twenty-five.
She said Peaches and Lucy can show me how to do my hair and makeup. So I can look as nice as I want.
Lucy came to the door. The scent she brought with her was not her own, but the heavy musk Peaches liked to wear. “Marsden?”
“I was just looking for Wynn.”
Lucy opened the door wider and motioned her inside. “Oh, she’s with us, in here. She was wandering around the house bored.”
Marsden had seen Peaches’s room before, but only in flashes, and only when she was helping Dany the times she was running behind—to drop off laundry or ask about bedding, to double-check about a spot on a dress. Sometimes, though, when it was just Peaches, Marsden was tempted to linger, to study the older girl and see past what she worked as. To pretend her room was that of a typical twenty-somethings, that she and Peaches were typical, too, and something close to friends.
Pale pastel floral prints and framed mirrors covered nearly every inch of the gray-papered walls. The bed was a king-size patch of yellow, topped with blue throw pillows, its headboard a panel of cream corduroy. A crystal chandelier sprawled from the ceiling like an oversized flower. Instead of a vanity, Peaches used a long wooden table that spanned the entire length of the back wall, a long mirror propped up on it so that it reminded Marsden of a ballet studio. Shoes and perfume bottles and sparkling coils of jewelry were scattered on nearly every flat surface in the room.
Everything was cluttered, overwhelming; she couldn’t help but contrast it with her half of the bedroom she shared with Wynn, where her most important things were tucked into places no one could even see. As one of Nina’s girls, Peaches’s strengths were her exaggerated good looks, the way she swaggered in her femininity, her desires never a secret. Once, Nina had called her a barracuda, and Peaches had taken it as a compliment. But here in her room, her being a woman felt soft, not like a skill set. It left Marsden confused.
Who was the real Peaches? Where did the lines blur between person and performance? How far did she have to go before pulling back?
“Hi, Mars!” Wynn was sitting in a chair in front of the long table that doubled as a vanity. Her reflection waved madly. “Caitlyn’s mom had an appointment this morning, so she had to bring me back early. But look—I’m getting my hair done!”
Standing behind her sister, winding a black lock around the curling iron in her hand, Peaches met Marsden’s eyes in the long mirror. The cool smile on her face said she knew Marsden’s wariness and was amused. “A royal coming to visit the commoners?”
“If you say so.”
Peaches snorted. “It’s going to be a bit before I finish, so you might as well sit. Your sister’s hair is even thicker than mine.”
Marsden sat tentatively on the edge of the yellow bed. She tried not to think about how Dany had yet to change the bedding for any of the rooms. “Thanks for keeping her company.” She knew she sounded stiff, maybe even insincere, when she was only feeling awkward. “I didn’t know she was home, or I would have found her.”
“I don’t mind. I’ve been meaning to do this for months anyway. I know she’s been asking.” Peaches winked at Wynn in the mirror. “And we’ll do our faces together afterward.”
“She’s eight,” Marsden said.
“And?”
“And she’s eight. Take her for ice cream if you want to spend time with her.”
Peaches sighed, released the lock of hair from the iron, and wound another. “It’s lip gloss, not a career choice.”
Marsden stared at her in the mirror. “Maybe if we didn’t live here,” she said quietly, “in this house, or if Glory was any different. Maybe if Shine was anything else.”
In the mirror, Wynn’s gaze darted from Marsden to Peaches, confused.
Lucy sat down beside Marsden on the bed. “Can I try something new with your hair?” she asked. “You have the nicest hair, and I’ve been dying to experiment.”
Marsden lifted a hand to it, felt the thick, familiar strands. Aside from a ponytail, she hated fussing with it. It was a waste of time, and watching herself try to style it, it was always Shine she saw in the mirror. “No, it’s okay.”
“Mars never styles her hair.” Wynn bobbed her head despite the curling iron still attached to it. Her whole head was now covered with spiraling black curls. Marsden wouldn’t have been able to do that for her, not in a million years. She would have burned both of them trying. “It’d be really pretty if she tried, I bet.”
“Thanks, runt. Very sweet.”
Lucy smiled at Wynn. “Your sister’s hair is pretty as is.”
“Prettier, I mean.”
“Nice save,” Marsden said. She got up, tired of her hair being the center of attention. “Here, I’ll do yours,” she said to Lucy. “French braid. I haven’t forgotten, I don’t think.”
