In the bathroom, I splash my face with water, then gaze for a moment at my reflection in the mirror. Anthony is waiting for me, to show Mads and me to the cottage, but I have to collect myself first. He’s right, after all. This is what I’ve signed up for. And I should be grateful that I’m not out there in some little cottage by myself. It’s so dark outside now, the windows are black. Like slivers of obsidian. I can’t see a thing, even with my hands cupped against the glass. The light that streams through the windows doesn’t seem to make it more than a few feet. Except for the sound of waves, and the howl of the wind, anchoring us here, this house could be floating in space. I don’t have a good sense yet of how large this island is, though it seems clear enough we’re alone out here. I feel helpless. Stranded. But I have to get a grip on myself. The last thing I want to do is alienate myself any more than I already have.
My stomach rumbles. I wonder if we’re going to sit down for a meal soon. I haven’t eaten anything since leaving New York. It’s been a long day, and at this point, I’m so tired, I don’t think I’m actually feeling physical hunger. I just know that my body requires something—sleep or food. And it doesn’t seem like we’re going to bed anytime soon. Out in the living room, I can hear the telltale clink of glasses, and Ben’s voice keeps rising above the others as he holds forth about the amount of whisky he consumed the last time all of them were together. I take one last look at myself, trying to rid my eyes of the residue of panic I can see in my stare, then dry my face and push through the door to join them. I’m not going to score any points hiding.
Anthony intercepts me before I can make it more than two steps down the hallway. His expression is solicitous, and I assume he wants to apologize before showing me the cottage. I’m about to cut him off and reassure him I’m okay, I’m overreacting, that’s all, when he grabs both my hands and holds me still, like he wants my full attention. He’s got something else in mind.
“I know you probably want to join the others,” he says, keeping his voice low. He glances down the length of the dark hallway to the glow of the light emanating from the living room. The sounds that echo down to us are inviting. Ben is laughing. Sofìa is trying to remember the lyrics from one of the songs on Anthony’s playlist. Mads is calling himself “the Firestarter,” and I can hear the thunk of logs being piled onto an iron grate. There’s something comforting about the clamor of a party. I do want to be a part of it. “Do you mind, though,” Anthony asks me, “if we do something else first? Just the two of us.”
When I don’t object, he pulls me by my hand and leads me back into the bathroom. The burst of light from the overhead bulb stings my eyes.
“Stay here,” he tells me, closing the door on me. I can hear his footsteps retreat back down the hall.
The bathroom is small, from another era. Quaint, like the kitchen. A counter covered in periwinkle blue tiles runs along the far wall, stretching from door to door. There are a couple of windows facing out the front drive, one cracked open. I can taste our isolation in the earthy, icy breeze that trickles inside, and I shut the window with a decisive bang. The floor is yellowing linoleum, with at least three shaggy bath mats covering the walk from the bathtub to the counter to the toilet. I avoid the mirror this time and just twist around, examining the floor, wondering what Anthony has in mind.
A few seconds later, I hear footsteps again. Then Anthony toes the door open with a socked foot. He places a bag on the counter and drags a chair into the center of the room, then, shutting the door again, instructs me to sit while he prepares the bleach. We’re going to dye my hair now. Not tomorrow. Right now. I feel myself deflate even more, like a shriveling balloon. He warned me, I guess. But this feels like a premeditated assault.
I’m just barely hanging on, I want to tell him. Can’t this wait until tomorrow, when I feel more settled? But that’s the point, I guess. He wants me out of my shell. That’s what he said earlier, right? I have to break out of the confines of what Betty would do. He’s taking me away from me. I don’t know what’s better. To try to resist, or to let him.
