coffee cup and crumpled bag into a nearby trash can, making my way back toward the edge of campus, the newspapers tucked into Eva’s purse. Behind me, bells toll the hour, and I pause, listening. The chimes seem to vibrate through me, and I think of what it would be like to live here. To walk these streets on my way to a job I don’t yet have, living the quiet life I always imagined for myself when I dreamed about leaving Rory. Of all the scenarios I imagined, the glitches I prepared for, the mistakes I knew were inevitable, I never imagined a break as clean as this. Not a single person knows what happened to me, and I have to guard this opportunity—for that’s what this is, an incredible and heartbreaking opportunity—with every ounce of cunning I’ve got.
* * *
I find a twenty-four hour pharmacy a few blocks west of campus. The bright lights assault my eyes when I enter. I angle my head down, keeping my cap pulled low, and find the hair-care aisle. So many different shades, from bright reds to jet blacks, and everything in between. I think of Eva’s blond pixie cut and choose something called Ultimate Platinum. On a lower shelf is a complete hair-cutting kit—Easy to use clippers! Color-coded combs! A step-by-step guide to the most popular hairstyles!—on sale for twenty dollars, and I grab that too.
At the front of the store, there’s only one person working the registers, a pimply undergrad who looks half-asleep at the end of his shift, with glazed eyes and earbuds shoved into his ears. I set everything down on the counter and mentally calculate how much of my meager savings this will eat up.
I hesitate before sliding Eva’s debit card out of her wallet, tracing the edges of it, wondering if I can use it as a credit card. I cast a quick glance around the empty store before I slide it into the machine. It’s not like Eva’s going to come back and accuse me of stealing from her.
I bypass the request for a PIN and select credit, my heart beating out a frantic rhythm I’m certain this kid can hear through whatever music pounds in his ears.
But then the register does something I can’t see, drawing the kid’s attention back. “Credit? I gotta see your ID,” he says.
I freeze as if I’ve been caught in a bright headlight, every vulnerable inch of me exposed. Thirty seconds. One minute. An eternity.
“You okay, lady?” he asks.
Then I snap back. “Sure,” I say, and pretend to search through my wallet, finally saying, “I must have left it at home. Sorry.” I tuck the card back into my wallet and quickly pull out cash to cover the cost. When he hands me my receipt, I scramble out of the store as fast as I can, my entire body vibrating with tension and fear.
* * *
The brisk walk back to Eva’s steadies me, and when I get there, I take everything upstairs to the bathroom and strip off my clothes, propping the directions to the hair clippers against the mirror, noticing for the first time the expensive hand lotions that line the counter. I open the cap on one and sniff—roses, with a hint of lavender. Then I peek in the medicine cabinet, expecting to see numerous prescriptions leftover from her husband’s illness. Painkillers. Sleeping pills. But it’s empty. Just a box of tampons and an old razor. I close it with a soft click, uneasiness poking at me, like a minuscule burr in my sock, a flash of warning and then gone, impossible to locate.
I take a last look at myself in the mirror, the way my hair tumbles and curls around my face, and take a deep breath before attaching the medium-sized comb to the clippers and turning them on. I remind myself that even if I mess up, it won’t matter. Eva’s words about Berkeley come back to me. It’s easy to blend in because everybody’s a little weirder than you are. No one will look twice at a bad haircut.
I’m surprised by how easy it comes off, leaving an inch and a half of hair resting against my scalp. My eyes look bigger. My cheekbones more pronounced. My neck longer. I turn one way, and then another, admiring my profile, before turning to the box of hair color. Not done yet.
* * *
The dye has to stay on for forty-five minutes, so while I wait,