“Rena noticed me watching it pass. 'You think they don't got problem?' Rena said. 'Everybody got problem. You got me, they got insurance, house payment, Preparation H.' She smiled, baring the part between her two upper teeth. 'We are the free birds. They want to be us.”

“You want car?' Rena said. 'Artist college? You think I don't know? How you think you pay? So this dress. Pretty dress. Someone gave. But money is . . .' She stopped, struggling to find the words, what money was. Finally, she threw her hands up. 'Money. You want remember, so just remember.”

“Rena squinted at me, blowing a strand of her matte black hair out of her face, exasperated. 'You get good price for that. What you saving it for, tea with little Tsarevich Alexei? They shot him in 1918.' She took the dress out of the bag, shook it and hung it back up. 'Is fact.”

“You've got to let go of who you were, to become who you will be.”

“She was starting to think there might be such a thing as karma - that repetition - maybe you lived through the same thing over and over until you stopped caring. Maybe eventually it got less intense, until it was just nothing.”

“Women always put men first. That's how everything got so screwed up.”

“She would buy magic every day of the week. Love me, that face said. I'm so lonely, so desperate. I'll give you whatever you want.”