Once we were inside the fence, Junior got right to it, saying hi to all his friends and sniffing a few new butts around the park. But then, pretty quick, he started walking in little circles—right before he went into that old familiar squat.

And that’s when I remembered something. You always, always want to bring a plastic bag to the dog park with you.

“Isn’t that your dog?” some lady said.

“Yeah,” I said. “You don’t have an extra bag, do you?”

She just made a face like I was totally useless. “Are you kidding me?” she said.

“I forgot.”

“Everyone’s responsible for their messes, kid. That’s how it works,” she said. “If you can’t look after your own dog—”

“I know, I know,” I said, and started walking over to where Junior had done his business. I didn’t want to get yelled at anymore. Maybe I could use one of my socks, I thought. But then—

“Hey, do you need a bag?” someone behind me asked.

When I turned around, Marley Grote was standing there looking at me. It was like déjà vu from the day of the football game. Except this time, instead of scoring a touchdown, I was picking up poop. Besides that, it was exactly the same.

“Here,” she said. She had a little plastic dog bone on her leash, with a whole roll of bags inside.

“You come prepared,” I said.

“Like I have a choice, with my dad,” she said, and pointed at some guy over on a park bench, feeding a baby. “Why aren’t you at Quinn’s party?” she asked.

“Well, I was,” I said. “But… Junior needed a walk.”

“Oh,” she said.

“Why aren’t you at Quinn’s party?” I said.

Marley looked at me kind of funny. “I wasn’t invited,” she told me.

That’s when I figured out I shouldn’t have asked in the first place. Oops… again.

“You didn’t miss much,” I said. Except for the single most humiliating moment of my life. “Hey, sorry if I was rude or whatever at the game the other day.”

“You weren’t rude,” she said.

“Jeanne thought I was,” I told her. “But I didn’t mean to be.”

Marley smiled, and kind of blushed. I think that was her way of saying, Yeah, okay, you were a jerk, but I’m not going to make a big deal about it. Which was pretty nice, I thought. I didn’t think I could sink any lower anyway.

“Which dog is yours?” I asked her.

She pointed over to a tree where three little dogs were all sniffing the same spot.

“The white one with the pink collar,” she said.

“What’s her name?” I said.

“Justine Bieber,” she said.

“Seriously?” I said.

“Yeah, why?”

“No reason,” I said, because I’d already been rude once, or maybe even twice. I didn’t want to push my luck.

Besides, it looked like Junior was starting to make eyes at Justine. So who was I to get in the way?

Maybe at least one of us could have a good night after all.