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said I had to keep it from the sun or the liquid inside would evaporate. It would happen eventually, she told me, but it would take a very long time if I kept it safe. And the scent would just get stronger in the meantime.
    As soon as I got home from New York City, I went into my room, shut my door, and slid my desk chair in front to block it, just in case. I opened my nana’s bottle of perfume and held it to my nose. Suddenly it was like she was in the room with me. Or like she had just passed through and she’d be back in a minute.
    Only I knew she wouldn’t be. That was a hollow feeling I could barely stand.
    I reached inside my drawer and felt around for the tissuepaper. I took out my necklace and clasped it around my neck and I looked at myself in the mirror above my dresser.
    About a year ago, Rachel and I wanted to go to the mall. We wanted to go by ourselves and we had prepared a list of five or six girls in our grade that had already done so without being killed or kidnapped. But our mothers were united and neither one would allow it. They had to go with us.
    â€œWe won’t even talk to you,” Rachel’s mother said. “Promise.”
    â€œI swear, we’ll walk seven paces behind you at all times,” my mother added.
    They were making fun of us.
    â€œWe’ll pretend we don’t even know you.”
    â€œWe’ll pretend we don’t even like you.”
    They died laughing but it was really annoying, and of course they didn’t keep any of their promises. They talked to us the whole time and commented on everything we looked at. And then we went into Claire’s to look at the jewelry. Our mothers had temporarily slipped away behind some feather boas and studded leather belts.
    â€œThese are nice.” Rachel was spinning one of the tall rotating displays of earrings.
    â€œOh, I love this,” I said. I was looking at a crystal. I suppose it wasn’t real crystal since it was only a twelve-dollar necklace, but the rose-colored, cut surfaces sparkled like a diamond’s, a crystal cross shape on a black rope.
    â€œTry it on,” Rachel said from behind the earring display. “Let me see.”
    I stepped around to stand in front of her and show her what I was wearing.
    â€œOh,” she said. “It’s a cross.”
    â€œSo? Isn’t it pretty?” It lay just below my collarbone and was the exact hue of the shirt I happened to be wearing. “It’s cool. It doesn’t mean anything. I mean, it doesn’t have to.”
    â€œBut it does,” Rachel said.
    I shrugged and hung the necklace back up where I had gotten it from.
    Now I put my fingers up to my throat and touched the pointy Star of David, my grandmother’s necklace, a delicate chain made up of countless tiny links. If I wear this, will people think I am Jewish?
    Is that what I want to be?
    Will I be?

14
    Now If I Were Having a Bat Mitzvah
    â€œDo you think I have to invite Lauren now?” Rachel was asking me.
    â€œTo your bat mitzvah? Lauren Chase?”
    Rachel and I were in our after-school program art class, working on our charcoal still lifes. Lauren’s sleepover birthday party was less than a week away. I still hadn’t had the guts to ask Rachel if she had received an invitation in the mail or an informal verbal one like me. I decided it didn’t matter; we were both going to our first A-list sleepover.
    I wasn’t sure I really wanted to go, but it was better than not having been invited at all.
    But Lauren Chase at Rachel’s bat mitzvah!
    â€œWhy?” I asked Rachel. “It would throw the whole balance off. We had it all figured out.”
    The more I thought about it, the worse it was beginning to sound.
    â€œWell, my mom said I should,” Rachel admitted. She hadn’t even begun her drawing. In the center of the room on a little table sat a blue-striped bowl with one pineapple, three apples, and a bunch of