The producer drops me off in a room just big enough to contain a single chair in front of a mirror decked out in lights and a table full of beauty products. A makeup artist dabs concealer under my eyes, as Jasmine promised, and slicks on hot pink lip gloss before I can protest that I don’t really feel like myself in so much makeup. Next, the producer brings me to the room next door, where a hairstylist finishes the transformation with a curling iron and an intense blast of hair spray. When she’s done, I look like… well, I look just as polished and professional as Jasmine always does. With a pang, I realize that if my life had turned out differently, none of this would faze me. I wouldn’t be bare-skinned in a ponytail at Summit; I would be contoured and curled at NBC. This would be my reality.

I find Jasmine back in the greenroom. On TV, the meteorologist talks about the seventy-five-degree days coming this week. Jasmine stares vacantly in the direction of the TV, but she’s not focused on the screen. Her knee bounces up and down. I understand why she’s nervous—my heart is pounding, too—but I’m surprised the pressure is getting to her, of all people.

“You okay?” I ask gently.

She turns toward me, and her jittery knee slows to a stop. “Yeah,” she says. “Yeah, I will be.”

“You sure?” I ask.

“I’ll be fine once I’m out there, trust me,” she says. “It’s just… this is bigger than anything I’ve ever done before.”

“You’ve been on this same channel, what, a hundred times? A thousand times,” I remind her.

“Commenting on other people,” she says. “This time, the spotlight’s on us.”

I grab her hand, and she gives mine a squeeze.

Soon, the producer breezes back into the greenroom. “Come with me,” she says to us, jerking her head. “Commercial break just hit.”

We follow her down a hallway and around a corner into a dark studio space jumbled with lighting equipment, rubber cables, and, further back, a glossy, L-shaped desk with two open seats for us diagonal from Cynthia King, the news anchor. Another producer clips tiny microphones to the necklines of our dresses. If I hadn’t watched Jasmine do it first, I would have been bewildered: Jasmine expertly threads the thin cable over her shoulder, hiding it under her hair, and turns to let the producer clip the mic’s battery pack to her bra underneath her dress. I follow her lead, flinching at the feel of his hands. He zips my dress up again and gives the first producer a thumbs-up. We’re ready.

“Thirty seconds,” she barks. “Go.”