It is no small thing to hear this woman reimagine a future for her. It doesn’t matter if it turns out to be true. It doesn’t matter if it’s bullshit. It doesn’t matter that Thyme is actually, as she confesses at some point, an aspiring writer trying to sell historical fiction about the American Revolution. For so long, Phoebe could not imagine another possible future for herself, and she marvels at how easily this woman conjures up a new property for her. It is so obvious to Thyme that Phoebe is destined for greatness, and also a lot of money, and maybe a waterfront duplex, and as soon as she says it, Phoebe wants it to be true. That is how these things work. That is why people come.

Thyme turns another card.

“And what is this? Your King of Cups is here,” Thyme says. “Your great love. Cups are love. And the king, well, he has, like, obviously the most of them. But this is in the future. This is not right now. The cups are moving toward you, but not here. Do not be impatient for it. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

She flips her last card. “And you! The Hermit. You keep coming up. This is so unusual. You are so present in this reading. It’s like the cards are telling me that no matter what happens, you are here. I’m sorry I can’t be more specific than that. That is all I can gather. You are here. Does that have any meaning to you?”

Phoebe begins to cry between her knees. “Yes.”

IN THE UBER on the way to the Boom Boom Room, the women share what Thyme predicted for each of them.

Suz is going to have seven children.

Marla is going to do well in e-commerce someday.

“That’s very specific,” Phoebe says. “Why not regular commerce?”

“She kept saying, E-commerce! I see you marrying an e-vendor!” Marla says.

“So much hotter than regular vendors,” Suz says.

“My wife and I are going to have a son,” Nat says. “And then immediately go to Italy.”

“I am going to come into property,” Phoebe says.

But when it’s Lila’s turn to share, she says, “She was just way off.”

“I thought you said she was amazing?” Marla asks.

“Did I?” Lila asks.

The tone is sharp, too serious. The sound of a day going bad. Maybe she has consumed too much alcohol for her size 4 body. Maybe it’s heels on all this cobblestone. Phoebe can feel the blisters forming.

But then they enter the Boom Boom Room, and Lila says, “Let’s dance!”

Nat and Suz shriek, as if nothing at all is wrong, and start dancing together in a way that reminds Phoebe of girls from her college. Phoebe never danced in college. Hardly danced at her own wedding. She and Matt, they weren’t dancers. They took lessons, though, learned the steps, learned enough to do a foxtrot. But she never danced like these women, without thinking because they have danced together like this so many times before, in their dorm rooms, at parties, hands in the air. She wonders if this is what high school was like for them—Lila being upset, then Lila not being upset. Then, wild dancing.

“Come on!” Lila says to Phoebe.

And so Phoebe joins. Phoebe has no other option left but to join—she tried to opt out, tried to sit on the sidelines, tried to leave this world. But she is still here. So she walks into the group, and they celebrate her arrival, clap and twirl around her. She feels silly at first, but they make it so easy. They are generous with their enthusiasm. They give it all to Phoebe, hold her hands and bump her hips, and by the time the song is over, Phoebe feels so overwhelmed, so part of the group, she excuses herself to go to the bathroom. She looks in the mirror.

I am here, she thinks.

“Shots!” Lila exclaims when Phoebe returns.

But Marla doesn’t understand. “What’s the point of doing shots at this age?”

“I believe the point is to get drunk really fast,” Phoebe says.

“Right. But why? Haven’t we all been drunk before?”

“If you don’t want to get drunk really fast, then I can’t ever explain it to you,” Nat says.

“Come on, Marla!” Lila says. “Be my sister.”

Marla seems touched.

“Okay,” Marla says, like, What the fuck, why not? I’ll be a sister. Marla takes a shot. Then another. “Let’s get drunk really fast.”

“I can’t believe I’m getting married!” Lila screams, and they all go back to the dance floor. Lila flips her hair, shows off moves learned from a childhood of dance recitals. She is the happy bride again, so girlish and excited with her friends, and it’s good to see.

But then the night is over, and the Uber can’t come for an hour. Too many people trying to get a cab at the same exact time. A man on the sidewalk chucks a glass at another man’s face, and it explodes everywhere.

They walk home. It’s a longer walk than Marla made it sound. By the time they reach their street, Lila takes off her veil. In the quiet space of night, with the courage of her drunkenness, she confesses that she knows Thyme was right about her.

“Right about what?” Suz asks.

“That I have no personality,” Lila says.

“She said that to you?” Nat asks, like there is no graver insult.

“She said, ‘My dear, you are a thousand different people orbiting around a pole,’” Lila says, in a French accent.

“She wasn’t French, though,” Marla says.

“Aren’t we all that pole?” Suz says. “I feel like that pole sometimes.”

Phoebe does, too. “Though sometimes I’m not sure there is even a pole.”

They laugh. Lila looks lighter. Relieved. But Nat looks at them all, disgusted. “Seriously, what’s wrong with you straight women?”

“This has nothing to do with us being straight,” Lila says.

“Yeah, what does this have to do with us being straight?” Suz asks.

“I just spent my whole life trying to determine who I am and what I like so nobody does it for me,” Nat says. “It’s important to me. But it’s like, none of you even bother to do that. You don’t even bother to think about who you are and what you might actually like.”

Nat is angry. Nat looks like she’s been wanting to say this for years.

“Well yeah, like I just said,” Lila says. “I have no idea who the fuck I am.”

Lila is stunned into a kind of silence by her own confession. Nat, too. It makes Nat burst out laughing, like she’s thrilled to have finally said what she’s always wanted to say. She puts her arm around Lila.

“We’ll figure it out,” Nat says.

Then it is silence, the sound of cobblestones and heels, all the way back to the hotel.