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Tressa Fay held her bone-handled straight razor against the taut, pale ribbon of hair between the fingers of her opposite hand and carved. The curls she released sprang away from her blade like something alive, rousted from the underbrush.

She stepped back and narrowed her eyes.

“When you do that,” Guy said, “I want to stick my tongue out at you.”

“I wouldn’t notice if you did.” Tressa Fay stepped forward to sift the precise layers and pieces she’d made in Guy’s elven hair, checking if her cut was perfect.

It was.

“You’re finished.” Guy smiled at her in the mirror. “I can tell because your imperious aura has mellowed. It’s back to its ordinary level of bossiness.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Tressa Fay focused on disinfecting, then polishing her blade on the leather strop that hung from her bench. When she was satisfied, she folded it into its handle and snugged it into the holster she wore on her thigh. “Let me take pictures. People are always interested in how a cut can make waves like yours curly.”

Guy was already standing in front of the mirror, running their fingers through their hair and posing, then rubbing their hands over their tight gray Henley shirt. “I look like a sexy snow fairy who left the fae to front a band called Slink and the Bloods.”

“Is that good?” Tressa Fay set up her ring light.

“Very. What do you call this cut?”

“?‘Guy.’?”

Guy rolled their eyes at Tressa Fay in the mirror.

“It has some shag,” she said. “Some mullet. Depending on how you style it, some faux-hawk vibes.”

“I love it. I don’t know why I waited so long for you to do this.” Guy stepped into the light, pursing their lips, letting Tressa Fay snap pictures.

“I like it when people don’t get in my chair until they’re ready. That’s when the magic happens.”

Guy pointed their chin down and looked up, trying a sexy, menacing glare that was actually pretty affecting. “I think I needed to get into my feels after starting testosterone before I was ready for something like this. Honestly, it does feel a bit magical.”

Tressa Fay’s eyes started to water, and she stopped taking pictures. “ Guy .”

“Don’t start crying, because then I will. Do you want one where I’m pulling my shirt up a bit? I hit core hard this morning.”

“Absolutely I do.”

Tressa Fay finished taking pictures, admiring how her cut made Guy’s cheekbones sharp, their silvery blue eyes impossible to ignore. “I’m AirDropping this set to you. You’ll want these.”

Guy opened them up on their phone and looked at them, smiling. “Yes, I will. Thanks, Tiff.”

She smiled at the old nickname, a pronunciation of her first name’s initials. “Where are you headed after this?” Tressa Fay had already mostly closed down the salon for the day, leaving only Guy’s hair to sweep and her chair and station to clean.

“Michael and I are going to see that classical guitarist at the university theater. You?”

Michael was a man who Guy had gone to law school with in Michigan. Back then, Guy hadn’t transitioned and was presenting as female, and Michael identified as gay—but there had always been chemistry, close friendship, and deep feelings Guy hadn’t known how to express. They’d reconnected six months ago when Michael moved to Green Bay to accept a partner track at a law firm. It was a love story about timing, and probably about being who you were supposed to be, because when they’d started hanging out this time around, it wasn’t long before they were both head over heels.

“I’ve got a date with Netflix tonight. Still a little wobbly.” Tressa Fay started spraying down her chair and station.

Guy sat on the live-edge bench along the wall, crossed their legs at the knee, and leaned back. “I’m sure. But what about it hurts the most? Because when you talked to me about it, I felt like it wasn’t the catfishing, at least not entirely.” They patted the bench next to them.

Tressa Fay sat down next to Guy and started idly playing with the wavy curls she’d just cut. “You caught that, huh?”

“I’ve known you for more of my life than I can remember.”

She leaned her head against the wall. “I liked her.”

“The fake engineer.”

“She felt real to me. Obviously, she wasn’t. It was just some text messages and pictures. To be honest, I’m not sure why I ran to Canyon like that without checking myself even once.” Tressa Fay fiddled with a fingernail, sending a deep breath past her racing heart to soothe it. Guy had been honest with her. She wanted to be honest with them.

For so long, the time since Amy had felt like no time at all. Six months ago, Tressa Fay still slept differently. Sometimes when she needed to settle back to sleep, her leg reached for Amy’s in the night to hook itself around. Except she didn’t find Amy. So she didn’t go back to sleep.

