Lori said, "Maybe he’s nervous about taking things to the next level."

The next level. As though dating were a computer game.

"Maybe he was hoping someone else would ask him," I said.

Lori reached the end of my closet. She slid the door closed with a thud. "I think you need to go shopping and buy something new. Something really stunning.”

"Like that’s going to make a difference."

"It will. It’s nature's way of attracting a mate. Peacocks have the bright feathers. Fish have the long tails, women have the mall.” She made a sweeping motion in my direction. "It's time you wow him with some style."

Which is how I ended up wandering around the mall for the next week, looking for wow. As it turns out, wow is really expensive.

Mostly I was just overwhelmed by all the choices. I didn’t know which textures went together or how to accessorize. I'd spent my life wearing blue jeans and T-shirts.

Finally I put together an outfit that didn’t cost a lot. I still had to buy dinner, tickets, and pictures. I also splurged on some new stuff to wear to school. I shouldn’t have. My college fund was already bleak, but every day that Trevor flirted with me in physics then ignored me at lunch sent me right back to the mall, looking for wow.

Theresa was pointedly nasty to me whenever she saw me, and I’d already found out about the picture she’d put on the Internet. So when the phone rang one afternoon and a professional-sounding woman’s voice said, “Hello, may I speak to Alexia Garcia?" I had my suspicions.

"This is she,” I said.

"Hello, Alexia, this is Maren Pomeroy, Kari Kingsley’s manager."

Right. I knew it was Theresa crank calling. She and the Cliquistas had done this sort of thing before. Theresa had figured out we didn’t have caller ID, and that made our house an easy target. Still, I let her go on and waited for the punch line.

The voice said, "I saw a picture of you, and I must say you look uncannily like Kari. I’m calling to see if you would be interested in pursuing a job as her double. But you’ll need to keep this strictly confidential—do you think you can do that?"

"Oh, sure," I said. "I’ll eat the phone after our conversation so no one will be able to trace the call.”

She laughed like she wasn’t quite sure how to take my comment and went on. "Kari needs the position filled immediately, and you would have to move out to California, but you’d be well compensated—somewhere between ten and twenty thousand a month. Of course, you’d be required to go through an interview first—"

And the interview no doubt would consist of questions regarding my IQ and if I thought Shakespeare was something a jungle native did before an elephant hunt. Then I would hear laughing in the background and a click.

Instead, I beat her to it. "Theresa, why don’t you grow up?" Then I hung up the phone. Some people can be so immature, and I didn't have to deal with that.

I went to the family room and sat down next to Abuela. She wore a plaid housedress and ate Triscuits and guacamole while she watched the end of one of her telenovelas. She occasionally shook her head and called out instructions to the characters. "Don't trust him, Consuela! He carries a gun for a reason.” Then to me she said, "Never date a man who carries a gun. They’re all criminals. Without exception.”

"What about policemen?"

She dipped a Triscuit into the guacamole. "They don't make enough money. Who wants to date one of them?"

"I don’t know. How cute is this policeman we’re talking about?"

She waved the Triscuit at me. "Teenagers. All you think about are looks. If you were smart, you would date ugly people. They'll be grateful and treat you better.”

Mom says that Abuela is getting opinionated in her old age. Except she isn’t that old, and to tell you the truth, I never remember her being anything but opinionated.

In sixth grade when we had grandparents’ day at school, the other kids’ grandparents came to the classroom to oooh and ahhh over their grandchildren’s projects. My grandma ended up cornering Mrs. Hochhalter by the world maps and complaining that schools shouldn't teach that Columbus discovered America. "You can't discover a country if someone is already living on it. That’s like me saying I discovered your minivan in the parking lot.” Abuela held up one hand. "I discovered it! Give me the keys or I’ll give your entire village smallpox!”

My mom came home not long afterward. She worked as the housekeeping supervisor at the Waterfront Place Hotel but also took classes three nights a week to get her business administration degree so she could, in her own words, "finally get a job that doesn’t require wearing a polyester uniform." This night she came inside carrying a white garbage bag. Booty from the hotel.

It's not that she stole towels or anything—although we had plenty of those too. When the towels got too old to use, she took them home instead of throwing them away. Ditto for the broken soap bars they couldn't use in the rooms. I’d spent my entire life washing off with soap that had been pieced together.

Antonio, the chef at the restaurant, also kept her supplied with leftovers from conventions and food that would otherwise go to waste—being single and pretty does have its perks in the hotel business.

Mom set stuff on the kitchen table and turned to me.

"Lexi, the school called me about that picture of you—the one where you look like Kari Kingsley."

Technically, I look like Kari Kingsley in all my pictures. I had no idea what she meant. "What?" I asked.

She opened her purse, took out a color copy of the picture, and handed it to me. It was the one where I was wearing my NHS T-shirt by the high school sign, but my hair was blond, and a caption underneath it read "Morgantown High: home of the great thinkers." Someone at school must have copied the picture from Theresa’s blog and turned it into a slam of Kari Kingsley and Morgantown High. After all, Kari Kingsley was the patron saint of blond jokes.

"You did this?" Mom asked. "You posed for this picture on purpose?”

"It was supposed to be a yearbook photo.”

"It didn’t end up in the yearbook,” Mom said, her voice tense. "It ended up all over the Internet. Kari Kingsley's manager called the school to complain about them defaming her client. When the school told them it was an actual student in the picture, the manager asked for your name and contact information. The school called to see if I wanted to give it to her." Mom took the picture from my hands. “I had no idea what they were talking about, so I had them e-mail me the picture.” She put her hand on her hip. "I can’t believe you posed for this right by the school sign. Now anyone who sees this will know where you go to school.”

I couldn’t muster much fear of Internet predators right then. I had just realized that Kari Kingsley's manager really had called me for a job interview. I sank down onto one of the kitchen chairs with a whimper. “You should have warned me that you gave our phone number to them,” I said. “Her manager called, and I thought it was a crank call."

Mom blinked rapidly. "I didn’t give her our phone number. I told the school I didn’t want her to contact us."

“Well, she got our number somewhere,” I said. Which wouldn't have been hard. In such a small town, anyone could have given her my number. "She asked if I’d be interested in a job interview, and”—I put my hand over my eyes—“I hung up on her.” This was really not the best way to impress future employers, but if I explained ... I looked up at Mom. "Can you get her contact information from the school so we can call her back?”