Now we had “boyfriends,” chosen for us by other girls, in notes passed from desk to desk, or in long, tortuous phone calls (“Want to know who fancies you and told everyone he fancies you?”), and once these boyfriends had been formally assigned we stood solemnly with them in the playground in the thin winter sun, hand in hand—more often than not a head taller than them—until the inevitable moment came for us to break up (the timing of this, too, was decided by our friends) and the round of notes and calls would begin again.
