“Thanks.” I walk over with my cup. She takes it from me and pours until it’s full.

“Cold for November,” she says. “Stay warm, sweetie.”

“You too,” I say, taking the cup back from her carefully. I throw some more change in her tip cup. Now I’m down to a hundred and fifty-five dollars, but even when you don’t have much, you always have to tip. Margo says there’s no excuse.

I walk down one side of The Commons and up the other, looking in windows. There’s a storefront full of shirts and bumper stickers that say things like ITHACA IS GORGES, MY KID BEAT UP YOUR HONOR STUDENT, and I NEED A MAN LIKE A NEEDS A . Another shop seems to sell nothing but silver rings and weird pipes made out of glass. There’s a used bookstore and a place that sells old clothes—like Mrs. Ivory would wear—for a dollar a pound. There are bead curtains and cracked CDs hanging all over the place and one of the stores has the caterpillar from Alice in Wonderland painted on the glass. I wonder if this is what it feels like to go to Europe. It’s a far cry from Little River.

I walk past a coffee shop that’s dark inside even though it’s open. Lit candles in glass cups line shelves on the walls. It looks like a cave. There’s a HELP WANTED sign in the window.

— Chapter 8 —

“Um, a girl here wants to help us,” this blond guy yells toward the back room.

Everyone in Cafe Decadence looks at me. I stare at my boots, let my hair fall in my face. Long hair is like carrying a hiding place with you everywhere you go.

“Carly will be out in a sec,” the guy tells me. His voice is low and dopey like a cartoon character. His hair has streaks that are almost white. No one is that sun-kissed in upstate New York in November. He looks like he should be someplace warm. California, Florida, Barbados. He should be surfing. He hasn’t been in winter long enough to fade.

“Thanks,” I say, but he’s already taking an order. A woman in a lime green dress coat asks for something called a “half-caff soy mocha,” and the blond guy knows what she’s talking about.