“Hmm.” I closed my eyes, as instructed, letting her beat my face into submission, toning and shading and doing god knows what.

“Is it okay if I pluck your brows before I do them?” LeeAnn asked, hot minty breath in my face.

“Sure.” My brows were thick and awful. I’d never been one of those girls, although I often wished I were, especially when I was younger. What I lacked in style and looks, I tried to make up for with personality.

Thinking back to those awkward teenage years, my breasts too big for my body, my body all weird angles and curves, I couldn’t help also thinking of Tinsley. She was naturally gorgeous, taking after her father, I guessed. She looked nothing like her own mother or my father. She tried so hard back then, in high school, trying the lipsticks and the liners, straightening her long white hair like a pin until it singed on the ends. But no matter how pretty she was, her shyness always got the best of her. She tended to blend in, sometimes nearly invisible, and she didn’t make friends very easily.

I should have stayed in contact better with her after college. I knew nothing about her life now. I tried to imagine her, still living back there in that townhouse in her hometown of Monroe where we spent the late years of our youth, although all alone now, without her mom or me. Does she have anyone? I wondered. I knew she was working at the bookshop still, but what about relationships? Friendships? Had I been so focused on my own drama that I’d failed to think about my cousin’s life and how well she was doing without me? I’d spent most of our time together today, talking about myself, I realized, guiltily.

The hours in Jackson Square with her had been the best I’d spent so far since starting the trip. The palm reader told us our future—lots of dark and handsome men, turning points in which we had to make huge, life-changing choices. After we’d tipped the reader handsomely, we’d nearly burst with laughter before we turned the corner.

“Everything those people say could be applied to anyone. It’s so… generic,” Tinsley said, shaking her head.

“Yeah, I had this amazing psych professor during my sophomore year of college who told us that they’re called ‘Barnum statements’. I’d never heard that before, the Barnum effect, but apparently, it’s when a statement is so vague that you can basically use it to describe anyone. Which is why horoscopes usually make sense when you read them…”

Tinsley had stopped walking; she was digging around in her purse, looking for nothing, a dull expression on her face. “Yeah, that’s basically what I just said.”