“Never leave me alone with Frances again. She’s so bad at cards, Lena, it’s not even fun beating her anymore,” Maxine says, face burrowed in the crook of Lena’s neck.

Lena pulls back and takes us both in. I wonder what she sees in our faces, nearly two years older than the last time she saw us.

She looks the same, beautiful with her big brown eyes and hair so black it seems to glow in the sun, but she’s more settled, somehow, like she’s made a home of her body.

Maxine reaches up and runs a finger over the brim of Lena’s hat, a beautiful baby blue dotted with silk flowers.

“Take a look at the fancy painter.”

Lena rolls her eyes. “Don’t jinx it. We don’t even know if they’ll exhibit my work.”

“They’ll love it, how could they not?” I say.

“You haven’t even seen it. How could you possibly know?”

“Because I know you.”

It’s not entirely true that I haven’t seen her work. Lena, always an expert in beading, embroidery, and with an eye for beautiful things, has taken up painting in her time at home. She sends Maxine and me weekly postcards, decorated with hasty watercolors, so vivid they take my breath away no matter how many she sends. Maxine’s deceased father was an art dealer, and her mother is now a donor in the art world. She’s arranged for Lena to study in a few salons while we’re abroad. Women artists are rare, but if we’re lucky, someone with modern sensibilities will purchase her work.

Lena rolls her eyes but she smiles, and it’s so achingly familiar I can’t believe how long I’ve lived without her by my side. I could spend the rest of the morning gazing at her face, but the smokestacks on top of the ship bellow, pouring steam into the bright blue sky.

“Girls, they’re playing our song,” Maxine says.

She flags down a strong-looking group of young men, and with a well-deployed smile she has them hauling our trunks across the pier and right up to the loading dock.

Waiting at the base of the ramp is a mustached man in a navy-blue uniform. He tips the brim of his hat as we approach. “Ladies, good morning, tickets if you will.”

Maxine reaches into her handbag and produces three tickets, printed on thick paper edged with gold leaf. They arrived in the mail weeks ago. I haven’t yet had the stomach to ask what they cost.

The man in the uniform grins. “An honor to welcome first-class passengers aboard. Your porter will show you to your suite.”

Maxine smiles the smile of a person used to being treated well, and together we step onto the chrome ramp.