We Bought Replacement Hair Before The Next Promise Could Expire

At nine the next morning, I put the supplier on speaker.

Ruth watched from one side of the worktable. Thiago watched from the other.

"Tell me the weight and length again," I said.

The supplier read them from her stock sheet.

I compared them with the approved sample order. New hair. Uncolored. Long enough for the rolls in Second Moon's design. The price was the one in our budget.

"Please email the invoice with those details," I said.

Ruth checked the cleared funds. The producer signed the final sample approval. Then the payment went out.

No typed initials stood in for a person.

I sat back after the receipt arrived.

"That took forty minutes," I said.

Thiago folded his arms.

"Less time than a courthouse."

The hair arrived two days later. We checked it before washing a strand.

Jules worked beside me under a new weekly agreement. The old $1,260 had already been paid from the company funds, with a wage statement showing what it covered.

"I never want to hear that payroll is coming soon again," Jules said.

"You won't hear it from me unless I can give you a date and an amount."

I showed Jules the pay set aside for the week.

Then we got to work.

We built lace fronts and wefted backs, just as the plans required. Jules stitched rows of hair onto the caps. I knotted the hairlines and parts, then we traded tasks when our fingers grew stiff.

Each wig had a head chart, a sample approval, and a tag with three blue stitches.

The tags came off before delivery. They weren't a mark I wanted to show the audience. They were a reminder to us before we said something was ready.

For The Glass Orchard, I set the silver waves in low rolls. For The Copper House, I built the high front curls around wire that stayed hidden under the hair.

The new silver took two color tests. The first had looked blue in a camera photo. The second held its shade under the touring lamps.

We wrote down the mix and saved a swatch.

I remembered the woman from the locked doorway. Her part belonged two fingers left of center.

At her fitting, she touched the edge of the lace.

"There it is," she said.

"The part?"

"My face. It looked wrong in the old sample Delphine sent."

She asked what had happened between us.

I kept pinning the nape.

"The business is closing. I'm finishing your order under a new agreement."

"That's all?"

"That's what you need for today. Turn your chin a little."

I hadn't become calm all at once. Some mornings, I still woke before dawn and checked the bank balance from bed.

I still read every client email too quickly.

During the fourth week, Second Moon's producer called while I was setting a crown.

Delphine had sent him our old sales brochure. A line on it promised hair from a historic collection.

"She says you've switched us to cheap fiber," he said.

I laid down my comb.

"Please open your design amendment. Page two."

I waited while he found it.

The page named the new human hair, listed the changed shade, and included the approved swatch photo. His signature sat below the description.

"Right," he said.

"Would you like a live inspection before the next payment?"

"Yes."

"Tomorrow at ten?"

He came. He handled the hair and watched us dress a finished wig under his lamp.

At eleven, he signed the inspection sheet.

That afternoon, his lawyer told Delphine to direct any further contract claims through counsel. Nina sent a notice under the settlement terms requiring her to stop presenting herself as a contact for the transferred orders.

There were no more client messages from her after that.

The work still took six long weeks.

We made mistakes small enough to fix. A nape ran tight. A curl caught on a costume collar. One label named the wrong understudy.

We corrected each one before packing.

When Jules caught the wrong understudy's name, we checked all thirty-six labels again. It cost an hour. I entered that hour on the work sheet instead of erasing it from the budget. Care took time, and we had finally left room to pay for it.

On the first delivery day, Thiago counted ten silver wigs on ten stands. He checked the spare pins, dressing notes, and repair kit.

"You can sign here," I said.

"After I check the case straps."

I waited. Dependability was plain work, and I had come to like how plain it was.

All four shows opened on their booked dates. Each company signed its delivery sheet. Each final balance arrived as agreed.

On the last afternoon, Nina came to the workroom carrying an envelope with a court stamp.

"The final settlement papers are ready," she said. "There are two signatures left before this studio can close."