Isabelle, the girl, is pouting too. “There’s only one true love,” she says, bossy like her mom should know that. I float closer, feel fluffy and spatially impaired, playing with a boring brown wand I wave too close to other people’s bodies while I eavesdrop. Isabelle and her mom consider a silver scepter, but it’s not original enough, Isabelle says. I listen to her hate every option her mom presents and flick my wand back and forth, in and out of thoughts I can’t hold on to, most of them about myself. In my bag, my phone buzzes again and I put the wand back, remove my device, check the screen.

“How’d it go?” Leah has texted, presumably about Aesthetica™, possibly in response to the call I think I remember placing now, sometime last night. But it’s all a blur and I’m embarrassed to admit it, or to tell her about Henry, or show her who I am, how I look now that it’s only my real face I’m wearing. I swipe the text away, drop my phone back in my bag, watch Isabelle decide on a pretty magic wand with a star on the tip. Then I carry the goth wand I’m holding—a goofy skull on the hilt, mouth open, asymmetrical eyes—to the registers where I use the last of Henry’s cash to buy it.

OUT IN THE alley, I keep my eyes pinned on the back of Isabelle’s mom’s red head, the clasp of her hand around her daughter’s hand. I follow them to the first interactive hot-spot where lasered Fairy Tale props can work, a giant screen where twelve animated princesses have paused mid-dance, like the victims of a bad internet connection. They’re supposed to start dancing again when an interactive device air-letters an M in front of the screen and I get in line, close where I can listen to Isabelle fret as every kid ahead of her struggles. Some of them give up.

“Maybe you have to be tall enough,” she says and stands up straighter. Her mom takes out her phone to film.

“You’ve got this,” the mom says. When her turn comes, Isabelle puts her feet where they’re supposed to go and bends her knees like she’s ready to take flight. She lifts her magic wand, makes a swish. But the princesses don’t budge.

“Dang,” she says and tries again, to nothing.

“One more time,” her mother says. “Try it one more time.”

“I can’t,” Isabelle says.

“One more try.”

The girl stomps, then plants her feet. Even with her baby fat and freckles there is a maturity to her stance, a determination. Isabelle is not my child. I think this as I watch her lift her wand, close her eyes, draw an M. Slowly, the orchestra music rises, the girls begin to twirl.

“I did it!” Isabelle yells.