She said her dad took her to a place downtown and bought the first one she tried on.”

I rubbed my thumb along the side of my index finger.

“Your father told me work was slow.”

“I know,” Sadie said, tugging her sweater sleeves down over her hands.

“That’s why this store is fine.

I don’t need some six-hundred-dollar dress.”

She gripped the wire hanger tighter and headed for the little dressing room in the back corner without waiting for me to answer.

The dressing room was nothing but a plywood frame with a faded flowered curtain hanging from a bent copper pipe.