With my hair still wet, it looked the same, though I could make out a flare of color at the tips. I sat in front of the mirror and waited. Slowly, as the dampness lifted, I could see the change. Gradual, and then sudden, a new me sprang up, stepping into a new life. It’s only hair, I tried to tell myself. But I also knew that wasn’t exactly true. I didn’t trust Des not to turn me into someone I wouldn’t like.

AFTER DES left for the club—heat stifling and no appointments in the book— I locked the shop again and walked to the library. Des and I didn’t have a computer and we used burner phones, adding minutes when we could, so when I needed to know something I walked the eight blocks to use the library’s internet. On the way, I passed two more posters of Julie Zale: one tucked under the windshield wiper of a parked car, another taped to the library’s front door. Even in the photocopied pictures, her smile seemed to shine. I felt the same tug in my gut as when her uncle came: What made her run? Here I was, hoping to run toward love—California, my mother. What about being loved had been intolerable to Julie Zale?

There were only three other patrons at the library, and no one seemed to be doing anything that looked like work. A woman read a day-old newspaper. One man had his feet up on the table, trimming his fingernails. Even the employee at the checkout counter was asleep with her chin in her hands. I had come to search about my mother—a habit I indulged once a week—but this time I googled Julie Zale first. Her uncle had made a website where people could leave information by sending in an anonymous form, if they thought they knew anything or if they’d seen her. It showed the photo from his posters, but others, too: Pictures of Julie running in a meet, her eyes narrowed on the finish line. Julie at junior prom in a beaded blue dress, a flower in her hair. Julie sticking her tongue out while wearing a pink feather boa. I found more websites that mentioned her name, mostly articles from the local papers bragging about her track meet wins, her nomination to All State, the way she broke the record in the 400-meter at an event last fall. Even though she was probably in trouble, and maybe even in worse trouble than me, I felt jealous of her. She had a talent that made people love her, a talent that a whole town was proud of. I had a talent, too, I guessed: I could see things now and then that most people couldn’t, but it felt like a burden. Most of the time, I would have given it away.