Free My First Love by Callie West

rooftop kiss. That sounds
so
romantic.”
    “Yeah,” I said, unable to wipe a big silly smile off my face.
    “Wow,” Blythe said. “So … is he a good kisser?”
    “Awesome,” I said.
    “Awesome,” Blythe repeated. “Does this mean that you’ll go with him to the junior-senior dance?”
    “I hadn’t thought about it,” I answered casually, althoughthe mental image of Chris and me dancing together made my pulse race. “It’s too far away.”
    “Let’s look at dresses anyway,” Blythe said, swinging into the parking lot of the Ocotillo Mall. Even though it had just opened at eleven, the lot was filling up. “You never know how things will turn out.” She was going so fast around the turn I swear she left tire treads in the hot asphalt.
    “I—I don’t know,” I began to protest. “I have so much homework to do. We have a physics test on Tuesday, and I haven’t done any calculus in three days, and I—”
    “Amy,
come on
,” Blythe said impatiently, pulling the Jeep into a parking space and jerking to a stop. “You have spent your entire life doing your homework. It’s time to live a little.”
    “But I—I just—”
    Blythe cut the engine and dropped her keys in her purse. She looked in the rearview mirror, running her fingers through her long hair. “Let’s try Buttocks first,” she suggested, calling the store by the nickname that had stuck ever since some prankster with a can of spray paint had crossed the two L’s.
    I tagged behind obediently, trying not to think about how many calculus problems would be waiting for me when I got home.
Live a little
, I ordered myself.
    In Bullocks, we were bombarded with a blast of air-conditioning and the buy-me scent of brand-new clothes.We breezed through shoes and then cosmetics, dodging the heavily made-up women who offered makeovers and sample spritzes of cologne. “We’re on a mission,” Blythe called out to a particularly insistent salesperson, as we boarded the escalator bound for the evening-dress department. “We don’t have time for avocado facials.”
    The department was called Cotillion, after the debutante ball the daughters of Phoenix’s rich families were presented at every spring. Blythe was quite at home there—after all, she’d been invited (though she’d refused) to join the Desert Debs. I admired the way she strode through this very expensive, very formal department in her combat boots, her long floral skirt, and her tank top. She stopped and held up one dress, then another. She didn’t need to look at price tags, but I did. And every time I turned one over, I gasped.
    “Three hundred dollars!” I exclaimed, holding up a demure black velvet dress.
    “Kind of conservative,” Blythe said, squinting. “But it would look all right with a pair of army boots.” She took the dress from me and followed a pinch-nosed clerk into the dressing room.
    It’s weird how all that taffeta and satin and velvet can confuse you.
    Finally, I chose a slinky slip dress in bright red—something I wouldn’t wear in my wildest dreams. Blythe and I came sheepishly out of our cubicles and stood together infront of a large full-length, three-panel mirror. To be honest, we looked like a pair of wannabe actresses auditioning for the wrong parts.
    “Do I look like the Bride of Frankenstein?” Blythe asked me, turning carefully in the black velvet dress.
    “Not exactly, girlfriend. You look more like the Bride of Rick Finnegan.”
    Blythe laughed. “Yeah, right,” she said, then stared at me. “And you look like you should be riding on a fire truck with a cute fireman.”
    I laughed. “It is the color of a fire engine.”
    “It looks gorgeous with your hair,” Blythe added.
    Blythe pulled her own hair back into a ponytail, then smoothed it and twisted it into an elegant chignon. She looked older and very sophisticated. “I think I like the Finnegan dress,” she said, “even though it isn’t quite my style.”
    “I know what you