We burst into a fit of giggles. The Kimballs lived four doors down from us. They had two girls our age, as well as eight additional kids ranging in age from toddlerhood to early twenties. Their father seemed to avoid being home as much as possible, and their mother was an enormous woman who’d long lost any control she might have once had over the household. She primarily seemed to focus on making sure none of the younger ones inadvertently killed themselves or each other. They ordered pizza for dinner almost every night, and their ramshackle house was a lawless empire of children. Luke and I loved it there.

“Not like that,” Penny said, scrunching her nose.

Starting at age twelve, Penny began to rack up an impressive number of boyfriends. I remember her first date as vividly as if it were my own, partly because mine wouldn’t come along for a long time. In sixth grade, Penny was “going out” with a boy in her class named Jake. This mostly meant passing notes back and forth via trusted emissaries and occasionally holding hands in the hallway between classes. No “going out” actually happened until Penny put the hard-core press on our mom and dad to let her go to the movies with Jake. Emily had a crush on his best friend, Ethan, so a double date was ideal. Being that it was a group thing and it seemed very unlikely that anything untoward could happen at the Riverstone Theatre during a matinee showing of The Mask, my parents relented. Penny and Emily were in a frenzy getting ready for their date: Penny’s room with its pink vanity mirror was a haze of sugary body sprays and glittery Bonne Bell lip balms. They both wore baby tees and pulled their long hair away from their faces with butterfly clips.

“They’re being like, really silly,” I said to my mom, plopping down on the couch with her to watch Kindergarten Cop while my dad, who considered himself (wrongly) a menacing deterrent to adolescent boys, ferried the girls to their date. “I don’t get it,” I sniffed.

My mom smiled at me, probably knowing that I felt a little left out. “I was the same when I was Penny’s age.”

I scrunched my nose. “Are you serious?”

“Oh yeah.” She laughed. “Completely boy crazy.”

“Gross. I hope it’s not genetic.”

“Well, it’s fine if you don’t, but you may feel differently in a few years.”

People, including Penny, were always telling me this, that I was going to feel differently about boys one day, and I dreaded it. It made me feel like a time bomb.

“It would be so much easier if I were a boy,” I said.

“Maybe in some ways,” my mom said, “but being a girl is great too.”