Page 61 of The Game Is Afoot

Bethany was walking out when I was coming in. I remember it so clearly now, the same unblinking doll eyes and small frame.But there were some notable differences, too—no eyebrows, for one. I was confused, probably did a double take, wonderingIs that the new eyebrow trend? I lived through the early 2000s and I refuse to go back!But then I took in her head covered by a thick beanie in the hot fall temperatures and immediately felt like a terrible person. This woman didn’t have eyebrows, haveany hair, for a reason.

And the same things that made her stand out to me then are what have kept me from placing her familiar face for weeks now.

“Do you have, like…patient confidentiality?” I ask tentatively.

“You going to do the lip, too?” Vicky counters.

“Do you think I need to?”

She raises her eyebrow again in response.

“Sure.”

“No, I’m not a doctor,” she says, narrowing her eyes as she comes up with a plan of attack for the mustache that, yes, Iknowis there. “But I’m thinking of getting my license to be a therapist. Basically do that anyway.”

“Can I ask you about one of your clients then?”

“You used a razor here, didn’t you?” She touches a spot between my nose and mouth. “Or one of those electric hair remover things? They say they do the same thing but they do not.”

“Um…maybe?” Of course I did, because, again,mustache. “Did you hear me, though? About one of your clients?”

“You had an ingrown hair. Then a dark spot because of hyperpigmentation. And yeah, go ahead.”

I decide to skip past analyzing if she’s insulting me or not and get down to business. “Bethany Bowman. I’m pretty sure I’ve seen her here before? What do you, um…do for her?”

Vicky is quick, like a spider ambushing a fly. I barely see her move, but the side of my lip stings with the evidence of herwork. And I don’t know if it’s just because I haven’t done this in a while, but it felt like there was a little extra fire in that last pull. I wouldn’t be surprised if a top layer of my skin went with that hair, too.

“Yes, she used to be one of my sugaring clients. But not anymore.” She does the other side, and I blink away tears. Maybethisis why I’ve put this off for so long. Has she always been so aggressive about this? You know what doesn’t hurt? A mustache.

“Her eyebrows were going to fall out because of…you know.” I expect Vicky’s hard stare to soften, but it doesn’t waver. “So I removed them completely. To keep them even.”

“What did they look like? Before, I mean?”

What I’m really asking is: Was her hair already falling out? Do you think she was actually going through chemotherapy, that she had cancer at all? Or was she just faking it to sell her self-care miracle cure-all? But I can’t outright say any of that to Vicky—to anyone. Jasmine and I may have our suspicions, but if we’rewrong? We instantly become the villains here, the lowest of the low.

“They looked fine. Normal,” Vicky says, scanning my face with a critical eye as she checks her work. “A little patchy, maybe. I suggested she just microblade, when they kept growing back in, but she liked them…even. You should consider microblading, too, for the bald spots in your brows.”

“I don’t have bald spots.”

“Sure, okay.” She wipes away the last stray hairs on my face and hands me a small mirror. “Just over-plucking, then, between your annual sessions.”

Or the enduring consequences of the early 2000s. I glance at myself in the mirror, but another question hits me. “So she kept coming then? Every four weeks to get her eyebrows removed?”

Wouldn’t they stop growing altogether with chemo? But, no.I don’t know that for sure. Everyone’s body is different. I feel slimy even asking Vicky about this, and her tight expression as she nods makes it evident she thinks I’m slimy, too.

“What do you…think about her?” I’m gonna have to find another eyebrow lady, so I might as well get everything I need.

Vicky’s lip curls and I’m sure she’s going to tell me off for being so insensitive, for prying into this woman’s business. “I don’t. Think about her. Because I don’t see her anymore. I don’t like being used.”

Okay, now,that’sa surprise. Maybe that’s why Vicky is being so grumpy…or at least more grumpy than she usually is. The top of my lip still feels like it’s on fire. And “used”? Is she saying what I think she’s saying?

“Also, she never tipped.” Vicky raises her eyebrow one more time, and then she whips the black cape off me, making it clear this conversation is done. “I’ll see you infour weeks.”

That’s something, I think as I get back home with my mostly hairless and slightly inflamed face.It has to be something.

I mean, it’s definitely more than I got from scrolling through years of her Instagram posts after the self-care party—all the way back to her time at Agape Essentials, with a brief stint in a collective of spiritual healers, before she founded Balanced With Bethany. Jasmine looked at a lot of it with me, fact-checking the medical jargon and descriptions of the treatment plan, but she couldn’t say anything conclusive from that. It could be legit, or it could be googled. There’s like an endless amount of blogs and Instagram profiles from women going through the exact same thing, and it’s impossible for us to know if Bethany just copied and pasted. She probably was much more careful with her paper trail than with what she shared in person at an event. We weren’t going to catch her in a lie that way.

And even if I do prove she faked her cancer, that she’s agrifter moving from MLM to MLM—what does that prove about Cole’s murder?

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