“I missed you, too.” I pulled back and took her in. “Oh, my God, you haven’t been engaged three months and already you look like a bride.” I pointed at her, unable to contain my excitement: “The bride, you guys!”

“We know,” laughed the makeup artist, who’d introduced herself as Jules. “You can see the ring from space.” Not a terrible exaggeration; I didn’t know much about diamonds, but even I could tell Jack didn’t skimp. It sat beautifully on Maggie’s finger, square cut but soft edges, the size, I estimated conservatively, of a manhole cover.

“You want your hair and makeup done?” Maggie asked. “Might as well.” Jules stepped in front of Maggie and directed her to gaze up to prepare for the Applying of the Mascara. “What are you wearing?”

I spared a glance at my outfit—the oversize camo jacket, the black jeans, the beaten-up canvas sneakers. “Not this, I promise. I have some other pants,” I said, hunching over my bag and riffling around for my outfit. Long ago I’d discarded all my Lilly Pulitzer. I no longer owned anything with an embroidered anchor or trimmed in ribbon. And I’d never, not once, slipped my feet into Hermès flats or clutched a Chanel quilted purse. I much preferred to be behind the camera’s flash, not seeking it out. “And a—” my hands fluttered around my stomach “—a simple shirt thing with, like, a belt.”

Maggie narrowed her eyes. “Pants?”

The room grew silent. The assistant looked up from the dresser where she had been sorting lipsticks in a giant plastic bin. The hairdresser, hands full with brushes, blinked slowly. Jules’s head turned from my sister to me, peering, curious, mascara wand frozen in the air.

“Uh-oh.” I stood, gestured between the four of them. “Now, see, the way you’re looking at me has me alarmed.”

“Cassie,” Maggie sighed. “There’s a theme. Didn’t you read the invitation?”

“A theme?” I felt a plummeting in my chest. Already Susie’s parties were like running a marathon barefoot on Legos. Now I had to deal with costumes? “Please tell me the theme is ‘everybody drink wine and be pleasant.’”

“Roaring twenties,” said Jules, somber.

“You have to read things, Cass.” Maggie pursed her lips. “Texts, invites... We were discussing this over email, like, last week.”

“We are expected to read everything that comes into our in-boxes now?” I protested. “Productivity culture has gone too far!”

“Oh, so when your editor emails you, you just let it go to junk?”