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her my phone, which was queued up to my texts. She took a second to read them and handed the phone back. “See. He loves me,” I said.
    Tess leaned in and kissed me on the cheek and I felt little happy ants on my skin. “Well, whoever he is, he isn’t here. And I’m guessing he hasn’t shown up at your door yet.”
    â€œNope. He’s a chicken.
Bock-bock-bock
,” I clucked, and I wondered why people said chickens sounded like that because I wasn’t sure what they really sounded like, but I knew it wasn’t that. Definitely not that.
    My feet were dangling outside, so Tess lifted and placed them on the seat and closed the door to keep them in place. It sounded like the air hatch on a rocket ship sealing shut. Noise, then silence. Then a few seconds later, noise again and Tess was at the controls, firing up the engine and launching us into space. Music burst from the stereo like bats from a cave and I felt every curve and bump of the road. I laughed hysterically as Tess sang along to some dopey old thing from the sixties or seventies.
    â€œYou just call out my name, and you know wherever I am, I’ll come running, to see you again . . .”

you’ve got a friend
    U sually in these situations, we’d end up at Tess’s house. Her mom was a single mom and the thing about single moms is they tend to tolerate teenage shenanigans. I can’t remember how many times I’ve been drunk and draped over Tess’s shoulder as she led me upstairs while Paula peered over the top of whatever novel she was reading and remarked, “Hope it was worth it, Mara.”
    That said, the other thing about single moms is they tend to date, and when that happens, they prefer not to have their seventeen-year-old daughter and her friend who’s swatting at imaginary dragonflies show up just as they’re pulling the cork from some chardonnay. On this particular night, Paula was on a date with a guy named Paul. It couldn’t possibly work out, for obvious reasons, but she’d asked if Tess could sleep at my house anyway.
    This meant that Tess had to smuggle me past
my
parents. Not mission impossible, but not exactly easy. It was a good thingthat Tess was charming and Mom and Dad liked her. They called her Tessy—which I guess she didn’t mind because she never objected—and they were always asking her about field hockey.
    â€œHeard it was a close one, Tessy.”
    â€œHow do your playoff chances look, Tessy?”
    â€œFlex your goddamn muscles, Tessy! Flex!”
    Okay. Maybe not the last one, but they loved that she was an athlete, even though she wasn’t a star. Only started a few games that year. Didn’t score a single goal. Still, Mom and Dad were jocks in the days of yore and I never was, so Tess might as well have worked for ESPN. She was the one they always talked jock to.
    Most of the time, it was annoying, but now it was essential. Tess had to distract them as I tiptoed up to my room. The shrooms were wearing off, but I couldn’t risk saying something embarrassing. And I couldn’t lie. I already told you about my problem with lying.
    I know what you’re going to say. “Not telling equals lying!” Well, that’s just bad math.
    Example: Say you pleasure yourself. Not that I’m saying you do . . . Actually, yes. I am saying you do because everyone does. But even if you’re the world’s most honest person, do you run downstairs after every sweaty session and holler, “Mom! Dad! Guess what?”
    Of course not. Same thing with shrooms, though in this case it was pleasuring the mind. Okay, that’s going a bit too far, but I think you get the point.
    As we pulled into the driveway, Tess gave me a pep talk. “All you have to do is make it to the stairs. You can do it, sweetie. I know you can. It’s seven o’clock, so they’ll be watching the news. I’ll popmy head