I sat cross-legged on the cold marble floor of the Bridal Department at Sax Fifth Avenue, holding a box of straight pins while Magda, the seamstress, tucked and pulled at the white satin and lace of Anna’s wedding gown. Anna, erect as a ballerina, pivoted mechanically like a music box figurine around the raised platform.

“Your turn soon, Jackie,” Anna said. “She is going to be the flower girl!”

“Important job, young lady,” Magda muttered.

“Uh-huh.” I stared at the floor.

“Why the long face?” Several Annas looked at me in the three-way mirror. I glanced up and counted nine of us altogether, including Magda.

“I just don’t feel well.”

Magda grunted in my direction. I handed her another pin.

“You want some Coca-Cola? Magda, do you keep soft drinks here?” Anna’s English was getting better and better. She still had an accent, but now when she spoke, her voice sounded smooth like a foreign diplomat.

The seamstress hoisted herself up. Her knees were red and aggravated from spending so much time on the floor.

“Coca-Cola in refrigerrrator, madaam,” Magda replied in her own distinctly unpolished accent.

It was strange hearing Anna addressed as a “madaam.” I wondered if when she was my age and living in her village in Guatemala, could she have ever pictured herself here in Beverly Hills? At Sax Fifth Avenue? Being treated like royalty by a Russian lady with chapped knees? Had this been her aim all along? I felt cold. And scared. I didn’t know who she was anymore. It was as if Anna had vanished and this other person had come to take her place. Or maybe there were two Anna’s, like in the Parent Trap, where one twin was upscale and the other was just a normal girl.

Magda handed me a chilled Coke. I needed a bottle opener, but I didn’t have the will to ask. Anna concentrated on her reflection, rearranging a seam along her hip. Magda disappeared into a back room and moments later reappeared carrying a white veil, its length revealing itself only when another woman even more hunched and chapped than Magda emerged from the same room, lightly holding the sheer ends in her fingertips.

Magda stepped up to Anna and waited. Her helper approached the platform and tripped, but managed to keep the veil afloat.

“Be careful, Dodo!” Magda warned.

Dodo, it turned out, was actually the helper’s name.

“Almost your turn, Jackie!” Anna exclaimed again. “Your dress! Aren’t you excited?”

“Mmm-hmm,” I answered, pinching my mouth shut lest I speak my true feelings.