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The part about Aly didn’t hurt either. She hoped it was true, that someday they could be friends. That Aly would want that.

She finished her breakfast and retreated to her office. Important emails, she felt, needed to be composed on a laptop, not a phone, which she knew made her more millennial than Zillennial, but she was fine with that distinction.

She opened a new email, adding Todd and Veronica and her agents. There was no need to write them back individually, not when she essentially had one thing to say to all of them.

Hi guys, she wrote. She was smiling as she typed, sitting up straight. This was going to besodeeply satisfying.Please feel free to fuck all the way off. She immediately deleted everything. Too mean.To whom it may concern.Nope, she thought, deleting that too. Too formal.What up, bitches! I hope you all rot in hell!Too insane.

She deleted it and started over, taking a few deep breaths and trying to think of what a normal person might write in this situation.

Hi everyone,

Thanks for reaching out. I appreciate your support. However, I’ve decided to manage myself moving forward. I’m taking on apersonal styling client and going back to school. Your services are no longer needed, but I wish you all the best.

There. That was it. Nice, formal, and justa littlebit cunty. She didn’t need to burn bridges, but she did need them to know she was thriving without them.

After she hit Send, she went back to Colette’s email.

I’m so happy to hear from you, she wrote, not deleting anything this time, because she knew exactly what she wanted to say.I would be honored to work on this with you. Let me know a good time to connect. I’m back in the city and stoked to get started.

For the first time in a long time, everything she was doing felt right.

She couldn’t wait to see what would happen next.

Chapter 16

It was late morning on her thirtieth birthday, and every surface of Lola’s apartment was covered in flowers.

There were bouquets of roses, sunflowers, lilies, tulips, peonies, sweet peas. Every time she put a new bunch into a vase of water, there would be another knock on her door with a delivery for her. Soon the floor was covered in petals like there had been a parade.

Eventually the air became so thick with sweet pollen that she had to open a window, and as she pushed the glass up, the comforting, dissonant sounds of Soho traffic and pedestrians floated in on a cool autumn breeze.

Lola’s heart felt so full, she wasn’t sure it could be contained in her chest.

Some of the senders, she knew. Her parents had sent a particularly cute bunch of daisies and a card that said, “Happiest birthday to our favorite girl. Can’t wait to celebrate you tonight. Every year you amaze us with your strength, heart, and creative soul. We love you so much.”

Her team—well, her ex-team—had sent white roses and a simple card that read: “Happy birthday, Lola!” They were still so thirsty for her, despite the fact that they hadn’t spoken since she broke up with them.

Other senders she had to strain to remember—old clients and other influencers that felt like they belonged in someone else’s life.

She took a picture of her living room spilling over with bouquets and posted it to Instagram with the caption:Goodbye 29, and thanks to everyone for the birthday wishes. I’m feeling like the luckiest girl in the world.

She hit Post and then tossed her phone onto the couch, not immediately refreshing it like she used to in order to watch the likes and comments roll in. Instead, she went to the kitchen and began prepping to make her perfect birthday breakfast: French toast with strawberries.

Her mom had taught her how to make French toast when she was little, how to soak the bread in a mix of cream, eggs, and cinnamon before frying in butter. The warm smell made her homesick for lazy California Sundays with her family. She was so glad Ryan had invited her parents to dinner tonight and that they were actually coming. They’d arrive at JFK this afternoon and stay nearby at the Crosby Street Hotel, which Ryan had booked for them with his PR discount.

In fact, Ryan had put himself in charge of her whole birthday dinner too, which was his present to her. Not that there was much to do this time around other than make the reservation.

Last year for her birthday, Lola had rented out the downstairs of Jean’s, a swanky secret club under a restaurant on Lafayette, and asked Veronica to blast the invite out to basically everyone who mattered in NYC, whether Lola knew them personally or not. A discerning publicist managed the list at the door. Lola, clad in a slinky, silver Rabannedress that barely contained her curves, had gotten blackout drunk on vodka shots and thrown up in the Uber on the way home. Justin later held her hair back while she retched over the toilet. He had really been a good sport for that one.

She would not, she decided, flipping her French toast over, miss her twenties.

This year was more grown-up and intimate. They had a reservation at 7:00 p.m. at a nice restaurant. No private room. She’d wear a red silk Victoria Beckham dress that had been in her closet for a while. She would not, under any circumstance, be throwing up in an Uber. Or anywhere.

She was surprised by how excited she was to turn thirty, an age that once felt like it represented so much—like when you hit it, you were supposed to have checked all the boxes of adult milestones. She had, at the very least, expected to be married by now, to be settled in her career. And here she was, starting over instead. What an incredible gift.

Part of the problem, she thought, chopping strawberries and then sprinkling them on top of the golden-brown slices, was that to a young person, thirty sounds like the end of something—not just youth but its potential, as though you better have it all figured out by the end of your twenties, because nothing can ever change after that.

Of course, as Lola now knew, thirty was only the beginning.