Five minutes at the Ursuline dance proved that the boys were as socially inept as expected. Jesuit kids ran in the normal, awkward cliques (jocks, greasers, anti-socs, headbangers, artsy fartsies, band geeks, etc.)—but Dan’s crew flew apart in a multitude of directions. Rick spotted Lili Villeneuve, the French foreign exchange student, and that was the last they saw of Rick that night. Rob shadowed Jenny O’Meara while pretending not to. Stick got into an argument with his cousin Tara, who, with a bevy of froshgirls, wanted full backgrounds on impending lettermen. “When Smokey Sings” leapt out of the speakers, and all the girls started pulling taffy and stutter-stepping aerobics like Molly Ringwald in detention. And just that quickly, Dan was left alone on the sidelines. “I gotta hit the head . . . ,” he said to no one, and slipped away. The boys’ room in an all-girls Catholic high school was three floors down in some subbasement where he was sure he’d be murdered by a member of the janitorial staff. But the long halls on the way attracted a curious if disaffected element. There was Eddie Rivera in front of the mirror, dragging his bangs across his face. Between rounds of grab-ass, Devin Osweiler and a couple of his good ole boys from the wrestling team were dippin’ and had covered one urinal in brown loogies. Lalo da Silva was yelling at his twin brother, Memo, in Spanish about una chica, and uber-nerd Peter Winkleman muttered to himself, lost in some Bakshi version of reality.

Dan washed his hands and stared into the mirror. No major acne disasters, but don’t pick at that. Mop top kind of hopeless. Why did you wear this Benetton rugby shirt? You look like a flag for an African country. Stop it, man up, go chat up girls, not including Jenny Nowicki, who talks nonstop about swim team. Find Cady Bloom before the next slow song.

Unable to muster or convince himself, Dan dawdled back to the dance. The Ursuline dining hall was lit low, but he had no problem spotting Cady. She was enveloped by deep blue banners that read, twilight stardust, some sort of confusing, half-baked theme for this mixer. Mary Mother of God, she is cute, Dan thought—big brown eyes, brown hair teased and crimped, and pulling off a checkered-skirt-and-black-tights look that was somewhere between Winona Ryder and Lisa Bonet. The good news: she wasn’t dancing but gazing toward the floor to do so. The bad news: there was that giant dickface Brad McQuivers making his way over.