I was flipping through a Cosmopolitan magazine one afternoon—an impulse buy from my recent grocery trip—and one segment on hair caught my eye. I’d worn my hair past my shoulders for years, a minor rebellion against my mother who always cut my hair into a blunt pageboy when I was growing up. I’d dyed it various shades of red or brown all through college, but after graduation I gave up doing anything remotely exciting with it and just let it be. I’d never been very good at doing fancy things with it; ponytails tended to win out over anything more stylish. As I flipped through the magazine, with the hair section displaying pictures of celebrities with short hair, I started thinking twice about my long, boring locks. I grabbed the phone to called Missy for the name of her stylist.

“Ooh, what are you gonna do?” she asked as she looked it up.

“Short.”

“Short? How short?”

“Short. Like, remember Winona Ryder’s hair in Girl, Interrupted?’

“Wow.”

“Told you! Gimme the number; I need to make this appointment before I lose my nerve.”

I called the salon and made an appointment for Wednesday evening. That would be exactly two weeks before the premiere, and that way I’d have time to buy a wig or something if I looked awful. I ripped out the photo and stuck it in my purse so I was sure not to forget it.

In the back of my mind, I didn’t really think it—the premiere—was going to happen: he’d call and apologize, and I’d be horribly embarrassed, but I’d at least have another interesting story to tell my grandkids someday. Or something would happen—the movie would be pulled, or he’d start dating someone, or he’d be sick, or I’d be sick. It just seemed too good to be true. I could not be this lucky.

Because I was 99 percent positive I wouldn’t actually get to go, I refrained from telling anyone except the girls, and I swore all of them to secrecy. I didn’t want to get sympathetic looks from people when the whole thing fell through. But apparently I was a lousy actor because a lot of people asked me the next few weeks if I was all right; apparently I looked “distracted” and kept “zoning out.” “Dont mind me,” I’d say smoothly, “I just have a lot on my mind these days. Should have it sorted out in a few weeks.”