“Oh. My. God. I can’t even tell you. So sorry I’m late. The guard is freaking stupid. When are they going to fire him? He acted like I wasn’t supposed to be here. Like I haven’t been here every freaking day for the past month. I step out to grab a coffee and the moron doesn’t want to let me back in? I swear, we need to call the staffing company about him. Get someone good out here. I mean, he’s supposed to be security. We can’t have some idiot in charge of who’s—what the hell happened to you?”

She had finished unpacking and had turned to Celeste with brush in hand, but had stopped short and was staring at Celeste’s forehead.

Celeste lowered her phone into her lap and blinked, confused. “Your replacement.”

“My replacement?” The woman—obviously Jayelle—turned to take me in. “What replacement?”

“I don’t know. You’ll have to ask her.”

“Not really a replacement,” I said. “More like a floater.” I bent to meet Celeste’s eyes in the mirror. “Sorry, you must have misunderstood.” I straightened. “I’m just supposed to fill in here and there when someone needs to step out or something. It’s a new thing the agency is doing.”

Jayelle stared at me with her mouth hanging open. My palms began to sweat, the straightener sliding against my skin. This was what Chris was always complaining about—that I dove headfirst into situations with no plans on how I would get myself out of them. He had a point. But somehow things always just seemed to work out for me. It was the synesthesia. It helped me read a room and know when to get out. Problem was, my synesthesia was telling me two conflicting things right now. The greens that radiated off Celeste also pooled around Jayelle’s feet, but they were much weaker. And the longer she stared at me, the weaker they got. But as they got weaker, Celeste’s got stronger, until I felt like I was in a forest. Celeste was pretending to be cool, but I was making her nervous as hell.

Jayelle broke the tension by abruptly tossing her brush into her kit and fumbling around for something else, turning her attention away from me completely, the greens evaporating.

“Just like the agency to make a change without filling everyone in. Whatever. I’m back, so I don’t need you now.” She turned to Celeste. “Why don’t you go wash that nonsense off, and I’ll just work fast when you get back.”

Celeste hopped out of her chair and sped toward the ladies’ room.

“Don’t worry. They can’t have the show without the star,” Jayelle said to Celeste’s back, still searching in her kit. “You won’t miss anything. Now where is that blusher . . . ?”