“I like it like this, the way you put it together,” she says. Just then there’s a loud knock and Miriam bursts in.

“Ima wants to know if you can peel potatoes and then she wants you to watch Aaron because she has to take—” She stops when she sees the stuff on Honey’s floor. There’s a receipt poking out of the bag. Her eyes gleam.

“Did you go to What Goes Around?” she says. She must have very good vision because the bag is blank; only the receipt says the name of the store.

“And what if we did?” Honey says. “It’s a thrift store. We are reducing our carbon footprint, for your information.”

“Does Ima know?” Miriam crows, looking like she’s just won the lottery. “Like, maybe I should tell her, for her information.”

Honey and I look at each other. That Miriam, she really makes my blood boil.

“Ima won’t care,” Honey says defiantly. “Anyway, I paid for it with my own money.”

“Wait, let me get this straight,” Miriam says. “You kvetch about wearing our cousin Faigy’s hand-me-downs—which are free—but you go and spend your own money to buy a stranger’s old clothes?” She laughs, slapping her knee.

I guess Miriam has a point. But she’s also missing something important.

“But we went ourselves,” I interject. “We went shopping.”

“I got to choose for myself,” Honey says quietly. She’s looking at her shirt and fingering the soft flannel. Miriam looks at it too.

“It is a cool outfit,” Miriam admits after a moment.

“Thanks,” Honey says. I can’t help but notice that she doesn’t mention I picked it out for her, or that it was my idea to go to What Goes Around.

“You know,” Honey says to Miriam, “maybe when you’re my age, you’ll go shopping by yourself with a friend.”

Miriam shrugs, and her face changes. “Go find Ima. She needs you,” she says, and stalks out, slamming the door behind her.

When I get home, I take the apron out from the garbage bin under my desk, where I’d stuffed it last night. I smooth it out, refold it, and tuck it into the wicker basket that I keep my dolls’ clothes in, deep in my closet. Then I sit back on my heels. Next time there’s a bat mitzvah, I wouldn’t mind going to the mall on a shopping spree with my mom too. But maybe I can use the fabric from the apron to make my dolls some outfits. And maybe I am mistaken, but was that a wistful look Miriam flashed at me and Honey before she slammed the door?

If it was, I have a suspicion that Miriam wasn’t only thinking about shopping and choices—she was probably also thinking about friendship, and wishing she had one like mine and Honey’s.

“Hi, Mom,” I say, popping my head into Max’s room. It is the last day of Chanukah and the first day of winter break, and she’s on the floor in Max’s room, laying out all his summer clothes, readying them to be packed. I am supposed to be packing too. We are going to Miami tomorrow to spend almost two weeks with my bubbie and uncles.