A tableau: an 11th birthday party. A small group of kids in Sunday clothes and a few mothers in spring dresses look on with curiosity as the Daughter, in a pink-and-white ruffled dress she's been coerced into wearing, pulls the sparkly wrapping paper off a large box. 

Inside is a new dollhouse.

"Three floors, modern conveniences, low mortgage, good neighborhood. Won't find anything better, Sweetheart," jokes the Father before he disappears with a slice of birthday cake into his study to process the paperwork his boss gives him to do even on the weekends, leaving the all-female party to themselves.

"I've already chosen out the necessities, Sweetheart, but we'll go shopping together for the really, really good stuff later. It's simply gorgeous, don't you think? I can't wait," the Mother says, her eyes strangely glistening as she slides a hand possessively, lovingly, over the wood-shingled roof of the new dollhouse before disappearing into the kitchen to play hostess to the other mothers.

The Daughter is left alone with a group of children teetering on the verge of teenage gawkiness, some of whom she knows and likes, others of whom she only knows by association and through the Mother's frequent, fault-finding gossip.

She is at a loss as to what to do with any of them. They make her nervous. And she feels stupid and ugly in her dress. She wishes they would all leave so she can take a good look at the watercolor set, the only real thing of interest this birthday.

"Hey, let's play with your new dollhouse," says a girl whose name she won't remember but whose face she will. The one with the dark hair and eyes who, for some reason, makes her more nervous than the others. They sit and move the old dollhouse family through their new home, ooooohing and aahhhhhing over the new sofas, electric lights, side tables, kitchen sink.

The Daughter turns her head and looks at the profile of the girl next to her, so engaged in the imaginary lives of the doll family, and she feels a strange sensation in her stomach. Without knowing why, she leans forward and kisses her on the cheek.

The doll representing 'son' abruptly stops his trek down the tiny, brand-spanking-new stairs and the girl with the dark eyes looks at the Daughter with a mix of surprise and alarm.

"Why did you do that?"

"I don't know. I guess. . .I don't know."

"Well," the girl says, turning back to the doll in her hand, "don't do it again, ok?"

"Ok."

And she doesn't do it again. But it's difficult.

The new dollhouse sits, kitted out with grown-up things, grown-up ideas. In its new appliances, conveniences, the Daughter sees only the Lilliputian ropes of convention meant to keep her firmly strapped in place in a limited, unimaginative, adventure-less world.

She makes an effort to be interested, a very last, childish attempt to keep the Mother close. But it's only cosmetic. Long suppressed emotions are finally starting to bubble to the surface and merge with new realisations and urges, the expression of which she can't begin to guess at. 

Yet.