In the dressing room I read the tags and felt like crying. Everything was as expensive as it looked. Jesus, Kira. My eyes predictably welled up.

“Do your math,” she called through the door of the room next to mine. “Seventy-five percent off. Nothing will fit, but you can fix that, right?”

I sniffled. “Seventy-five?”

“Yes! They’re last season’s, returns, but it’s all new and cute. There may be a stain or a small hole, but they’ll give us a bigger discount for it, and it’s all workable.”

Hope crept back in. “You are magic,” I said.

“Not magic, it’s that I’m not made of money, either,” she said, yawning. “I’ve been at Blackbird since five this morning.”

I stepped out of the dressing room and knocked on her door.

She opened it, wearing a black tank dress that was hanging off her, and I put my arms around her small shoulders and hugged her.

“Oh, Muir,” she said. “It’s just clothes.”

“I love this sweater.”

I’m going to miss you when I go.

Back at Francine’s I washed everything and carried Terry Johnson up the stairs to the big room, where he lay on the bed to watch me pin and hem and sew.

My suitcase was open on the floor. None of this new stuff would fit in there. I would have to get rid of a lot of things.

The blackbird-collection pillowcase took up prime real estate. I pulled it out. Held it. Wished I had the tangled chain to work on.

If I got rid of my clothes and kept only the new ones, I’d be back in the same stupid situation, three or four outfits on rotation, day after day. If I kept what I had, like Kira said, and mixed things in, I’d have an entire extra week of combinations.

I looked at the dresser. Wide, empty drawers waiting to be filled. Unpack! Move in, get comfortable. I’m all yours.

The pillowcase went back in its hiding spot beneath the socks.

I folded everything new as it was altered. A nice, neat stack on top of the dresser. Not in.

I carry with me a sewing thimble. There is an urban legend that Albert Einstein, in an effort to save his brainpower for only crucial science and math thoughts, eliminated the daily decision-making of what to wear by buying a whole bunch of the same outfit: ten white shirts, black coats, pants, socks. A life uniform. This has been proven total nonsense. Plenty of photographs show the guy in swanky vests and sweaters, even sandals in later life. It’s just a made-up story, like the one about him telling Marilyn Monroe he wouldn’t have a baby with her in case it got his looks and her brains (a bullshit, sexist story; Marilyn supposedly had a super-high IQ but unfortunate taste in men).

Anyway.