so. My name’s Allison, by the way, and I’ll be your style guide and personal buyer today.”
“Cool, Allison. I’m really ready for a total makeover. Been feeling so five-minutes-ago lately.”
Her laugh is perfectly natural. The Company teaches them things like that. No detail too small. “You must have been a star in acting class at the Farm, Allison,” I say.
She doesn’t even blink. “So let’s do it, Luther,” she says, swinging open the front door and leading me down the steps and a few houses east, where she keys a British green Mini-Cooper with a white top, the vehicle that’s elbowing the Volkswagen Bug as car of choice for her demographic cohort. The engine has an appealing alto hum as she pulls out, shifts into second, swings surely onto the Circle and off three-quarters of the way around.
So Westley’s given her my real name. Means Allison here’s a senior and trusted member of his team, despite her youth. Probably also means she’s a field agent, her name isn’t Allison, and she’s got the full set of spookskills. So I’m watching her, not where we’re going, and she catches it.
“Do you always think so loudly? Or are you feeling we’ve only just met and there’s an instant chemistry so you don’t need to be quiet? Maybe even wondering how much time I’ll be spending at the house while you’re there?” She tosses me a quick smile, then refocuses on threading through the traffic web. “The answer is we’ll be together a lot. It’s not a crowded house. But you have a lot of work to do. A killer workload. Let’s do hair first.”
Fucking Westley. I’d love to get a look at the psych profile he has on me. I just know I’m going to be doing most of my prep work with a bunch of Allisons.
She finds a parking spot only a Mini could squeeze into. We walk half a block to Wisconsin Avenue. I haven’t spent much time in D.C., but I know we’re in Georgetown. She leads me into a hair place called Cutz. Allison tells the cutter what to do. “Short, but not too. A little tousled, sort of a Brad Pitt thing. But brushable down to corporate?”
“No problem,” says the girl with the scissors, fingering my ponytail. I feel kind of like a show dog about to be groomed for exhibition. “Great hair. Thick. Good body. The split ends’ll all wind up on the floor. A no-gel cut, though, right?”
“Exactly,” Allison says.
I’m looking in the mirror, seeing a familiar face, the one I’ve lived behind all my life. “You’re, like, really unusual, man,” says the cutter, who has a black Maori tattoo on her neck, an opal stud in one nostril, and two blood-red streaks in her blond hair. “Cool bones.”
“I’m Patagonian,” I say. I hear Allison stifle a chuckle when the cutter says, “Wow! Never seen one of those before. Where is Patagonia? South Seas, like Tahiti or something?”
“About as south as it gets,” I say. Why should I tell her I’m what came out of a union between an Afro-American Marine and a Viet girl with a touch of French blood? I don’t look much like either my father or my mother, anyway. My skin’s light copper, I’ve got a large Gallic-type nose, and my hair is as straight as if it’s been ironed. High, sharp cheekbones, moderately full lips. My eyes have a slight Asian cant, but they’re gray-green, not black. When I was in Special Forces, the grunts called me their Comanche; what would they know about Native Americans? So I went with that, passed myself off as a full-blood. They dug it.
“Do all Patagonians look like you?” the cutter asks between snips. “I mean, the cool bones and great skin and eyes and all?”
“Oh yeah,” I say. “I’m average, totally.”
Half an hour later we walk out, Allison saying, “Great look. Suits you, Luther, though no Brad Pitt. He’s about your age now, imagine that. God, the crush I had on him when I was in high school and Legends of the Fall came out. He was so beautiful.”
I’m thinking I look a lot
“Cool, Allison. I’m really ready for a total makeover. Been feeling so five-minutes-ago lately.”
Her laugh is perfectly natural. The Company teaches them things like that. No detail too small. “You must have been a star in acting class at the Farm, Allison,” I say.
She doesn’t even blink. “So let’s do it, Luther,” she says, swinging open the front door and leading me down the steps and a few houses east, where she keys a British green Mini-Cooper with a white top, the vehicle that’s elbowing the Volkswagen Bug as car of choice for her demographic cohort. The engine has an appealing alto hum as she pulls out, shifts into second, swings surely onto the Circle and off three-quarters of the way around.
So Westley’s given her my real name. Means Allison here’s a senior and trusted member of his team, despite her youth. Probably also means she’s a field agent, her name isn’t Allison, and she’s got the full set of spookskills. So I’m watching her, not where we’re going, and she catches it.
“Do you always think so loudly? Or are you feeling we’ve only just met and there’s an instant chemistry so you don’t need to be quiet? Maybe even wondering how much time I’ll be spending at the house while you’re there?” She tosses me a quick smile, then refocuses on threading through the traffic web. “The answer is we’ll be together a lot. It’s not a crowded house. But you have a lot of work to do. A killer workload. Let’s do hair first.”
Fucking Westley. I’d love to get a look at the psych profile he has on me. I just know I’m going to be doing most of my prep work with a bunch of Allisons.
She finds a parking spot only a Mini could squeeze into. We walk half a block to Wisconsin Avenue. I haven’t spent much time in D.C., but I know we’re in Georgetown. She leads me into a hair place called Cutz. Allison tells the cutter what to do. “Short, but not too. A little tousled, sort of a Brad Pitt thing. But brushable down to corporate?”
“No problem,” says the girl with the scissors, fingering my ponytail. I feel kind of like a show dog about to be groomed for exhibition. “Great hair. Thick. Good body. The split ends’ll all wind up on the floor. A no-gel cut, though, right?”
“Exactly,” Allison says.
I’m looking in the mirror, seeing a familiar face, the one I’ve lived behind all my life. “You’re, like, really unusual, man,” says the cutter, who has a black Maori tattoo on her neck, an opal stud in one nostril, and two blood-red streaks in her blond hair. “Cool bones.”
“I’m Patagonian,” I say. I hear Allison stifle a chuckle when the cutter says, “Wow! Never seen one of those before. Where is Patagonia? South Seas, like Tahiti or something?”
“About as south as it gets,” I say. Why should I tell her I’m what came out of a union between an Afro-American Marine and a Viet girl with a touch of French blood? I don’t look much like either my father or my mother, anyway. My skin’s light copper, I’ve got a large Gallic-type nose, and my hair is as straight as if it’s been ironed. High, sharp cheekbones, moderately full lips. My eyes have a slight Asian cant, but they’re gray-green, not black. When I was in Special Forces, the grunts called me their Comanche; what would they know about Native Americans? So I went with that, passed myself off as a full-blood. They dug it.
“Do all Patagonians look like you?” the cutter asks between snips. “I mean, the cool bones and great skin and eyes and all?”
“Oh yeah,” I say. “I’m average, totally.”
Half an hour later we walk out, Allison saying, “Great look. Suits you, Luther, though no Brad Pitt. He’s about your age now, imagine that. God, the crush I had on him when I was in high school and Legends of the Fall came out. He was so beautiful.”
I’m thinking I look a lot
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