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up in two buns and thought he was being extremely cheeky, so I said, “You can grab them if you want.”
    He reached up gingerly and touched my hair, to my disappointment. “This look is so much better for you than the dirty mats.”
    “They're not mats, they're called dreads. And they weren't dirty. I washed them once a week.”
    “Well, I'm glad they're gone.” He wasn't looking at me, but near me, over my shoulder. “You look nice.”
    I turned to see his ex nearby, the one with the blue hair and the butterfly tattoos.
    “Marc, do you have really rigid ideas about how a woman should look?”
    With that, I had his full attention. He looked deep into me with his gold-flecked, light brown eyes that matched his tortoiseshell-framed glasses. I had a crush on him, and a separate but equally strong crush on those glasses. I wanted to put them in my mouth.
    “I'm a fan of authenticity,” he said. “Truth. Honesty. Not artifice.”
    “I'm down with authenticity.”
    “Says the girl with the false eyelashes,” he said.
    I'd forgotten I was wearing those, courtesy of Courtney's supply. They weren't so uncomfortable after all, once you got used to them. “What's wrong with a little window dressing?”
    He tugged at his shirt collar, and I realized he was wearing an actual tie, along with pants and a jacket that could have come from my father's closet. I was used to seeing him in more casual clothes, but I liked him in a suit. The tie, however, could have been more interesting.
    “The art's great,” I said. Behind Marc, Courtney passed by, giving me a subtle thumbs-up.
    Brightly, he said, “Thanks for coming by. These events always go better when there's a crowd.”
    He reached his hand out and shook mine, which seemed formal, but appropriate enough for the sophisticated atmosphere. I turned to look for Courtney, to re-introduce them now that we were outside the restaurant, but she'd disappeared on me. When I turned back, Marc had also disappeared into the crowd.
    I couldn't see Blue Hair in the gallery, and I had a feeling Marc was off somewhere with her. Later on, after I left the art show, I would become angry at him for inviting me out and then not paying attention to me, but, in the moment, in the crowd, I was simply confused.
    I was lost.
    The first time I'd walked home from school by myself, as a little kid, I took a wrong turn and ended up on a street that looked like the one I lived on, complete with a house that looked like mine, but wasn't mine. I couldn't figure out what to do next, and feared if I kept walking, I'd only get more lost, so I sat down on the sidewalk and waited for my mother to come find me.
    The problem with being lost at the art show was nobody would be coming for me.
    A waiter passed by with a tray of something aromatic. “Yes, please,” I said to get his attention.
    He tilted the tray my way, displaying crumbs and prawn tails. “I'm afraid that's the last of them.”
    “No kidding. All the good ones are taken. Isn't that always the way.”
    He gave me a quick nod and disappeared as well.
    Courtney and Britain were engrossed in conversation with some other girls who looked a little familiar.
    I stood near a wall, as forlorn as a dog turd in the middle of the sidewalk, and mumbled to myself, “I do not speak any English.”
    I'd really worked myself up to a good pout by the time Courtney came by to see if I wanted to go for dinner with her and Britain.
    “No. She's the devil,” I said.
    Courtney laughed.
    “I'm dead serious. You left me alone in your room with her for a minute and she threatened to eat my future babies. She has it in for me.”
    Courtney shook her head and laughed again. Her cheeks were really flushed from the wine. “That's her sense of humor, silly. She's just teasing you.”
    “Like hell.”
    Courtney pouted her lips. “Don't be a lawn-pooper.”
    “I'm going to record her with a nanny cam and show you. She was really mean to me.”
    “I told her all about