No matter how bold she became with Jim, there were some things she just couldn’t do. Bright tight clothes. Impractical shoes. The leather outfit still hung in the corner of her closet, as dejected as this mustard jacket. Perhaps she’d give it to Velvet. Someone ought to get some use out of it.

Perhaps—oh, naughty thought—she ought to wear it for Jim. Would he like it? She imagined herself in it, and felt embarrassment creep warm over her face. Robby the slut. No, it would never happen.

She chose a gray suit, held it up for the admiration of a mirror.

Velvet had seemed so surprised by the bright colors in her house. Was she that boring, truly? This morning the blues had seemed too bright, the reds too bloody, the whole house one long scream.

She put the gray suit back and went out into the mall, watching for Jim’s loose-limbed, stoop-shouldered walk. There, coming toward her. She moved her head a little to the right, and he crossed on that side, their empty hands slapping together in a fleeting touch. He didn’t seem to even notice her, but the afterimage of heat tingled in her fingers like money.

She went two shops down, paused to look blankly in the window, and turned to swim upstream through the crowd. Two scowling teenagers wearing belly bags; if they had any cash, it was pizza and beer money. A preoccupied mother dragged a squalling four-year-old toward her—a gaping purse, but the woman had enough trouble for one day. Behind her, a pinched-faced older woman in a designer dress and Gucci purse. Robby passed, fingers effortlessly drawn to the anorexically thin leather wallet.

The tingle was more like an electric jolt. She palmed the wallet into a sleeve pocket and walked steadily toward Jim.

Behind her, some kind of disturbance broke out. She didn’t look back, just kept calmly walking and watching Jim’s face. His eyes were riveted on what was unfolding behind her; if he changed direction, she’d run.

Something slammed into her back, sending her sprawling. She felt a sharp tug at her shoulder as she fell. Her knee banged painfully into cold concrete, her hand slammed down in an effort to save her head from the same impact.

The leather wallet slipped out of her sleeve and skidded two or three feet away.

The mugger who’d hit her ran on, head down, holding her purse like a football. He dodged around Jim—who tried to shove him off balance—and disappeared around a corner.

The wallet coasted to a stop next to a shiny pair of black shoes. The man who bent down to pick it up wore an ill-fitting black jacket with a silver badge pinned to the label.

Mall security.

Maybe he wouldn’t look—maybe—