Rita believed she earned every averted glance, every chilly shoulder, and every minute of quiet from people who regarded her as if she were contagious, so she had spent years reducing herself to the lowest form of herself. Impatience, hurried looks, the kind of civility that hides disgust—she had come to assume the worst. She therefore prepared herself for the standard routine as she sat in Shafag’s salon chair: brief inquiries with little genuine interest behind them, robotic hands, eyes that avoided hers, and professional but quiet judgment. She was ready for distance and the subtle indications of discomfort that people make such an effort to conceal.
