ON SUNDAY MORNING, Alicia logged in to the Amigas Inc. e-mail account and was pleased to see that Julia Centavo had already gotten back to them. She read over the e-mail and called both Carmen and Jamie on her parents’ conference line.

“So, what did she say?” Jamie asked.

“She loves all of it,” Alicia explained, “and so does her client. But they have a few requests. Apparently, the girl’s favorite flowers are yellow sunflowers. So they’d like the room to be full of sunflowers.”

Carmen groaned. “But we hate sunflowers.”

Jamie agreed. “Sunflowers are not chic.”

Alicia hated this part of the job—when you conceived of the perfect, absolutely flawless quince and the client ruined it by having a request that was either cornball cheesy or aesthetically misguided.

“Look,” Alicia said diplomatically, “I think sunflowers are fine for farms and country inns, but not city homes or formal parties. It is my least favorite flower in the entire world. But this is not my quince, and the client is always right. So, sunflowers it is.”

“Okay, so much for loving all of our ideas,” Jamie grumbled. “Well, really Gaz’s and our ideas. Why did we ever let him quit the Amigas?”

“Because, one, he hated being part of a group called Amigas Inc., and, two, his music career is on fire,” Alicia explained. “Speaking of which, they actually love Gaz’s music, so he’ll be the house band. Which is amazing. Tremendous exposure for him.”

“Great, terrific,” Jamie muttered. “So, tell me more about the terrible choices they’ve made. That’s more interesting.”

Alicia scanned the e-mail. “They don’t like the color scheme.”

Now it was Carmen’s turn to be bent out of shape. “You’re kidding me, right? Black, white, and hot pink is so, well, hot. It’s more than hot, it’s so totally high class it’s haute.”

Alicia rolled over in bed and read the e-mail more closely. “I know it’s haute. You know it’s haute. But they would like red, white, and blue. For obvious reasons, I guess.”

Carmen was still not convinced. “I get it, she’s a DC It Girl, and more power to her. But red, white, and blue in Miami? In December? It’s going to look like we got all her quince gear at some Fourth of July clearance sale.”

Alicia laughed, “I know, Carmen. That’s neither hot nor haute. But we’ll make it work. We always do.”

Jamie piped up and asked, “Is there any more of this mayhem and foolishness?”

Alicia read down the list. “No church ceremony, too polarizing for this multicultural crowd. No damas and chambelanes, too much like the British monarchy, and the client needs to represent more democratic ideals.”

“Give me a break!” Jamie barked. “Why don’t they just come out and admit that it’s Carmela Ortega already?”

Alicia shrugged. “Who knows? She’ll be bringing her own dress, so no crazy sewing for you, Carmen.”

Carmen sniffed. “I kind of would love a crazy sewing job, especially if the dress might end up in the Smithsonian.”

Alicia read further and told her friends, “This is odd, but she will be doing a father-daughter vals. But will not have time to work with a local choreographer. So she would like me to demonstrate the choreography with my own father, have someone videotape it, and e-mail it to her so she and her father can study it.”

Jamie guffawed. “Wow. She’s awfully bossy and specific for someone who won’t reveal her identity. What’s the song?”

Alicia read from the e-mail: “Unfortunately, I cannot reveal the song that my client will dance to with her father as we would hate for the press to obtain this information. However, it will be a traditional vals. Speaking of which, we do hope that you will have every member of your team sign the enclosed confidentiality agreement and that you will return it to me at your earliest convenience.”

Alicia sighed. “So that’s it. The rest of this stuff is pretty standard, and she did go for the majority of our ideas. I should probably have a meeting with Carolina and Patricia to go over all of this.”

Carmen jumped in. “You know what, Lici? Why don’t you take the day off? You’ve put in so much time already. I can meet with Patricia and Carolina.”

Alicia bit her lip remembering what her father always said about delegating. Come next fall, she wouldn’t be there to supervise every step in the planning of the quinces. She had to start letting go. Entrances and exits, she reminded herself. Those were always the trickiest. Determined to turn over a new, more collaborative leaf, she agreed to let Carmen take the reins for a while.

Alicia knew that Sunday was Gaz’s songwriting day. It was the only day of the week when he was neither in school nor at the Gap. He wouldn’t answer the telephone while he was in the “lab,” which was what he called the garage where he kept his instruments and recording equipment. But Alicia sent him a text: c.g. loved your music. What can I say? the girl’s got taste.

Seconds later, he wrote back: And I love you. What can I say? I’ve got taste.

With an unusually free afternoon on her hands, Alicia showered and dressed and wandered into the kitchen at the very unseemly hour of eleven A.M.

“Good morning, mija,” her mother said, kissing her on the forehead.

“You mean, good afternoon,” her father joked.

Maribelle was at the stove making omelets.

Alicia gave her a hug. “I missed you yesterday,” she said.

“Oh, yeah?” Maribelle sniffed. “That’s why you made those disgusting waffles full of candy and sugar? People will think I taught you how to cook like that!”

Alicia winked at her mother and said, “Actually, that’s what I tell people. I also tell them that you’re the one who taught me how to bake from box mixtures.”

Maribelle looked scandalized. “Bake from a box? ¡Nunca en mi vida!”

Alicia laughed. “Just kidding, just kidding.”

Marisol Cruz spoke. “Hey, Alicia, you wouldn’t have a couple of hours to lend your keen fashion eye, would you?”

Shopping? Alicia perked up. She loved to go shopping with her mother. Unfortunately, Marisol Cruz was usually so busy that her visits to the mall were few and far between.

“Actually, I’m free all day.”

“Excellent,” Marisol said. “Your father and I have a black-tie event next month, and I hate to sound like a cliché, but I have nothing I feel like wearing.”

An hour later, Alicia and her mother were in side-by-side dressing rooms at their favorite South Beach boutique. Although Alicia had no need for a black-tie-event dress, her mother had encouraged her to pick out a stack of dresses to try on, so she could “keep her company.”

In short order, Marisol Cruz fell hard for a black strapless sheath with an asymmetrical hemline that showed off her still gorgeous legs.

Alicia emerged from the dressing room in a silver-and-black-sequined minidress with bell sleeves.

“Look at you,” her mother sighed. “You are a vision.”

Alicia stared at herself in the mirror and wondered when exactly it was that she had grown up. She looked like the kind of girl whose pictures she still cut out of magazines and taped to the inside of her notebooks for inspiration. It was then that she realized that somewhere deep inside, she still saw herself as the fourteen-year-old kid with braces, practicing pop routines in front of her mirror, ready to storm the world and make everybody notice her. The girl she saw in the mirror, the girl in the sequined dress, didn’t need to storm anything; the world—whatever part of it mattered—would come to her.

“You need to own that dress,” her mother said. “It was made for you.”

Alicia looked at the price tag and nearly choked. “Uh, no, this dress was made for someone like you, with a bunch of fancy degrees and a really good paycheck. But before I take it off, Mom,” she asked, rummaging in her bag for her smart phone, “can you take a picture of me in it?”

Her mother whispered conspiratorially so that the saleswoman wouldn’t hear them. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking? That Carmen could maybe do a copy of this dress?”

Alicia shook her head. “No, I don’t need a copy of this dress. I don’t even need this dress. I just want a picture of myself as a reminder of how grown-up I felt in this absolutely exquisite garment.”

Her mother paused, and for a second, Alicia thought she was going to give her one of those “my little girl’s all grown up” speeches. But Mrs. Cruz just took a deep breath, stepped back from her, and said, “Say, ‘queso.’” And Alicia did.