But lately, she’d been sleeping through the night. She’d felt better , all the way better in a way that was tough to pin down but easy to appreciate. And she had rushed out of her apartment to meet Meryl.

“Actually, that’s not true. I am sure,” she said. “You know how they say ‘it just takes time’? I needed the time after Amy. It’s like time is the only thing that could’ve given me the space to get to know myself.”

“And the Tiff you know now didn’t hesitate to haul ass downtown to meet up with this woman.”

“No! She didn’t. When Meryl wrong-number texted me, there wasn’t any coyness, no nerves or game. No dancing. I felt like I knew her, or recognized her. Of course not actually, but also, actually . So I didn’t hesitate. I had to get to her.”

“And then when she wasn’t there…”

“I left my apartment feeling yes like a gong through my whole body. I had no doubt she was something for me. So when she wasn’t there, wasn’t real , can you understand how I would doubt that I’ve really gotten to know myself better at all?”

“Have you considered that maybe the reason she had this effect on you is not so much this Meryl, but more that you are so ready to get out there, to meet people and be vulnerable and let yourself get introduced to hot women, that any connection feels like the connection?”

Tressa Fay let her hand drop into her lap.

Guy sighed with understanding. “I know how hard it’s been, and I’m the very last person to suggest getting back on the apps or heading to the bar. But going out with your friends, getting introduced to someone? Maybe that’s the everything you’re feeling ready for.”

“There’s something else.” Tressa Fay reached around and slid her phone out of her back pocket, almost expecting it to feel hot or electrified, or to release tiny knives.

“You showed me the date discrepancy,” Guy said. “More than once. You told me the tech person at the phone place said it could be a lot of things.”

Shaking her head, Tressa Fay reminded herself to feel her feet against the floor—something a therapist had told her to do when she was anxious or overwhelmed. She swiped open a paused video. “It’s this. Watch this.”

Guy took the phone from Tressa Fay. It was a local news segment from a couple of years ago. The reporter and the woman she was interviewing were both holding umbrellas and standing in the middle of Main Street on the east side, which had experienced terrible flooding through the night. There was a stranded car behind them, water up around its wheels.

Guy pointed a finger at Tressa Fay. “You cyberstalked her! Or at least you cyberstalked the person whose identity was stolen by a catfisher. So this is a catfisher, or the victim of one, who you found an old video of.”

Tressa Fay heard Guy, but mostly she heard the soft audio from the clip, which she’d watched enough times to almost have it memorized. Meryl Whit’s husky voice carefully explained storm drains to Audrey Hatsinger of WBAY News. “She posted this on her Insta. I didn’t stalk. I don’t do that. But that’s not why I’m showing you. Keep watching, but look there, at the top of the street, where there isn’t flooding. By the green awning.”

Guy raised their eyebrows but watched the video. Then their hand covered their mouth. “That’s—”

“That’s me.” Tressa Fay reached over and tapped pause. “I remember this day. I had been booked by the salon with the green awning to teach a class on curly cuts, and I thought they’d cancel because of the flooding, but they called me and told me I could still come because they were dry. I remember seeing the news crew. I remember noticing her hair.”

Tressa Fay had noticed more than Meryl’s hair that afternoon. She’d looked down the street, clocking the news crew, and seen her immediately. Peach and gold hair in two fat Dutch braids, tall green rubber boots. An interesting person.

She’d opened the salon door with a smile on her face.

Guy restarted the video, watching Tressa Fay get out of her Fiat and open her blue umbrella with black cats on it. You could see her red jeans, a flash of her dark bob. Her face, looking down the street, was shadowed under the umbrella, but it was definitely her, in the same place as Meryl, at the same time.

“I think the person who texted me was Meryl Whit.” Tressa Fay took her phone from Guy. “I think if it hadn’t been raining and I didn’t have somewhere to be, or if the news crew had already finished up, I probably would have found an excuse to talk to her then .”

They let that sit between them in the quiet salon, Tressa Fay’s fingers wrapped around the solid shape of her phone. She didn’t say anything more. She didn’t know what the video meant.

