“I can’t do them both at once!” Joshie’s big brown eyes, rimmed with silver eyeliner, actually filled with tears. He was wringing his delicate, ring-adorned hands as if he’d dipped them in something very unagreeable and couldn’t get it off. “It’s impossible!” Rachel glanced at the lobby where the first client, a model in need of a spiral perm, checked her perfect profile in a compact. The other patron was just a young girl, maybe fifteen, bright and freshly pretty. Rachel envied her. The man beside her had to be her father- better be, she thought, taking in his age and demeanor, or else he was in danger of serious prosecution under pedophile laws, the way he was holding her hand and whispering into her ear.

“Oh I think you’ve done two at once before, Joshie,” Rachel murmured, shocking her stylist into a choked laugh and letting him know his salon gossip hadn’t escaped her ears. “You take the perm. I’ll take the cut.”

“But you’ve got the dragon-lady,” Joshie mock-whispered, glancing over her shoulder toward Nina Malden who was flipping through a Cosmopolitan, her lips set in a grim line. She wasn’t going to be happy.

“Well, this might be news to you, but I can do two at once too.” Rachel winked and Joshie’s cackle followed her into the lobby.

“Just a cut today, sweetie?” Rachel saw the girl’s nervous glance, first at her, then at the man beside her. He squeezed her hand encouragingly but the girl just blushed and didn’t speak. Rachel laughed lightly. “Not your first, I hope?” The girl’s hair was very long, to her waist, a thick black curtain. Her father-

Rachel was sure of it now, they had the same dark, wide eyes, and his hair was just as thick and black, although much shorter and curlier-cleared his throat and gave Rachel an apologetic smile.

“I think she’s in shock.” He shrugged one shoulder in Rachel’s direction. “But it was all her idea!”