Cait closed her eyes. Color could be corrected with some Clairol back home. This stuff? It was going to take a year to grow out. The trouble was, she was on the ride—no getting off in the middle of the roller coaster.
What had she done to herself…?
A tickle lit off on the back of her hand and she cracked an eyelid. A section of her hair had landed on her wrist, the three-inch length curling ever so slightly at the end. Taking it in between her fingers, she rubbed the smooth strands together.
Blond. Very blond.
When Pablo said something, she could only nod, her emotions bubbling up in her chest and distracting her from the outside world. The desperate edge to all this transformation business was not something she could ignore, not while she was busy getting turned into Veronica Lake. Not while she was paying so much for something that was entirely superficial.
Bottom line, unfortunately, was that it was so much easier to address defects in your appearance, and your car, and your apartment, than it was to dig deep and take a good hard look at your choices, your mistakes … your faults.
Like, for example, how playing it safe all your life had landed you in a prison of your own making.
The music track abruptly ended, as if the speakers had clocked out for the night, and in the silence, Pablo swapped the blades for something that looked like a curling iron, except it had two heated plates.
Straightener, she thought it was called. And the fact that she wasn’t one hundred percent sure on that made her feel her isolation from the world even further.
A rhythmic tugging started up as Pablo pulled the wand down her hair, over and over again. And as he worked his way around her head, she had too much space to think, too much time to stare at the blond strand she held.
As tears speared into her eyes, she cleared her throat. At least authorities had found Sissy Barten’s body … so those parents of hers had something to bury.
What a waste. What a further reminder that you have to live while you can—because you never knew when the ride was over.
“Look at vat vee haff.”
Pablo spun her about to face the mirror, except for a moment she couldn’t look away from what was in her hand. But then she lifted her eyes and…
“Oh … wow,” she whispered.
Soft, shimmering waves fell from the crown of her head, the frizziness gone, the new highlights popping out, the length not much different at all.
Pablo’s accent got rolling as he described the weight he’d taken off, and how that had freed her hair to express itself more completely. Blah, blah, blah—it was just vocabulary she let wash over her. What she paid attention to was how much younger she looked. Or maybe it was more … feminine? Vibrant?
This was some serious butterfly shit, as her brother would have called it.
She glanced down at the hair between her fingers, and let the strands fall to the ground. There was no rewind button you could punch, no going back … only ever forward. She had learned that when she was twelve, her first grown-up lesson at a very young age.
And Sissy’s death had recently reminded her of that fact.
“My hair is … perfect,” she heard herself say.
Cue the smiles from Pablo.
After he whipped the cape off her shoulders, she went back to the dressing room, put her clothes on, and got another load of whoa. Her hair elevated the black slacks and simple sweater to something that might have come from Saks. Even her red Coach bag took a step up, looking downright Italian all of a sudden.
As she walked out of the dressing room to pay, she felt like she had television-commercial hair, the kind that bounced with every step, and shined under even low lighting, and made men and women stop short.
At the reception desk, she got out her checkbook, and felt her eyes bulge even though she’d known how much this was going to cost.
“Vuld yoo lick ta mayb yoo next abbointment?”
Cait glanced up from the zeroes she was filling out. Right behind Pablo, there was a floor-to-ceiling mirror, and over his right shoulder, she caught sight of her new look.
Excellent marketing device, she thought, as she stared at herself and began to nod.
She left five minutes later with considerably less in her checking account, and an appointment card for a touch-up in six weeks in her purse.
As she walked out and went over to her Lexus, she couldn’t believe she’d done it. But at least she was getting familiar with this feeling of buyer’s shock. Heck, she still had it over her new car—well, the SUV was “new” to her. CarMax had given her a great deal on a used one, and she had to admit, it was the nicest thing she’d ever driven.
But she continued to have the head spins over the thing from time to time.
The second she got in her SUV, she cranked the rearview mirror down and fluffed her goldie locks. What good timing, she thought—considering that for the first time in God only knew how long, she was meeting a friend after hours.
Starting her engine, she pulled out onto the empty road and retraced her route away from the wealthy enclave. Her “date” was actually her old college roommate—
As the past began to bubble up, she turned on NPR to cut the quiet, and hit the brakes at a red light. Leaning in, she couldn’t resist glancing into the rearview again—
“Oh, crap …”
Cait turned her head to the opposite side, even though that was silly. But at least she hadn’t lost both her earrings.
The thing had probably come out in the dressing room. Her sweater had a tight neck, and those little gold shells had iffy backings. As the light turned green, she hit the gas and told herself to just leave it—
That didn’t last long.
The earrings were solid fourteen-karat, but more than that, she’d bought them on her one Bahaman vacation right after graduation.
Wrenching the wheel left, she executed an illegal turn and headed back to reclaim what was hers.
As Adrian manifested himself in Heaven, he hummed that Eric Clapton song—in tune, because there was no one around to annoy with his fake tone-deaf routine.
“… would you know my name…”
The lawn was a bright spring green, and the sky as brilliant and resonant a blue as a cathedral’s stained glass. To the left, the protective walls of the Manse of Souls stood sturdy and tall as a mountain range, the drawbridge down over a moat that shimmered in sunlight that had no obvious source.
Up on the parapet at the top of the wall, only two victory flags waved in a lazy way—one colorful banner was missing.
What the hell was Jim thinking?
Adrian kept walking. Off to the right, next to a croquet setup, there was a table set for tea, four chairs surrounding all kinds of damask and porcelain and silver. No one was sitting at it. In fact, as he looked around, he got the distinct impression he was alone.
Made no sense—Colin had summoned him here, so the archangel had to be—
The whistle was high-pitched and distant, floating across the landscape to his ear. Pivoting around, he looked toward the river, and then started marching over in the uneven gait he was still adjusting to. Funny, he hadn’t noticed before how much grass there really was—but with his bum leg, he’d been learning new things about what distance really meant.
The archangel Colin was down at the tree line, by the old-fashioned British campaign tent that was his private quarters. Standing in the stream that wound around his little slice of Heaven, he was buck-ass naked, the rushing water teeming up to his hips.
“Moving a bit slower now, mate?” the guy said as Ad got in range.
Whatever—his gimp routine was not the reason he’d come. “We have a big fucking problem.”