She only knew how it felt.

“I want to tell you,” Guy said slowly, “that it’s not a great idea to look for signs and wonders. Especially when something like this happens, like what happened to you the other night. Or to search for reasons, to try to solve some mystery or assign something you found on the internet to fate.” Guy ran their hand through the new, tumbling curls at their brow. “I want to tell you that, except I can’t. You were there with me that night I realized I wanted Michael. You heard me, so you know what I really believe behind all my professions of logic and reason and my love for research.” They smiled.

Tressa Fay grinned back at them, glad to be understood. Guy had practically made one of those maps with red string laced all over it with thumbtacks, connecting dozens of points along the course of their whole friendship with Michael as inevitably leading to their moment of understanding.

The bell on the front door jingled. Tressa Fay had thought she’d locked it. She stood up, Guy right behind her, then in front of her, protectively leading the way toward the door. Two people came into the dim salon, looking around. One was a Black masc-presenting person with beautiful throwback Jheri curls that made Tressa Fay wonder what genius was cutting their hair, and the other was a short, gorgeous redhead wearing what looked like a vintage square-dancing dress that showed off how delicious their cleavage and round belly were. Neither one of them looked threatening. In fact, they looked very much like Tressa Fay–type clients.

“Hey, sorry,” she said. “I’m closed. I could help you real quick to grab my next available booking, though.” She started toward the reception desk.

“Are you Tressa Fay?” Jheri Curls asked.

“I am.” She smiled and walked to the books. “Let me get your name.”

They shook their head. “I’m James. This is Gayle. We’re here about Meryl.”

The smile froze on her face. She tried to find the sensation of the soles of her shoes against the floor, but she couldn’t. The hair on the back of her neck was actually standing up. “Sorry?”

“Why are you fucking with her family like this?” Gayle asked this in a soft voice, but her face had gone pink. “What could you possibly be getting from it?”

Guy had moved to Tressa Fay’s side. She was still rigid, her thoughts spinning. If she hadn’t felt Guy’s hand on her elbow, warm and sure, she might have fainted, and she hadn’t done that since she’d ended up in the hospital after her allergic reaction to the spilled perm solution.

“Could you help us out and explain what’s happened?” Guy was using their easy, calm lawyer voice, and Tressa Fay made herself take a breath. She wished she could turn on more lights, make this feel more real.

She watched as James made eye contact with Guy, clearly trying to assess them. “Gayle is Meryl’s sister. I’m Meryl’s closest friend. Ex-boyfriend.” He looked at Tressa Fay as if that previous status should add some kind of meaning to his explanation. “All we have left to do at this point is monitor her social media. Her email. And it’s basically hopeless, obviously. Then you left that DM, and we couldn’t figure it out. We knew about when you stood her up last spring, but to DM her about it with everything that’s going on now? It was so cruel. We talked about taking it to the police. We still might.”

James’s jaw was tight. He was angry. Gayle was angry. Tressa Fay had two angry people in front of her, angry at her for a reason she couldn’t understand, but it had something to do with Meryl and the other night, except they were talking about “last spring.”

May.

Tressa Fay gripped the edge of the desk where the booking calendar was. She was glad Guy was here, but she wished Mary were, too. Mary didn’t use a computer. She used this calendar. She didn’t like that computers made mistakes in a way that meant no one could tell if it was the computer or the person who made the mistake. Mary wanted any mistake with a booking to be hers . Tressa Fay didn’t even have a website. She had Instagram, but if people messaged her there, she just gave them the salon’s phone number. When Mary made an appointment, she put it in the booking calendar, then copied it into a day planner for Tressa Fay.

That was what Tressa Fay was thinking about, wildly. Mary. Her ways. If she were here, she would be able to figure this out, because difficult people, angry people, didn’t ruffle Mary. She was good at them. Tressa Fay looked at James and Gayle, these two people who she’d thought were her people, her kind of people.

“I don’t think we understand,” Guy said. “This sounds very serious, and I promise, we want to help.”

“I thought I was catfished two nights ago,” Tressa Fay heard herself saying. “I got a text, but me and the person who texted me figured out she had the wrong number. We started chatting. The person I was texting with directed me to Meryl’s Insta to show me what they looked like.”

