THAT SATURDAY, Carolina and Carmen met in order to shop for the material needed for the quince dresses. For Carolina, it was an adventure—traveling to Miami’s design district, where bargain prices reigned, on everything from buttons to bed frames. The district was well known to the city’s interior designers and retailers, but most high school students never had any reason to enter the big warehouselike buildings that stood in this part of the city.

For Carmen, visiting the big fabric shops and those who worked in them was like going to see members of her extended family. The women who ran the shops thought of themselves as the up-and-coming designers’ fairy godmothers, and they insisted that the girls call them tías.

The girls began with Carmen’s favorite, a sprawling space called Ceci’s Fabrics. The owner, Cecilia Noriega, was from Panama and referred to Carmen as her “honorary goddaughter.”

“Hola, Tía Ceci,” Carmen called out as they entered the store.

“¡Mira, como te ves! ¡Más flaca cada vez!” Ceci said, insisting, as she always did, that Carmen was too thin. “Don’t starve yourself, chica. You’re an original. You set fashion, don’t follow it.”

“Believe me, Tía Ceci,” Carmen insisted. “I eat. I eat a lot.”

Dressed in a light gray pantsuit, Ceci charged through the store as if she were leading a presidential motorcade down Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, DC. “What can I do for you?”

“I’m designing a dress for Carolina and her prima hermana,” Carmen explained as she tried to keep up. “They’re having a double quince.”

Ceci turned and smiled. “A double quince. Qué bendición. What a blessing. Because you are working with this gem of a designer, I’ll give you an early birthday present. Twenty percent off any fabric you choose.”

Carolina’s eyes widened. “Wow, thanks.”

“De nada, niña, de nada,” Ceci said. “I will leave you in the capable hands of Alma, who’s been working with me for twenty years. Trátale bien, Alma. You know Carmen’s my favorite.”

Carmen hugged the store owner, then turned to the fabrics in the formal-wear section of the store.

“I know we said we’d go for a big Marie Antoinette hoop number for your dress, but I don’t want it to look too costumey,” Carmen explained. “I want to go for something soft, structural, and modern, like twenty-first-century pop queen meets eighteenth-century French queen.”

Carolina laughed. “I have no idea what you’re talking about, but I trust you. I know it’ll be gorgeous.”

Carmen walked through the store rejecting satins, taffetas, and lamés with a flick of her wrist. Finally, she settled on a bolt of silk fabric that started out white, then turned into a pale pink halfway through, getting darker and darker until the bottom layer of the bolt was a dark cherry pink.

Carmen and Carolina watched the saleswoman lay out yards of the hand-dyed fabric. Carmen touched it and urged Carolina to follow her lead.

“It’s impeccable,” Carmen commented approvingly. “What do you think?”

“Fabulous,” Carolina agreed, smiling.

“Great! I’ll come back with Patricia on Monday to see what she’d like, but I don’t think your dresses have to match,” said Carmen. “It would better if they just echoed each other in an interesting way.”

“Again, I don’t completely get what you’re saying,” Carolina said, “but I trust you! The dresses will be amazing, I know it.”

A few minutes later, fabric in hand, the two girls walked down the sunny Miami street; the palm trees along the sidewalks provided some welcome shade.

“Okay, that was easy!” Carmen said. “Now for the tougher stuff. I need to go across town to pick up a snow machine for the winter formal. Want to come along?”

Carolina stole a glance at her phone. “As exciting an offer as that is, since I have some extra time, I think I’ll pop by the Blue and Green office.”

Carmen’s heart immediately began to race. She had tried to forget Maxo. Tried to pretend he didn’t cause her knees to go weak or her pulse to race. She had to forget, because he wasn’t hers to lust after. So she did what she usually did when she had no idea about how to handle something. She went for the light and breezy. “Going to see your boyfriend, Maxo?”

Carolina turned and cocked her head; there was a confused expression on her face. “Maxo?” she repeated. “Maxo’s not my boyfriend. I’m crushing on Jean-Luc, the French exchange student. It’s totally hopeless, but—”

The sound of the other girl’s voice faded as Carmen’s heart went from a jog to full-on sprint. This was news. Big news. If Maxo wasn’t Carolina’s boyfriend, then…then what? She didn’t know, but she really wanted to find out.

