Where We Belong by Emily Giffin

way around the perimeter of the room, Marian flips through dresses and pants and tops, rarely checking price tags, as if it doesn’t matter. At one point, we run into a glamorously bohemian woman with long-layered hair who embraces Marian and says in an Eastern European accent, “I was just going to call you. I got in a fabulous Giambattista Valli dress you’ve got to try. Emerald green. Stunning. It was seriously made for you. And I have a L’Wren Scott cardigan in a more muted pink than that magenta one you tried. Do you have time to try? My one o’clock client just canceled so I’m free.” She glances at me for the second time as Marian hesitates then tentatively introduces me. “Oh, I’m sorry. Agnes, this is Kirby.” There is another long, awkward pause before she says, “Kirby is visiting from St. Louis.”
    Her vague description is not lost on me as she continues more fluidly, “Agnes gives me my style.”
    Agnes laughs and says, “Don’t believe that for a second. Marian was born with style.” She turns and gives me a nonjudgmental once-over, then says, “You have a darling figure. Do you wear skirts?”
    “Just my school uniform,” I say. “Otherwise, it’s pretty much jeans.”
    Agnes tells me I’ve come to the right store for denim, and that she’d be happy to have her assistant go downstairs and pull some for me. “Would you like to try a few things?”
    “She’d love to,” Marian replies for me, and before I know it, I’m in a dressing room in Agnes’s office, with a pile of jeans, and a dozen or more funky, bejeweled tops. At one point, when I’m standing alone in the dressing room, wearing a pair of killer J.Brand jeans and Prada wedge heels that would make me the envy of any girl at my school, I snap a photo of myself in the mirror and send it to Belinda: At Barneys. Very Gossip Girl. I take a separate close-up shot of my shoes and then another of the price on the box. Four hundred and fifty freaking dollars.
    Within seconds, my phone buzzes back with Belinda’s reply: OMG. No fuckin’ way!!!! You’re sooo lucky!
    I start to reply, just as I hear Agnes ask Marian how she knows me.
    I freeze, craning my neck toward the dressing room door to hear her answer, hoping that she not only tells Agnes the truth but that she says it with pride. Instead, I hear her muffled reply. “Oh. It’s a long story.”
    My heart sinks as I glance back at my reflection and watch my smile fade. I tell myself that she doesn’t owe her life’s story to every Tom, Dick, and Agnes—and that I’m being oversensitive, probably because I’m trying on clothes and shoes that no one in my life could possibly afford.
    Suddenly, I hear Marian ask, in a much louder voice, “Anything to show us yet?”
    “Um, I guess so,” I say, opening the door and standing awkwardly in a black tank, skinny jeans, and wedges that shoot me into the realm of “average” height. Agnes instructs me to turn around as they both praise the fit. “A-dorr-able! Those jeans look sooo good on you,” Agnes says, handing me a cropped black cardigan. I put it on and she adjusts the zipper of the sweater, cuffs the sleeves twice, and examines me with a poker face before delivering her verdict. “Fantastic,” she says, with a somber nod. “Soo cute.”
    “Wow. Yes. You’re getting all of that,” Marian says. “You look amazing.”
    “I can’t,” I say.
    “You must,” Marian says.
    I start to protest again, for the same reason I turned down the six-dollar glass of orange juice, but Marian shakes her head. “I insist. My treat.”
    “It’s too much,” I mumble, looking down at the Prada shoe box splayed open on the floor.
    “You’re going to deprive me of the fun of shopping with…”
    She hesitates, both of us knowing what she’s thinking, but she finishes her sentence with “you.”
    “I guess not,” I say. “Thanks so much. This is really nice of you.”
    “It’s nothing,” Marian says, as Agnes pulls a