THE NEXT DAY at work, Miss Lena comes in practically bouncing. “I am so excited to work today,” she says. “Last night, all I was thinking was that I couldn’t wait to play paper dolls again.”

I smile and then go back to opening the register and counting out the money. When I’m done with our register, I walk down to Miss Liaskis’s register and help her open. She doesn’t have a half-hour to get it straight today; it’s a Saturday, the first day of a big weekend sale, and customers are waiting outside for the doors to open. Miss Lena straightens the clothes on the racks, checks to make sure the dressing rooms are clean and empty, and then goes to the drawer and pulls out the paper dolls. She lines them up and says good morning in each of their voices. For Bartholomew and Tobias she uses a swishy, wispy voice that surprises me. Before we can start playing, though, customers push into the store and begin tearing through the racks as if picking out prizes on a game show. The dressing rooms are quickly filled. Women throw dresses they don’t want on the floor or toss them over the tops of the fitting-room doors. When someone does put a dress back on the hanger, it’s inside out or with one sleeve turned in. They’re gentle with the dresses they buy, though, examining them at the counter to make sure there are no snags or white deodorant streaks from the last person who tried them on. Miss Lena rings up her customers, I ring up mine, and we take turns ringing up the people who helped themselves.

A floater (a saleslady who spends her whole day covering for people when they go on breaks) comes to relieve one of us for lunch. I go first, because it’s a no-eating day and I just want to get the hour over with so I can stop thinking about food. When I return from lunch, I see the girl from the club last night standing at the counter with Miss Lena. The dress the girl was wearing is lying there, folded in white tissue. She is handing her credit card to Miss Lena.

“What’s going on?” I ask.

“Just a return,” Miss Lena says.

“But that was your sale,” I say. (Whenever a sale gets returned, your commission gets docked.)

“My boyfriend didn’t like it,” the girl says, her fat lips all blubbery and shiny.

“But you wore it,” I say.

“No, I didn’t,” she says. “I just took it home, tried it on for my boyfriend, and then stuck it back in the box.”

“It’s OK, dear,” Miss Lena says to me. “I’ll do the return; you go help some customers.”

“No, I’ll do it,” I say. “You go to lunch before the floater has to leave.”

As Miss Lena leaves for lunch, I pull the dress out of the tissue paper and examine it.

“There are sweat stains on the armpits,” I say.

“Must be from someone else who tried it on,” the girl says coolly. She pulls her sunglasses out of her purse and puts them on. “Can you hurry?” she snaps. “I’ve gotta get going.”

“We don’t take back items that have been worn,” I say.

“I told you, I just tried it on for my boyfriend.”

“Then why’d you cut the tags off?” I ask.

“Because I didn’t want him to know how much it cost,” she says, and sighs impatiently.

“I know you wore it,” I say.

“How could you possibly know that I wore it?” she asks.

I don’t want to get into how I noticed her at the club, because it would just be her word against mine, so I say nothing. I know it’s unchristian of me, but I now hate this girl more than I hate anyone else in the world. I hate her because she’s skinny and has fat lips and clear skin and the nerve to buy a five-hundred-dollar dress, wear it out to a club, and then return it. She probably does the day-on/day-off diet, too, but I bet she’s not smart enough to write a book about it.

I put a pink return slip into the register and punch in Miss Lena’s sales number. But then, instead of ringing in a credit on the girl’s card, I just ring the dress up again. I wish I could see her face when she gets her credit-card bill.

“Sign here,” I say, handing over the pink slip. She does, and I tear off her copy and hand it to her with her credit card. The girl rolls her eyes and walks away, her skinny butt dramatically swaying. My butt’s almost that small, I think, as the escalator lowers her into the floor, making her disappear like some magic act. I’m glad today’s a no-eating day, because it makes me feel thinner.

At closing time, everything’s a mess, and Miss Lena and I are both exhausted. Miss Lena starts to close the register, and I walk around picking up dresses, putting them on hangers, and returning them to the racks. Miss Lena arranges the receipts into four piles: her sales, my sales, her returns, my returns. I glance at the totals (I sold double what she did), then casually flip through the piles.

“Oops,” I say, “looks like you rang up a dress on a return slip instead of a sales slip.” I quickly stick the five-hundred-dollar pink slip into her sale pile.

“Oh, how careless of me,” Miss Lena says. “It was just so busy today.”

“Yeah,” I say, “no time to play paper dolls.”

Miss Michelle wanders around the sales floor asking everyone how much they sold. She’s keeping a tally on a piece of paper. So far, she’s sold the most. When she approaches us, she just lowers her eyebrows and scowls.

“Yes?” I say.

“How much?” she asks.

I tell her our totals, then make her read me everyone else’s. I sold the most, of course, with Miss Michelle coming in second. When I factor the misrung dress into Miss Lena’s totals, she comes out in third place. The Braughn sisters sold within a hundred dollars of each other. Poor Miss Liaskis, her total for the day is the same as my total for the first hour. She must be collecting welfare or something, because I don’t know how she makes a living otherwise.

