The lesson I learned? Take away the trademark red curls, change my makeup and my clothes . . . and it’s not so hard to reinvent myself.

Assuming that my mom has gone out for the evening, since she was all dressed up, I send Ben to knock on the door.

“The coast is clear,” he reports a few minutes later. I follow him back up and we walk quietly inside. All that remains of my mother is the heavy scent of Chanel No. 5 hanging in the air. Still, I don’t know how soon she’ll be back. I have to move quickly.

I walk into the bathroom and look in the mirror. I lift up a handful of my red hair, knowing it’s the first thing, the main thing, that has to go.

“Hasta la vista,” I murmur.

I find some tiny scissors Melissa uses to cut dangling threads off my clothing. They’ll have to do. It’s not like I can just go find Don and ask for a makeover. I take a deep breath. Then I start snipping.

Handful upon handful of thick red hair drops to the carpet, and in less than five minutes, my waist-length curls have been shortened to a sloppy, choppy, chin-length bob. I look in the mirror and wince. It’s horrible. Clearly, I have no future in hairdressing. But this isn’t about looking good.

I whisper a silent apology to the hotel and the plumbers who will be called in later as I flush my hair down the toilet until it has all disappeared.

“You okay in there?” Ben calls from the other room, where he’s nervously standing guard.

“I’m fine!” I yell back, wishing that I really meant it.