MOM: Also I was watching your clip on YouTube and I wonder, have you run out of the placenta-based moisturizer I got you? Don’t be mad but I think your skin could use a little buff up before the wedding. For the sake of the photos!

MOM: And before you accuse me of being critical, remember, I only tell you this for your own good.

MOM: Would it hurt you to respond now and then?

Natalie dropped her phone in her purse, closed her eyes, and tried to practice one of the deep breathing exercises Sarah was always trying to get her to do. “Imagine you are somewhere safe, you feel comfortable and totally yourself,” Sarah had recommended and Natalie pictured sitting at her desk, in front of her computer. She wondered if everyone would agree that there’s a thin line between relaxation and hyperventilation.

Forty-five minutes later, Magda was carefully measuring chemicals into a mixing bowl, talking as she worked. “You ask about Osman. The clients, they love his attitude. He is rude, he is risqué yes? This must mean he is the best! Only the best dare to be rude!” She smiled. “The people who love power, they love the challenge from the rude people. They must work to prove they are important, you see?”

Natalie laughed. “It sounds like you’ve spent a lot of time around politics.”

Magda clucked her tongue. “Too much and also too little. Yes and also with the report like you. Your type is not so different.”

Questions started popping like corn kernels in Natalie’s head, but before she could start asking, Magda’s easy, playful manner vanished. She’d suddenly become withdrawn and stiff and Natalie was wondering what she’d done to offend the woman when she realized that the atmosphere in the whole salon had become tense, with a hushed expectancy that made the six flat-screen TVs hanging on the far wall seem loud.

Osman Badem came striding into the room trailed by three assistants, his thin, shoulder-length hair flying out behind him. He sent ripples of confusion across the calm surface of the salon, barking an insult here, a compliment there, growling, ordering coffee, tea, juice, goddamn not that green juice, and get rid of that fucking cushion, can’t you cunts get anything right? As he passed Natalie’s chair, Magda bent down to receive a kiss on each cheek and Natalie was surprised at just how short he was.

The next moment he was gone and a moment after that the normal sounds of the salon reemerged, like a jungle after a tiger stalked through. It struck Natalie that the salon embodied something she’d begun to notice about DC in general: there was a collective agreement to conform, to bend toward a sameness—the blowout, The Treatment—while celebrating and feeding off of the outrageousness of a few.