Tilda, who has the enviable ability of being able to do two things at once, is checking her phone messages and talking about how high her father’s blood pressure is going to go when he sees how much she’s spent today. “He doesn’t get how important this is,” Tilda is saying. This is the first Valentine’s Day that she and Jena have had steady boyfriends, which makes it an occasion so historic that two World Wars, the falling of the Berlin Wall and even the American Revolution itself pale into insignificance beside it. “I have to have the perfect dress to wear to the dance. And the purple dress is totally perfect. I mean, really, what if I hadn’t found it?” Her bags swing with emotion. “I wouldn’t be able to go, that’s what. I’d rather stay home crying myself into a coma than wear second best.” Because her eyes are on her phone, it isn’t until she steps through the doors and into the cold that she realizes that she’s alone. She turns around. Jena is still inside, her face the human equivalent of a collapsed bridge.