Whatever Anthony has in mind for my hair, it’s a much more involved process than I would have thought, with powders and bowls and brushes and intimidating bottles of shampoo. He mixes some sort of powder with water, fills a spray bottle with peroxide, then sets everything out neatly along the counter. Like he’s done this before. He doesn’t even have to read the instructions on the boxes. This whole pantomime happens in silence, with the solemnity of a performance on a stage. All the while, my stomach clenches and rumbles, half from hunger, the rest nerves. I force myself to stay still, watching his hands as he organizes everything, not quite believing yet that he’ll actually put this concoction on my hair. No big deal, I tell myself. I can always dye my hair another color if I don’t like this one. My heart leaps into my throat, though, when he reaches into his pocket for a pair of scissors and a comb. It’s not an accident that my hair is below my shoulders. I wear it up most of the time, but I can hide behind it if I need to, and I suppose I often do. Hadn’t Anthony hired me for this part? Since I was a little girl, this hair has always been me.
Sensing my unease, Anthony hesitates. He turns to face me, grabs my shoulders, and fixes me with a stare. “Lola has short hair,” he tells me. “She’s not a kid. She doesn’t cling to the vestiges of her childhood. Remember what I said to you? She’s who you want her to be.”
Who I want her to be, or who you do? I wonder. But there’s no point in resisting him, so I don’t speak. I left home. I left Mom. I got in that van. I got in that boat. I’m here. I’m committed to this. I’m Lola now, not Betty. I can take this leap, too.
A shiver runs up my spine. Not just out of fear. Anticipation. I find that underneath my immediate knee-jerk horror at the thought of chopping off all my hair there’s another sensation. Another emotion, uncoiling in my stomach, spreading through my chest, my heart. It’s the same feeling I had when I boarded that flight out of California. Excitement. Cut it off. Leave it all behind.
The fumes from the chemicals gelling on the counter begin to sting my eyes. The smell is caustic. The room fills with the stink. Like someone has tried to strip off a residue of overripened fruit from the counter with a commercial detergent. But I don’t mind. Cut it off. Leave Betty behind.
“Before we start,” Anthony says, “where’s your phone?”
I indicate my purse on the floor, without fully understanding why he wants to know. When he asks me to get it for him—“Give it to me,” he says bluntly—I finally find my voice, tasting the bleach in the air on my tongue. “What do you want it for?” I’m not able to hide my distrust.
“No big deal,” he responds with a shrug. “I’m taking all our phones and stowing them in a drawer. I don’t want anything that will distract us from the film. And there’s no service out here anyway.”
While I consider this, he arranges the scissors and comb on the counter next to the mixture of chemicals. I pull my phone out of my bag, as though holding it will help me make up my mind. It’s my lifeline to the outside world. But as Anthony indicated, it isn’t picking up a signal. Will it be so terrible to give this up? For $40,000, I can relinquish my phone for a few weeks. Before I can finish my internal deliberation, though, a hand covers mine, and Anthony makes the decision for me. Just like that, my phone is gone. He slides my mom and my whole universe into his pocket.
“You’re in this now,” he says. “It’s time to become Lola, officially.”
“Doesn’t Lola have a mother?” I ask, but my attempt at humor falls on deaf ears.
He plucks one last object from the bag of hair products: the same camera he used for my audition. “Every minute you stay here is a choice you’re making,” he tells me. He switches on the camera. “You want to get rid of that jacket.” It isn’t a question, but another command.
I hadn’t even realized I was still wearing the old jacket he’d given me back before we boarded the scow, which feels like ages ago now. I let it slide from my shoulders. Goose bumps immediately climb my arms, but I try to ignore them as I toss the jacket to the floor, on top of my purse. I sit up straight and run both hands through my hair, looking Anthony in the eye as he snaps a couple of pictures. I can do this.
His voice echoes off the tiles when he says, “Now your shirt.”
I suck in a breath, but catch myself before I blurt out something sharp, like Do I have to? I hold his gaze, but can’t for more than a moment, so instead I locate myself in the mirror behind him. My eyes are rimmed red from the bleach fumes. I know there is going to be nudity in this film—he said so—but this is too fast. And it’s too intimate. This feels personal, like a violation. There’s no camera rolling, no Lola yet, no matter what he says. This body belongs to me, and it isn’t for sale. Or is it? Maybe I’ve already sold it. Maybe that’s why this hurts so much. My fingers toy with the edges of my shirt.
He says, louder, “Take off your shirt, Lola.”
