Casey From Paradise Birds Link

The customer was a boy. No, a young man, though he didn't seem to know it yet. He had the slumped shoulders of someone trying to be small. He stood in the doorway, letting in a gust of damp autumn air, and stared at the explosion of color: a headdress of sapphire peacock feathers, a cape studded with jet-black beads, a corset of ruby-red satin.

Casey’s needle paused. She looked up. The boy had wide, dark eyes and a constellation of acne across his jaw. He was holding a crumpled photograph. She didn’t need to see it. She remembered the mask. She remembered the woman, too—a tired-looking nurse who had saved for three months to buy it for a New Year’s Eve gala she never ended up attending. casey from paradise birds