“That’s so gorgeous,” Whitney had said one time when they’d been the only two in the bathroom.

“That’s cause it’s not Bonne Bell or some drugstore crap,” Alicia had replied, wiping the excess gloss from the corners of her mouth with a finger. “My mom and I bought it at Lord and Taylor.”

Whitney desperately coveted Alicia’s friendship.

Whitney was waiting at the bus stop, stamping her feet on the ground to keep warm, when a Volvo pulled up and Alicia leaned her head out the passenger-side window. When Alicia offered her a ride, Whitney did her best to act casual.

At the wheel, Alicia’s mom looked sleek and young—but not too young. She wore a long-sleeved casual dress and no earrings. (Whitney’s mother always wore earrings, sparkly ones that made her earlobes droop and her lined face seem duller.) And she chatted about how their family would be vacationing in Aspen over the holidays in a voice free of the Pennsylvania roundness that so squarely marked Whitney and her parents as belonging to this particular corner of the earth. In her head, Whitney practiced repeating what Alicia’s mother said, exactly as she said it, in a voice that could fit anywhere.

“It’s just down the block,” Whitney said as they turned onto her street.

“Mom, look!” Alicia said, nudging her and pointing toward Whitney’s house.

“Uh-oh,” Alicia’s mom said. “Someone on your block goes overboard on the holiday spirit, huh?” She and Alicia exchanged glances, laughing.

“It’s so trashy,” Alicia said.

“Honey, don’t say that!” Alicia’s mom said. She paused and then smirked. “‘Gaudy’ would be better.” They laughed again. Whitney managed a weak smile.

“So which one’s yours, honey?” Alicia’s mom asked.

Whitney, mute, pointed toward the Silvermans’ gray stone, and Alicia’s mom pulled over.

“Anytime you need a ride, you just let Alicia know, all right? That bus is”—she shot Alicia a grimace—“not pleasant.”

“Yeah, and maybe you can come over next week or something!” Alicia said.

“Thanks,” Whitney said. “That would be awesome.” She got out of the car and stood on the curb as Alicia rolled down her window. “Bye!”

“Oh,” Alicia’s mom said. “I’ll wait till you get inside. I swear, I dropped off a friend of Alicia’s brother’s once. He went all the way to the front door and waved at me so I drove away, and then that sneaky little sociopath turned right around and went to the park to smoke pot. You remember that, Alicia? The mom was so mad at me! So now I always watch the kids go inside.”

“Okay,” Whitney said, and turned around, her legs shaking. She pulled her coat tighter and thought quickly. She would tell the Silvermans that she’d forgotten her key and that her parents hadn’t answered the door when she’d knocked. Could she come in and call her parents to see if they were home? Maybe her parents weren’t home yet. Her mom didn’t get back from her job as a dental hygienist until seven, and she never knew what her father’s construction schedule would be. The Silvermans were nice enough. They wouldn’t turn her away. She mounted the first step to their porch, gripping the railing. Four more steps to go.

And then her own front door opened. “Whitney, I thought that was you!” her father said. “What are you doing over there?” He laughed. “Did you get lost?”

She closed her eyes for a moment, like an ostrich sticking its head in the sand. Perhaps it was possible to temporarily erase oneself from the face of the earth, if only one was desperate enough. Shame spread over her like nausea in the winter cold.

“Are you okay, chicky?” her father asked. He clomped down their porch stairs and headed her way, and the snow globe began to play as he passed, its cheap music box tune poisoning the air. He held a bowl of cereal in his hand. Suddenly, to the soundtrack of “Holly Jolly Christmas,” in the light of a thousand tacky Christmas bulbs, Whitney saw her father as if for the first time, down to the half a Cheerio stuck in his beard. (All those days he spent at the kitchen table, telling her he was “on vacation” from his construction job—those had never been vacation after all. I should leave your worthless ass, her tired, dumpy mother hissed at him, when she thought Whitney wasn’t around, while her father shot back, Good luck finding another man who will want you.) And she saw herself too, what she would be if she didn’t fight it—a cheap plastic Mary stored in the shed after a month on display.

“Whitney?” Alicia said, poking her head back out the window.

“Oh,” her father said. “Is this your friend? Hi!” He walked over to the car. “I’m Whitney’s dad. Thanks for driving her home.”

Alicia shot Whitney a confused look and then giggled as understanding settled over her. Her mother gave her a quick pinch on the arm and then leaned over her daughter toward the open window. “Our pleasure.” Then she looked at Whitney with something like pity. “Merry Christmas,” she said before throwing the car back into drive.

Two nights later, Whitney snuck outside at one A.M. with a nail she’d taken from the drawer of her father’s odds and ends in the kitchen. As the Christmas carol jingled, she jammed the nail hard into the side of the snow globe. The material was firmer than she’d expected—less like a balloon and more like a grapefruit rind. She gave the nail a twist. When she pulled it out, air whooshed with it. She stood and watched the snow globe deflate, the folds of the material covering the speaker until only a weak hint of melody remained.

* * *

—

Grant came home an hour later with his usual noise, dropping his briefcase and waking up Hope, who began to mewl, suddenly cranky.

“My girls!” he said. “Busy bees, I see.”

“Hey, honey!” Whitney said. He was so handsome, her husband. He leaned in to kiss her, and she tried not to flinch. She closed her eyes and rearranged his features into another man’s face. That helped somewhat.

She pushed herself off the couch to get started on dinner and glanced at her phone to see a larger-than-normal number of notifications. Some account focused on all-natural health had shared the playgroup photo from today, and an influx of new followers was sharing and commenting, her feed a sea of “gorgeous” and “jealous” and “inspiration.”

She’d worked so hard. She’d gotten a scholarship to Harvard, where she’d become her own Henry Higgins and banished her accent for good. She’d learned the exact right amount of makeup to put on to make it look like she was barely wearing any at all. She’d made herself love the briny taste of oysters as they wiggled down her throat so that no one would know that she was an interloper in this moneyed world. She’d captivated Grant (although his father had insisted they get a prenup). She’d given birth to their child, the most wonderful baby on Earth. She had enough money to slip Claire the Playgroup Musician an extra twenty dollars like it was nothing. (Claire was clearly struggling. Her boots were that kind you get from a cheap stall in midtown, the soles nearly flopping off.)