in the movies, blowing your cover, that’s always a huge disaster. It—”
“Sunshine, do you see a movie set anywhere?”
“Do not—”
“This is real life, and let me tell you something about your fellow homo dumbasses: they’re too wrapped up in their own problems to give a fuck about anything that may or may not have happened to you.”
“I’m sure that’s not right,” she said stiffly.
The Boss shrugged.
She stood abruptly, resisted the urge to grab him by the ears and pound his head into the desk for ten, maybe twenty minutes, and walked to the doorway.
“Don’t screw up next time!” he called after her.
“Blow me next time,” she muttered.
She thought she heard laughter when she headed into the stairwell, but though she strained, she couldn’t make it out. She decided it was her imagination.
Chapter 9
As she stepped into Mag, she overheard some of her regulars playing her all-time favorite, Mother-in-law Jeopardy. She grinned as she hung her coat in the back, then hurried over to her chair, where Jenny had already sent her first customer of the afternoon.
“I’ll take ‘you did not just say that to me’ for two hundred, Alex,” her client, Lydia, was saying, dropping her purse on the floor and waving to Caitlyn.
“The answer is ‘Where your son will spend eternity.’”
“The question is ‘What is hell,’” Lydia replied promptly, “because he doesn’t go to Sunday school.”
“Ding-ding-ding-ding!” Caro, Robbie, and Barb all clapped. Robbie, the game-show host, added, “Very good, Lydia, and that puts you in the lead.”
Caitlyn smirked and started combing out Mag’s running Mother-in-law Jeopardy champ. Squeaky clean, as usual. Lydia had a thing about never coming to the salon with hair that needed to be washed. Her mom had done heads back in the day and would have skinned her alive if she’d shown up at a salon with greasy hair.
“Lo, Caitlyn. Alex, I’ll take ‘things that caused my mother-in-law to freak out for no reason,’ for four hundred.”
“The question is ‘What your son had for breakfast one day.’”
“Um…what is cereal without milk?”
“Ennnnnnhhhhh! I’m sorry, Lydia. Barb?”
“What is toast?”
“Ding-ding-ding! Good job, Barb. And the board goes to—ouch, Dara, not so hard.”
“Sorry,” Dara replied, easing up with the comb.
“I’ll take ‘you told your mother I’d do what?’ for six hundred, Alex.”
“Something you swore you’d never do.”
“What is host Easter?”
“That is correct, Barb!”
“You guys,” Caitlyn said, shaking her head. “C’mon, married life can’t be that bad.”
“Talk to us when you’re married,” Barb said. “Love the highlights, by the way.”
“Thanks.”
“Why don’t you keep them for a while?”
Caitlyn blinked, confused. “Because I don’t know what tomorrow will bring?” she guessed as if it were a riddle.
“You have ADD hair,” Robbie pointed out. She was younger than Caitlyn, a PhD candidate at the U of M. A nerd who cared about her appearance…a rare and wonderful thing. “I’m here every six weeks, and you never have the same hair color twice in a row.”
“I try to match my hair,” she explained, “to what the situation demands.”
“Medical boards,” Robbie said.
“Dark brown with reddish gold highlights, wire-rim glasses.”
“But you don’t wear glasses.”
“The lenses,” she explained, snipping Lydia’s bangs, “are clear.”
“Dinner at the White House.”
“Dark blond hair, red lipstick.”
“Uh…job interview.”
“Brown hair, bangs, minimal makeup.”
“Class reunion.”
“Which one?”
“Uh…tenth.”
“Bright red hair, lots of makeup.”
“But, Caitlyn,” Lydia said, “isn’t your natural hair color that gorgeous white blond? Marilyn Monroe blond?”
“Yes.”
“Why, why would you ever color it? Women pay a hundred bucks to color their hair to match what God gave you.”
She shrugged. She was looking for something, had been all her life. Too bad she didn’t have a clue what it was. And too bad she kept expecting to find it in the mirror. “I like change, I guess.”
Robbie was still trying to stump her. “Dinner with an ex-boyfriend.”
“Black streaks, perfect makeup. Engagement ring.”
“Your wedding.”
“Natural. No color, but flawless makeup and expensive underwear. Maybe a Vera Wang dress.”
“Get-together with old sorority girlfriends.” A new voice, one she didn’t recognize. She looked across the room and saw a new customer sitting patiently with her hair in foils. She was small, about five feet tall, with brown eyes and long lashes. She was pretending to read that week’s People, but Caitlyn could tell she wasn’t cognitively engaged in the magazine. She was much more interested in the conversation. “With lots of alcohol and a rented limo.”
“Dark blond streaks,” she replied. “Miniskirt, fitted T-shirt, sandals.”
The woman just smiled in response.
“I’ve never seen you in here before,” Caitlyn said pleasantly.
“I heard this place was the best. So here I am.”
“Mmmm. Well, we appreciate that. Don’t we, girls?”
The other cutters murmured in response, and Dara struck up a conversation with the stranger. Who was so obviously a spy, it wasn’t even funny.
Great. The Boss’s way of keeping an eye on her, she supposed.
“Oh, and I’ve got one for Mother-in-law Jeopardy,” the stranger added.
“Sorry,” Caitlyn said shortly. “Game’s over.”
Chapter 10
“—So then the Boss is all shoot-him-in-the-face and I’m all screw-that-buddy-roo, and he’s all just-do-it, you know, like a Nike ad gone mad, and I’m all you-just-do-it-you’re-so-fond-of-guns, and he’s all—unf!”
The second punching bag’s chain snapped and it sailed a good six feet in the air before collapsing on the mat.
“Aw, nuts!”
“Now you’re just showing off,” Stacy said. She was dressed in trendy workout gear—tight shorts, two tank tops (one pink, one white), spotless white socks, spotless workout shoes—and sipped her daiquiri (she’d brought a cooler full of them) while she watched Caitlyn work out. “Seriously, knock it off. It’s bad enough I’m already the ‘funny one.’ I gotta be the ‘dull