THE SKIN DOCTOR
he year was 2000. Britney ruled the world and a certain crush—who has now become a bit of a literary star and shall hence remain unnamed—ruled mine. I was at my best friend’s house, though we weren’t BFFs yet, still in that luminous phase of discovery, clocking in the prerequisite hours of hanging out, doing nothing that seems so essential to lifelong friendships. She’d just moved to India from Washington, DC. She wore
