Alexa slammed the notebook shut. Was there actually something interesting going on in this drab little half-house? She called, “I’ll be right down!” and tucked the notebook back under the pillow. She wasn’t sure if Katie heard her so she yelled, “Coming!” even louder, and instantly there came a banging from the other side of the wall. Ghost, or neighbor? She wasn’t sure. She banged back, three times, and after that there was only silence. Probably a ghost.

She hightailed it down the stairs and into the living room to see who won the cupcake war. It was not yet dark, not even really twilight, and there was no need to turn on either of the mismatched table lamps that sat on the elderly tables in the living room. Even so, Alexa found that she was suddenly considering Katie Griffin in a whole new light.

While they were watching, there came a knocking at the front door. Katie and Alexa looked at each other, startled.

Outside the door stood a shriveled specimen of a woman. She was holding a small dog with giant ears. The woman made Alexa think of what would happen if somebody took a walnut and glued it on top of an old rag doll. She was looking at Alexa sternly.

“Can I help you?” asked Alexa. She had no problem being stern right back.

“Noise!” the woman said, her face crumpling into even more wrinkles, if that was possible.

“Excuse me?” Alexa couldn’t stand looking at really old women up close. It was depressing. Supposedly their tiny little eyes contained the wisdom of the ages or whatever, but all Alexa saw was a complete lack of collagen and the absence of an actual neck.

“Too much noise!” said the woman, pointing an angry finger toward the house. “Somebody was just banging on the wall at me.”

“You banged first!” protested Alexa.

The woman ignored this. “The crying all the time, the screaming. It’s too loud!”

Alexa smiled her sweetest smile and said, “It’s under control. I’m so sorry we bothered you. Thanks for stopping by.”

“Who was that?” asked Katie when she returned to the cupcake wars.

“An angry old lady,” said Alexa.

“Miss Josephine,” said Katie, nodding sagely. “From next door.”

Alexa was about to ask Katie about the “crying all the time, the screaming,” but she decided to hold her tongue. There was something going on in this house. And she was going to find out what it was.

Cupcake Wars had become a real nail-biter, and she asked Katie if she could get her anything from the kitchen while they waited for the winner. She was going to start right now being the world’s best babysitter so that she got asked back again.

32.

Sherri

You are strong, said Sherri in her head at Derma-You once her training was complete. Katie is safe, and you are strong. This was her mantra for the evening. Her counselor in the program had taught her about mantras. Sometimes she recycled, because it was difficult to think of a new one every day. They were all variations on a calming and empowering theme: Your body is capable, your spirit is capable. Or, The rest of your life is the best of your life. (She’d been pretty proud of that one, with the rhyme.)

She reached for the file of a woman named Penelope Butler, who would be in at seven thirty for her fourth laser treatment to remove her underarm hair. Unwanted hair was just one of the things you could make disappear at Derma-You. You could also say good-bye to lax skin, liver spots, spider veins. Moles, cellulite. Skin discoloration. Scars. It was shocking, really, how many things could be removed from the human body.

The doctors were three smooth, ageless women—at once the advertisers for their goods as well as the dispensers—who flew in and out so quickly in their white coats that Sherri could hardly keep them straight.

The door opened and a woman walked in. Miranda Ramirez, who had a seven o’clock consultation for fillers. She smiled uncertainly, the way Sherri had learned all new patients smiled on their first visit. They wanted to change something about themselves, but they were ashamed to admit to that want. They looked around to see if anyone they knew was in the waiting room.

Sherri smiled back. She had noticed that some of the other women who worked at the front desk—there were usually three at a time, one checking patients in and one checking them out, while a third manned (womaned) the phones—were often hurried and graceless when they talked to the patients. They could have been dealing with oil changes or tax appointments, not the precious, vulnerable parts of these women’s bodies, the over-hairy or over-scarred or flabby bits that required special attention.

Sherri tried to make up for this deficit. She smiled her extra-wide, welcoming smile. She tried to let them know that she got it. She understood what it was like to take on a disguise.

The phone rang. She jumped. Alexa! Then she chided herself. Of course it wouldn’t be Alexa. Alexa didn’t even have this number; she had Sherri’s cell phone number.

“Thank you for calling Derma-You!” she said in her friendliest, most accepting voice. “How can I help you look your best?”

After work two of the girls asked Sherri if she wanted to go for a drink with them. Sherri texted Alexa to see if she minded staying later; she didn’t. The women were younger than Sherri; she was flattered to be asked. She would go and have a friendly drink. She would be a person without history.