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“come back another day with cash? But what if they’re sold out?”
    â€œYou don’t happen to have layaway, do you?” Hillary turned to the salesgirl who sadly shook her head.
    â€œI don’t have that kind of money saved anyway,” I said.
    â€œHow is that possible?” Elizabeth Hepburn asked.
    â€œHey, you met me when I was washing your windows, remember?” I said. “Hand-to-mouth is my way of life.”
    Elizabeth Hepburn didn’t even need to think about that for a second.
    â€œOh, hell, Delilah,” she said, sympathy crinkling her blue eyes, “I’ll buy you the shoes.”
    â€œNo,” I said.
    â€œWhy ‘no’? I already said, I have all this money. What else am I going to use it for—monthly window washing? Leave it all to my housekeeper, Lottie, who awaits her inheritance upon my death like John Carradine playing Dracula waiting for an unbitten neck?”
    â€œNo,” I said, crossing my arms in front of my chest. “I can’t accept charity. I won’t. If I want the shoes badly enough, and I do, I’ll find a way to earn the money on my own.”
    â€œBut what if they’re not here in your size when you get back?”
    â€œI’ll just have to take that chance.”
    She must have seen that the window washer meant business because she stopped arguing.
    And then she put her Jimmy Choos back.
    And so did Hillary.
    â€œWait a second,” I protested. “Just because I can’t afford mine, doesn’t mean you have to put—”
    â€œOh, yes, we do,” Elizabeth Hepburn spoke with her own brand of firmness. “If you can’t get what you came for, none of us can. One for all and all for one and all that other crap Errol Flynn used to say to me.”
    â€œExactly,” Hillary said.
    â€œBut what if the shoes you love aren’t here in your sizes by the time I can afford to come back?” I asked.
    â€œThat’s just the chance we’ll have to take,” Elizabeth Hepburn said.
    â€œExactly,” Hillary said.
    Lord, what fools these mortals be.
    â€œBut, Delilah?” Hillary added.
    â€œHmm?”
    â€œTry to come up with a way to make the money quickly. I want those damn shoes.”

5
    â€œN o.”
    â€œBut, Dad. ”
    â€œI said no, Baby. I’m pretty sure you’re still smart enough to understand both sides of no. There’s the n and there’s the o. What’s so difficult here?”
    My dad had always called me Baby, for as long back as I could remember. It was my mother, whose own name was Lila, who’d named me.
    â€œI’m Lila,” she’d say, “you’re Delilah. It’s like Spanish. It means ‘of Lila.’”
    â€œThere’s just one problem,” I’d say right back. “We’re not Spanish. Okay, two problems. There’s that extra h at the end, which your name doesn’t have, so technically speaking—”
    â€œJust eat your Cocoa Krispies.” She’d always cut me off right there.
    My dad always claimed he called me Baby because he couldn’t stand the name Delilah. Of course, totally besotted with my mother and therefore never wanting to hurt her, despite the numerous times he’d hurt her, he only claimed that outside of my mother’s hearing.
    â€œDo you know whom she named you after, Baby?” he’d ask, as if he hadn’t asked me the same question at least a hundred times. “She named you after the girl in that Tom Jones song! Your mother was a huge Tom Jones fan! I swear, if I hadn’t been sitting right there beside her at his concerts, she’d have thrown up her panties right there on the stage. What, I ask you, kind of name is that to give to a baby? Delilah in the song drives her man crazy, then she cheats on him, and then she gets killed for it.”
    â€œBut, Dad, ” I tried again now.
    â€œNo, Baby. If I