Shane slammed her hand down the top of her alarm. She really hated waking up this early. She swung her legs over the side of the bed and rubbed her eyes. Carmen began to stir and placed a hand on her girlfriend’s back.

“Don’t go baby,” she whispered sleepily.

“I have to.” Shane leaned over and kissed Carmen on the forehead. “I love you. I’ll see you around three, okay?”

Carmen nodded and fell back asleep. Shane got up and smiled to herself as she walked to the shower. Shay had finally started sleeping in his bedroom under the condition that he could come crawl in whenever he had a bad dream. That was a week ago—so far she had had five nights alone with her lover without him coming in and Shane loved every minute of it. She started her new job a couple weeks back and it had been going well. She had a descent amount of work and had slowly been gaining a group of regulars. She definitely missed the spontaneity of her old job—working on different sets at different locations with different people—but with this job she got to be home and see Carmen more so she figured it was a pretty descent trade off.

She ate cereal for breakfast with her little brother and dropped him off at school before heading to work. She said ‘hey’ to the front counter girl and asked for her schedule that day. As usual she was booked until three. She grabbed the sheet and walked to her station to get ready.

“Oh by the way—” the counter girl turned to catch Shane.

“You have someone who keeps calling here and trying to make an appointment with you. I told her you’re booked for the next two weeks but she insists on calling like every hour. She says you know her.”

Shane stopped and turned around.

“Who is it? Any of my friends would just call me directly if they wanted their hair cut, I can’t imagine who would possibly—”

“She says her name is Cherie Jaffe?”

“Cherie Jaffe? I thought that she—never mind. Can you ask her if she can come in today after my last appointment?”