Lucy slid into the chair next to Wynn, and Marsden stood next to Peaches. In the mirror, the four of them made for a disjointed image, all different colors and desires. Marsden thought their eyes best said who they were: Peaches’s bright, sharp hazel; Lucy’s quiet pools of pale green; Wynn’s sparkling, curious brown; Marsden’s the same brown but wary instead of sparkling, careful instead of curious. She saw the window of Peaches’s room in the reflection, too, thrown there by a mirror on the opposite wall. The trees of the covert filled it like a smear of gray shadow. It seemed nearly like another eye in the mirror, watching them, and Marsden dropped her gaze back to her braiding.
“Who taught you how to do that?” Wynn asked, sounding almost hurt as she watched Marsden weave sections of Lucy’s hair together, as though a secret had been kept from her.
“Nina, actually, years ago.” She’d forgotten until just that moment, and now she wondered about the undertones of the gesture, of the remembered feel of rose-tipped fingers smoothing out her stubbornly thick hair. How much of that had been a gesture of comfort, how much an early mark of ownership?
“Can you do mine like that one day?” her sister asked as Marsden’s hands worked. It was taking a bit for her fingers to remember, but soon they were doing well enough that the braid stopped trying to fall apart.
She had to grin at the awe in her sister’s voice. For years, she’d been keeping her from seeing dead bodies in the covert, but it seemed Wynn was more impressed with her ability to twist hair together. “Sure.” It surprised her that she half meant it. That maybe she actually would. For the moment, the world of the night brothel, the future Shine and Nina threatened, seemed far away.
Peaches tugged at some of Wynn’s curls. “Hey, I’m starting to feel like a third wheel.”
“I love my curls, Peaches!”
“Another nice save, and fast. Didn’t even blink, either. I smell a future politician.”
“What’s that?”
“Someone who works in the government.”
Wynn shook her head. “I only want to work here when I get older. In the boardinghouse.”
Marsden’s fingers slowed on Lucy’s hair, listening for more and absolutely dreading it.
“Like a cook, same as your sister?” Peaches’s gaze met Marsden’s in the mirror, and Marsden saw how she knew exactly what terrified her and actually sympathized. “Or a housekeeper like your mom?”
Wynn shrugged. “I just want to live here, like you and Lucy and the other girls do. Like forever guests—so I never have to leave.”
“You know, it was the same for me when I was a little girl,” Lucy said. “I couldn’t imagine ever wanting to leave Florida. But then I got older, and I realized home was just one tiny part of the world.”
“Do you miss it?” Wynn’s eyes were on Lucy’s in the mirror, curious against sad. “Home, I mean?”
Distress flickered across Lucy’s face. “I miss . . . parts of it.”
“Do you ever want to go back?”
“I don’t think so, no.”
“You don’t miss any—?”
“Talking about Florida is giving me a headache.” Peaches unwound the last of Wynn’s hair from the iron and unplugged the appliance from the wall with a yank. She glided her hand down the length of Lucy’s arm—Marsden sensed the comfort in the gesture, the need to soothe—then turned to Wynn. “Come help me make punch?”
After they left, Lucy swept her braid over her shoulder. “Just a hairdo, but you see Wynn’s possible future.” Her voice was soft. “The idea scares you.”
Marsden stiffened. “Nina does. My mother. This whole entire town.”
“Do we disgust you? Me and Peaches? The other girls?”
“No, I never said that.”
“But our work does.”
Marsden flushed. “I’m trying to remember they’re separate things. I’m not always able to. Glory makes it easy to keep things mixed up.” She would know.
It was a few seconds before Lucy spoke again. “Wynn doesn’t mean it, you know. About never wanting to leave. She’ll change her mind once she finds out about the boardinghouse, about your mom.”
“You chose to stay here,” Marsden whispered, “and you didn’t have to. You could have kept running.”
Lucy smiled in the mirror. But her gaze was distant, as though she were already partially elsewhere. “Being here, I got used to it, I guess. And then I had Peaches. And Wynn has you, her big sister to watch out for her—how could she not be fine, right? How could you not make sure she escapes from this town?”
Marsden thought of the money she’d saved that still wasn’t enough. She thought of what Nina wanted from her and of her mother begging her to stay.
She finally managed a smile in return, but she couldn’t think of a single thing to say.