“Well?” she said. “What’d you think?”

Her words brushed against my face. They smelled like rum and mangoes. I hesitated. I didn’t know how to talk about it, what I was supposed to say. A thread from my skirt was coming loose. I pulled at it.

“Quit,” she said, her hand on mine. “You’ll tear out the hem. We can cut it later.”

She smoothed the skirt over my knee and squeezed my thigh.

“I loved that dress you wore,” I said.

“Oh, I loved that dress, too,” she said. “Fucking George ripped it during the shoot.”

“I liked the beginning,” I said. “The part where you’re on that couch.”

“Do you like girls?” she said.

“Um,” I said.

My face flushed. I fished out the cucumber in my drink and nibbled it.

“People think I’m a dyke,” she said.

“Are you?”

She made some gesture I couldn’t decipher, perhaps a simple nerve response to the coke.

“I thought you were sexy,” I said. “You looked—real.”

“Thank you.”

“But I’m not,” I said.

“Not real?”

“I’m not gay,” I said.

“Duh, Charlotte. Obviously. No one would ever, ever, ever mistake you for a lesbo.”

Absurdly, I felt hurt. “Why not?” I said.

“Because, come on!”

“What?”

“You’re such a fucking girl,” she said.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, like, here’s how you stand, here’s how you move your hands, you wear this frilly dress.” She touched her pink party dress.

“Audrey, technically you are wearing that dress.”

“So? It’s your dress!”

“Still,” I said, giggling.

“We’re alike, us two,” she said. “We have a lot in common.”

I didn’t see it, but I wished I could be more like Audrey, with her allure and easy laugh. She adjusted my skirt on my knee again, and kept her hand there.

“I was in love with her,” she said.

“Who?”

“Danielle. Weren’t you?”

“We were best friends,” I said. “It was more like I wanted to be her.”

“Do you think she loved me?” Audrey said. “She told me she did. But did she, really?”

“If she said she did, she probably did,” I said.

“We never messed around except on camera. I don’t know what it meant to her. I won’t ever know.”

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“Ugh, anyway,” she said. “We’re not being sad tonight. Let’s get another round.”

We signaled the waitress. We drank. We snorted more coke. It helped.

“So you liked it,” she said.

“What?”

“The video. You liked watching me?”

I nodded. She tucked my hair behind my ear. I felt hollow, deliciously empty, like a bubble that grows when you blow into it. Her fingers skimmed my neck and clavicle, making me shiver.

She took a handful of my hair and drew me towards her. She kissed me, opened my lips with hers. The emptiness inside me blossomed and blossomed until I didn’t think I was there at all. Audrey touched my arm, my waist, my knee, her delicate fingers alighting, leaving each place aglow with nerves. I quit thinking about Danielle and Sally and Brandon and my mom. She kissed me again and her desire rolled through me, like the opposite of fear. I was dissolving inside her smallness, her softness. I had no idea what might happen next, and not knowing thrilled me.