My Keycard Went Dark While Delphine Gave Away My Work

The reader beside the studio door turned red under my thumb.

Inside, six performers waited beside our wig blocks. Delphine stood among them with a paper fan, making the July heat sound like a small problem she could fix.

"Our junior stylist used to handle those," she said. "I'll be your main contact now."

One performer looked through the glass at me.

I tried the card once more.

My name was Manon Joseph. I was twenty-six, a Haitian American woman with dark brown skin, a wide nose, and thick black curls tied low at my neck. I made theatrical wigs for a living, and I remembered every client's preferred parting.

The woman watching me liked hers two fingers left of center. I had moved the lace line three times until her own hair stopped showing under stage lights.

She opened the door.

"Manon, we've been waiting."

Delphine's fan stopped.

At forty-two, Delphine Armand had warm brown skin, copper curls piled high, and gold bracelets that slid over the bright sleeves of her silk dresses.

We were both Haitian American. She had once called that a reason to trust each other.

"Your access was turned off," she told me. "We needed a clean change."

"A change to what?"

"Leadership. Please don't make this awkward in front of guests."

Our shop sat in a low brick building south of downtown San Antonio. A bus sighed at the curb. Through the open door came hot air and the smell of breakfast tacos from next door.

For two years, I had arrived before that taco shop opened.

I had built the wigs. Delphine had sold the shows.

We each owned half of Lantern Thread Studio.

"You can't remove me by changing a door code," I said.

She moved close enough to lower her voice.

"The furniture is leased. The checking account barely covers rent. If you want your half, bring a moving truck for half a desk."

Behind her, along the back wall, stood eighteen narrow wooden cases.

Each case held packets of antique theatrical hair. Some was silver from root to tip. Some was copper without a speck of dye. All had been cut long before our studio opened, then stored dry in folded tissue.

On every case handle, I had sewn a white label with three blue stitches.

My mother had taught me that mark while mending school uniforms.

Three stitches meant stop and count again.

Delphine had never asked why I marked the cases.

"I need my personal tools," I said.

She handed me a grocery bag. My shears had been dropped in without their sleeve.

"I was trying to spare you a scene."

The performer at the door touched my arm.

"Who is doing our fittings?"

"I'll send you a written answer," I said.

I didn't know it yet. That was the only honest answer I had.

A tall man came from the cutting room carrying a measurement sheet. Thiago Costa was thirty-five, Brazilian American, and the touring costume supervisor for The Glass Orchard.

He looked at my bag, then at the dark reader outside.

"We have ten silver wigs due in September," he said. "Who is responsible?"

"The studio," Delphine said brightly.

"I asked who."

"I'll review the contract today," I told him.

He wrote his number on the back of his sheet.

"I can work around bad news," he said. "I can't work around news I don't get."

Delphine gave him a large smile.

He waited until I took the number.

I carried my tools to my car. Then I sat with the windows down because the air conditioner had quit working the week before.

My hands shook so much I couldn't fit the key in the ignition.

For a minute, I wanted to go back and shout my name until every person in that shop knew it.

Instead, I opened the folder on my phone called Stock Purchase.

There was the receipt from a closed theater collection in Galveston: $18,600, paid from my own savings before our company existed.

There was my purchase ledger. Forty-eight numbered lots. Weight, shade, length, case, cost.

There was the signed consignment schedule Delphine had called boring when our accountant made us read it.

I opened page four.

Her name sat below mine in blue ink.

I called the accountant, Ruth Bell.

"Did you keep the original stock schedule?"

"Of course. Why?"

"My keycard stopped working."

She was quiet for a moment.

"Don't sign anything. Come here."

Before I started the car, Thiago sent me the stock page attached to his contract.

Six silver lots were listed: G01 through G06.

I knew those numbers without opening my ledger.

Then another message reached my business email. A touring company I had never fitted wanted to confirm its $8,400 deposit.

Attached was a promise for ten silver wigs, made from lots G01 through G06.