And here she was, paying extravagantly to have a woman in a push-up bra apply a compound that smelled like rotten eggs and car exhaust, a compound which had been shown to cause tumors in lab rats just so she could pass as one of them—someone with Sparkle! Authenticity! A permanent beat!

You’ll make a fine conformity model, the voice in her head taunted her.

Did everyone have a subconscious always set on Mock? she wondered. She would have preferred a subconscious set on Sympathize or Encourage or I Got Your Back.

“Plenty of people make sacrifices for their jobs,” Natalie said, speaking to her reflection.

She was surprised when Magda answered, leaning close and speaking in a low tone. “It is true. But sometimes it is dangerous to notice this. As we were saying, people like the rudeness over the kindness. And the pity.”

Natalie realized that Madga had thought Natalie was talking about her. That Natalie had noticed her discomfort with Osman.

“I wasn’t—I didn’t—” Natalie stammered.

Magda’s smile was warm and her voice jocular again as she stood. “Of course not. You are correct, habibi. We all do things for survival. Do I want to be sniffing chemicals all day? No. But I have a child and responsibilities. I must take care of myself. Also, I have the fans,” she said, gesturing at the circle of three large fans ringing them. ‘They protect me. It is important, as a woman, to protect yourself.”

Natalie nodded. “You’re right.”

In that light, Natalie saw that her hair was kind of an armor. One more thing to strengthen her defenses and make her less vulnerable to danger. And it wasn’t as though she hadn’t been to other salons for equally byzantine treatments involving chemicals and procedures that sounded more like weapons—lasers for her legs, boiling wax for her bikini, electrical shocks for her eyebrows—than beauty regimes. Those incursions had been waged in the name of some abstract notion of beauty; maybe she should just be grateful that this current foray had professional backing.

Her eyes wandered to the mirror and she stared at the salon behind her, taking in the other women in identical robes sitting on carefully placed poufs and chaises, also investing in the defense of their realms. She wasn’t looking in judgment, it was just—there was something about the people, or maybe the atmosphere, in this salon that was different from other parts of the beauty industrial complex she’d known.

“Washington, DC, is not like other places, yes?” Magda said and gave her shoulder a supportive squeeze. “I tell you what it is. Other places there is something that stands for power. Money or beauty or youth or sex appeal, yes? Here, power is power.”