"There's one more thing," I said. "And you're not going to like it."
The one more thing was that she was coming with me to Kibler's on Monday, and she was going to tell them what happened herself.
She argued with me about it all of Sunday. She said she'd pay the money but she didn't see why she had to stand in front of an old lady and say it out loud. I said that was exactly why. I said if she was going to cut something that belonged to me she was going to have to say so to the people who'd made it, because that's what it costs, and you don't get to pay the money part and skip the other part. I'd learned that from Mrs. Kibler, actually, though I didn't say so. She'd counted every bill out loud in front of me, every payment, because, she said once, money you don't say out loud doesn't feel like money.
Marcus drove us. He took Monday off and picked us both up at the high school at two-forty and drove us to Staunton in the truck with the dress in a black garbage bag on my lap. Nobody turned on the radio. Halfway there Marcus said, "Your mother's going to stop by the shop on her lunch tomorrow," and I said, "Why," and he said, "That's hers to say," and that was all.
Mrs. Kibler was behind the counter with her glasses on the beaded chain, and she looked up when the bell rang and saw me, and saw the garbage bag in my arms, and her face changed.
"My dear," she said. "What's happened?"
I didn't answer. I looked at Hadley.
Hadley stood just inside the door with her hands jammed in the front pocket of her hoodie. Marcus stood behind her, not touching her, just there, like a wall you could lean on if you had to. She looked at the floor for a long moment. Then she looked up at Mrs. Kibler.
"I cut up her dress," Hadley said. "With scissors. On Saturday. It was my fault. Nobody made me do it." Her voice cracked on the last word, and she cleared her throat and said it again. "Nobody made me."
Mrs. Kibler looked at her for a long time over the top of her glasses. She didn't say anything mean. She didn't say anything kind either. She just looked, the same way she'd looked at me in the three-way mirror in November, like she was taking a measurement.