At five p.m. sharp, Sonia and I were on “door duty,” welcoming people, showing them where to find their table assignments for dinner, and leading them back through the restaurant to the garden for the ceremony. I kept touching the little gold sun on my necklace, and when Angelica and her family showed up, I pretty much just held on to it.

Angelica looked just like herself. I couldn’t even tell that anything had happened to her. I introduced everyone to Sonia and then walked them to the garden and gave them really good seats in the second row. I tried to say something to Angelica, but I guess I wasn’t ready. I said I had to get back to the door.

“Hi, sweetie.” Mom was suddenly right behind me, holding her present in both hands. She looked funny, not exactly like herself—nervous. Melissa came up next to her, smiling big enough for three people. Mom had to put the present down before we could hug, and it was like we were reaching across something to find each other. Those were the only hard seconds of the day so far. But then Aunt Ess came over and hugged Mom for a long time, and Mom’s face changed. She looked like Mom. I introduced her to Sonia, and Mom hugged Sonia, too. That felt good. I decided I was ready to talk to Angelica.

She was sitting in her white folding chair, looking straight ahead while everyone stood around smiling and drinking lemonade and talking a mile a minute. I got two glasses of lemonade with two striped paper straws. I wanted to be good, but I wasn’t sure if I was good or if I just wanted Dad and Aunt Ess and everyone to see me being good. Anyway, I sat down next to Angelica and gave her one of the lemonades.

I said, “So, how do you like New York?” Dad told me that they were going to spend the day “seeing the sights.”

She shrugged and said, “I don’t. It’s kind of gross.”

Dad had warned me that they probably wouldn’t like it here, and he said we couldn’t take it personally. “Really, Bea,” he said. “Try.”

So I went out of my way to say, “Yeah, it’s pretty loud and crowded.”

“And garbage everywhere,” Angelica said, puckering her mouth. “It smells. We saw this guy? I think he was totally drunk. In the morning!”

When I looked closely at Angelica, I could see that she didn’t look exactly the same as she used to. She had some zits. Sheila told me she had a million of them when she was a teenager, but now her skin looks perfect. The trick, she told me, is not to pick at them. It looked like Angelica picked hers. But I was pretty sure that if I got zits I would pick mine, too.