I'm Just Saying

 

For me, the most essential of the warm weather neccessories is, by and large, the pedicure. By mid-spring I’m totally turned off by toe cleavage and ready to let my little guys go commando in something strappy. So last week, it was time.

 

Because pedicures take longer than standard issue manicures, and I only get an hour for lunch, I had to make peace with returning to the place within walking distance of work. This was a problem since I was/am in a fight with Veronika, the Russian manicurist.

 

Here’s how it started. The woman loves to brag about her children, “Duscha is tumbling champion of pre-school class!” (I snicker every time. Duscha.) “Bogdan now has bigger thigh muscles than husband.” (Ew.) And, “The twins were both at hospital last week. Fabi swallowed handful of cotton balls, and Marko ate digital camera memory card on same day.” (Snore. No wait, actually that one was kind of cool.)

 

Although I am much better at awkward silence, I was fine with the bragging. I’d choreographed my nodding and eyebrow raising patterns with my “aah” and “uh-huh” rhythms into a fun little face dance. But, it was what incessantly came after the boasting that built up to the blow out. “You have only one. When are you going to have more? You must have more children.”

 

A few months ago she went too far. I had already begun to suspect that my default answer, “I don’t know if we will or not,” was no longer doing the trick. But then she busted out with, “That is cruel to do to your daughter. She needs brothers and sisters. She will grow up selfish and spoiled.” All this spewed at me while she rubbed my hand like she was trying to stretch it into a huge Silly Puddy replica of her own hand.

 

Even though I’m quite positive she’s a few acrylics shy of a full-set, and I don’t like to mess with crazy, I did manage to work up the courage to lie to her face.

 

“We have tried and tried, Veronika. Children are simply no longer medically possible for my husband and me.” There I said it, hanging my head for affect and giving her a moment to be embarrassed and sad.

 

But instead she wheeled her chair back and stared at me as if I’d sprouted a third hand from my forehead, and she’d have to charge extra. I stared back and counted to 47 in my head before she reluctantly rolled back up to the station and resumed my manicure in cold silence. The quietness was nice, but I changed nail places after that.

 

Well now that pedi-season is back on, I have no other choice but to return to her place for the sake of time. So I went back last Thursday. I practiced my rebuttals on the walk over, “It is not my job to populate the earth, Veronika. That seems to be you and your bought-you-over-internet husband’s mission! So do not judge me. Now, bring on that salt rub.”

 

While choosing my color, I gave her the stink-eye. But then she turned around and spotted me. I did my over-anxious nerd  wave and pointed to my toes. She gestured to an empty massage chair, turned on the water, flung open a drawer and pulled a pair of XXL latex gloves out of a Kleenex-style box. I figured it must be a new store policy, but then noticed no one else administering pedicures wore gloves.

 

I sat down and dunked my feet in the sadistically lukewarm water. “How are your kids?” I asked.

 

She did not look up or answer. She only shrugged.

 

“How’s Walt?”

 

Again with the shrug.

 

Cool, I thought. I’ll read my mag. But the squeaking of the latex only revved my anger, and I could not concentrate on How to Kegel Through Your Work Day for the Best Night Ever.

 

I flashed my ADHD over to the women waiting their turn. All three of them wore tennis outfits—each glaring at those of us in pedicures chairs. I could hear them silently saying, I have to pick up my kid in two hours, and I have to go slam a few margaritas before I hit the carpool line. Do you mind?

 

I telepathed back at them. You’re all way too tan. But I don’t think they heard me, so I looked back down at Veronika. Why is she ignoring me? I acted as if she was tickling me. I squealed a tad and pulled up my foot. She snatched it back like a grizzly grabbing a slick salmon.

 

I could no longer stand it. “What’s with the gloves?”

 

“New policy!” She roared.

 

“Why is no one else wearing them?”

 

“You have foot fungus!” She screamed without looking up.

 

Oh my God, shut the hell up! I thought. And then said, “I do not! And shhhh!”

 

“You have pits in heal. Fungus!” She yelled.

 

“That is because I have had one pedicure in six months. I need new running shoes. And it is not a fungus.”

 

I pulled up my heal, propping it on my knee to get a better look. No pits.

 

“Alright Veronika. What is going on? Why are you acting all mad?”

 

“You lied to me about not being medically possibly for you to have children. Girl come in here who works with you. I ask her. She said you may not want to have another.”

 

I almost felt sorry for her. Almost.

 

Pasty Cline chimed cray-zee in the background—or in my head.

 

“Seriously. Why do you care so much?”

 

“Your daughter needs a sibling,” she stared me down.

 

“Her father and his wife have a child together. She has a sister. She visits them every other weekend and on Wednesdays. They’re very close. ”

 

She dropped her file into the water. It dove down and bobbled back to the top.

 

“You not married to the father?” She gasped.

 

“Newp. Thought you knew that.”

 

“You divorced? Or she bastard?”

 

“She’s not a bastard, Veronika! I’m divorced. And remarried.”

 

“You’re soul is in great danger.”

 

That was it! I stood up, my toes grasping at the slippery bottom of the soak tub. The tennis ladies stared and whispered to one another. I lowered my voice and leaned over, “Here’s how this is going to go down, Veronika. So listen up? Finish my toes and razor the hell out of my heals—but don’t draw blood, of course. I will be coming back every other Thursday until fall. If I get you, we are not going to talk. You will scrape, and you will paint. I will read US Weekly and resent my lack of a tennis outfit and post-pedi margarita. Got it?”

 

She looked at me and, for a second, I thought she was going to punch me in the stomach.

 

“It is deal. But! I wear two gloves on each hand.”

 

“Deal!”

 

I sat back down, closed my eyes and let the massage chair play percussion.