“I’ll take it,” she told Caitlin.

“Uh, yeah!” said Caitlin. “Of course you will. Do you have shoes?”

“No!” cried Sherri, as horrified as if Caitlin had said, “Do you have syphilis?”

“I have the perfect pair,” said Caitlin. “They’re in the back, we haven’t even finished unpacking them.” She glanced knowledgeably at Sherri’s feet. “Are you a seven?”

“And a half.”

“Right back,” said Caitlin. “And then we’ll accessorize.”

The shoes—heels! Sherri was back in heels!—were great, and so were the earrings Caitlin chose, which were long and fringy and felt like friendly little brooms sweeping at Sherri’s shoulders. Sherri loved all of it, and as it turned out, the dress was part of the end-of-summer sale; the charges came only to one hundred and twenty-eight dollars, which, reflected Sherri, wasn’t so bad for a total transformation.

Just past noon, Sherri texted Alexa to see if she was available. The gods of desperation and babysitting were on her side. Alexa was available.

Out on the street, catching her reflection in the shop window, she spotted her remaining problem. Her hair. She could wear it up. She could wear it down. But whatever she did it would still be the same drab color.

She pulled her phone out of her bag. First she called Rebecca to see if she wouldn’t mind picking Katie up from nature camp when she collected Morgan. Of course Rebecca wouldn’t mind—she was still chagrined about mentioning the party to Sherri; Sherri could tell she’d do anything to help. She could have asked Rebecca to change the oil in her Acura or aspirate a cyst and Rebecca would have answered in the same willing, cheerful way. Then she called the salon.

“You’re in luck!” cried Brittany. “There’s been a cancellation! Do you want it? How soon can you be here? How lucky are you?”

“Pretty lucky,” said Sherri. “I want it.” She believed that sometimes you made your own luck but that other times the luck was handed to you, a gift from an anonymous donor with no strings attached. This appointment would put her over her budget, but she’d cut back next week to make up for it. “I can be there in twenty-eight minutes,” she said.

66.

Alexa

Alexa’s phone pinged with two texts as she was in the line at Commune to get a coffee and a crepe on Saturday, just past noon. Then her phone rang.

There were three people ahead of Alexa in line so she answered. It was Hannah, her coworker at the Cottage.

“Hey, Amazon!” said Hannah, and Alexa rolled her eyes. If this was about getting Alexa to work that day, no thank you, she wasn’t interested.

“I can’t switch shifts,” she said preemptively, combatively.