Play Nice

From the alcohol, yeah, but also from the balmy heat, the formidable amalgam of smells, the city outside alive with that magnificent Saturday night energy. She named the shades stupid things like “Get Him Back” and “Divorcée” and the supremely controversial “Jailbait.” Then customers found hair and a mysterious gritty substance in the product, and just like that, her career was over. All the psychics and monster hunters with their glorified toys, with their iPhone cameras, with their sad YouTube channels. All these years, she tried to appease it for fear of that scenario.