In my closet, Justin thought. He didn't say that. What he did say was, "I felt like doing something different, that's all."

"Like what?" Garth asked.

"Globalsearching for high school quail, like the barkeep said? The competition doesn't wear short hair any more, you know."

"Will you melt it down?" Justin snapped.

"Okay. Okay." Garth spread his hands.

"But you better get used to it, 'cause everybody else is gonna say the same kind of stuff."

Odds were he was right, Justin realized gloomily. He grabbed a cup of coffee at the office machine, then ducked into his cubicle and got to work. That slowed the stream of comments, but didn't stop them. People would go by the cubicle, see the side view, do a double take, and start exclaiming.

Inside half an hour, Justin's division head came by to view the prodigy. She rubbed her chin. "Well, I don't suppose it looks unbusinesslike," she said dubiously.

"Thanks, Ms. Chen," Justin said. "I just wanted to-"

"Start your mid-life crisis early." As it had a few evenings before, Sean Peters's voice drifted over the walls of the cubicle.

"And thank you, Sean." Justin put on his biggest grin. Ms. Chen smiled, which meant he'd passed the test. She gave his hair another look, nodded more happily than she'd spoken, and went off to do whatever managers did when they weren't worrying about haircuts.

Sean kept his mouth shut till lunchtime, when he stuck his head into Justin's cubicle and said, "Feel like going over to Omino's? I've got a yen for Japanese food." He laughed. Justin groaned. That made Peters laugh harder than ever.

Justin shook his head. Pointing toward his monitor, he said, "I'm brownbagging it today. Got a ton of stuff that needs doing."

"Okay." Peters shrugged. "Anybody'd think you worked here or something. I'll see you later, then."