Mimi’s face fell into something that Ezra had never seen before. Terror or anguish or fury. A combination of all of them. Maybe, actually, it was honesty.

“I did tell you! I left you three messages!” She was sobbing now.

“You didn’t tell me, Mimi. Not the truth.”

She jumped to her feet and slipped on the slick floor, her heels no match for the marble that was still damp from all the melted snow tracked in. Ezra reached out to grab her, but she caught herself on the windowsill, found her balance, and stood taller.

Then: “Fine,” she said, her voice low and flat. “The reason I did not get on the plane is the exact reason that your friend Gregory would love to gossip about. I wanted some earrings, ok? I wanted some earrings, and I was at Neiman’s, and I just wanted something nice to impress your fancy fucking friends, so I took them.” Her mouth contorted as she inhaled. “You don’t understand what it’s like to never have what you want, to never be able to get what you deserve.”

And Ezra pulled back at this because he understood it so completely that he was almost offended that she thought this of him. He knew intellectually that she was speaking about money—that he had it now and she didn’t—but so much of his life had been spent in pursuit of seeking something that he didn’t have, of filling a void that he couldn’t even articulate but that shadowed him all the same. And Mimi hadn’t seen that? Mimi hadn’t known that?

“And the earrings meant you couldn’t get on the flight?” Ezra said finally, quietly, resigned.

“No, of course not! Do you have any idea how any of this works?”

Ezra wasn’t sure what to say because he didn’t think it was necessarily wrong that he wasn’t aware of the rules of shoplifting.

“I got caught, ok? Security. And it’s not like they sent me to jail, ok? Don’t you worry, Ezra Jones, your girlfriend did not spend the night in jail!”

“Mimi, that’s not what—”

“I know the drill, ok? Please, do you think this was my first time?”

Ezra, in fact, had no idea how many times she had been apprehended by mall cops. Until an hour ago, he hadn’t even known this was in the cards. He wondered now if this was why she was so controlling of his own vices. Maybe it was a kindness on her behalf, not an embarrassment, which he had always assumed.

“Is this why you hate my gambling? The poker? The blackjack?”

“What?” she said. “I mean, no? I told you about my uncle who had to move in with us.” She paused. “Also, who loses money for the sport of it? It’s just another thing you don’t value because you don’t realize how much some of us go without.”

Ezra nodded and didn’t pursue it. He’d gone without plenty. But this wasn’t the time, this wasn’t the fix.