Jake flew home from Arizona, sunburned, to attend a party he called an opportunity. “The house is sick,” he said. “Wear your new dress, we’ll get good content.” Before we left, we stood in his bathroom, wrapped in towels, and I patted concealer over red patches on his face.

“How’s that?” I asked. He turned to the glass, made a mirror face.

“You fixed me.”

I dried my hair, took time with my makeup. I put on the black dress, the heels, put lip gloss and liner in my new black clutch, took a selfie, deleted it. The light at Bloomingdale’s, the generous mirror, had masked the bodycon bust, deflated from the wrong angle. I went from Jake’s bathroom mirror to his bedroom mirror, trying to see what the truth was. I smoothed the puckered fabric, twisted my torso, shot my reflection with the sexy bunny filter and shared it to my stories, which Jake said I needed more of. Stories were rawer than posts, more true. Stories showed life as it truly was, not like the grid where everything was painted over, robbed of any contrast, any ugly underbelly. I knew what he meant. My own grid looked so perfect as to be grotesque at times, my Photoshopped body leached of blood and shit and sweat, the thrill of knowing every beautiful body holds all that inside it.

Jake arrived behind me in the mirror. He’d put on a suit, slim cut and also black. He checked himself first, then me. He’d noticed neither the bag nor the heels I’d tricked him into buying, and the secret thrilled me.

“You look good,” he said. I turned the word good around in my head. Good was not great, not stelle, stunning, beautiful,

He said, “How do I look?”

“Good,” I said.

Before we left, he cut us lines on a powder-smeared mirror, showed me how to use a straw like a hose, suctioning up the mess. I cleaned it and felt for real. Then Jake pulled the cover off his Land Rover and we drove into the hills, to a house made of angles and roofs. Inside, people wore suits and dresses. A girl in a tuxedo tended the open bar. A fake fireplace licked fake flames. We stood in line for drinks and I checked my phone. Follows and hearts, flames in my DMs.

“No pictures,” said the man ahead of us. He held a paper shopping bag.

“Sorry,” I said and put the phone away.

“What’s in the bag?” Jake asked. The man opened it up, showed us a colorful pile of dildos. Jake said “bro,” and laughed. I laughed too, but thought I sounded nervous. The man was with a woman, who gave me a long, wounded look.