“We read your message.” Gayle bit the words out. “We know what you said.” She didn’t sound as though she believed that what Tressa Fay had said was true. Or reliable.

“Meryl has been missing for a month ,” James said, his voice breaking. “Don’t you read the paper? Meryl Whit.”

Tressa Fay did not read the paper. Her dad did, and at their weekly diner meals he sometimes told her about the latest Green Bay crime news, but she didn’t remember anything about a missing woman, and she was sure she hadn’t heard of Meryl Whit—or any Meryl—until the other night. She had seen her and her braids and her boots in the rain a couple of years ago, but she hadn’t known it was Meryl then. She hadn’t lied to Guy about not stalking Meryl other than looking at her Instagram, feeling sad and at sea.

“She was out with us downtown last month,” James said. “We were at Speakeasy. She went to use the restroom and never came back. We’ve been searching for her ever since. There’s a police investigation.”

Tressa Fay put her hand to her throat. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I’m sorry someone used her pictures like that. I blocked the number. You can—” Tressa Fay pulled her phone out of her pocket, and this time her phone felt heavy and cold and useless, and her hands were shaking. She fumbled the phone, nearly dropped it. “I’ll unblock the number so you can see everything.” She set the phone on the reception desk as if it were an animal that might bite her, went back to her blocked numbers, unblocked the number that had texted her, and opened the chat.

Gayle slid the phone toward herself and briefly scrolled the chat. She shook her head. “No. Stop it. I know what this says. She already showed it to me. We talked about it.”

Guy stepped forward. “I’m sorry, but you just told us she’s been missing for a month.”

“That’s right,” Gayle said. Tressa Fay could see the strong resemblance between Gayle and the Meryl on Instagram. The red hair, although Gayle’s was a few shades darker. The same full upper lip. It made her chest tight.

“Then I don’t understand. This conversation”—Guy put their fingertips on Tressa Fay’s phone—“happened two nights ago.”

“No,” James said, insistent. “Meryl had a date back in May. It was May Day. I remember because she had given me a bouquet of flowers, left it on my doorstep. She likes traditions like that. She had a date with a woman she’d been talking to on one of the apps. She talked to me while she was getting ready. We dated a long time ago, but we’ve been friends since. She got stood up, texted her date, but instead she got you.” James looked at Tressa Fay.

It wasn’t May now. It was October. . It was cold. It was dark. Tressa Fay wanted to shout this.

But also, also, she couldn’t help remembering what Meryl had said. It’s hot in here, even with the front windows wide open.

“Just really look at it.” Tressa Fay moved Guy’s hand out of the way and woke up the chat. She pushed her phone even closer to Gayle. “Please.”

Tressa Fay wasn’t sure what she thought Gayle could see. The text dates were wrong, just as they had been before. May 1, May Day. She sat down on the chair. Was this some kind of elaborate, multistep scam? A terrible prank? Her face felt hot, but everywhere else, she was cold. She couldn’t stop thinking about the braids under the umbrella. The green boots. Just a few minutes ago, she’d been talking to Guy about fate, or serendipity, feeling like she already knew Meryl.

Gayle gingerly picked up Tressa Fay’s phone, tapping and swiping. A tear rolled down her face, but she didn’t brush it away. As though she were used to tears.

Of course she would be.

“This doesn’t make any sense.” Gayle looked at Tressa Fay. “What are you playing at?”

“Please tell me what you see,” Guy said.

Their calm lawyer persona must have been working, because Gayle nodded. “This is everything Meryl showed me. Back in May. Including the last message, where Tressa Fay told her not to call her again. This is Meryl’s number. Her messages are from May. But”—Gayle looked at Tressa Fay—“ hers aren’t. They’re from October first. Like the DM.”

“Tressa Fay’s timing is consistent between the chat and Instagram,” Guy said, sounding less than easy for the first time. “May I see the Instagram message that you saw?” they asked Gayle.

