Back on Broome Street, I walked without knowing where I went. I stared through boutique windows at couches, at vases of blown glass, letting the cold air clear my head. It’s over, I told myself repeatedly, not knowing quite what this meant. I turned up West Broadway, a lunchtime murmur roiling behind the windows of restaurants. The models were out in force, their spindly doe’s legs splayed beneath short winter coats. They looked so young—younger than I’d ever felt in my life. I noticed one with short, raven-colored hair who looked not unlike myself (we are interchangeable—the first lesson one learns as a professional beauty). She and I reached the corner of Houston at the same time, but I let her go ahead. From behind, I noticed people glance at her as she passed them crossing the street, their eyes holding her an extra moment, then reluctantly pulling away. The girl pretended not to see them, just as I used to do, but she felt the power I remembered feeling—I saw it in her walk, the way she held her head, a self-consciousness that made her every move look studied.

But was that really power? I wondered, following behind as she turned left, onto the north side of Houston. Or did it only feel like power? She made her way along, eyes straight ahead, the shape of her portfolio visible in her small backpack, and hovering around her, something only I could see: the nimbus of her faith that she had earned an extraordinary life, and would have one. No, I thought, it was wrong—there was no such thing as the power of beauty. Only the power to surround yourself with it.