I close my eyes. What bothers me most is how certain he is. He knows I’m going to give him what he wants. I already know I’m going to say yes, but how is he so convinced? I know there is no going back for me. I have nothing except this film. Everything else is gone. My father killed himself. My condescending mother is waiting on the sidelines for me to fail. I have no money. No real friends. Not even Sofìa.
I open my eyes and consider Anthony. He’s leaning against the counter, waiting for me to undress. And I almost laugh. He knows I’m going to do it, because this is who I am now. I’m the woman—the girl—who runs away from home, with no money, no job, no plans. To him, I must seem reckless. What was it Ben said? I’m just his type. Tall, thin, lost.
And I guess I am reckless. Because I’m not nervous anymore. Who cares if he takes my phone? Who cares if he bleaches my hair? Who cares if he changes my name? These are just details, labels. A few strands of hair, a couple of syllables. Every minute you stay here is a choice, Anthony said. And it’s true.
Chop it off.
Leave Betty behind.
I will become Lola, whoever that may be. I started this journey back in the tiny airport back home. This is only the next step. Even now I have no idea where I’m going, no idea where this path is leading me. No idea where I’ll end up.
Nevertheless, it still takes a few beats for me to master myself enough to take off my shirt. It’s a boxy white shirt I brought with me to New York from Humboldt. A red turtle swims across the front. I bought it at a gas station the first time I got high. My boyfriend at the time had held the shirt up against my torso and said it was my spirit animal. “It’s a turtle,” he said seriously, “but a red one.” It’s my favorite shirt. I close my eyes, and it comes off easily over my head. Anthony takes it from me and folds it onto the counter. It feels like my stomach is floating, somewhere in my chest. Like it can’t decide whether it wants to leap into my throat or push through my ribs.
My bra is new, from New York. I had gone with Sofìa to a store in SoHo that was covered in glitter. It’s a bralette made out of tight pink silk. When I tried it on in the dressing room, Sofìa told me life was unfair. “My bras perform a function,” she said, lifting a tan bra with large cups. “They strap my boobs to my chest. I can’t even imagine what it would be like to buy one like that.” I wonder what she would say if she could see me now. Maybe she wouldn’t feel the same envy.
My breathing is unsteady. In the mirror, I can see my heart beat in my ribs. I see Anthony see it, too. A prickle of awareness rakes down my spine. His breathing has become just as heavy as mine.
I want to reach for him, but I hold back. Maybe we’re getting closer to the truth of why I’m here. Maybe that’s what this is really about.
Even so, his next command stuns me: “And the bra.”
My fingers shake as I obey, and I can’t tell for certain if it’s only my fingers or my whole body. I fold the bralette carefully on top of my shirt on the counter. I ache, knowing how far away he is from me. I can’t stop an invitation from etching itself into my trembling smile. Touch me, I think, tracing his hands with my gaze. Don’t make me sit here alone.
The camera is in front of his eyes now, between us. The shutter answers my unspoken request. It freezes me in place, eternally removed from my clothes. Then he chuckles. The sound stabs me like so many daggers. “Good,” he says, settling the camera across from me on the counter. I stare into its mechanical eye, stunned. “Let’s get started.” He drapes a towel across my shoulders, pulling it into place. “I knew I was right about you,” he says, giving my hair a tug.
I’m about to ask what he means, when he starts hacking away at my hair with the scissors, and then I can barely move, except to watch him through the mirror. In the end, he elaborates, without my having to ask. “This isn’t an easy decision for you,” he says, cutting a chunk from the side. “Your emotions are right there on your face. The thing is, though, you give the camera what it really wants.” The cuttings cascade down my front, sending another shiver through me. In no time at all, he’s finished. My hair isn’t short, necessarily, but it isn’t long. The ends barely reach my jaw, tickling my earlobes. And then he starts applying the burning chemicals to my scalp, methodically explaining in that same slippery voice every step of what he’s doing to me. In the sunshine, my hair looked like flowing beer, Tucker had told me. Or honey, as my father had said. I loved my hair.
This is like a dream, one where I have discovered how to fly. The secret is to stop caring. If you get scared, you’ll fall from the sky. If you just let go of yourself, everything is possible.
Let go, Betty. Let go.