Chapter 18
18
At a quarter to one, I’m standing on the Lockharts’ stoop. The certainty I felt this morning that Violet would be flattered by my new hair color is quickly dissipating. What if she hates it? I put my hand on the doorknob—Violet told me to stop knocking weeks ago—then pull it back quickly.
I rock nervously from foot to foot. The fabric under my armpits is damp. The small of my back slick. The summer heat is making it hard to breathe.
Even though Violet isn’t Allison—I reminded myself of this again and again on the walk over—now that I’m here, in front of her door, the thought of her seeing me like this churns my stomach. But what can I do? Leave? Call her and tell her I’m sick? Even if I did, there’s no way I can get it back to my normal color without bleaching it, and that seems like an even stupider decision than the one I made last night. I believe this is called making your bed and having to lie in it. I just wish I’d known that the mattress would be so goddamn lumpy.
Fuck it , I think. Rip the Band-Aid off. I open the door and step inside, the air deliciously cool.
Violet is coming down the stairs as I walk in. “Oh!” she says when she sees me. She stops on the bottom step, staring. Her left hand grips the banister. There’s a flicker of—something—across her face that I can’t quite place. Not surprise, exactly, but her eyebrows rise, mouth slightly agape. Then she smiles, a wide grin.
“I needed a change,” I say, smiling back tentatively, repeating what I’d told myself last night as I’d slipped on the gloves, mixed the dye into the accelerant.
“It looks good!” She steps into the foyer and ushers me into the living room. “Who’d have known you’d make such a dashing brunette!”
A rushing tidal wave of relief washes over me. She’s not mad. I could cry.
I sink onto their couch, pull my knees up under me. “It’s sort of patchy. I’m terrible at dyeing my own hair,” I admit. “It never comes out well. But your color is just so nice, and I thought…” I trail off awkwardly. “It doesn’t look as good on me as it does on you,” I say finally.
“No, I think it looks nice,” Violet says. “It suits you, it really does. Take your bun down, let me see.”
I hesitate. Dyeing my hair the same color as hers is one thing; cutting it is another. “Come on,” she urges.
Here goes nothing. I unclip my hair, letting it fall from the bun, then take off the headband, bangs flopping into my eyes.
She studies me carefully, her hand to her mouth, brow furrowed. She reaches out. Her fingers brush against my forehead as she straightens the bangs.
“It’s a little uneven,” I say, holding up one choppy strand.
“It looks… good,” she says, unconvincingly. She presses her lips together. I raise an eyebrow skeptically.
Then, Violet starts to laugh. Not meanly, but in a good-natured sort of way. I start to laugh, too. Then we’re both wheezing hysterically, tears streaming down our faces.
“Oh my god, I can’t breathe,” she says, holding her stomach.
“It’s a disaster,” I say, finally, when we’ve stopped laughing, wiping my cheeks with my shirt. “Like code red. Or code black. Whatever the bomb one is.”
“It is,” Violet agrees, still giggling. “Let me call my hairdresser,” she says. “He’s the best. I’ll see if he can squeeze you in and fix it for you.”
“Now? Where’s Harper?” I look around, just realizing she isn’t here.
She nods. “I meant to text you, she’s at a playdate this afternoon. She won’t be home for a few hours. It’ll be fun! I could use a break.” She motions to the kitchen. Textbooks and note cards are strewn across the island counter, her laptop open. “What do you think? Should I call him?”
I smile, nodding happily. I was right. She’s not mad.
An hour later, I’m sitting in a salon chair, nylon barber’s cape draped around my shoulders as Nolan, Violet’s hairdresser, runs his fingers through my hair.
“So,” he says, addressing me in the mirror. He’s tall and lanky with a beautiful face, his brown skin bright and clear, sculpted cheekbones. His fingers snag in a tangle. “What are we doing today?”
“Do it like mine,” Violet interjects. “Shoulder length, bangs. I think it would look good on her. We have a similar-shaped face, don’t you think? And a little color correction. Like this.” She puts her head close to my face and holds up a strand of her hair against mine. “Do you remember what shade you mixed for me last week?”
Nolan nods. “With the warm undertones. It’ll be perfect for her.”
Violet beams, silently clapping. I like how they’re talking about me as if I’m not here, how Nolan’s hands are absently tousling my hair as he listens to Violet.
I follow Nolan to a sink, where he leans my chair back and instructs me to close my eyes. A light mist of water tickles my face as he wets my hair with the spray nozzle. His fingers knead my scalp as he works the shampoo into a lather, rinses, then conditions. When he’s done, he wraps my hair in a towel and points me to his chair.
Violet brings me magazines and we chat as he works, using a brush to paint the dye into my hair, section by section. I sit as it saturates, then follow him back to the sinks, where he rinses it out. When we get back to his chair, he turns me around, away from the mirror. “No peeking,” he tells me, “not until I’m finished.” He’s serious as he works, brows knit as the scissors open and close, pieces of my hair floating to the floor.
Next to me, Violet grins. “It already looks so good,” she crows, and I grin back.