She pulled out her phone, tapped and swiped it, and handed it to Guy, who studied the screen. “Had Meryl seen this message before you did?” they asked. “I mean, was it marked ‘seen,’ or—”

“No. It was new. Boldface. Meryl didn’t read it. How could she? She left her phone on our table when she went to the bathroom. Last month. Don’t you read the paper? Watch the news? Have the internet?” Gayle rubbed the tear away now, her sadness and anger trading places so fast, it made Tressa Fay feel uneasy and helpless.

“I’m sorry. I don’t know anything about it.” Tressa Fay closed her eyes. She’d thought the mismatched dates in the chat were messed up from a problem with the messaging app. “Is it my phone?” she asked. “Can it do that? Can it mess up date stamps? I called the tech people. They told me it wasn’t a big deal. Lots of things could cause it.” Tressa Fay could barely hear the words coming out of her mouth. She couldn’t tell if it was that she was speaking softly or her ears were closing up.

“What I’m telling you is that I talked to Meryl about this back in May. When it happened.” Gayle reached into her bag and pulled out a manila envelope, then slid out a cutout from a newspaper and put it on the reception desk. “Look.”

It was a Gazette article about Meryl. The picture in the article was a professional portrait, probably from Meryl’s workplace. Her pale red hair was smooth. She wore a pretty blouse with a tie, and her freckles were so numerous, some of them grouped together like watercolors. Her glasses had big frames, pink-to-orange glitter ombre. She was beautiful. She had gone missing.

Search Continues for City Engineer Missing from Downtown Bar Since September 4

Tressa Fay looked away from the newspaper clipping. Gayle picked it up and carefully slid it back into the envelope, stowing it in her purse. “Does it sound like her?” Tressa Fay asked. “The chat, I mean.”

“Yes. She has a red mathlete T-shirt. She showed me this chat on her own phone, trying to figure out what went wrong.”

Tressa Fay looked at Guy. Do you think these people are trying to hurt me? That’s what she wanted to ask. But she didn’t feel it. She couldn’t actually imagine anyone, in real life, staging such an elaborate prank. Such a devastatingly cruel one. She thought, really, they were right to suspect her .

Everyone around the reception desk seemed to figure out they’d reached the end of this conversation. Either James and Gayle would tell the police about Tressa Fay or they wouldn’t. What else was there to do?

The screen on Tressa Fay’s phone lit up. It was still on the text exchange she’d had with Meryl that Gayle had just looked at. Three dots popped up.

Cold prickles washed through her body.

Her phone buzzed, and everyone in the room jumped.

“There’s a text,” she said. “Where’s Meryl’s phone?” Her voice sounded loud now.

Gayle clearly wanted to snatch up Tressa Fay’s phone, but she reached into her purse. “Here.” She pulled out a phone with a blue plastic case that had a picture of a glass half full of water on it beneath the legend Neither, the Glass Is Twice as Big as It Needs to Be .

Tressa Fay couldn’t help it. She choked on a laugh. “I’m sorry.” She pointed at the phone case. “The engineering joke. It’s…funny.”

She felt terrible. But James smiled at her for the first time.

Meryl’s phone was dark.

“It’s charged. I keep it that way.” Gayle woke it up and put in a passcode.

Tressa Fay picked up her own phone.

Hey. I’m really sorry , the first new text said.

Then more.

Oh! You unblocked me.

I was just here with my sister, trying to figure this out. I told her I didn’t think Tressa Fay would do a prank? And I couldn’t help apologizing to you. Even though I knew you wouldn’t get my texts anymore.

Tressa Fay shook her head. No , she thought. “No.”

Gayle was white. She looked at James, who had stepped back and crossed his arms, obviously upset.

“What?” Guy asked.

“I remember,” Gayle said. “But I don’t understand, because I remember this not happening, too.” She said this to James, and he nodded.

“Please say what this is.” Tressa Fay held up her phone.

“I remember sitting with her. Talking about the date. I remember her realizing she was unblocked and typing something to you.”

“Two days ago,” Guy confirmed.

“No. In May.”

What Gayle was saying was impossible. She was saying the text Tressa Fay had just gotten was a text Gayle had watched her sister send five months ago—but until it showed up, Gayle hadn’t remembered that happening.

Because it hadn’t happened.

