“Would you like to purchase these with a credit card, miss?” the man asked. Like every other man working in the Nordstrom’s shoe department, he was tall, attractive, and exceptionally well-groomed.

Without looking away from the box cradling the $425 Isabella Fiore embroidered pumps, she replied, “I’ve got cash.”

She pushed her thin, blonde hair over her shoulder and, redirecting her attention, began to dig through her $295 Juicy Couture velour shoulder bag. After pulling out two tubes of lipstick, a brush, three gum wrappers, and a handful of crinkled papers, she pulled out a roll of bills. She laid out 23 twenty dollar bills.

“Thank you,” the man answered, smiling at her rouged face. She was probably in her early thirties. Her eyes were ringed with thick, black eyeliner, from which arched long, black eyelashes. Her eyelids were shaded a faint shade of purple and her lips glistened cranberry red. Large hoops of gold dangled from her ears.

She didn’t bother to dress up; she felt self-conscious about the bites on her shoulders and chest. A red, form-fitting cotton hoodie hugged her Rubenesque frame and loose black pants swished around her legs. Flip-flops—she got those from the hospital—adorned her feet.

Her disability check had arrived three days prior, though she did not have the opportunity to cash the $690 until now. Excited with the prospect of darling shoes, she proceeded immediately to Nordstrom’s from the bank. (Macy’s simply didn’t have the shoes she liked.) This became the usual chronology of events after her seven-month hospitalization at the state psychiatric hospital: Get check, spend over half of it on a pair of shoes (or a handbag, depending on the month), use the rest on cigarettes, make-up, and food.

She returned to the homeless shelter, swinging the Nordstrom’s bag from her right hand. The gaggle of men in the lobby murmured slick phrases about her body shape; she purposely ignored them.

“You’ve been wearing that sweater for almost two straight weeks now,” someone remarked as she walked past, clutching her Juicy Couture bag close to her body. “Don’t you want to wash it?”

“No,” she answered. “It won’t help. The bugs won’t get washed out.”

“We can wash your clothes completely—we can wash your blankets, too. You can take a shower at the same time; that way, everything will be clean at the same time,” the same someone coaxed.

“No,” she answered again. “The bugs live inside the cotton. If you wash the cotton, the bugs will float in the water and when it drains away, the bugs will go back into the cotton. They will never go away. They will bite me forever. I just hide the itching and scratching now.”

The same someone—one of the shelter staff—quietly sighed. There were no bug bites. There were no bugs living in the cotton. Her skin was unblemished, except when she scratched her skin raw with her pink-painted fingernails.

“Okay,” the shelter staff said. “I’ll ask you again tomorrow, but if you change your mind before then and want to wash your clothes and blankets, let me know.”

“No,” she answered again. She found her usual chair, sat down, and put the box of shoes in her lap. She removed the lid and smiled. Her fingers quickly folded open the thin paper and then ran over the stacked heel and satin cloth overlying the shoe.

They were lovely shoes.

She replaced the lid and placed her Juicy Couture bag on top of it. She then put headphones over her ears and a scarf over her head and around her neck. She folded her legs onto the chair and then tightly wrapped a blanket around her, the shoe box, and her bag.

This was the only way to kill the bugs. They would suffocate to death.