RED LEATHER JACKET IS STILL LOOKING THIS WAY!!! Oh God, what can he want from me?

What if he’s part of some kind of airport white slavery ring? What if he hangs out here all the time looking for naive young tourists from Ann Arbor, Michigan, to kidnap and send to Saudi Arabia to be some sheikh’s seventeenth bride? I read a book where that happened once…although I have to say the girl seemed to really enjoy it. But only because at the end the sheikh divorced all his other wives and just kept her because she was so pure and yet so good in the sack.

Or what if he just holds girls for ransom instead of selling them? Except that I am so not rich! I know this dress looks expensive, but I got it at Vintage to Vavoom for twelve dollars (with my employee discount)!

And my dad doesn’t have any money. He works at a cyclotron, for crying out loud!

Don’t kidnap me, don’t kidnap me, don’t kidnap me-

Wait, what is this booth? Meet Your Party. Oh, great! Customer service! That’s what I’ll do! I’ll have Andrew paged. And that way, if he’s here, he can come find me. And I’ll be safe from Red Leather Break-dancing Jacket; he won’t dare kidnap me and send me to Saudi Arabia in front of the pager guy-

“Hullo, love, you look lost. What can I do for you, then?”

Oh, the booth guy is so nice! And such a cute accent! Although that tie was an unfortunate choice.

“Hi, I’m Lizzie Nichols,” I say. “I’m supposed to be picked up by my boyfriend, Andrew Marshall. Only he doesn’t seem to be here, and-”

“Want me to page him for you, then?”

“Oh! Yes, please, would you? Because there’s a guy following me, see him over there? I think he might be a kidnapper or the operator of a white slavery ring-”

“Which one?”

I don’t want to point, but I do feel I have a duty, you know, to report Red Leather Break-dancing Jacket to the authorities, or at least to the Meet Your Party booth attendant, because he DOES look very odd in that jacket, and he IS still staring at me, really rudely, or at least suggestively, like he still wants to kidnap me.

“Over there,” I say, nodding my head toward Red Leather Break-dancing Jacket. “That one in the hideous jacket with the epaulets. See him? The one staring at us.”

“Oh, right.” The Meet Your Party booth attendant nods. “Right. Very menacing. Hold on, then, I’ll have your boyfriend over here, giving that git the thrashing he so richly deserves, in a second. ANDREW MARSHALL. ANDREW MARSHALL, MISS NICHOLS IS WAITING FOR YOU AT THE MEET YOUR PARTY BOOTH. ANDREW MARSHALL, PLEASE FIND MISS NICHOLS AT THE MEET YOUR PARTY BOOTH. There? How was that?”

“Oh, that was great,” I say encouragingly, because I feel a little sorry for him. I mean, it must be hard to sit in a booth all day, yelling over a loudspeaker. “That was really-”

“Liz?”

Andrew! At last!

Only when I turn around, it’s Red Leather Break-dancing Jacket.

Except.

Except that it WAS Andrew, all along.

And I just didn’t recognize him, because I was distracted by the jacket-the most hideous jacket I’ve ever seen. Plus he seems to have had his hair cut. Not very flatteringly.

Sort of menacingly, in fact.

“Oh,” I say. It is extremely difficult to hide my confusion. And dismay. “Andrew. Hi.”

Behind the glass of the Meet Your Party booth, the attendant bursts into very, very loud laughter.

And I realize, with a pang, that I’ve done it.

Again.

You’re compromising your feminist principles.” That’s what Shari keeps saying.

“Stop it,” I say.

“Seriously. It’s not like you. Ever since you met this guy-”

“Shari, I love him. Why is it wrong that I want to be with the person I love?”

“It’s not wrong to want to be with him,” Shari says. “It’s wrong to put your own career on hold while you wait for him to finish his degree.”

“And what career would that be, Shar?” I can’t believe I’m even having this conversation. Again.

Also that she would station herself next to the chips and dip like this when she knows perfectly well I’m still trying to lose five more pounds.

Oh well. At least she’s wearing the fifties black-and-white Mexican swing skirt I picked out for her at the shop, even though she claimed it made her butt look too big. It so doesn’t. Except maybe in a good way.

“You know,” Shari says. “The career you could have, if you would just move to New York with me when you get back from England, instead of-”

“I told you, I’m not arguing with you about this today,” I say. “It’s my graduation party, Shar. Can’t you let me enjoy it?”

“No,” Shari says. “Because you’re being an ass, and you know it.”

Shari’s boyfriend, Chaz, comes over to us and scoops up some onion dip with a barbecue-flavored potato chip.

Mmm. Barbecue-flavored potato chips. Maybe if I just had one…

“What’s Lizzie being an ass about now?” he asks, chewing.

But you can never have just one barbecue-flavored potato chip. Never.

Chaz is tall and lanky. I bet he’s never had to lose five more pounds before in his entire life. He even has to wear a belt to hold up his Levi’s. It’s a mesh leather weave. But on him, mesh leather works.

What doesn’t work, of course, is the University of Michigan baseball cap. But I have never successfully managed to convince him that baseball caps, as an accessory, are wrong on everyone. Except children and actual baseball players.

“She still plans to stay here after she gets back from England,” Shari explains, plunging a chip of her own into the dip, “instead of moving to New York with us to start her real life.”

Shari doesn’t have to watch what she eats, either. She’s always had a naturally fast metabolism. When we were kids, her school sack lunches consisted of three peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and a pack of Oreo cookies, and she never gained an ounce. My lunches? A hard-boiled egg, a single orange, and a chicken leg. And I was the blimp. Oh yes.

“Shari,” I say, “I have a real life here. I’ve got a place to stay-”

“With your parents!”

“-and a job I love-”

“As an assistant manager of a vintage clothing store. That’s not a career!”

“I told you,” I say for what has to be the nine hundredth time, “I’m going to live here and save my money. Then Andrew and I are moving to New York after he gets his master’s. It’s just one more semester.”

“Who’s Andrew again?” Chaz wants to know. And Shari hits him in the shoulder.

“Ow,” Chaz says.

“You remember,” Shari says. “The R.A. at McCracken Hall. The grad student. The one Lizzie hasn’t stopped talking about all summer.”

“Oh, right, Andy. The British guy. The one who was running the illegal poker ring on the seventh floor.”

I burst out laughing. “That’s not Andrew! He doesn’t gamble. He’s studying to be an educator of youth so that he can preserve our most precious resource…the next generation.”