I love my daughter. I love teenagers. One of my gifts is the ability (and willingness) to see the person inside the age or despite the age or through, around, because of the age. Girls are easier for me because I have a daughter. The boys are a little skittish around me until they figure out that, really, I have no ulterior motive when I choose to talk to them. I’m simply interested in them the way I’m interested in people in general (unless I’m feeling ugly and reclusive or shy and reclusive or pissy and reclusive).

That said, they are driving me mad, mad, I say.

I’d say I can’t wait for Aug. 24 when school starts again, but they all begin high school in the fall, and that’s scarier than allowing gaggles of teenagers to hang out in my house together.

Yesterday, I took, three 14-year-old girls to the July Fourth festivities down by the river. One went home with a bellyache, poor thing. One of my daughter’s friends, a 17-year-old boy (homeschooled, darling but nerdy, excessively brilliant, can’t wait to leave home, adores my daughter but pretends he thinks of her as a little kid), joined us. We laid out our blankets on the grass across from the bandstand where Sour Jane was playing some surprisingly decent rock and roll.

I grimaced through the offensive prayer blessing the event (really, I was offended), sat with the kids and laughed at them when they covered their faces as I tried to take their pictures, laughed at my daughter who kept glaring at me as I photographed strangers walking by.

*

Interrupted by a mad dash to the movie theater to catch my daughter’s friend’s “secret” boyfriend before he went into the movie to see if he could simply come back to my house to hang out (yes, in my daughter’s room, but she doesn’t have a door on her bedroom, which is actually the former “attic,” and I can hear everything that goes on up there, even quiet things like lips meeting lips, so, yeah, there would have been NO inappropriate P.D.A. in my house. Hey, if I don’t have anyone to kiss, why should I let 14 year olds kiss in my house?).

I didn’t realize that my daughter’s evil friend was a “secret” to her boyfriend’s parents. Hell, I guess I thought because I knew, and because the evil friend and her secret boyfriend went to the eighth-grade semi-formal together in May, that his parents had figured it out.

What do I know?

When we got to the movie theater at the mall, I let the girls out of the car so that they could go talk to my daughter’s evil friend’s “secret” boyfriend.

The girls did NOT expect to see my daughter’s evil friend’s “secret” boyfriend’s mother there with him. He refused to acknowledge their presence, though his mom said hello to the girls.

They came out of the mall completely stymied about how to get the boy to talk to them so they could ask him to ask his mother if he could come over to my house (I offered to go in to talk to the boy’s mother, but they turned me down).

It turns out that my daughter’s friend’s “secret” boyfriend had lied to his mother and told her he was seeing a movie with a male friend when all along, he was planning to see the movie with my daughter’s friend, his secret girlfriend.

For some reason, his mother decided to wait with him at the theater until his male friend showed up. Instead, my daughter and her evil friend showed up to see if we could drive him back to my house.

Really. I feel like an idiot.

(The reason we drove all the way to the theater was because the secret boyfriend doesn’t have a cell phone.)

When the secret boyfriend’s mother realized that he had lied and was never planning to see the movie with a male friend but had been planning all along to see the movie with my daughter’s evil friend, she said to my daughter (since the evil friend made my daughter go talk to him and his mom, instead, because the evil friend is afraid of her secret boyfriend’s mother) “Secret Boyfriend can’t talk to you. He has to go home. Right. Now.”

Busted!

Now evil friend’s secret boyfriend’s mother is going to think I’m a skanky mother who is too permissive and allows my daughter to have boyfriends at the young age of 14 even though the secret boyfriend isn’t my daughter’s boyfriend but is the evil friend’s boyfriend, and I had NO IDEA that the secret boyfriend had lied to his mother about where he was going to be and with whom (it was more the “with whom” than the “where”).

The girls orchestrated an intricate afternoon that involved balancing the “secret” boyfriend with one of my daughter’s male friends, Mustache Guy. Girl Boy Girl Boy (but no kissing since my daughter and Mustache Guy aren’t “dating” and you can call me delusional if you want to, but I wouldn’t recommend it. I’m sleep deprived and therefore extremely cranky).

We picked up Mustache Guy from his house and brought him back here even though “Secret Boyfriend” is probably grounded for the next 16 years for lying to his mother, so the balance is off. But this is the first time Mustache Guy has been able to get together with them. (family crisis has kept him at home – a dying relative), so my daughter and I did not want to cancel on him. My daughter’s evil friend dislikes Mustache Guy and didn’t want to be here with just him and my girl.

Mustache Guy did NOT lie to his mother. Thank God.

My daughter’s evil friend was pretty much frothing at the mouth the whole time I drove all three back to my house.

The three of them are up at the elementary school playground expending all that excess adolescent energy. Mustache Guy looked a little bit terrified, and my girl walked very quickly away from the house, a sure sign that she is pissed as hell.

My kid doesn’t lie to me, not about where she is or who she’s with (I know that should be “whom,” but it sounds funny, so if my bad grammar bothers you, you can just bite me). I know she leaves things out now and then. But she wants me to trust her so that I’ll let her do the things she wants to do (her dad, too). There’s no point in lying to us.

I don’t care if she has a boyfriend (she’s says she’s “off” dating right now). “Dating” for 13 and 14 year olds is more a matter of wandering the mall looking into store windows, maybe holding hands, or going to the movies, maybe sneaking in a quick kiss while no one is watching, than real dating dating.

I can’t stop my kid from liking boys, liking specific boys any more than the evil friend’s mother can stop her from like her “secret” boyfriend or the secret boyfriend’s mother can stop him from liking my daughter’s evil friend (and the other girl he apparently likes).

They’re going to like each other. They’re teenagers. They have blood and skin and eyes and hormones.

Ah.

The evil friend has returned from the elementary school playground and is now upstairs in my daughter’s room, probably hanging out online.

“The playground wasn’t fun?” I asked.

“No. It wasn’t,” she said.

My daughter is now probably happy to be alone with Mustache Guy. Who knows? Maybe they’re holding hands as they swing or something. I can’t stop them, and I’m not sure I’d want to.

*

(note: my girl and Mustache Guy are back. They don’t know what to do. The evil friend is making everyone miserable because her “secret” boyfriend couldn’t come, too. He’s in trouble because of her, this poor “secret” boy. Evil friend won’t take responsibility. Golly. Someday I’m going to sit her mama down (when she’s not too busy running their restaurant) and tell her all about her daughter’s maneuverings and manipulations.)

*

Um. Now my Girl and Mustache Guy are in my living room watching Fired Up, and evil friend is upstairs sulking.

Evil friend’s mother is out of town, I think. I don’t know if her father is around but working. I do know her aunt is in town, but is also probably working.

My kid and her boy buddy are at a loss. I think they’ve chosen well. Mustache Guy is really nice. I feel so bad that he’s stuck in this hell with my daughter’s evil friend. Well. Everything is temporary, right?