‘Always a mistake. Unless your mom is Zooey Deschanel.’

‘But I’ve been living on a campus full of boys for two years now! It’s time for me to find a boyfriend.’

‘Wait,’ I said through a mouthful of hot dog. ‘I thought you were waiting till college to get a boyfriend, when you do your junior year in London and meet a shy ginger named Rupert who recites Shakespeare’s twenty-ninth sonnet to you.’

‘No. That’s when I’m gonna lose my virginity,’ she corrected me – of course lowering her voice on the last word. ‘I’m waiting for that, but I’m not waiting for a boyfriend. I’m going to find one this semester.’

I licked ketchup off my fingers. ‘You go, girl penguin.’

‘I’m serious, Alex!’ Mary Kate put down her half-eaten hot dog and wiped her hands on a napkin to indicate the gravity of the situation. ‘I am resolved. I am determined. I am making a vow here. Before this semester ends, I am going to walk around the lake with somebody.’

Raising my fist, I did my best Scarlett O’Hara impression: ‘As God is my witness …’

‘Actually, better than that,’ she corrected herself. ‘I’m gonna do it before the first snow.’

I lowered my fist. ‘The first snow?’

‘Well, it just gets so cold in the winter,’ she said sensibly. ‘I don’t know if the magic boyfriend-handholding lake thingy works if you’re wearing mittens. Plus, it’s hard to find guys in the winter. Remember last year how that big snowstorm left a huge wall of snow blocking off Boys’ Quad?’

‘That actually does make sense.’

‘Although,’ Mary Kate reconsidered, ‘a wall of snow dividing me from my true love could be romantic. It could turn into, like, a Pyramus and Thisbe situation.’

‘Or a glory-hole situation,’ I warned darkly.

She grimaced. Mary Kate had been living with me long enough to know what that meant. ‘You’re right. Let’s definitely make it before the first snow.’

Humming happily, she finished her hot dog. In her head, I knew she was already choosing which color Sharpie she would use to write her semester vow in her purple planner between learn 50 new vocab words and practice using eyelash curler.

‘You know,’ I said. ‘With all this climate-change nutsiness going on, and Leonardo DiCaprio driving his Prius around Antarctica, giving homeless polar bears sunscreen, the first snow could be any day now.’

‘Well, it’s a good thing I’m starting now then,’ Mary Kate said. ‘You know maybe, instead of trying to get kicked out of school, you should set a semester goal, too. It could give you structure and direction. And something to do besides falling out of boys’ windows and being sent to the principal’s office.’