Chapter One

The high whine of a blow-dryer gnawed at Caroline Spencer's last nerve. Why on earth had she agreed to let Annie have her friend over for the night, when they all had to be at the airport by 5:00 a.m. for check-in? The girls, too wired with excitement to sleep, had giggled up to the sound of the alarm. Now they primped and preened and monopolized the bathroom, while Caroline fidgeted outside the door.

"Annie, honey, please hurry. I have to dry my hair," she called.

"Karen's in there," her daughter replied from behind her.

"Sorry, Miz C. Be right out," Karen called, cutting the dryer off.

"Mom, you don't have to dry your hair. That's the whole point of your new perm." Annie fluffed the wet ringlets of Caroline's red hair with her fingers. "That's why that old salon woman called it wash-and-wear."

"Stylist," Caroline corrected, feeling the ringlets rearrange themselves the moment her daughter let them be. "Old" salon woman indeed. "And Sally is just a few years older than I am."

"Whatever."

"Just what I need, a sixteen-year-old know-it-all at three in the morning. Besides"-Caroline yawned and recovered-"that's what the tag said about this shirt too, but guess who's been ironing while you gals scarfed down your breakfast burritos?"

The bathroom door flew open, revealing Annie's counterpart, her enviably dry shoulder-length hair pulled up in a ponytail with a sparkling band.

All those kilowatts, not to mention precious minutes, just for that?

"Oh, no, Miz C," Karen said, looking at Caroline's crisp safari-print top as though the cheetah on it had

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