Now Miss Liaskis hollers for me, her voice near tears. I run to help her close out her register. The Braughn sisters roll their eyes. Miss Liaskis stands by my side as I clear out her register. She’s panting from the long, hard day. She raises her hand to her heart, then strokes my forearm, saying, “Thank you, thank you, thank you. You are always such a good girl.”

I suck the inside of my cheek between my teeth and bite down as hard as I can. Blood seeps into my mouth, sweet and metallic-tasting. I swallow it and think, If I were really a good girl, I would’ve thrown a couple of sales to poor old Miss Liaskis today. Then I do something that I really should stop doing: I make that promise. I say to myself, “Tomorrow I will ring up not one, not two, but three entire sales for poor old Miss Liaskis. And if I don’t, then I will slit my wrists and my neck, so help me God.”

RENEE HAS A DATE, and all my other girlfriends have plans for the night, too. Ahmad called earlier and left a message. I debate whether or not to call him back. I liked him, but I wasn’t mad about him — he was a bit too ethnic for me. Finally, as I’m lying on Renee’s bed watching her get dressed for her date, I pick up the phone and call him.

Ahmad and I meet at the Blue Light Cafe. I sip a wine spritzer that seems to bypass my stomach and go straight to my head. I tell Ahmad about Miss Lena and the paper dolls. He doesn’t think it’s so funny to make fun of people behind their backs. Then I tell him about Miss Liaskis and my promise, so he’ll think that I’m good and generous. He seems unimpressed and says that I shouldn’t make promises I might not keep.

“That’s just as bad as lying or stealing,” he says, and he lifts his glass like he’s toasting me.

I start to feel sick to my stomach. Even though I don’t like Ahmad much, I’m disappointed that he doesn’t like me.

WHEN I ARRIVE at work, Miss Lena already has the paper dolls lined up on the counter. She got here fifteen minutes early and opened the register so we’d have time to play before the customers come in for the second day of the sale. She is the Braughn sisters, Cecil, Miss Dani, and me. I am everyone else. Miss Lena is giggling as we play, hopping the dolls all over the counter, and then having Cecil lead everyone in a prayer. I am trying to play along, but my stomach feels sick because I ate four bowls of apple-cinnamon Cheerios this morning. I’m glad when the customers fill the floor and we have to put the paper dolls in the drawer.

It’s even busier than yesterday. I am ringing up sale after sale and not doing a single return. Every time I get a dress that’s been marked down to half price, I think that I should ring it up for Miss Liaskis. But then I think, Oh, I should wait and ring up something bigger for her. When the bigger sales come, though, I just can’t help myself; I’ve got to ring them under my number, especially if I’ve worked for them — brought the customer different sizes, helped her decide on a color, or just flattered her until she bought it. As the day moves on, I keep thinking that I can ring up this big sale or that big sale for myself and still have time before closing to ring up the three sales I promised for Miss Liaskis. Thirty minutes before the store closes, I reinterpret my promise of three sales for Miss Liaskis to three dresses for Miss Liaskis. Fifteen minutes before closing, I have a sale of one three-hundred-dollar dress but talk myself out of ringing it up for Miss Liaskis because it seems easier to ring up a single sale of three dresses than three separate sales of one dress each. Suddenly, the store is closed and the customers are gone.

Miss Lena cleans up the sales floor as I close out the register. My heart is in my throat, and I want to cry. I can’t stop thinking about what Ahmad said about breaking promises. I decide that he is an asshole and I hate him as much as I hate the girl who returned the five-hundred-dollar dress.

Miss Michelle walks past me and says, “Hey, goody-two-shoes, Miss Liaskis needs help closing her register.”

My eyes burn, and I think, I’m not a goody-two-shoes — I’m evil, pure evil.

I open the storage drawer and pull out the scissors. I’m going to slit my wrists and slash open my neck. As I’m standing there with the open scissors poised at my wrist, I look down at the drawer and notice the paper dolls. The me doll stares back from the top of the pile. I pick her up, squint at her, and hiss under my breath, “You were bad today — very, very bad.” Then I snip off her hands and cut off her head, which floats to the floor like a butterfly.

I return the maimed paper doll to the drawer and place the scissors beside it. Deep in my heart, I know that I’ve gotten away with something — again.

When we’re getting ready to go home, Miss Lena opens the drawer to put away the alarm-tag remover. She gasps, shuts her eyes, and crosses herself.

“What is it?” I ask, feigning surprise.

“Someone has cut off your head and your hands,” she says.

I peer over Miss Lena’s shoulder into the drawer and gasp, too, but it doesn’t sound authentic.

“Who would do such a thing?” Miss Lena asks.

“I have no idea,” I say, and I reach up and pinch my ear with my pointed fingernails until the entire right side of my face aches. When I let go, my cheek is burning and my fingertips are numb.

Miss Lena crosses herself again, then crosses the decapitated paper doll and kisses it in the center of its chest, where its heart would be.

And I feel as if I have been redeemed.

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