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onto the bed, Olivia dropped her eyes to the floor, then brought them back up for a second look, which only confirmed what she had known from the moment the dark, heavy fabric had peeked through the side of the bag.
    This was not Violet’s dress.
    First of all, this dress was black. All black. No spiral satin prints, no contrasting colored circles. The empire waist had become a drop, and the narrow, delicate straps had been replaced with a thick halter, plunging into a deep V at the neck. It wasn’t that the dress was ugly—it was simply, in fact, not hers.
    Olivia sprang to her feet. “It must be a mistake,” she concluded out loud, opening the bag wide and angling the gown back in place. She was tugging the stubborn zipper back across the front, when a crumpled piece of paper fluttered onto the floor.
    She bent down to pick it up, unfolding what looked like a business card. The words Mariposa of the Mission were typed on the front, above a stark, rudimentary graphic of a small golden butterfly. Olivia flipped the card over and saw that a note had been scrawled on the back. She stared at the sloppy, childlike handwriting, her eyes blurring the six little words and setting them swirling. Part of her hoped that if she stared long enough, they might morph into something not so devastatingly useless, like a shopping list or a recipe for lasagna.
    OLIVIA : TRY IT ON FIRST. POSEY .
    She balled the card up in her palm and tossed it at the wall.
    “Do you need any help?”
    Olivia jumped in place. Her mother was still standing on the other side of the door. “No,” she called out. “I’m fine.”
    Silence, then the staccato clatter of high heels disappearing down the hall.
    Olivia sat down on her bed and put her head in her hands. She could say she didn’t feel well, which was certainly the truth. But even before she’d fully played out the scenario inher mind, she knew it wasn’t an option. Her parents wouldn’t buy it. They’d see it only as a sign that something was wrong , which would initiate a chain of events involving probing but meaningless questions from her mom, and sidelong, uncomfortable glances from her dad.
    “Fine,” she grunted. She hauled herself up from the bed and in one swift motion unhooked the dress, lifted it over her head, and slipped it down over her bare shoulders.
    A full-body shiver started up from the base of her spine, and tiny blond hairs stood up all over her arms and at the back of her neck. Olivia arched one foot and nudged the closet door all the way open, turning to face the full-length mirror that had been left hanging inside by whoever had lived there before. She watched her reflection, her mouth moving slowly into the shape of a perfectly rounded O.
    If she hadn’t been the one to take the dress out of the bag, she never would’ve believed it was the same gown. Where on the hanger it fell shapeless and heavy, on her body it seemed suspended in air. Where it had looked boring and simple in the bag, it now exuded sophistication and elegance. It was as if Posey had molded the fabric with her inside of it.
    A long, blaring honk rose up from the street outside her window. Her parents were waiting.
    Olivia took a deep breath and stuck her feet in a pair of old patent-leather high heels. As she bent down to guide one heel with her fingers, a flash of color caught her eye. Tucked near the inseam, at the very bottom of the dress, was a tiny, embroidered butterfly. Olivia pressed her finger against it, as if maybe she could flick it off.
    But it was there to stay.
    Olivia leaned against one of the high, round tables that had been arranged in an open semicircle around the lobby of Bridget’s office building downtown. The building itself wasn’t very big, dwarfed by the skyscrapers huddled together a few blocks in from the water. But the lobby had an elegant, old-world feel, complete with low-hanging chandeliers and pivoting brass arrows over mirrored elevator doors.
    When they’d