Ugh. Suddenly, losing the house and being forced to move didn't seem so bad.

By the time I pulled myself together, we were merging into a sea of red brake lights. Serious freeway traffic. But that was okay. I needed time to decompress before my face-to-face with Mom.

"So what's the story with that?" Jared asked, pointing at my left hand.

For a crazy moment I thought he was asking about my amethyst birthstone ring. It was a gift from my parents on my twelfth birthday-the last we all spent together-and I had this weird habit of twisting it when I was bored, angry, or nevous. Then I saw I was still holding Dad's check.

I folded the check in half and tucked it into my pocket. "Oh-I need to deposit it. On Friday." My thoughts scrambled. "But I can't get out of practice twice in one week, so I don't suppose you could run me to the bank during lunch?"

He threw a look in his rearview mirror, then at me. "My lunch hour fee is double."

For real?

"But," he said, disrupting my disbelief, "I'll settle for a Whopper, fries, and a drink."

After the crying jag, calmness had crept through my body, making me oddly comfortable sitting there in the car. Relaxed, almost. A relieved laugh bubbled inside me, but for some reason I couldn't let it out. Or him off so easily.

"Yeah, Jared, but everybody at school goes to Burger King. We could be seen. The Extra-Hot Senior," I said, making little quotation marks with my bent fingers, "and his little sister's friend. Think of the gossip."

A confident smile blazed across his mouth, which not only touched his eyes, but strangely touched something in me, too. I didn't know what exactly-and I didn't know if I liked it, either. But the guy was not without style, whether I wanted to admit it or not.

He threw me a look. "Among other things, I'm thinking it will p.i.s.s Rascal off."

"Rascal?"

"Yeah. After yesterday at your locker, he thinks we're getting together. And it's bugging him."

I felt my jaw drop. "He told you that?"

"He didn't have to. It's all over his stupid face."

"So ... you think he's jealous?" I held myself in check while the "Hallelujah Chorus" played in my head.

"What did I just say?" He turned and glared at me. "Oh, come on, you don't actually still like him, do you?"

(Did the joyful notes reflect in my eyes?) "No. No, of course not."

"I mean," his voice noticeably raised, "not after what he did to you?"

I gave my head a firm shake.

"Good. Otherwise you could walk home."

I nodded, my thoughts all over the jealous thing. Maybe that was why Kylie had scowled at me during morning break. Maybe she was feeling the vibes he sent out. Maybe- "So," Jared said, rudely changing the subject. "Are you going to fill me in on the check and the bank deposit, or what?"

Check. Bank. Ugh.

Couldn't we talk more about Rascal being jealous?

But as much as I didn't want to tell him, I figured Jared deserved some kind of explanation for being forced to drive to Ventura. Even if he was getting paid for it. So I spilled.

"My mom hasn't closed on a house in months," I blurted out. "She hasn't made any commissions. And it turns out she's fallen behind on the mortgage."

There-I'd said it. I snuck a look his way. Nope, no arrogant smirk. In fact, his brow was heavy, as if in deep thought.

"So she sent you to your dad for money?"

"No, no!" I slipped my ring back and forth over my knuckle. "She'd kill me if she knew. That's why all this is top secret. I'm going to make the payment first, then tell her I paid it with the last of my inheritance money from my grandmother."

"Which actually went to ..."

"Oh, clothes and volleyball shoes and movies," I said, leaving out the chunks I'd dropped on hairdressers who'd promised to make my hair straight and silky. "The rest to the prom dress. And to you."

"Why didn't you return the dress and get your money back?"

"Final sale," I said automatically.

"At a vintage clothing store? Aren't they all about resales?"

Smart boy. The truth was, once I'd zipped myself inside its silkiness, had watched in the mirror as my boyish figure transformed into the body I'd always dreamed of... well, there was no going back. Date or no date. Returnable or not. That baby was mine.

"Yeah, well," I said, "I just like it, okay?"

He nodded, as if he'd fully processed the data. Then shrugged. "Sorry about your mom. I'd hate to see her lose the house, for you guys to have to move somewhere."

"Thanks," I said, a little flattered, and a little embarra.s.sed, too. My heart sped up, almost in sync with the rhythmical ka-thump of our wheels rolling over the uneven seams in the pavement.

"I mean," he said, "if Alison didn't have you to whine to all the time, she'd turn on me. And then I'd have no choice but to grab early admission at any college that would take me and get the h.e.l.l out of here."

He laughed, and I joined in. Not because what he'd said was particularly funny, but because I wanted to stop feeling miserable. Or at least to pretend.

"But before you try to put one over on your mother, do yourself a favor, and think it all through." He shot me a serious look. "Don't do anything stupid."

Ah, yes. And there was Jared-my big brother.

Sitting in geometry the next morning, I made a startling discovery about my life. About life in general. (Besides the obvious that learning geometry was a waste of perfectly good brain cells.) I decided that life was like that Chutes and Ladders game you played when you were little. You spin the wheel and move your Mini-Me in a slow and steady progress toward Ultimate Happiness. Unless you land on a ladder that sends you racing to new heights. Or on a slide that tumbles you down, down, down ...

It seemed that for nine days last June, I was close to the finish line. Then came the News that sent The Dress to the Back of the Door. My b.u.t.t had hit that super-long slide, the one that ran almost the full length of the board. And now here I sat, a million miles from victory.

Overly dramatic? Probably. But with the echoes of Dad's voice, my sobbing, and Jared's warning still ringing from last night in my ears, it was getting increasingly hard to have a gla.s.s-is-half-full att.i.tude.

