Page 75 of Omar

The timer went off for the first section. I rinsed, checked the lift, moved to the next. The orange was fading but the process was slow. My eyes kept going to the clock above Cee's head. Eleven-forty. Eleven-fifty. The second section timer went off. I rinsed again.

The salon door opened. I flinched. A regular client coming to pick up product she'd ordered. Cee glanced up, clocked her, went back to his phone. My hands were shaking inside the gloves. I gripped the applicator brush tighter to steady them.

"You okay?" Tricia asked, watching me in the mirror.

"Long morning." I smiled. "Just need some coffee."

Twelve-fifteen. Two more sections. I worked through them methodically, my body doing one thing while my brain ran the extraction sequence over and over. Shanay arrives at two. Cape on, consultation, five minutes of hair talk. Bag from the bathroom. Walk to Cee, tell him we're going to a supplier. Walk out. Car around the corner. Drive to Bed-Stuy. Gone.

The door opened again. My whole body went rigid. A delivery driver with a package for the nail salon next door. Wrong address. He left.

I finished Tricia's color at one-ten. Blew her out, styled it, showed her the result in the hand mirror. She loved it. She paid. She left. I cleaned my station, swept the hair, organized my products. My one-thirty had cancelled that morning, which left the gap I needed.

One-twenty. Forty minutes.

Nene texted at noon: You good?

Yeah. Two o'clock.

I'll be praying for you, girl.

Pray hard.

I deleted both messages.

Every minute between one-twenty and one-thirty felt like ten. I reorganized my product shelf twice. I cleaned my mirrors. I checked the contents of my bag in the bathroom one more time. I stood at my station pretending to scroll through my booking app while Cee sat ten feet away and the clock ticked forward in increments that seemed to be getting slower.

At one-thirty I went to the bathroom, locked the door, and pulled the bag out from behind the dryer. I unzipped it, checked the contents one more time, zipped it back up. Tucked it under my jacket on the hook behind the bathroom door where I could grab it in three seconds.

The mirror showed me what it always showed me. Same face. Same eyes. Same woman who'd been living a lie since Atlanta. In thirty minutes someone was walking through that salon door and I was going to leave with them and I was never coming back to Supreme's apartment.

I was terrified. My hands were shaking again. I ran them under cold water, dried them, pressed them against the counter until the shaking stopped.

Then I went back to my station.

At exactly two o'clock the salon door opened and a woman walked in.

She was tall, beautiful, dressed in something simple and expensive that said money without trying. Her hair was natural, pulled back, her skin flawless. She looked around the salon and smiled.

Cee glanced up from his phone, clocked her, went back to scrolling.

"Hi," she said, coming to my station with a warm smile. "I called about a consultation? I'm Shanay."

"Hey, girl. Come on over." I gestured to my chair. "Sit down, let me have a look."

Shanay sat down and I put the cape around her shoulders, smoothing it at the back. She looked at me in the mirror and her smile didn't change but her eyes said everything. I'm here. We're doing this. Stay calm.

"So what are you thinking?" I asked, running my fingers through her hair like I was assessing it. "What are we working with?"

"I've been wanting to do something different," Shanay said, her voice light and conversational. Cee was ten feet away. "Maybe some highlights? Something to switch it up."

"Your hair's gorgeous as it is," I told her. "But I could see some caramel tones working around the face. Warm it up a little."

We talked about hair for five minutes. Real talk, real suggestions, real consultation. Shanay knew enough about hair to hold the conversation convincingly. Cee didn't look up once.

Then Shanay leaned closer to the mirror like she was examining her ends. "You ready?" she asked quietly.

My stomach dropped. "Yeah."