Nov. 28, 7:30 P.M.

I just took my own picture with a Polaroid camera. The last photograph of me before I lose my virginity. I sat on the bed and held the camera at arm's length and smiled. The flash turned my eyes all red, so now I have this Last Picture of Jonah as a Virgin, and I look like some kind of werewolf. Tonight, when I get back from Posie's, maybe I'll take another photograph and compare the two.

I'm sitting in my room, listening to Mom's radio show, Pillow Talk, on WOMN-FM. I have to admit it's become an obsession. It's like a horror movie where you cover your eyes, but then you spread your fingers and peek because you have to see what happens next.

All these kids are calling Mom up and asking her these crazy questions. I'm a fifteen-year-old girl and whenever I kiss a guy I get the hiccups. Is this normal? Or, I'm a sixteen-year-old boy and I like to read Vogue and Mademoiselle. Is this normal? Or, I'm a seventeen-year-old boy and I don't want to touch a girl unless I'm listening to Jay-Z. Is this normal? No matter what questions get asked, Mom always answers the same thing: Tell me'are you being nice to yourself?

I almost called up Mom myself. Here's what I'd say: “Doctor” Black, I'm this seventeen-year-old guy who was held back a year in school for completely unfair reasons and now I'm in the eleventh grade all over again while my friends are all seniors, and I'm just about to sleep with the perfect girl who's been my friend since I was ten, except that I can't stop thinking about this kind of mystery girl I know from this boarding school in Pennsylvania I used to go to. Is this normal?

I could even answer her next question: And no, I'm not being nice to myself. I think I'm being nice to everybody else, though. Does that count?

What does “being nice to yourself” mean exactly anyway?

I think I'm going to jump on my bike and head over to Posie's house pretty soon. I've got the flowers I bought from Rite Aid, and the condoms I bought a couple weeks ago. I even hav...

(Still Nov. 28, ten minutes later)

Okay, at that exact second the phone rang.

Somehow I knew it was Sophie from the sound of the ring. I can't explain this except that as I walked to the kitchen to pick up the cordless, I had absolutely no doubt about who it was.

“Hi? Jonah?” I could see her so clearly, I could almost smell her shampoo. It was amazing that she could be calling me in Pompano Beach, Florida, all the way from Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, and have it sound like she was in the same room. In the background, I could hear the sound of the traffic on Lancaster Pike, which is this big road in front of Masthead Academy. I knew she was standing at the pay phone outside Webber Hall, which is the administration building. I wondered why she hadn't used the phone in the hallway of the girls' dorm, but maybe she wanted privacy when she talked to me. I liked that.

“Sophie?” I said. “How are you?”

“I'm'okay. I guess,” she said. “Kind of weird, actually.”

“Really? Are you all right?” I asked. She sounded strange.

“Yeah. I'm all right. It's just weird, you know? I miss you.”

“I miss you, too, Sophie. How's everything at Masthead?”

“Oh, Jonah, you know what it's like here. It's lunatic city. Except it's worse because everybody's under all this pressure, waiting to find out where we got into college.”

“Where did you apply?” I asked her.

There was this big pause.

“Uh, you don't have to tell me if you don't want to,” I said.

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