Except that Lola didn’t look like Lola. Her face was flushed and her eyes were narrowed. She was walking quickly, instead of her usual smooth, graceful step, and her back was hunched. It was like her entire body was trying to curl itself into a fist.

“You okay?” Scarlett asked.

Lola tore off her Bubble T-shirt and threw it at the end of her bed.

“Fine,” she said, her jaw set.

This was so obviously a lie that it didn’t need to be said. Scarlett just kept looking at her until she decided to explain.

“Do you remember Boonz?” Lola finally said.

“Chip’s friend?”

“Well, she’s one of his friend’s girlfriends. He doesn’t like her. Boonz was the one who made fun of me about the dress.”

“Oh,” Scarlett said, nodding quickly. “Her.”

Chip had given Lola a beautiful Dior dress. It was a dress Lola had seen in the window of Bergdorf’s and coveted deeply, but never even imagined owning. Lola wore the dress everywhere, to everything. It was the best article of clothing she had ever owned—was ever likely to own—and she maintained it with the zeal of a curator. It was her favorite thing until Chip’s friend Boonz made a snide comment about the repetitive wearings, questioning whether or not Lola owned any other clothes. The weight of dealing with much wealthier people must have been pressing on Lola for some time, though she had never really shown it. But when Boonz did that, something inside of Lola snapped. She ran away from the party and from Chip, escaping from society types and a competition she could never win.

“I guess I thought that stuff was over,” Lola said. “Chip’s up in Boston in school. He doesn’t see a lot of these people anymore. But she came into the spa this afternoon, she and some other girl. I was restocking some shelves. They followed me around, asking me stupid questions about the products. It was all just to mock me for working there. I even lost a sale, a big sale, because they wouldn’t leave me alone. You can’t get away when you work there.”

Her humiliation was so clear, Scarlett couldn’t think of anything that would make it better.

“Sorry,” Scarlett said.

“It’s fine,” Lola said. But she didn’t look fine. She reached to her dresser for a shirt. The drawer stuck. She jiggled it once, but it only gave another inch or two. She rattled it even harder until Scarlett heard a tiny crack and the drawer stopped moving completely.

“It’s their problem, not yours,” Scarlett said. “There’s nothing weird about having a job.”

Scarlett knew this was a pointless thing to say. It was true, but it was pointless.