The New Lock Kept Me Outside While My Work Stayed Inside

The key stopped halfway into the lock.

I tried once more, then looked through the glass. My wig blocks stood along the back wall. The kettle was on. Gideon had even set out the good cups.

He opened the door six inches.

"You should have called, Laurel. I've got buyers."

"It's Tuesday. I work here on Tuesdays."

Behind him, three people stood around my fitting chair. A woman held a notebook against her chest. Two younger crew members watched the door.

Gideon smiled past me at a man walking his dog.

"We'll talk later," he said.

I was thirty-two, a white woman with pale freckles, brown hair cut at my jaw, and a small burn scar on my left wrist.

I made theatrical wigs for a living. Most days, my fingers smelled faintly of setting lotion. That morning, I had a strip of blue fiber looped around one finger. I braided scraps when I needed to think.

I started a second strand.

"Why doesn't my key work?"

"We need one clear face for the business."

"You changed the lock."

"I simplified access."

Gideon Shaw was a tall white man with swept-back blond hair, bright blue eyes, and a smile that made strangers feel expected.

At thirty-seven, he could sell a room its own light. He could not knot three hairs into lace without tearing it.

The woman with the notebook came closer.

"Is this the wigmaker?" she asked.

"Freelance assistant," Gideon said. "Very gifted. A little unreliable about hours."

I had opened that studio at seven every morning for eighteen months. Gideon usually arrived after ten with coffee for himself.

"My name is Laurel Pruitt," I said.

"Simone Baptiste. Wardrobe supervisor."

She looked forty-something, with silver at her temples and reading glasses on a cord. Her voice was low and firm.

Gideon moved between us.

"Laurel was just leaving."

Above his shoulder hung the new storefront sign: SHAW STAGE HAIR. Until Sunday, it had said MARSH LANTERN WIG STUDIO.

My name had never been on it. That had seemed fair when we started. He handled bookings. I built the stock. We called each other business partners.

Our actual terms filled eleven pages.

"The sign doesn't change the agreement," I said.

His smile held, but his fingers tightened on the door.

"Don't make this awkward in front of clients."

"Then give me access to my stock."

"The stock belongs to the studio. It stays here."

He shut the door gently, as if manners could soften a bolt.

I stood on the warm brick walk while a carriage rolled toward a square. The horse's shoes struck the road in a slow, steady count.

Inside, Gideon spread his arms. I knew that move. He used it when telling people about his years of training, which were mostly my years of training told in the first person.

I took pictures of the lock and the sign. Then I walked to my car.

I did not kick anything. I did not post anything.

On the passenger seat lay a canvas bag of work scraps. I added a yellow strand to the blue and made three tight crossings.

My foundations carried little white tabs, sewn beneath the left ear. LP-001 through LP-028. The numbers were also stamped on narrow strips inside each storage box.

Gideon hated the tabs.

"They make us look like a library," he'd said.

"Libraries know where their things went."

That had been six months earlier, when he first asked me to leave blank lines on delivery forms.

I had not left them blank.

At home, I opened the fire box beneath my bed. The consignment agreement was under my mother's birth certificate. Gideon's signature crossed the last page in a great black loop.

The attached schedule listed twenty-eight foundations and their finished wigs. Agreed replacement value: $39,200.

I had saved for the hair, lace, and blocks myself. Consignment let Gideon offer a full rental room without buying the pieces. I received eighty percent of each approved rental. He received twenty percent for bookings, space, and handling.

Ownership stayed with me until a separate sale signed by me.

There were no sales.

I had worked that sentence over with a lawyer before I ever carried a box through his door.

My phone buzzed while I laid out the pages.

The message came from a number I didn't know.

This is Simone. Your temple joins are beautiful. No assistant did that work.

I sat down.

Another message followed.

Gideon says the lead's copper hairpiece is out for cleaning. Its box is marked LP-014. Can you tell me when it will be back?

I looked at my calendar. I had cleaned LP-014 the previous Friday. I had put it in its box myself.

Then Simone sent a photograph of that box, open and empty.