Three Fates

rinsed, into a full makeup treatment. By the time Julian was wielding the blow dryer on her she was so tired, so tipsy, she nearly nodded off in the chair.
    Whoever claimed an afternoon at the salon was a luxury had a sick sense of humor.
    “Keep your eyes closed,” Julian ordered, and the wine sloshed around in her head a little as her chair revolved. “Now, open up and take a look at Tia Marsh.”
    She opened her eyes, looked in the mirror and felt a fast slam of pure panic.
    Where did she go?
    The woman who stared back at her had a sunny cap of hair, with a snazzy fringe down to dramatically arched eyebrows. Her eyes were enormously and richly blue, her mouth wide and boldly red. And when Tia’s jaw dropped, so did hers.
    “I look . . . I look like Tinkerbell.”
    Once again Julian lowered his head so that his was close to hers. “You’re not far wrong. Fairies are fascinating, aren’t they? Clever and bright and unpredictable. That’s how you look.”
    Carrie’s face joined theirs in the mirror so that for a dizzy second, Tia imagined herself with three heads, none of which was actually hers. “You look fabulous.” A tear trickled down Carrie’s cheek. “I’m so happy. Tia, look! Really look at yourself.”
    “Okay.” She took a huge breath. “Okay,” and reached up gingerly to touch the nape of her neck. “It feels so strange.” She shook her head a little, laughed a little. “Light. But, it doesn’t look like me.”
    “Yes, it does. The you that was hiding. Give me some photo ID,” Julian demanded.
    Baffled, she dug in her purse, in her wallet, and took out her bank card.
    “Which,” he asked, “do you want to be?”
    Tia stared at the photo, stared at the mirror. “I’ll take everything you used on me today, and another appointment in four weeks.”

    SHE’D SPENT FIFTEEN hundred dollars. Fifteen hundred on nothing more than vanity. And, Tia thought as she sat in the cab with her shopping bag brimming with beauty products, she didn’t feel guilty about it.
    She felt exhilarated.
    She couldn’t wait to get home and look at herself in the mirror again. And again. Because she couldn’t, she slid her hand into her purse, clicked open her compact. Holding the mirror inside the bag to shield her foolishness from the cabdriver, she tilted it up. And grinned at herself.
    She wasn’t ordinary at all. Not beautiful, certainly, but not by any means ordinary. She was even pretty in an odd sort of way.
    Caught up with herself, she didn’t register that they’d stopped in front of her building until Rosie O’Donnell’s recorded voice reminded her to take all her belongings. Flustered, Tia dropped her compact back into her purse, fumbled with the fare she would normally have had ready, then, juggling her bag and her purse, climbed out.
    As a result, she dropped her purse on the sidewalk, had to scoop the contents hurriedly back in. When she straightened, took a step toward her building, she nearly plowed into the couple who’d stepped into her path.
    “Dr. Marsh?”
    “Yes?” She answered without thinking, as she was looking at the beautiful, tall brunette who’d obviously been crying.
    “We need to speak with you,” he began, and the Irish in his voice finally got through. As did, when she shifted her gaze to his face and homed in on the family resemblance, the name.
    “You’re a Sullivan.” She said the name as some might an oath, with bitter passion.
    “I am, yes. Gideon. This is Cleo. If we could come up to your flat for a minute?”
    “I don’t have anything to say to you.”
    “Dr. Marsh.” He put a hand on her arm as she turned.
    She whipped back, surprising them both with the speed and the fury. “Take your hand off me or I’ll start screaming. I can scream very loud, and very long.”
    As he was a man who understood and respected a woman’s temper, he lifted his free hand, palm out, in a gesture of truce. “I know you’re angry with Mal, and I don’t blame you for it. But the fact is, we’ve got nowhere else to go right at the moment, not that’s safe. We’re in trouble here.”
    “That doesn’t concern me, and neither do you.”
    “Let her alone, Slick.” Cleo said it wearily, weaving a little from the whiskey. “It’s all fucked anyway.”
    “You’ve been drinking.” Outraged—and conveniently forgetting two glasses of afternoon wine—Tia sniffed. “You’ve got some nerve, coming around here drunk, accosting me on the street. You want to