Jojo wound through the throng toward Celeste’s bedroom, off the living room, to store her coat, and I followed. The apartment had a French feeling, with its enormous windows, through which I could just barely make out, in the twilight, a row of pert little evergreens on the rooftop across the street. I wished I were there instead, peering in on the party from afar. Really, I wished I were back at the bar. Opposite the kitchen was a spiral staircase; Celeste rented a room out to another girl from school for cheap, and I imagined it was up there somewhere. But this was really Celeste’s place. Her parents had bought it for her, I knew from Jojo; it seemed they were all too glad to lord that debt over Celeste, and she was often in turmoil about it. My parents paid half my rent—if there was one thing they had always been generous with, it was money—yet having your parents buy an apartment for you was something else. Mine surely had the money to do so, but I would never ask. The thought was ludicrous; I pictured my father giving me a dismissive smirk. But between my teaching job and the money they gave me, I made my rent. By the time I was Celeste’s age, I expected I wouldn’t need help at all. It was pathetic, in a way, living in an apartment your parents had bought for you, and I marveled at how she could flaunt it, how she didn’t feel ashamed.

We made our way to the bedroom. I shimmied off my jacket and, in the large picture window, caught my reflection. Jojo’s long legs hovered ghastly and tantalizing in the background, revealing the fraudulence of my own frame. Her back was to the window, which allowed me to stare baldly at her reflection: her green dress, with its tight bodice and short, flouncy skirt, her legs its stamen. I looked back at myself, my second-rate body in its short shirt-dress and heels. My expression looked harsh and frightening, and I smoothed out my features, offering myself a plastic smile. I held it as I blinked, like a doll.

“You look great. Let’s go,” Jojo said, startling me.

“One sec,” I said, mortified. “I’ll meet you out there.”

When she’d left, I stared myself in the eyes. “I saw you,” I whispered to my face, “you fucking slut.” I had intended to shame myself, but this had aroused me. “I saw you, slut,” I said again, looking into my eyes, and for a few moments was enveloped in a warmth that made me look beautiful to myself, before my mind reverted to its normal register and I appeared ugly again, bags under my eyes, lips pursed and thin, hair frizzing out like an electrical storm.

In the crowd, I couldn’t find Jojo, so I went for the drinks table in the corner. It was already laden with used plastic cups, beads of yellow and orange and red liquid clinging to their insides. I found a sleeve of new cups under the table and poured myself a vodka with lemonade. In the center of the table, Celeste had placed a hammered silver ice bucket—parent-funded, I was sure; it looked expensive—which seemed forlorn among the tall plastic bottles of liquor and liters of soda and discarded cups. The ice had mostly melted; the silver tongs were submerged under the few remaining bits, like they had given up. I picked out a few slivers of ice with my fingers and plunked them into my cup, took a sip and let the harsh sourness burn through my chest. Everything was better with a cup of something; it gave me a place to put my hands.