“So, you’ll be filling up Jean-Luc’s dance card at your quince, huh?” Carmen asked, returning to the conversation. “If you want, we’ll make sure no one else gets a single dance with him. It’s the quince girl’s prerogative to dance with whomever she likes.”

Carolina shook her head. “Jean-Luc won’t be coming to my quince.”

“Is he going back to France early?” Carmen asked, confused.

“Nope,” Carolina said. “He’s here for the entire year. And I know for a fact that his parents are coming to Miami for Christmas.”

“So, what’s the problem?” Carmen wondered.

“Have you seen him?” Carolina asked.

Carmen nodded. She had. “He’s cute. Supercute. In that sort of James Dean way.”

“Exactly,” Carolina said. “Let me explain something about my favorite Frenchman. He lives in a pair of skinny black jeans. I’m not entirely sure that he doesn’t wear the same pair every day. He wears a black leather jacket unless it’s above eighty degrees, and he’s always in a pair of scruffy motorcycle boots. And, oh, yeah, did I mention that he actually rides a motorcycle, as well as a scooter, to school? A baby blue Vespa that his parents sent over from Paris. He doesn’t like the beach. He doesn’t like school dances. He doesn’t like fluffy. In fact, I’m pretty sure he scoffs at girlie-girls. His only passion is the environment, which is what we have in common. The only thing we have in common. I’m the type of girl he wouldn’t even look at twice if not for that. So, I can’t very well have him see me in a big, frothy dress with girlie invites and whatnot. He would never believe I’m an eco-warrior. It would be over before it could even start.”

Carmen wagged her finger and pretended to be offended. “First of all, I’m making your dress. So, trust. It will be fierce, not frothy. Second of all, lighten up a little bit, chica! The quince is your birthday party. And I’m fairly confident that people celebrate their birthdays in France. And third, you have to give yourself more credit. You are pretty fantastic, and he probably knows that. I mean, you can be girlie and a save-the-world type at the same time. There is no rule against that.

“Just like there is no rule that just because you dress all in black, you can’t act green. ¿Comprendes?” said Carmen. Quickly kissing Carolina on the cheek, she added, “I’ve got to run to a meeting with the SoBees, but my advice, chica? Go for it.”

Walking away, she had to wonder if maybe, when it came to Maxo, she should take her own advice.

A few hours later, Jamie was working on special handmade papier-mâché masquerade masks for Patricia and Carolina when she heard frantic knocking on her studio door. She opened it to see Carmen, who was completely freaking out.

“Can you make snow?” Carmen asked, the words coming out in a rush. “Because it’s not a winter formal without real snow. And the SoBees neglected to tell me that if I didn’t rent a snow-making machine by November first, I was bound to be out of luck. And the only one I can get is a model that has to be special-ordered from New York and, oh, yeah, it’s five hundred dollars more than our budget allows.” She finally stopped and took a breath.

Plopping down on the old couch in Jamie’s studio, she added, “Can I move in here? It’s nice here. I can hide out from the entire world and never have to worry about things like quinces and snow machines and winter formal queens.”

“But you’d have to worry about me,” Jamie reminded her. “And I’d have to kick you out because this is my studio, not a flop pad for my friends, no matter how much I love you. So how about another solution. Why don’t you hold a bake sale to raise the money for the snow machine. Or, better yet, a car wash. All the parents who have filthy cars will come, and they tip really well; on a sunny Saturday afternoon, you could make five hundred dollars easy.”

Carmen sat up, encouraged. “Hey, that’s not a bad idea. Maybe Carolina has some green ideas for a car wash.”

Not wanting to waste any time, Carmen texted Carolina, who wrote back right away: Go see Maxo. He’s a genius.

Carmen let out a little whoop and stood up. This was a very good development. Very good indeed. She gave Jamie a little hug. “You are the best friend in the whole entire world.”

Jamie raised an eyebrow. “Because I suggested you have a car wash?”

“Something like that,” Carmen answered, closing the studio door behind her. Walking through the Sosa family’s backyard, which was full of wildflowers and eucalyptus trees, it was all that Carmen could do not to sing a little. She hadn’t wanted there to be a disaster with renting the snow machine. Honest to goodness, she wanted things to go smoothly. But a year of planning quinces had taught her that whenever you planned a huge party, there was bound to be at least one disaster. And she couldn’t help but think how lucky it was that her disaster had a solution that led her right to Maxo.