“Maybe you could get me ready,” I said instead as we stepped from the shop into a wall of hot air. “You might have guessed that I’m not such a makeup expert, and how do I even do my hair with this thing . . . ?”

I rattled the garment bag.

She grabbed it, holding it still. “Of course I’m doing your hair, that was the plan all along.” I could tell by the bounce in her step that she was glad I’d asked first. “We poor motherless children must help each other however we can.”

I stiffened—I wasn’t motherless. But neither was she. Our mothers just lived in different places from us. And hardly ever got in touch.

I forced my attention onto my garment bag, spinning it gently as I walked. “I do like this dress.”

“You’d better, at that price.” Jules’s eyes glowed even as she covered them with sunglasses.

“It makes me look like a real person.”

She stopped mid-stride, fingers pressed to her temples. “Just when I think you’re getting less weird, you pop out with something like that. A ‘real person’?”

“You know what I mean.” I shrugged. “Someone who can make an impact.”

She started walking again, watching me out of the corner of her eye. “You keep bringing this up, this impact thing. I don’t get it.”

“What’s not to get?”

“Why do you have to do anything? Be anything?” She rifled through her purse. “Please do not construe this as me talking you out of becoming a socialite—”

“Philanthropist.”

“But can’t you, hypothetically, be a person living your life like everybody else?”

She passed me a mint.

I popped it into my mouth, scowling around it. “You make me sound like some egomaniac.”

“You’re not enough of an egomaniac,” she said softly. Then she hit me. “You’re so down on yourself! That’s what I don’t get.”

“It’s not about ego either way.” I stepped briskly aside while a dog-walker passed with a million terriers. “It’s just . . . what am I putting into the world? That’s part of why I feel weird about this party. I’m either going as a plus one to the guest of honor or as a Chertok, and . . . that can’t be it, you know? Looking good and showing up can’t be all I have to offer.”

“This family of yours . . .” Jules started, darkly.

“They have a purpose.” I skidded to a stop as an electrician’s van barreled through the crosswalk. “They were born to play music.”

Jules looked like she was straining not to roll her eyes.

I nudged her. “No, stop. You were right, what you said about aesthetics—culture is important. It—it elevates everyday life. So in that way, their existence makes perfect sense, whereas I’m just . . . taking up space.”

“So take up space! You have every right to it.”