When, finally, Nolan swivels the chair and I see myself in the mirror, I put my hand to my mouth, lean toward my reflection. I’m gone. At least, the me that walked in here two hours ago. Goodbye, Sloanie, Sloanie, full of baloney. He’s fixed the color so it’s a deep, rich brown, almost golden under the salon lights. It’s as shiny as Violet’s, glossy and smooth. I turn my head to the left, then the right. It’s shorter, another inch gone, just brushing my shoulders, with bangs like hers, framing my face.
“Do you like it?” Nolan asks. He takes a hand and runs his fingers through my hair, shaking out the waves. “You look gorgeous.”
I nod, speechless. Gingerly, I reach up and touch it. The strands are soft to the touch, silk-spun.
Violet bends down next to me, so her face is next to mine. “We look like twins!” she says excitedly.
She’s right, we do look similar, now that our hair is the same color, the same length, with the same bangs falling into our eyes. Pleasure bubbles up in my stomach. I had no idea I could look like this. Like her.
With my shorter hair, my eyes seem bigger, cheekbones higher. Somehow, my skin looks better, too. I used the acne cream last night, spreading a thin film of it over my face before bed; the smattering of pimples on my chin has already gotten smaller. I can’t stop staring. Or smiling. I wonder what Jay will think when he sees me.
Nolan walks us to the front of the salon. He gives both of us a hug goodbye. “Thank you,” I keep saying to him, and he squeezes my hands before he leaves, smiling.
The receptionist, young and dewy-faced, smiles and asks how everything was. “Great,” I say. “Really great.” I reach into my purse, looking for my wallet. I brace myself for the bill.
“No, no,” Violet says, pushing my hand away. “It’s my treat.”
I look at her in surprise. “What, no, you don’t have to do that!”
“I know. I want to. It was my suggestion, so I’m paying.”
As she takes her credit card out, handing it to the person behind the counter, something else comes out with it, flutters to the floor. It’s a business card. Violet doesn’t seem to notice, so I reach down to pick it up. When I see what it’s for, my breath catches. Suddenly, I have trouble swallowing.
Is it—? Yes, it is. I lose feeling in my fingers. It’s a card for Rose & Honey. Why was it in Violet’s wallet? Has she been in? The thought gives me heart palpitations, makes me want to throw up. She hadn’t seen me there— had she ?
When I look up, still crouching, both Violet and the receptionist are staring down at me. “Are you okay?” Violet asks. Her forehead is creased with worry.
My head bobbles up and down weakly. “Yeah, sorry. Here.” I stand, offering her the card. “This fell out of your purse.” The words stick in my throat like flies to a flytrap, their legs bonded to the gluey paper. I sound froggish, voice thick.
“Oh, thanks,” Violet says, taking it from me. She glances at it, then tucks it back into her wallet.
“Have you been?” I hear myself ask in that same congealed voice.
“Where?” Her brow wrinkles.
“To that spa. On the card…” I can’t bring myself to say the name.
“Oh, no,” she says, shaking her head. “Not yet. Have you? One of the moms at Harper’s school recommended it to me.” Her face is open, innocent.
She hasn’t been in. I breathe out. She hasn’t been in. But—someone else from Mockingbird has. Maybe the same person who recommended it to Allison. Maybe that’s why she made an appointment. But who? I would have recognized any of the mothers had they been in, especially if they came in often enough to recommend it.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” Violet asks. “You’re looking a little green.”
“Oh yeah, I’m fine.” I shake my head. “Maybe it’s just the fumes from the hair dye. I do feel a little high,” I say, trying to sound like I’m not on the verge of a meltdown. “And it’s been a long time since I was stoned at three in the afternoon. Not since college.” I force a little laugh.
Violet laughs, too, then she links her arm through mine. “Then let’s get out of here. Maybe we should go shopping! A new outfit to go with your new hair.” She starts to steer me toward the door.
I smile back. I want to, I really do, but seeing that card has left me uneasy, the floor quaking beneath my feet. I want to reach out, steady myself. It’s stupid what I’m doing. I forgot how small this neighborhood is, how routine to cross paths with people you know. I often ran into the parents of my students on the weekend, at the market, restaurant patios, on the sidewalk. Someone could see us together, someone from Mockingbird. It hadn’t occurred to me until now. If they did, my cover would be blown. This life I’ve built would crumble. I have to be more careful. I should go home.
“Violet, I—” I start to say, but stop, catching sight of the two of us in a mirror on the salon wall.
The resemblance is uncanny. We look so much alike. Like twins, just like Violet said. Our matching sunburst necklaces catch the light, glint. Maybe, I think, the idea of us being sisters really isn’t that far-fetched. Stranger things have happened. Just last week I read an article about triplet brothers, separated at birth, who ended up at the same college.
“You know what,” Violet says. “I have an even better idea. Come back to my house instead. I have a few things that I think will fit you perfectly. I won’t take no for an answer.”
I look from the mirror to Violet, her face open and eager, as familiar to me as my own. I smile back. If anyone from Mockingbird sees me, they’ll have no idea who I am. “Okay,” I say. “Let’s go.”
Sloanie, Sloanie, full of baloney is gone.