There’s a name for the shape of her glasses, but I can’t get the words to form on my tongue. “I like your glasses,” I say, then squeeze my eyes shut because even I can feel the familiarity of the words in my mouth, like I’ve just said them.

The girl laughs, but it’s a sweet infectious sound, like we’re enjoying an inside joke. I laugh too. No matter; I do like her glasses. I offer her a fact to cover up for my slip. “Cat-eye glasses. They were popular in the sixties.”

She giggles, crosses her eyes as if she’s trying to look at the glasses on her face. “Yeah, I know; aren’t they cool? They’re not real, you know. I got them at the Goodwill in Anchorage because they’re from the sixties, and I love everything sixties. I watch old movies with my dad, so I know a lot about old stuff. And I most especially love everything Audrey Hepburn, you know?”

I nod. “When I was your age, I was into everything seventies—bell-bottoms, braids, tie-dye.”

Her eyes grow big behind her glasses, and she looks at me as though seeing someone different. “Cool,” she says, then touches a shiny brown curl that hangs below her chin, looks at the fallen cardboard roll on the ground. “Audrey Hepburn wore her hair in a beehive sometimes, and I think it looks cool. I found a YouTube video on how to do it.” She picks up the roll, frowns. “I think I need more bobby pins.”

I hesitate. I should send her to Sefina, who has two girls of her own. She must have loads of practice doing girls’ hair. Besides, this girl can’t possibly be here to hang out with me. I turn to lead her out, stop. My mother was a hairdresser, and if there was one thing I learned from her—really one of the only things—it was how to do hair.

“Why don’t you let me try?”

The girl stares at me. “Um, okay. Do you want to see the video too?”

I smile, shake my head. “No, I think I can manage on my own.” Then I hesitate because I still don’t know why she’s here, and I’m pretty sure it wasn’t so I could do her hair. I glance quickly around the kitchen, see a backpack by the table—not mine, so it must belong to the girl. A crumpled piece of paper sticks out of the unzipped top. I move closer to see whether it can give me any clue, but the girl’s next words stop me.

“Is this when you forget everything again?”

I turn, give her a look that is perhaps a bit too sharp, but she’s surprised me. “Excuse me?”