I.  The Kitchen Counter, Annapolis, Maryland, 1972
Her mother is on the phone shouting at Mrs. Bobek. "Lou is 8. She didn't know what she was doing." At Mother's elbow, she watches her doodle a two-headed monster with devil's horns on her shopping list. Through the telephone line one block over, ants carry Mrs. Bobek's voice: "The girls swapped and we're not a family to go back on our word." Frieda's yellow jelly sandals fit perfectly. When she moves her feet in a little dance, the tiny silver sparkles inside the sandals wink up at her. It was a good trade. The black and tan saddle shoes had reminded her too much of school. Sitting still. Finishing projects. Remembering something Frieda's sister Charlene once said, she whispers to her new shoes: "You are bitching!" With one fast hand, Mother reaches down and gives her a sharp slap across the face at the same time she slams the phone down on Mrs. Bobek, who's saying the friendship was never a real one anyway.

II.  Next to a fountain, Lithia Park, Ashland, Oregon, 1980
When she opens her eyes, there are the people from yesterday—Cedar, Padre, Jason—crammed into two sleeping bags zipped together. She always sleeps in the heavy wool serape she wears to also do her shopping. She lost her boots last night. She remembers a man with a beard in three braids decorated with clay beads, a tiny blue pill on her tongue, and then nothing. There are little families in the park this afternoon. The fathers and kids don't seem to see her—like she's become the ghost of a ghost—but the mothers watch her. They look at her like her own mother did, with a mixture of anxiety, dismay, and fear. An old couple is wading in the creek. They hold hands as they slip on the rocks. On the grass they've laid out on a gingham tablecloth a picnic of sandwiches wrapped in wax paper, apples, and cookies, as well as their shoes in neat pairs: sturdy brown orthopedic creepers with black socks stuffed inside and blue tennis shoes embroidered with little red flowers. As the couple wobble away to the opposite bank, she swoops down and bundles the whole shebang under her serape. Then she resumes walking—away from everything and everyone who may possibly remember her.

III.  Beauty Shop Station #5, Central Women's Correctional Facility, Gatesville, Texas, 1994
She is very careful when trimming Big Berta's flattop because she is not someone you want to provoke. Red trimmings fall on her slip-on canvas shoes, which are a dead tooth gray. Big Berta suddenly heaves herself up from the deep leather chair and lumbers away wordlessly. This is the least boring prison job for the low offenders. When she'd finally been caught, it had been for a crime so poorly executed that the guards gave her the nickname everyone uses: Sleeping Beauty. She'd broken into a motel room and, after helping herself to the mini bar and cash, had taken a nap on the queen bed. It had been such a long time since she'd slept on a mattress. That night at the police station, she'd put the few possessions that were actually hers into a big plastic bag, including the too-small purple stilettos the rich guy named Dwayne had just given her. She never told anyone that between stuffing her pockets with bills and sleeping on the clean, white sheets, she'd knelt by the side of the bed and prayed for the first time since she was a little girl.

IV.  Cash register, Second Chances Animal Welfare League, Eureka, California, 2016
It is never routine: She sells beat-up paperback romances, unread autobiographies, second-hand wedding dresses, cracked #1 teacher coffee mugs, rejected accent pillows, outgrown dolls, unnecessary fish tanks, and used wigs. She listens to marital problems, job woes, and money issues. Sometimes she undercharges; in rare instances she gives things away for free. The thrift shop's purpose is to fund the adoption of the abandoned animals in cages in the middle of the shop, and to that end she cleans, waters, feeds, grooms, and pets. She's adopted a one-legged chihuahua named Sissy, a geriatric pug called Romelda, and an entire litter of flame point Siamese she can't tell apart and just refers to as the kids. Yesterday she'd been unpacking the latest donations when she opened a garbage bag and on top found a pair of never-worn red leather tap shoes with black satin ribbons for laces. They were her size, 7. She'd written out a tag for the maximum shoes price—$10—and had Sally ring them up and put her money in the till. While she'd reorganized the used stuffed animals and thrown a birthday party for a declawed tabby called Phillip, the shoes had called and answered with her every step.

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