“I want to use the spa.”

“Clara, you know I’ve been warned not to let you back there.”

“I’m a paying customer.” She wiggled her fingers into the pockets of her shorts and produced a crumpled fifty-dollar bill.

“Doesn’t matter. Number one, I don’t think you’re even eighteen years old yet. Number two, even if you pay, I’m not supposed to let you in. Emily said you stole the hair dryer the last time you got back there.”

“How would I do that? They are screwed into the wall.”

“She said your nails were bleeding when you left.”

She shrugged.

“Would you please stop doing that?” I asked.

“What?”

“Shrugging like that. Like you have no idea what’s going on, what anyone is talking about. What you’re doing … you know everything. I don’t know how, but you do.”

Out of the corner of my eye I could see a trio of women coming down the hall, Swarovski shopping bags slung over their arms. I guessed that they were a 10:00 appointment, and Emily would be in any minute. I believed in Clara, but I didn’t want Emily to see that I did—Emily, who found it so easy to shoo her away like a fly. She would think I was stupid, weak.

“Please go, Clara.”

She sighed. “You should let your hair down. Literally. You look like a librarian.” I winced. Matthew had always liked when I looked a little stern. Or rather he liked undoing it—pulling my hair out of a bun, stripping me out of my pencil skirts. With Matthew, my seriousness had made me feel important, like I could anchor his more impulsive, erratic qualities. The unpredictable schedule. The disregard for paperwork, his lack of interest in grocery shopping, of simply making sure there was milk for the coffee and bread for the toast and soap for the shower. There were times when I resented it, a little bit, but he could always sense that. He had a habit of naming my poses as though I were a sculpture he had made: Lily Chopping Onions. Lily Scrubbing. Lily, Arms Crossed. Some of my anger would unravel then, but I wished now that it hadn’t. Maybe that anger would have protected me.

“Thanks for the fashion advice. Now, please go.” But she didn’t budge. She seemed to be weighing something in me, measuring me, and it made me uneasy.

“Okay, I’ll leave you alone, but I want to talk to you about something first.”

“Me? About what?” I had the feeling she was going to ask me for money or for a favor that could make me lose this stupid job.

“I don’t want to talk about it here. Meet me somewhere?”

“I don’t know, Clara, Emily warned me about you. And that thing after the reading, how I felt …”

“Emily’s a hypocrite!”