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1

Alison Shaw felt good. Really good. She made the final turn around the smooth cinder track with long, easy strides. She’d done six full laps, but with the cool breeze coming in from the beach four blocks away, there wasn’t even a hint of the choking exhaust that usually drifted directly from the Santa Monica Freeway onto the playing fields. She felt she could do at least three more laps when she heard the coach’s whistle. End of period; end of day; end of week. A shower, and she could go home. She slowed her pace so Cindy Kearns could catch up with her.

“There’s a party at the beach tonight,” Cindy said, catching her breath and wiping more perspiration from her forehead than was on Alison’s entire body. “Jeff Simmons is going to be there.” Cindy was pretty sure Alison had a crush on Jeff, but if she did, she wasn’t showing it. In fact, she was shrugging like she couldn’t care less.

“Can’t,” Alison said. “My mom has to go to some fancy banquet for one of her clients tonight and I’m fixing dinner for my dad.”

“How domestic of you,” Cindy said. “What about after dinner? It won’t even get dark until after eight, and it could go until mid- night.”

Alison rolled her eyes. “And Jeff Simmons will bring a keg of beer, and everybody will get drunk, and the cops will come, and then we’ll all have to call our folks to come get us. Gee, it sounds like so much fun, how can I resist?”

Cindy decided to ignore her sarcasm. “So if you don’t want him, can I have Jeff Simmons?”

Alison glared at her best friend in not-quite-mock exasperation. Ever since she’d turned fifteen last month, all Cindy seemed to think about was boys—as if some kind of switch had been turned on. “I barely even know Jeff,” she said. “And I’m sure he’s no more interested in me than any of the other boys are, which means not at all, which is fine with me. Besides, even if I wanted to go, my dad’s bringing home a movie. So add Jeff to your list of conquests, and call me with all the details tomorrow.”

Once again Cindy ignored Alison’s tone, and pushed through the double doors into the girls’ locker room, which was even warmer than the air outside, and muggy from the showers that were already going full blast. Cindy quickly stripped off her sweaty gym clothes and dropped them in a dank pile on the floor.

Alison had just shed her shorts when Coach DiBenedetti walked through the locker room, a bra dangling from her fingers. “Lost and found,” she announced. “Who left a bra under the bench?”

Paula Steen, one of a half-dozen seniors in the class, snickered. “Well, we know it’s not Alison Shaw’s,” she called out, eliciting exactly the laugh she was looking for from her friends.

Seeing Cindy open her mouth to take a shot at Paula, Alison spoke first. “Is it a training bra?” she called out to the coach, loud enough for everyone to hear. “ ’Cause if it isn’t, Paula’s right—can’t possibly be mine.” When even Paula’s friends giggled, she decided to push it a little further. “I’m still looking for the pretraining model!”

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