I screwed the cap on, tight. After Spence signed whatever they wanted him to sign or said whatever they needed him to say or gave them whatever files they wanted, I’d get Robert back. I’d have him in my arms tomorrow. I could peel away this grown-up version of Betsy, with her smoky eyes and bare legs. I would be myself, though I wasn’t sure exactly what that would feel like after this. Perhaps I’d become my mother. I’d heard most women did eventually.

I slipped the flask into my beaded purse. The blinds were open. Of course they were; this was Trey’s space. Even as I closed them, I saw headlights turning up the drive. My Lyft was here. It was time.

Inside, I felt a curtain rising. I was on.

6

When I was fifteen years old, an outdoor mall opened up about thirty minutes away. It had a Gap, and a Claire’s, and a Rave. Everyone at my school was wild to go. One Saturday, Betsy’s mom dropped us off there. I had a little babysitting money, but a cute pair of earrings and an ice-cream cone for us to split cleaned me out. Bets was dead broke to begin with, and we had another two hours to kill.

“Five-finger discount?” Betsy said, eyes gleaming, and then laughed at the horror on my face. “I’m kidding. Mostly. Why don’t we try on the sluttiest clothes in the universe?”

That sounded fun, but still, I shook my head. What if the girls working the stores somehow guessed we had no money and kicked us out? My cheeks burned with imagined shame.

Betsy knew me well enough to read my mind. She affected a snooty accent and said, “Come along, Elizabeth, we’ll max out your daddy’s Visa.”

She reached into my purse and mimed pulling it out. It was as invisible and unpresent as my actual daddy, but I could almost see the faint outline of the card as she waved it at me. I was VP of the drama club; she knew this would work. She’d given me her own name, Elizabeth, and she was the boldest girl I knew. Plus, the long version sounded classy, a rich-girl name that put a swagger in my step.

As we blew through the doors into Rave as if we already owned everything inside, I proclaimed, “If I put more than two hundred on this card, Daddy’ll kill me!”

Betsy laughed and answered just as loud. “He didn’t kill you last time.”

I don’t know if we fooled anyone. I doubt that the minimum-wage girls working the store even cared. We had a blast, though, trying on bustiers and plaid microminis so short I felt daring taking two steps out of the dressing room.