Tressa Fay growled in frustration. what’s today’s date? she texted.

Um. Okay. May 3?

“I remember her laughing because she told me you asked her what the day was, and if I thought this was going to turn out to be some kind of queer While You Were Sleeping . Like maybe you were waking up from a coma.” Gayle was almost whispering.

“What is this?” Guy stepped forward. Their voice was angry. Tressa Fay never heard Guy angry. “Both of you are seconds from being asked to leave.”

you’re not playing a joke?

When Tressa Fay sent this text through, Meryl’s phone didn’t buzz or light up like it was receiving texts. But a response came up on Tressa Fay’s phone.

No. No. No. I swear. God. I don’t know what happened! My sister’s convinced you’re pranking, but I feel like that would be so bad for you. Because you’re kind of famous. And…I don’t know. I don’t get that vibe.

“Did she write back to you? What did she say?” Gayle couldn’t see Tressa Fay’s phone now.

Tressa Fay held out her hand for Meryl’s phone, and Gayle slid it into her palm. When Tressa Fay woke it up, the chat was still there. Meryl’s last text was on the thread, dated May 3.

I’m not pranking you , Tressa Fay wrote, watching Meryl’s phone. There weren’t three dots. When she sent it, her message simply appeared on Meryl’s screen. Sent .

She looked up. Everyone had seen it. Guy’s breathing was ragged.

James made a horrible noise in his throat. “Tell her not to come to Speakeasy with us on September fourth. Tell her to stay home. Please. ” His jaw was tight. Gayle leaned against the desk as though she couldn’t trust her legs to hold her up.

Tressa Fay put Meryl’s phone down on the desk next to Gayle.

can I ask you to do something? she typed with clumsy, icy-numb fingertips on her own screen. don’t go to Speakeasy with your sister and James on September 4.

Then Tressa Fay set down her own phone on the reception desk as if it were radioactive and she couldn’t hold it for too long. Her message appeared on Meryl’s chat screen. No buzz. No dots.

“God.” Gayle took the manila envelope out of her purse again, looking at James, who appeared genuinely horrified. She shook out the newspaper article. Then she dropped it on the floor.

Guy picked it up and looked at what Gayle had seen.

Tressa Fay watched them as her phone buzzed again.

Don’t block me, and I won’t, but that is the absolute weirdest. Clue me in, please. And how you know I have a sister and a friend named James. Gayle’s calling James, certain he’s in on something.

“I remember that call,” James said. “Right now. But I also know that I definitely didn’t remember it a minute ago.”

Guy showed Tressa Fay the newspaper.

Search Continues for City Engineer Missing from Her Home Since September 4

Missing from her home. Not from Speakeasy. The story had changed.

Tressa Fay pulled up the Gazette on her phone. Guy was already pulling it up on theirs. She tapped in Meryl’s name in the search box.

The online article was the same. The same new headline.

“Her phone’s gone. Oh my God. It disappeared.” Gayle was looking at the spot where Meryl’s phone had been sitting on top of the desk. Where Tressa Fay had put it.

Where she remembered putting it.

But now she also remembered that Gayle had told them she didn’t have Meryl’s phone. She’d said the police had it. They had taken it from Meryl’s house as evidence. Gayle had only seen the Instagram message because she logged into Meryl’s accounts on her own computer once a day.

Tressa Fay knew that wasn’t what had happened. It wasn’t what Gayle had said at any point since she walked into the salon. But now, suddenly, she remembered it happening, exactly as though it had. Just like the headline seemed to have changed, her own memories had, too.

Both things had happened. Both memories felt real. And that had to be because there had been one reality, and then, just by asking Meryl not to go to Speakeasy, they’d made another one.

But the experiment hadn’t worked. Meryl was still gone.

“Shit,” Guy said.

“I don’t understand.” James was shaking his head.

“Oh my God.” Gayle put her hand over her mouth.

Tressa Fay didn’t know where the sudden calm in her body came from, the calm that put her phone in her back pocket and pulled her keys out of the other one. “Let’s go to my apartment and figure this out,” she said. “Call whoever you think should be there.”

Her phone was buzzing in her pocket as she locked the door.