She licks the pad of her pointer finger before flipping through attendance sheets. “And what about homework? You won’t be leaving much time for Bryce either.”

“I’ll make it work with homework, and Bryce will see me when he sees me. It’s not like he stresses out about fitting me into his schedule during football season.”

“That’s my girl.” She hands me a stack of late slips to stamp. “I’m gonna get with some of the parents and Principal Armstrong about arranging a fan bus down to State. We got to be sure to decorate y’all’s bus, too, with shoe polish and whatnot.”

My smother would be the ideal candidate for faculty adviser, but seeing as she’s the school secretary and not an actual teacher, her level of involvement is limited to enthused parent. Which is for the best, I guess. Between my stepdad, my sister Kyla, trying to keep tabs on Claudia from halfway across the world, and her job, the woman barely has a moment to shower. I can see her age showing, too, but maybe that’s just ’cause I remember what she looked like when it was just me, my dad, Claudia, and her.

When I think of her then, I remember her black high-waisted jeans and her thick black belt with its shiny silver buckle and her tight, lacy tank tops. She was like the West Texas version of Olivia Newton-John’s Bad Sandy from Grease. She’d swivel her hips across the kitchen—which always smelled more like her DIY perm than any food we ate—to old Selena songs while my dad made horrible bachelor-type food for us, like hot dogs wrapped in tortillas.

Now the only self-imposed requirements of my mama’s wardrobe is that it “drapes nicely” and covers up any lumps or rolls she’s found herself with over the last few years. The lipstick, though, still remains.

She presses her fingers to my forehead, massaging my furrowed brow away. “You’re gonna need to start using my antiaging cream if you keep wrinkling up your forehead like that. Now tell me what’s got you so worried.”

I look over my shoulder and beyond her where students wait to be seen by the principal, vice principal, or guidance counselor. “Well,” I say quietly, “shit’s sorta hitting the fan. It looks like the dance team lost one of our major sponsors, and now we’re pretty much screwed. We’re gonna have to do a few emergency fund-raisers before State, but there’s definitely not any money for Nationals.”

She tucks a loose strand of hair behind my ear. “Oh, goodness. Well, that just won’t do. What’d Mrs. Driskil say?”

I roll my eyes.

She shakes her head firmly. “That woman’s more useless than fuzz on a peach,” she whispers, tapping her red-painted pointer fingernail against her chin. “Mama’s gonna get you in to see Vice Principal Benavidez. Y’all girls have worked too hard for some silly little money to stand in your way. And Lord knows most of us can’t just spring for a trip to San Francisco.”

I bite down on my lower lip to stop myself from smiling. I can see her going into full-on Mama Bear mode, referring to herself in the third person. I know there’s not much she can actually do other than make the vice principal have a sit-down with me, but there’s something about seeing an adult actually try that makes me feel better. Even if it’s only momentarily. And if I can solve this problem on my own, Sam will have no choice but to name me captain.

“Thanks, Mama.” Before I get to work on picking up attendance sheets, I dig through her desk drawer for a makeup wipe to scrub away the lip print on my cheek. She may have her nose in every corner of my life, but sometimes having a smother isn’t all that bad.

Millie

Three

At lunch, Amanda and I sit in the courtyard at our usual table while she devours the Amy Poehler autobiography I lent her—or I guess I should more accurately say I rehomed it, since my mother was not too pleased when she cracked it open and got an eyeful of some of Ms. Poehler’s language. Amanda chuckles to herself every few minutes, and it takes everything in me not to ask what part she’s reading.

As my eyes roam the courtyard, I spy Willowdean peeking her head out the door and waving frantically. Following her gaze, I find Bo, her boyfriend. Her very cute boyfriend with—as Amanda puts it—a peach butt. Just the thought of a boy’s behind has me blushing.

Will’s eyes sweep the rest of the courtyard, and she waves at Amanda and me before ducking back into the building. I wave back and make a note to myself to talk to Willowdean about my current . . . situation. I’m hungry for any type of advice that will move me from Crush Corner to Boyfriend Boardwalk. (Surely I’m not the only person who imagines life in terms of board games like Monopoly or Candy Land.)

See? This is why I need to talk to Willowdean. I’m going bananas here.

But our opportunities to chat are sadly limited. I wish Willowdean, Ellen, and Hannah at least shared a lunch period with me and Amanda. That’d be a good excuse to see them.

I don’t know what I expected after the pageant. Actually, that’s a lie. I know exactly what I expected. I thought that we’d all be friends. Me, Amanda, Willowdean, Ellen, and Hannah. We’d be this renegade group of mismatched friends that didn’t always make sense, but somehow works. Our shared experience would have bonded us like in The Breakfast Club or some other great ensemble cast. Except that’s not quite what happened. And, to be honest, I’ve spent a lot of time wondering if the Breakfast Club even hung out again after those credits rolled.

I open my thermos and pour the chicken soup into the lid, resigning myself to lunch with a distracted Amanda. “I miss the pageant.”

I’m answered with silence except for the sound of the table rocking back and forth as she bounces her feet.

“Did you see that the school newspaper did a big exposé about how the cafeteria meat loaf doesn’t actually contain any meat?”

Nope. Nothing.

“I was thinking we could sign up for a belly-dancing class together?”

Silence.

I reach across the table and slowly pull the book away.

“But—but I was reading that.”

“Well, I was also trying to engage in conversation with you. And you’ve been headfirst in this book since I picked you up this morning. And!” I add. “This is my book!”

She sighs and dog-ears her place in the book. “You’re the one who made me read this thing in the first place.”

I try not to cringe. Dog-earing a book feels like a violation of some sacred unspoken rule. “What I was saying is I sort of miss the pageant, don’t you?”

She laughs. “Not even a little bit. Those people never appreciated my skills and charm anyway.”

I try not to smile. Amanda’s soccer display for the talent segment of the pageant was inspiring, but the judges didn’t really know what to make of it. I think the comment section of one of her scorecards said something along the lines of “Didn’t quite fit the tone of the pageant. Maybe try juggling next time? Or try going out for the soccer team?”

The soccer team. A sore subject with Amanda. She, her parents, and the administration at school have gone back and forth with the soccer-team coach, Ms. Shelby, who can’t seem to look past Amanda’s physical differences to see the talent she possesses.

Amanda’s been ridiculed for years about her LLD (leg length discrepancy) and about the heel lift she has to wear. But if Amanda can hear or see people making fun of her, you would never know. Her theory is that she sets the tone for how the world treats her. And in her own words: if she wants to be treated like a bada**, then she should act like a bada**. But I know it must get to her sometimes.

“You’re totally right,” I finally say. “But I don’t even mean the pageant. I’m talking about all of us just hanging out, ya know?”

She shrugs, her whole body flopping. “Yeah, I guess. But I kind of like it when it’s just us.”

For a moment her words make my heart burst. Amanda and I haven’t been friends forever like Will and Ellen, but being the butt of everyone’s jokes for much of middle school and high school has bonded us together in a way that is stronger than time. “Me too. You know that. But I just wish we all had a reason to get together every once in a while.”