Jim gave her twelve quarters, and watched her count them, with an unhappy, concentrated look. "Nice shoes," he told her, just for something to say. She glanced up at him as if he were seriously crazy, then looked down—not at her own jogging shoes, but at Jim’s cowboy boots, as if he were offering to sell them to her. She didn’t much like the look of the boots, apparently. She nodded once at him, doubtfully, then sidled away behind the silent mustard-yellow ranks of washers. She began stuffing sopping clothes into a dryer.