Later, after Shola has gone home to tutor the Littles, what she calls her twin brother and sister, who, in the sixth grade are already taller than me, my mother plops down on the couch. She has traded her apron for a crisp white pajama set with navy blue piping, and she looks like she’s in an ad for expensive linens. I again have my SAT book open, though my hair is wet from an afternoon swim.

“How’d it go?” I ask, and my mom leans her head back against the tufted velvet and sighs. Her blond hair spreads out like spilled water. Whenever people meet her, they can’t help staring, and not only because she’s famous. They stare because she’s flawless. Even in LA, where we have a ridiculous number of pretty people, she’s a Monet in a room full of Bob Ross paintings. All are pleasing to the eye, but a Monet demands you stop and linger. You take a piece of its beauty with you in your mind when you go.

I’ve always wanted to ask but have never gathered up the nerve: What’s it like to look like you? How does it feel to walk around with that kind of power?

Looks-wise, I take after my father. My features add up to a perfectly normal, albeit bland, face. I’m like the art you find on the walls of a hotel room, a photograph of a familiar local landmark designed to blend into the background.

To be clear: I’m not complaining. I learned long ago that there are worse things than being unnoticeable.

“It’s the same interview for twenty years. They ask me how I’m like Missy in real life, and I say, ‘Actually I’m nothing like her,’ and then I try to pivot to promote the new show, though no one actually wants to hear about the new show. Paloma said the pancakes were a mistake.”

She puts her arm around me and brings me in closer for a snuggle. We’re a touchy-feely family. Not a day goes by when my parents don’t say I love you, and often, before bed, they’ll swing by my room to tuck me in even though I’m seventeen and supposed to be too old for that. I realize that if I’m going to rebel—beyond that sacrilegious trip to McDonald’s—I should do it now. I’m supposed to want to ink my arms with tattoos and dabble in recreational drugs and dream of living a life free from my parental overloads.