She did not start with the price. She started with Augie's mother, who had a bad hip. Then she walked around the tree Graham had chosen, the perfect tree, and found a branch on the back that was slightly browned at the tip, and held it up to the light with an expression of sorrow, like a doctor examining an X-ray. Then she mentioned, very gently, that the lot over on Archer Avenue was selling Frasers for forty. Then she mentioned her father.
Augie's face changed.
"You're Sal's girl," he said.
"I'm Sal's girl."
Augie took off his cap. He was quiet for a moment.
"Your father," he said, "bought a tree from me every year for twenty-two years. Every year he talked me down. Every year I let him. I used to save him the best one in the back, so he'd have to work for it." He put his cap back on. "Twenty-five dollars."
"Twenty," said Gina.
"Twenty-two fifty and you take a wreath for your mother."