“New York’s the place to be,” Shifra says innocuously, and as she’s saying it, she feels her heart accordion open, then close

She shouldn’t have come along to the store.

A week before Rosh Hashanah, DecoDress is a headache of patterns — florals, paisleys, whatnot. And people everywhere, stretching out, snatching the last dresses in standard sizes, leaving only the very large and very tiny. Beside her, Estee’s starting to panic.

“Maybe this?” Shifra holds out a blue-green maxi dress.

Estee goes to try it on. Shifra stands by the skirts, and people follow her, holding up skirts, trying, discarding. Is anyone even looking at the tags?

Their youngest sister Miriam materializes beside her with a small pile slung across her arm. “Shells,” she says.

“Um, Miriam,” Shifra says hoarsely, “I don’t think basics are included in the voucher.”

Her sister’s face slumps, “But I need a shell for my Shabbos robe.”

Tension throbs between Shifra’s brows. She shouldn’t even be here. It’s not like she’s getting anything for herself. Why did she come? To reason with a twelve-year-old? To disappoint?

Estee steps out then and poses in the mirror. She looks back at them.

“Oh, Estee,” Miriam says, “I loooove it.”

Shifra nods, blinks. The dress is made for Estee. Soft and flowing, with a cut that says class. She is just 18, her sister, and beautiful. In dashing green, with the extra height supplied by the pair of dress heels that live in the store, Shifra suddenly realizes she’s coming of age.

She tries to meet Estee’s half-smile.

“You think I should take it?”

“You have to,” Miriam says, “You look… transformed.”

Miriam is too precocious for a preteen. Shifra looks at her — she’s still holding the shiny, ribbed shell — and wonders how much she knows.

Estee smirks in the mirror and goes to change. As they walk to the front of the store to pay, Shifra wishes she could slink away and disappear. She swallows and reaches for the voucher Ma gave her. The Tomchei Shabbos V’Yom Tov 20% off.

The woman looks at it briefly, punches in some numbers. “That’ll be two hundred fifty-eight,” she says.

Estee hands over Ma’s card.

The three sisters look down. The shop tiles grow and distort beneath Shifra’s feet, six seconds, seven seconds—

“Declined,” she hears the woman say. “Should I try again?”

Shifra shakes her head, trying for nonchalance, but jerking stiffly. She fishes in her purse and hands over her own credit card. She feels Estee’s relief press in on her; Miriam’s eyes .

“We’ll take the shell too,” she finds herself saying.

The woman scans it, taps on the register, and the receipt rolls out; a grinding, beeping, normal noise.