’t exactly mind when Laura interrupted. “The crazy thing is that he liked me this whole time ,” she said.
    “That is crazy,” I said, wincing as I remembered Sarah using the same word earlier.
    Laura started listing all of the times Brad had noticed her without her noticing he was noticing her. There was the day she first wore her new black bikini. There was the time he’d watched me and Laura do handstands in her pool. There was the afternoon he and Tom had stolen an entire tray of chocolate-chip cookies Laura and I had baked and we’d called them both degenerate thieves.
    The list, it seemed, was endless.
    She continued narrating Brad’s myriad but heretofore underappreciated good qualities, but I was too busy trying to figure out how to sound supportive to focus on the stories I was supposedly supporting. By the time I tuned back in, she was in the middle of explaining how Brad had managed to sneak into a second movie at Trolly Square after the one he’d paid to see had ended.
    She’s your best friend , I reminded myself. She’s your best friend, and if she’s happy, you’re happy . “That’s hilarious,” I said. “Did he really do that?”
    I heard my mom calling.
    “Katie! Time to get ready to go to the club with Sarah and Tina.”
    Talk about being caught between a rock and a hard place.
    “I’m really sorry, Laura, but I have to go. My mom’s calling me.”
    “Nooo! Wait. Will you call me later? I have so much to tell you. And I want to hear about Cape Cod.”
    Well, my mom and I are roommates and she