My nine o’clock appointment is exactly seventeen minutes late. I am listless, sitting discontentedly then standing suddenly as if I had an epiphany to to fix a bottle of nail polish removed that is slightly askew. In one of my brief moments of foot-tapping stillness, the curtain door is drawn open, and she arrives. She places her perfectly curled coil over her shoulder as she sits, resting her feet on the stool calmly with a certainty that can only be bought.

“Sorry, traffic was terrible!” she says breezily, pursing her lips in a frown.
I look out the window, where a lone car putters along the freeway, a trail of smoke billowing in its wake. She knows the direction of my gaze; she knows that I am well aware of her lie, but she never opens her mouth to stutter out an excuse. In the moment, I want her to - “I took 95 North to save some time, but boy, was that a mistake” or “There was an accident on my street. A car hit a fire truck; can you believe it?” - because if she says these things, it means that she cares about the seventeen wasted minutes of my time. That I matter enough to deserve an explanation or even an apology - but I don’t, and indulging in such fantasties is useless. She will never tell the truth.

“I’m Elaine,” she continues, the facade never dropping. She neglects to state that she is Elaine Clarke, my nine o’clock manicure-pedicure. Somewhere her first name is enough to warrant recognition.

“Hi, Elaine, it’s a pleasure,” I greet with a cheery smile stretched wide across my face, pulling at the muscles and tissue underneath uncomfortably. “How are you? I’m-”

“I hope you understand how important this is for me,” she cuts me off icily. “My normal stylist was booked, but tomorrow is my wedding day, and I need to look perfect.”

The word ‘perfect’ echos lazily in the air as it always does, conjuring up unattainable images. In the next room, people shift in their seats, slightly uncomfortable but unsure why.

“Well, here at Luminous Salon, we take great pride in making you look your best.” I state. The well-rehearsed line does not impress Elaine. My smile intact but strained, I concede, “I’ll be sure to do a great job for your special day.”
She nods in dismissal, then turns her attention to a magazine, her ruby red nails trailing across the page.

I suggest, “Would you like to see your color options? We have a wall full of lovely gel polishes here.”

She waves her hand without looking up. “No, no.” She says. “Just do a French Manicure. Classic, nothing too elaborate.”

But the first two colors I bring her are unacceptable. Finally, she chooses the third, all while maintaining an intense focus on the glossy pages.

I begin by washing her feet. The process, on the surface, seems poetic in a Biblical way, cleaning the feet of a pure, blushing bride before her wedding day. The truth is bitterly ironic in comparison. It’s easy to imagine it that way - I’m sure she enjoys that pretty illusion - but I am bent at a spine-ripping angle over the feet of a twenty-something girl only a few years my senior. If she’d been born somewhere else, she might come with me and my friends to get drinks at Ricardo’s, where we wear short skirts and smile nicely when asked to save ourselves twenty dollars on martinis. I’m sure she’d profit nicely; she’s definitely had to do her fair share of smiling and nodding politely to get this fiance she’s so desperate to impress.

Like most of my upper class clients, the work goes by fast. Despite the towering heels with straight posture that perch neatly in a neat row next to her chair, her feet are unblemished. I use a file, yet it seems pointless with the lack of dead skin or blisters. There’s no evidence that she’s done anything but float pleasantly above the ground, never gracing the torrid earth with her feet. I try not to think about my own feet, which are calloused from childish summers playing hopscotch on the frying pavement and sore from long hours of work. After catering to others’ needs all day, I’ve decided that true relaxation is a luxury few ever have.

Halfway through her left toes, she places the magazine back on the shelf with a bored sigh. I take this as an invitation to talk. “Are you excited for your wedding day?” I ask, not out of genuine interest, but because wedding are generally safe topics. Nevertheless, clients always find some way to be unhappy with them, citing choosing the floral arrangement, the invitations’ font, or something equally frivolous as a source of incredible stress.

Elaine, on the contrary, bristles at the question, “Of course,” she laughs, as if I’ve accused her of something. “I’m thrilled to marry Landon.”

Focusing intensely on the polish as to avoid her defensive stare, I continue warily, “What is your fiance like?”

“Landon? Yes, he’s amazing.”

“Really?” I prompt.

“He’s just such a gentleman. So kind. I’m truly lucky to have a man like him. I’m thrilled, just thrilled, to marry him.”

At risk of losing the tips I’ve been so accommodating to earn, I neglect to comment on how the tone of her voice became so sing-songy it was comical or that she’d already told me how thrilled she was.

Instead, humming approvingly at how delightful he sounds, I ask, “Where’d you two meet?”

“We were college sweethearts. My father actually introduced us. He knows me so well!”

Her leg slips from the stand, smudging all of the paint I was working on. Once she is situated again and has apologized profusely, I return to our previous discussion. “College, you said?”

“I was only there for two years,” she says abashedly. I cannot determine if the source of shame is that she did not finish college or that she started at all. She explains, “I took a year off to be a teacher’s assistant in Peru for one of my professors who moved to do research. After, my parents suggested that I help care for my sick grandmother since I’d been gone - my brothers were in business school, so obviously they couldn’t do it - and then after all that was done, I had to start planning the wedding, and college seemed so far away.”
Thinking about her story, I am -

“You’re painting on my skin, careful!” she exclaims.

I apologize and fix the mistake. “What were you studying?”

She seems surprised that I would ask. “Biochemistry,” she smiles momentarily, but before I can celebrate my upcoming financial victory, the joy is gone. Her face is decidedly neutral.

She checks her watch, a heinous pink diamond encrusted monstrosity. I am surprised that she would choose such an accessory next to her effortlessly chic cobalt blue dress. She notices my staring and says, “Landon got it for me. Isn’t it darling?” The question tastes acrid even from a distance.

“I have a cake tasting appointment in an hour. I really must go,” she says suddenly.

I don’t question why her cake is supposedly yet to be chosen a day before her wedding. “We still need to do your manicure.”

“Don’t worry about it, I’ll call my stylist and work something out. Thank you-” she stumbles over my unknown name before collecting her shoes hastily. As she leaves, the door’s overly cheerful bell rings with a depressed finality.
At the end of the week, I toss my tip envelope, which, despite the name, is mostly empty, and the mail, on the counter of my apartment. I sit down and open up the newspaper. As I flip the page, I spill a glass of water all over the issue. I suddenly notice a familiar face in the announcements section. Landon Hamptons marries heiress. The article never mentions her name, but as the words float away in the approaching tide, I see her picture. Her fake smile looks beautiful, until that too is destroyed by the liquid.

I sit on the couch later that night, some television show playing loud enough to drown out my thoughts, and I find myself on the website of a local college. I’ve never really considered it, but tonight, I can’t stop imagining a degree. I look up all sorts of careers, all of which sound much better than being a sounding board for the bored elite. In the darkness, with only the neon signs outside to illuminate the room, the air feels thrillingly optimistic, as if the night is holding its breath, waiting for something amazing. In a moment of pure chemical emotion, I click to register, but as the site loads, my computer dies.

The next morning, I realize that the fancy calligraphy of a diploma would not match my apartment, with its peeling wallpaper and exposed light bulbs. The whole thing feels like nothing more than a silly dream, and I go back to the nail salon, my shoes dragging noisily on each city block. As I chat aimlessly with a client, I think about the photo disintegrating on my counter. All that remains is dust.