Pants on Fire

well from the frequent slumber parties I attended at Sidney’s house afterward, Sidney not being the kind of person to forget a kindness.
That’s what I love about Sidney.

One
“Oh my God, what’s she doing here?” my best friend, Sidney van der Hoff, was asking, as I came up to the corner booth to hand out menus.
Sidney wasn’t talking about me. She was glaring at someone at another table.
But I couldn’t be bothered to look and see who Sidney was talking about, since my boyfriend, Seth, was sitting next to her, smiling up at me…that smile that’s been making girls’ insides melt since about the fifth grade, when we all started noticing Seth’s even white teeth and highly kissable lips.
It still freaks me out that out of all the girls in school, I’m the one he picked to kiss with those lips.
“Hey, babe,” Seth said to me, blinking his long, sexy eyelashes—the ones that I overheard my mom telling Sidney’s mom over the phone are totally wasted on a guy. He snaked an arm around my waist and gave me a squeeze.
“Hi,” I said, a little breathlessly. Not just because of the squeeze, but because I had a twelve-top (Mrs. Hogarth’s ninety-seventh birthday party) that was running me ragged, refilling their iced tea glasses and such, so I was panting a little anyway. “How was the movie?”
“Lame,” Sidney answered for everyone. “You didn’t miss anything. Lindsay should stick with red; blond does nothing for her. Seriously, though. What’s Morgan Castle doing here?” Sidney used the menu I’d just given her to point at a table over in Shaniqua’s section. “I mean, she’s got some nerve.”
I started to say Sidney was wrong—no way would Morgan Castle be caught dead at the Gull ’n Gulp. Especially at the height of the summer season, when the place was so packed. Locals—like Morgan—know better than to try to set foot near this place during high season. At least, not without a reservation. If you don’t have a reservation at the Gull ’n Gulp—even on a Tuesday night, like tonight—during high season, you can expect to wait at least an hour for a table…two hours on weekends.
Not that the tourists seem to mind. That’s because Jill, the hostess, gives them each one of those giant beepers you can’t fit into your pocket and mistakenly walk away with, and tells them she’ll beep them when a table opens up.

A liar like me doesn’t deserve friends.