That was not the case with Mrs. Bergeron, Gina’s mother, who came in frequently and always sought out Alice, asking her how she was doing, and telling her all about Gina as though the two of them were still best friends. “She had to drop out of NYU because she just couldn’t keep up with her courses and her modeling schedule at the same time. My husband said that she should have dropped some of her modeling work, but I said, well, she can always go back to school and finish, and she won’t always be able to be a model. I mean, strike while the going is good, right?” She reminded Alice so much of Gina, the way her words would speed up while she was talking, ending her sentences by taking a deep breath.

Once, when Alice was working in the deodorant and bodywash aisle, Mrs. Bergeron, visibly elated, approached her holding the latest copy of Cosmopolitan.

“You’re not going to believe this, Alice,” she said, thumbing the issue open to an ad for Jordache, and there was Gina, in high-cut shorts and long socks with two other girls in what was supposed to be a high school cafeteria. The ad was selling a new line of knitted socks, and Mrs. Bergeron said, “She also did a session for jeans, but doesn’t know if they’re going to use those pictures yet. Can you believe it?”

Alice did believe it—she’d always known Gina was going to be a star—but shook her head at Mrs. Bergeron and said, “Amazing.”

“I know, right? I might have to buy every last copy.”

Gina’s mother ended up buying most of the copies, but not quite all of them, and Alice took one home with her, first reading the magazine cover to cover while Jake watched a hockey game, then later, cutting out the ad, and hiding it in the desk in her old bedroom. She kept wondering if Gina was happy, and if she had a nice boyfriend now that she was a model. It was a possibility, but she doubted it. Gina looked very skinny in the ad, and Alice wondered what kinds of drugs she was taking.

Over the following year, Gina went from appearing in the Jordache socks ad with two other models to appearing in a denim campaign all by herself, wearing skintight jeans and an unbuttoned silk blouse. Mrs. Bergeron informed Alice that Gina had started to book runway shows, and magazine layouts, and was going by the professional name of simply Bijou. “You should visit her, Alice,” she would say. “She’d love that.”

“I’m pretty busy up here,” Alice would reply.

“I’m sure they’d let you take a few days off from work, and your stepfather . . . he wouldn’t care if you spent some time in New York, would he?”