Pick a Color

Another day, another dollar I say to myself as I’m walking into the pink colored salon. I greet all my coworkers good-morning and walk to my desk. I begin getting ready for the day and proceed to asking myself questions. Are there enough towels? Do I need to go to the laundry mat? Is everything ready for the day? I look around at the corner of my salon and check to see if all my colors are ready to go. My large arrangement of nail polishes which covers a full wall seems to be missing a color, I couldn’t miss this these shelves are always stacked. It’s in the white section so one of the whites must be missing, I scan around to see if it may be laying around somewhere. Marshmallow seems to be the missing color. I feel both relived and annoyed, I hate painting that white color on almost every person that walks in here but every person that walks in here will probably want that white color. I ask around to see if any of the hairdressers have seen it, none of them have. Everything else is in order and my day is ready to start.

To be honest I’ve been dreading coming to work every-day, I think my clients are starting to notice. The salon is starting to get slower and it’s getting harder to pay the rent, who can I say this too, who can help me? Thankfully its Friday one of my busy days. I wait for my 12:00 appointment to come in, she’s late, as if I don’t have other clients to attend to. I wait 5 more minutes.

“Jessie! Sorry I’m late the train was delayed, you know the MTA!’” Here she is walking in with her Strawberry Acai from Starbucks. Right I’m sure that’s the reason.

“Oh, it’s okay Lucy don’t worry have a seat.” I greet her with a warm smile forgetting I was annoyed at her just a few minutes before.

“Manicure or pedicure?”

“Both, Pedi first.”  She insisted with a sweet smile while gazing at the colorful wall for the nail color she wanted.

“Pick you color and come sit” I turn the knob on to get the water ready for her, not too hot and not too cold just right. I add the soap and the blue salt to the water.

“No white?” she says with a confused look on her face. See that white color is addictive.

“Sorry Lucy, it’s missing I don’t know where it was left”

“Oh, it’s fine, I’ll do a yellow today” She finally choses her color and walks over to the Pedi chair, taking her Nike Air Jordan shoes off and her Nike socks off, to reveal her worn out peeling white toes she had done two weeks prior. She dips them into the water, and I start my job.

I grab one of her feet gently from the water and begin removing the white nail polish that had turned brown throughout the course of two weeks. I scrub her foot with a scrub to be placed back into the water and start off with the next foot. She begins making small talk with me and asking me how I’ve been. I respond vaguely and tell her I’m doing just fine and ask her how she is.

There she goes telling me all about her problems, as if I’m in any way a licensed therapist instead of a licensed nail tech.

I dazed out ignoring her blabbing about her issues. Who can I tell my problems to, certainly not any of the lady’s in here, you know how salons go, you tell one of them your business and then the whole entire block will know who, where and what you been going through.

Let’s me do a re-cap of last night because I have yet to grasp my head around everything that went on.

My daughter, Abril, 15 years old, on Facetime with her “best-friends” who I think are actually not her “best-friends” and she needs to realize I’m the only real friend she’s got.

“Hi Mom!” she yells with her annoying friend, Cindy repeating her. They laugh. So, do I, I guess but I wasn’t really laughing I wouldn’t ever want to be Cindy’s mom. She’s a little out there.

“Hey honey, Hey Cindy!”

“How was work mom?” She tells her friends goodbye quietly and proceeded to end their call.

“It was good slow, but I got five clients done at least, what you been doing all day? Did you eat?” I walked over to our fridge looking for something to eat. My daughter walking over to the diner table. “I was finishing up some homework and I ate a pizza earlier”, she said to me fiddling with her hands. She was hesitant, she wanted to say more but she couldn’t.

“What’s wrong? You sound weird” I picked up some left-over chicken and put it in the microwave. As I was adding the time to the microwave and pressing start, she said the words that made me lose my appetite.

“I’m pregnant” her voice cracked.

“Are you joking?” I chuckled hoping she was joking, I didn’t believe the words coming out of her mouth. I thought she could’ve been pranking me. I looked up at her. Her eyes were red and tears where dripping from them. She looked at me with her teary eyes and shook her head no. I didn’t want to believe my 15-year-old daughter was pregnant.

“What do you mean you’re pregnant?” I was angry, it was a stupid question. I knew exactly what she meant. She didn’t say anything. I couldn’t look at her I didn’t want to believe she’d end up like me.

“How could you Abril, after everything I’ve told you I went through with you. I trusted you. I trusted you to be better than me.” Here my daughter was reliving what I had to go through when I found out I was pregnant with her. I too was fifteen when I had her and I refused to believe she’d end like me.

“I’m s-sorry Mom, plea-se don’t hate me” She was sobbing now. I stared at her for a while not knowing what to say, but I couldn’t stand to look at her anymore. I walked away from her and locked myself in my room. How could this be happening to her, had I not raised her right? Did I give her too much freedom? How was I supposed to support another person when I was hardly making enough to get us by and to keep my spot of the salon. The microwave rung the whole night, I had no idea where my daughter had gone.

Wait let me get back to doing Jessie’s nails, “Wow that’s crazy” I wasn’t really paying attention to her, I mean could she really be saying anything important to me right now? I don’t care that Pretty Little Thing wasn’t shipping her package on time. I filed her toenails, cut the cuticle off, push back the ends and buffed them. I got up to get one of the hot towels and placed it on her feet. I finished polishing her now yellow toe nails and walked over to the desk so I could begin her nails.

“Yeah girl, but tell me how Abril is, I haven’t seen that girl a while.” Everyone here knows my daughter and I are the closest, she’s all I have left. Her father left us as soon as he found out I was pregnant with her and I never bothered looking for someone who didn’t want us.

“She’s good, in school studying.” I said this trying to remember what happened last night.

“I love how close you guys are, I wish me and my mom where close too, but I guess I’m more of daddy’s girl since me and her are literally always fighting.” She rolled her eyes and chuckled.

“Yeah we’ll maybe she just cares about you.” I finished prepping her nails for the polish and started stroking the basecoat against her nails.

“Just because she cares about me doesn’t mean she had to be mean about it, I mean she always making it about herself and doesn’t seem to consider my feelings.” She sipped on her water and shook her head. That’s when it hit, I was becoming my mother. My mother completely disowned me when I was pregnant with April, she wanted me to get an abortion, even gave me an ultimatum of either keeping the baby or to never come back. Apparently, she didn’t want people knowing her daughter wasn’t pure and I ruined the family image. My father? Well he fully supported her, so I left.

My daughter walked into the salon. She greeted everyone and sat down on one of the waiting chairs.  I wasn’t surprised to see her. She always came here on Friday’s. She was waiting for me to finish with Lucy.

“Okay Lucy you’re all done.” She handed me her payment and thanked me for my service. I waved goodbye and gestured my daughter to come sit at my desk. I hugged her and told her to pick her color. She was afraid but smiled at me, like some weight had been lifted off her shoulders. She grabbed her purse and pulled something out, it was my missing white color.

“I’ve been looking for that you know” I grabbed it from her hands and placed it on the desk. I told her everything would be alright, and I would have her back no matter what. She wouldn’t be missing me.