Red(5)

She was the last one to reach the stage, and Ginger waited until she had mounted the grandstand steps to shout, “Let’s hear it for all our Miss Scarlet contestants!”

The crowd cheered and whistled and catcalled, and the wave of sound washed over Felicity. Despite feeling completely overwhelmed, she tried to keep a smile plastered on her face. Pageants were all about smiling through your feelings. She might as well start now.

Parents began pushing through the crowd to hug their daughters, and Ginger St. John was no exception. The moment she was done announcing the whens and wheres of the pageant, she fled the podium and pulled Felicity into a bone-crushing embrace. “Baby, I’m so proud of you!” she gushed.

“Thanks, Mom.” As uncomfortable as Felicity felt, she was relieved to see her mom so pleased with her.

“I could barely keep from jumping up and down when I saw your name on that list, but I think my poker face was pretty good, wasn’t it?”

“A little too good, actually. You totally freaked me out. I thought for sure I wasn’t in.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry, baby, I didn’t mean to scare you. But this is so exciting! We’re finally on our way to becoming the very first mother-daughter pair of Miss Scarlets!” Ginger held Felicity at arm’s length and beamed at her, then pulled her close again and did a little happy dance, jiggling her awkwardly up and down. “Everything is going exactly like we always dreamed it would. This win is right there for the taking, baby. All you have to do now is reach out and grab it.”

Over her mom’s shoulder, Felicity spotted the little brunette island in the sea of red and saw that her disgruntled classmates still hadn’t stopped glaring at her. She quickly looked away. Though everything did seem to be going according to plan, all those cold dark eyes reminded Felicity that she didn’t deserve any of the praise she was getting. She didn’t deserve to be competing in the pageant at all.

Because unbeknownst to the adoring crowd, Felicity’s hair color—that bright coppery red that made her so enviable in Scarletville—was completely artificial.

There were only two other people in the entire world who knew her secret. One was her mom. The other was her stylist, Rose Vaughn.

Gabby’s mother.





2


     MONDAY, MAY 3


Every town has a dirty little secret. Some have underground drug rings. Others look away while prostitution flourishes. A select few shelter branches of the Mob.

Scarletville’s secret was Rouge-o-Rama.

There was rampant speculation among the town’s residents over where the underground hair salon was located and what it looked like inside. Some thought it was sleek and white and sterile, like the flight deck of a science-fiction spaceship. Others whispered that it was more like an early-twentieth-century abortion clinic, with bare lightbulbs and rusty sinks. There were even rumors that it moved around to avoid detection, like a heroin stash house. Of course, there wasn’t anything illegal about hair dye, but it certainly felt that way in Scarletville. Being an artificial redhead—an “artie”—carried such a strong social stigma that everyone who colored their hair went to great lengths to keep it a secret.

Of course, the biggest mystery of all was the identity of the salon’s owner. The mayor had been trying for years to sniff out the culprit who was diluting his redheaded gene pool with arties, but much to his frustration, he’d had no success. The only ones who knew about Rose were her clients, and they would never reveal her secret. If they exposed her, they exposed themselves.

Felicity had been visiting Rouge-o-Rama every few weeks since she was a toddler. Ginger, who had the reddest hair in town, had been shocked and appalled when her daughter was born a strawbie. It was bad enough that her high-school-sweetheart husband had left her six months pregnant and run off to California with a blonde. But the fact that Ginger didn’t even get a redheaded baby to show for her failed relationship felt like a slap in the face. When she brought Felicity home from the hospital, her friends stroked the infant’s tiny head and said, “Don’t worry, Ginger, her hair will get darker.” But they couldn’t hide the pity in their voices. Their babies’ hair had been flaming red right from the start.

As soon as it became clear that Felicity’s strawberry locks weren’t going to get any darker, Ginger took matters into her own hands. Her daughter was the only thing she had left, and none of her plans for Felicity could come to fruition with that washed-out hair in the way.

It took months of research to locate Rouge-o-Rama, but Ginger was wily and more motivated than the mayor, whose reputation wasn’t at stake. She presented her squirming toddler to Rose and instructed her to dye Felicity’s hair one tiny increment redder every visit. That way, it would look to the world as if her daughter’s hair were darkening naturally as she grew.

By the time Felicity started preschool, the vibrant color of her hair was the envy of every parent in Scarletville. Ginger felt as if she had done her job.

Her daughter’s social standing was safe.

The night after Scarlet Sunday, Felicity had The Dream.

It was always the same. She woke to the blaring of her alarm, took a shower, and got dressed. She perfumed her hair with her customary sandalwood oil and brushed it until it shone. She ate breakfast—in The Dream, it was usually Life cereal and a banana. Then she drove to Scarletville High.