The doorbell rang after dinner Monday night, and Rachel looked at me. “That’s Josh.”

I got up, feeling the same nervous shyness as when he picked me up for our first date, but this time with none of the excitement. I opened the door and he met my eyes with a cautious half-smile.

“Are you feeling better?” he asked. I nodded and stepped toward him. He reached his arms around me, but the hug felt loose and awkward.

We went into the living room, where Rachel was waiting. I sat on the couch beside Josh. “I screwed up,” he said. “I’m really sorry.” “I know you are,” Rachel said. “But I have to be honest and tell you that this feels a little personal because I trusted you.”

“Yeah,” Josh said, looking at Rachel and then at me. “I lost a lot of trust over the weekend.”

“How bad is the car?” she asked.

“It’s in the shop now.” He looked down. “The money I earned over the summer will take care of fixing it.”

My heart sank at his words. He’d been working so hard to get enough money together to buy his own car, and now he’d be starting all over.

“I also have a check for the garage door,” he said, reaching into his pocket.

I turned to Josh. “Rachel and I already talked about that. I’m going to pay for it out of my wages.” I glanced at Rachel, and she gave me the smallest of nods. Josh looked at me as though he was about to object, but I shook my head before he could talk. “It’s only fair,” I said. “I made you take me home. If we’d stayed at the party like you wanted, none of this would have happened.”

Josh looked like he was trying to smile. “Thanks, Liza.” Then he turned to Rachel. “You’ve always been like a second mom to me,” he said. “Now both of my moms are pissed at me.”

Rachel took a long breath. “There’s something my father told me once after I’d gotten into some trouble. He said, ‘We all make mistakes. But it’s what you do after the mistake that shows the kind of person you are.’”

Josh looked at her and nodded, a mix of sadness and relief on his face. Standing up he said, “I’ve got to head out now. I’m going to the mall to see if the Apple store will give me more hours.” Rachel stood and put her arms around him. He returned her hug.

“We’ve all had a night we wish we could get back,” she said.

I walked Josh to the front door, slipping my hand tentatively into his. He gave it a light squeeze before he let go. He turned to me and said, “We’re going to be all right.” After he left, I realized that he had said it as a question.

The next day, Rachel arranged to have the garage door fixed, and we agreed that she would deduct money from each of my paychecks until the cost of the repair was covered. Josh called to tell me that he was able to get more hours at the Apple store, but some of them would be over the weekends. “It doesn’t really matter, though,” he added, “because I’m grounded for the next two weeks except for work and school.” Hanging up the phone, I could already feel the loneliness of the two weeks that lay ahead.

Later that afternoon, I went into the Bean Scene. The children were at a reading in the library, and I had a half hour before I had to pick them up. When I walked in, I saw Valerie at a corner table with Jill and Carly. They had books and papers spread around them, but it didn’t seem like they were studying. Valerie looked up and saw me. I thought I noticed the girls exchanging glances before she waved me over to the table.

“So,” said Carly, “we were hangover sisters Saturday night.”

“I’m afraid we were,” I said. “Are you feeling better?”

“Yeah,” said Carly. “Sunday was a little rocky. How about you?”

“I’m fine,” I said, looking down. I felt a pang every time I thought about Saturday night.

“I guess it was your first time drinking,” said Valerie.

“And my last.”

“That’s what we all say,” said Jill, with a giggle. “But we don’t seem to learn from our mistakes.”

They all laughed, and I tried to join in. When the laughter died down, Valerie turned to me. “So, anyway, do you mind if I ask you something?” I waited. “Like, what were you thinking?”

“Excuse me?”

“Why did you make Josh drive you home? The whole reason we planned the sleepover was so no one would be on the road. And now we’re all in trouble.”

“You are?” I asked, shame filling me.

“Yeah,” Valerie continued. “After what happened with you and Josh, all the parents know we were drinking. I’m back on curfew. Oscar’s grounded. Alex can’t drive for a month.”

Heat pumped to my face. “I’m sorry, but I was sick.”

“You were hungover,” said Valerie. “We all were. And nobody else went home.”

I felt like I was sliding into a hole.

“Chill out, Val,” said Carly. “This isn’t Eliza’s fault. She didn’t know we’d be drinking.” I looked gratefully at Carly. “And she didn’t even know that everyone was going to be at the sleepover. Remember, we told her it was just going to be the girls.”

I straightened in my chair, recalling my confusion when I learned that the boys would also be sleeping over. I looked at Valerie, who was staring angrily at Carly.

“Nice going, Carly,” said Jill. “That was supposed to be a secret.” Carly shrugged.

I turned to Valerie. “So everyone knew but me?”

“Yeah,” said Valerie. “If you want to know, your boyfriend was the reason no one told you about the sleepover. Josh told me to say it would just be the girls.”

“And why was that?” I asked, my heart pounding.

Valerie shrugged. “Why do you think? He was afraid that if you knew about it, you wouldn’t stay overnight. You know, because of the Amish thing.”

They were all looking at me, waiting for my response, but too many feelings were clattering through me. And Valerie was looking a little too pleased that she had been able to tell me this information about Josh.

I reached to select the right words. “Well,” I said slowly, “Josh was right about something.” I waited a moment, watching Valerie’s face. “He told me never to trust you with a secret. I guess he should have taken his own advice.”

Valerie’s eyebrows lowered. She opened her mouth as if to say something, then closed it again. Carly burst into laughter. “Oh, burn!” she said when her laughter died down. I wasn’t sure what that meant, but Carly was smiling at me in a satisfied way, and I felt that I had won a tiny victory. I looked at my watch. “I have to go pick up the kids,” I said. Then I turned to Valerie. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there to help clean up in the morning. It must have been a big mess.”

“Yes, it was,” she said. “And it still is.”

The next day I got a letter from Kate. I’m so sorry about the troubles you had after the dance, she wrote. If you were home I’d be giving you a bag of starter batter and we would bake friendship bread to help you feel better. I smiled, remembering the Sunday afternoons I had spent mixing ingredients with my sister and later sharing the batter with our girlfriends.

Everyone who shared in the batch of batter baked their friendship bread at the same time. So while I bent over my stove, I would know that three of my friends were all doing the same in their own kitchens. Here, friends didn’t need anything like that to feel connected. All they had to do was sign on to the computer or pick up a cell phone. I looked down at Kate’s letter and read on, imagining the cinnamon smells of the bread we would be baking together if I were at home right now.