“And how are we today?” Tessa asked.
Irene appeared to be considering the question. After a moment, she said, with a Scottish accent, “It’s a sair ficht for half a loaf.”
“No. No,” Tessa said with her own real Irish accent. “No Scots today. There’s a couple pissed Glaswegians at the end of the bar.”
Irene spotted two twentysomething men slipping off their barstools, telling each other to feck off. Tessa’s suggestions were more for her own sanity than Irene’s safety.
“What shall it be, then?” Irene said with a Received Pronunciation, but more old-time aristocracy than BBC News.
“Can’t ya be yourself today?”
Irene could not, would not, be herself. Especially not on that day.
“Can’t,” Irene said, sticking with the posh accent. “But I’ll take requests.”
“Yorkshire, then,” Tessa said.
Irene appeared to be visualizing the act of putting on a coat. Then she spoke. “Phoebe from Sheffield. Ey up,” Irene said.
Tessa nodded. “Don’t know why you can’t use your own name.”
“Where’s the fun in that?”
Irene left after one drink. She could have easily gotten blotto, but she was afraid of what she’d do after that. She’d been staying in the London apartment for almost nine months, ever since she graduated from Vassar. Sometimes she was lonely, although she was rarely alone. Word had gotten out back home, and soon every acquaintance she’d ever had was inviting themselves for a visit. Eventually, Irene shuttered the doors of the Boucher Boardinghouse and claimed to be backpacking across Europe. She screened all her calls.
Irene passed a hair salon on her walk. It wasn’t one of the swanky ones her mother frequented, where you were greeted with a flute of champagne. A woman leaned against the brick wall, apron on, hair like a rainbow, smoking a cigarette. Irene turned back and regarded the smoker.
“I like your hair,” Irene said, using her regular voice.
“Thanks. You American?”
“Canadian,” Irene said. Then: “I’d like to make an appointment.”
“What are you doing now?”
The next thing Irene knew, she was wrapped in a smock and Fiona was painting her brown hair with bleach. Irene’s scalp felt like it was on fire.
“The price we pay for beauty,” Fiona said. “Fucked-up world we live in.”
It was hours later when Fiona finished. She wrapped the towel around Irene’s head and returned her to the chair. As she combed out the platinum-blond hair, Irene caught her reflection in the mirror.
“Fuck,” Irene said, floored.
“Jesus, you look gorgeous,” Fiona said.
When women went blond, that was the transformation they were going for but rarely achieved. For some women, the color didn’t do a whole lot. For others, like Marilyn Monroe and Carole Lombard and the customer sitting in Fiona’s chair, it was a game changer. A stunning transformation. If Irene had walked out of the salon, she would have turned heads.
But Irene was clearly not pleased. As she stared at her reflection, her eyes began to water.
Fiona could feel pain coming off the woman like heat.
“You’re gorgeous,” she said. “Why are you upset?”
“I look like…old pictures of my mother.”
Fiona thought maybe the mother was dead. “Can’t have that, can we?” Fiona said.
An hour later, Irene’s hair was cobalt blue. When Irene saw her reflection, she resembled neither her mother nor herself. Relieved, she smiled at Fiona.
“Thank you. I love it.”
At the age of twenty-two, Irene imagined a lifetime ahead of her. She would have done so many things differently if she knew she had only fourteen years left.
December 2003–March 2004
“Who am I?” Luna asked.
When Griff said that he knew who she was, Luna allowed for the possibility that he was speaking of her character in general. Luna wasn’t foolish enough to drop her cover until she knew for sure it was blown.
“We studied your case in law school,” Griff said.
Cover blown, Luna felt like she was sinking into the floor. “Is that really a thing?” Luna asked. “Do all law schools have me on their curriculum?”
Griff, hearing the panic in her voice, said, “No, no. It was just a small segment in a legal ethics class.”
“Did you tell Owen?”
“I didn’t tell anyone,” Griff said. “And you don’t have to worry about Owen asking now. He feels too guilty.”