She nodded without looking up. I went back upstairs.
By the time the sky started going gray outside my window I knew what I was going to do.
At eight o'clock Sunday morning I knocked on Hadley's door and went in without waiting. She was awake. I don't think she'd slept either. She sat up fast in bed with her hair everywhere.
I held out a pink index card.
It was the back of my own layaway card. I'd turned it over and written on it in black pen, as neatly as I could, the way Mrs. Kibler did it. HADLEY OVERHOLT. Under that, $472.80. Under that, the date. And under that, a column of lines, more than twelve, as many as would fit, all the way down to the bottom edge. On the other side, through the paper, you could see the ghost of PAID IN FULL.
"What is this," Hadley said.
"That's what the dress cost. With tax. That's what you owe me."
She stared at it. "I don't have four hundred dollars."
"I know. I didn't either. You've got the Funkhouser kids every Tuesday and the Lineweaver twins on Saturday nights. That's about forty a week. Every other Friday you give me what you can. Whatever it is. You write it on a line and I initial it, and you initial it. Every other Friday until it's done."
"That's — that'll take a year."