Plus, Kylie-whose cinnamon-apple body spray managed to choke me, even though she sat two rows behind and one over-had given me another dirty look this morning. I mean, eye to eye, with a very clear Die, Loser written all over it.

When the end-of-cla.s.s bell finally rang, I followed the throng through the door. A sixth sense told me to scan the hallway crowd, and yep, there was Rascal, leaning against a wall.

Knowing Kylie was just a few designer-shoe steps behind, and not wanting to give her any more ammunition, I acknowledged his nod with a mere lift of my brow. Why tempt fate?

But he took things a bit further. "You and Mc-Creary, huh?" he said as I pa.s.sed, his steely blue gaze bearing down on me. "What's with that?"

I bit back a grin and managed a monotone response. "Just friends."

"Yeah, right." He grunted as I kept walking. "Hey, Nicolette ..."

His voice was like a la.s.so, circling me and pulling me back. But I kept up my pace, moving away-fast. Before my face was taken over by a disfiguring and revealing smile.

Moments later, I was successfully standing beside Alison at her locker.

"You'll be proud of me," I announced.

One side of her mouth curled up. "You managed to sell a property for your mother?"

"Not that proud."

"You ... you ... got tickets to the Lakers' season opener?"

I gave her a thumbs-down, meaning her next guess should be lower.

"You aced your geometry test?"

"More. It's better than that. Last chance."

She shut her locker with a click. "Prouder than acing a test? Um ... my brother offered you another ride somewhere and you told him where to shove it?"

Her response was so out of left field that it made my head spin. Her message, however, was crystal clear, that she wasn't thrilled with me hanging out with her brother.

Well, neither was I, so no harm, no foul.

"You lose," I said.

"Okay ..."

"Rascal was outside my cla.s.s and he tried to talk to me. But I kept on walking." I held her gaze, stubbornly, weakly. "Aren't you proud?"

"I am," she said, and we fell into step together. "Any progress you make toward realizing he's the King of the Losers gets applause from me."

Okay, so why didn't this feel like a compliment?

School buzzed by as my mind turned over all the new data it had collected in the past few days. At the end of cla.s.ses, I made a mad dash for the locker room. There was no way I could be late for practice today.

Zoe was already there, suiting up. The baggy uniform actually flattered her long body, making her legs look like they went on forever. But I liked her anyway.

"What happened to you yesterday?" she asked, glancing up, dark hair framing her heart-shaped face. "I saw you in the hall, but not at practice."

Not showing up for practice at Hillside was big news in any sport. We were Division A and the administration was determined to keep every gold cup we had in the gym exactly where it was.

"Luther let me skip-I was sick," I answered simply, and spun the dial on my locker.

She nudged me with a sneakered foot and waited until I looked over. "Was it about a guy?" she asked in a low voice.

"Huh? Why?"

"I pulled the sick thing once," she whispered. "So I could go be with Matt."

Matt was her boyfriend, and of course now I had my answer as to whether she'd faked or not. But that left me in an awkward position, whether or not to come clean.

The thing was, for a casual friend, Zoe was pretty cool. And she'd told me things that she really shouldn't have, so my conscience made the decision for me. "I went to see my dad," I whispered back.

"Oh," she said quietly, nodding. "Yeah, Luther would have never gone for that."

I touched her arm. "You won't say anything?"

She stood up and started toward the gym, then looked back and gave me an are-you-crazy look. "Hey, I'm guilty, too."

With a sigh of relief, I followed her out of the locker room and caught up with her to start our warm-up laps.

Running side by side took effort because her legs were twice as long as mine. But about a year ago, we'd discovered we liked jogging together. We laughed and rolled our eyes at the same kinds of things.

Not to mention that Zoe had become my personal search engine on all things Rascal and Kylie. She was quite the expert, having once brought up the rear of Kylie's Pretty Parade.

She's the one who told me how Kylie and her mom had had a major falling-out during Kylie's parents' divorce. But how Kylie and her mother had mended fences last spring, so Kylie had decided to give living in Phoenix a try. That Kylie had actually liked the weeks she'd spent with her mom, until Rascal got tired of being a long-distance boyfriend and asked "another girl" to his junior prom.

Apparently, the two then burned up the phone and Internet lines over me. Until Kylie agreed to come home. Taking Rascal, the love of my miserable life, off the market again. Just like one of the prime real estate properties Mom always talked about, that she couldn't seem to get her hands on.

Like mother, like daughter.

"Okay," Luther said, blowing her whistle. "Positions, everybody. Playtime is over."

My heeled sandals apparently went on strike that next morning, because no atter how many piles of clothing I overturned, they remained a no-show.

Flip-flops were my next choice. I could never quite figure out what I hated more-their rhythmic slapping against my heel or the fact that they kept me so low to the ground that I felt like a dwarf.

In any case, I flapped my way to school at my usual hour, through the building, to my locker, and pulled the door open. I gazed into my propped-up mirror to see if my mascara was still on my lashes instead of my skin, and that was when I saw the strange blue paper wedge on top of my geometry book. Probably slipped in through the air vent.

I unfolded the triangle's many sides.

Nicolette Meet me in the caf 10:05 SHARP!.

Your Secret Admirer Say what?

I twirled around, my head rotating like that girl from The Exorcist to see if anyone was watching me- laughing at me-or (dare I wish) looking hopeful.

Nothing.

But come on ... secret admirer? For real?

As I sat in cla.s.s later, my mind was a whirlwind of nonacademic activity. Of course I knew I should ignore the note, write it off as a prank. Wasn't it the oldest trick in the book? Anybody who liked me or wanted to talk to me would come forward on his own, right?