"We are getting the sneakers," Ruth said. "The ones on the yellow tag, not the ones in the window that cost as much as a light bill. If they pinch, we say so in the store, not on the bus home. I am not a mind reader. I am a grandmother with a knee."
"Yes, ma'am."
"And if I sit down in that shoe place, you sit where I can see you. Malls are full of people who think a child alone is a suggestion."
Aaliyah nodded. She knew the rule. She also knew, and did not say, that she had looked up the mall map on the library computer on Thursday and had seen, in a corner of the directory photo, a black piano near a coffee stand. She had not circled it. Circling it would have made it a plan, and plans could be told no. A hope, carried quietly, could still be revised by the real room.
Ruth rinsed a spoon that was already clean. Her hands were broad, the knuckles a little swollen in the mornings, the nails short and clean. "You bring your reader?"
"Yes."
"The library card?"