At first, Rachel’s face had one of those eyebrow-raised smiles when I told her about my movie plans with Josh. Then she turned serious. “Your father talked to me about dating.” We were in the kitchen, where I had become the cook. I realized that I didn’t want to hear what my father had told her. I wanted to be here in this moment, not bound to the rules from home. I pressed a spatula into the ground beef until the meat hissed in the frying pan.

“Your father told me that you can go out if you’re with people I know,” Rachel continued. “So Josh passes that test. And that you should be home by midnight.”

“I know,” I said. “He told me the same rules.”

Rachel looked thoughtful, almost nervous. She cleared her throat, and I waited, the spatula poised over the sizzling meat. “I don’t want to go against what you’re taught at home.”

I looked up. “I’m not sure that the rules at home would work here,” I said. I thought about the courting carriages and the barn parties, the boys calling for girls by shining a lantern or flashlight in their window. I turned off the stove and set the spatula on the counter. “Josh is only taking me to a movie. It’s not like we’re courting.”

“Things move a little faster here, Eliza.”

“Don’t worry,” I said. “I can take care of myself. It’s not the first time I’ve been out with a boy. And anyway, Josh and I are going out together as friends. He isn’t my…” I fumbled for the English word. “Boyfriend.” When I thought of that word, a queasiness rushed through me. It was one thing to sit with Josh in Rachel’s living room and listen to music. But we were going out to a place I’d never been. I tried not to think of all the mistakes I could make. “But thank you for being concerned about me, Mrs.…” I paused and shook my head. “I mean Rachel.” It was nice to call Rachel by her first name. Her golden eyes crinkled into a smile.

With this conversation over, there was something else I wanted to ask her. I had spent my whole life hearing that the way I looked on the outside wasn’t important. But now I knew that it was. “What do you think I should wear Saturday night?”

Rachel grinned. “It’s been a long time since I was on a date,” she said. “But after dinner I can help you pick something out.”

Later that night, with the children settled in their favorite positions on the couch, laughing at the predicaments of an imaginary family, Rachel and I stood before my open closet door.

In Seventeen magazine, the women’s clothing looked like artwork. I was realizing that there were clothes for different occasions and for different girls. I thought of Jess and Caroline, and how comfortable they looked in their clothing. My own wardrobe, which had seemed so rich and varied when my mother and I shopped together, now appeared skimpy.

“When I see teenagers out at night, they look pretty casual,” Rachel was saying. “I think your jeans and a pretty top would be just right.” She reached for the white blouse with the eyelet stitching. I remembered how my mother had insisted that I buy it instead of a more colorful one that I had wanted instead.

“But it’s so plain,” I told Rachel, just as I had told my mother.

“It looks great with your dark hair. And we can spruce it up,” said Rachel. Minutes later, I was standing in Rachel’s room, the white shirt tucked crisply into my jeans, while Rachel searched her closet. I had never stood for so long before a reflection of myself. I tried not to stare.

“This is what you need,” Rachel said, emerging from the closet with a short jacket made of blue jean material.

I slipped my arms through the sleeves of the jacket. When I saw the way it framed and offset the simple white blouse, I smiled. I could imagine the girls in the magazines wearing this outfit.

“What do you think?” said Rachel.

“I think the people at home wouldn’t know me.” And it was true. I stared into the mirror. The white of the shirt stood out against my tanned skin, and my legs looked long and slim in the jeans. There wasn’t a trace of the girl who, only a week ago, had never gone out of the house without a bonnet, who had never stepped into a pair of trousers, who had never fastened an article of clothing with a button.

The girl who stared back at me from the mirror was anything but plain.