There was a long pause and Josie scratched at the fraying threads on the armchair.

“I haven’t seen you in a long time,” Natalie said

“I know.”

“I missed you.”

Josie nodded. When they were very little they had fought constantly, but at thirteen when Josie discovered boys, Natalie discovered her brother’s porn collection and the two would hover by the television with their fingers on the stop button, ready if a parent came home. Natalie was the one who gave Josie a congratulations card after she lost her virginity, the one who helped her plan imaginary ways to torture her mother, the one who held her hand under the Christmas dinner tablecloth when Josie wanted to pound her plate against the table. “Is it not way too pink in here?” Josie said.

“Yep.”

“I feel like I’m inside a bunch of cotton candy.”

“Or a wad of bubble gum.”

There was another long pause, and Josie looked at her hands. “Thanks for dragging me in here.”

“It looked like you needed it.” She reached into her purse. “And I have a surprise for you.” She pulled out two miniature bottles of vodka.

Josie smiled. For a long time they had competed for how many miniatures they could swipe from the liquor store on San Ysidro. “Did you steal those?”

“Yep.”

“From San Ysidro?”

“You’re two behind me, baby.”

“Oh my God. Natalie, you are so bad.”

Natalie smiled, and opened one. “Here.”

“Now?”

“Do you know a better way to get through the next four hours?”

Josie took the bottle and downed it. “Yuck,” she said, and wiped her mouth.

“What? You don’t drink anymore?”

“Not straight vodka, you lush!”

“Remember when my mom caught us drinking?” Natalie asked.

“Which time?”

Natalie laughed. “At that pool party at your house. When my brother taught us to empty the bottles into Coke cans.”

“Yeah.”

“And remember how our senior year, your mom got us out of calculus and took us to the Four Seasons? Remember? She insisted we were twenty-one and made the waiter bring us Navy Grogs,” Natalie said.

“On the way home, we stopped at the park on Olive Mill, and my mom picked those roses,” Josie said.

“And put them all in your room.”

“I forgot that.”

There was a long pause, and Josie could feel the alcohol start to soften her brain. “Sometimes my mom wasn’t so bad,” she said. She had stuck the tennis bracelet in her pocket, and she realized she had been fingering it for the last ten minutes. “Look,” she said, and pulled it out.

“I remember that bracelet.”

The diamonds looked luminous in her palm, but Josie knew they were only chips; her father had bought her mother the bracelet long before he made his first million.

“Here,” Natalie said, and took the bracelet. “You should wear it.” Natalie encircled Josie’s wrist and fastened the clasp.