“The booties are amazing.” She sighs. “Gianvito Rossi?”

“I don’t know,” I admit.

She zooms in to read the credits. “Gianvito Rossi,” she confirms.

Her eye is good. She’s told me how thankful she is for this job, but I know her ultimate dream was always to work as a stylist for fashion magazines. With print publications like Glamour and Seventeen gone, and the rest of the industry on red alert, that dream seems less and less likely.

“The interview is great,” Jess says finally, once she’s finished reading it. “It positions us at the next major, hot jewelry brand. So legit.”

If only she knew how precarious our position is right now.

“Yeah, hmm,” I say, taking my phone back and abruptly changing the subject.

Soon another customer comes in. She’s probably in her early twenties, with teal eyeliner flicked out in a flawless cat eye and two neat French braids.

“Hi, how can I help you?” Jess asks as she looks up from the glass case, a smile frozen on her face.

“Hi,” the girl says. “I was just looking. I’m single. I mean, seriously, just looking.”

“Enjoy. Let me know if you have any questions.”

The girl peers into every case, inching toward me across the shop.

“You’re Eliza, right?” she asks.

“I am.”

Her gaze darts to my hand. I’m not wearing the ring. I move my hand to my hip so she stops staring.

“Can I get a selfie?” she asks shyly. “I love your Instagram.”

I feel like I’m watching myself from outside my own body as I make my way around the counter and stand a few inches from her. She wraps an arm around me, bounces up on her tiptoes and juts out her chin to look closer to my height, and extends her phone in front of us. Click. Nobody’s ever asked me for a selfie before.

She spends nearly half an hour lingering by the case of our least expensive pieces. She goes live on Instagram while she selects her favorites and gingerly tries them on. Ultimately, she chooses a delicate rose gold bangle after triple-checking the price. As Jess wraps it up in white tissue paper, the customer tells me softly that it’s her present to herself after her boyfriend broke up with her last month.

“Trust me, it’s less complicated to have jewelry than to have men,” I tell her.

Jess laughs. Last I heard, she’s been regularly hooking up with the same guy for three months, afraid to tell him that she wants more.