The Leavers(79)

We were so close I could feel his breath on my face, warm and sour. He couldn’t meet my eyes, even in the dark. “You’re not a nice person sometimes.”

“I’m nice to you. I’m nice to Deming and Michael and Vivian, too.”

“You only want to go to Florida for yourself. Not for Deming or me. It’s always all about you.”

“No, you’ve got it all wrong.”

Across the room, Vivian snored, and in the bedroom you continued to dream steadily, perhaps of Power Rangers, or maybe that was last year’s fad. From behind the curtains the sun struggled to rise, and I said I wouldn’t go. We would stay in New York with him and Vivian. I would forget about Florida. But Leon’s warmth did not return, and it was as if his opinion of me had already altered beyond repair.

SO MANY TIMES IN the years after, I would revisit this night: plot a different path, see myself with Leon at the kitchen table, and the next day, instead of going to work, I would stay home and pick you up from school, take you out for donuts and tea. Didi would get her papers, and eventually, so would I.

But that didn’t happen. What I did was go to work. Thursdays brought a steady stream of customers to Hello Gorgeous, refreshing their manicures for the upcoming weekend, chipped polish wiped away and replaced with new coats. Some women debated over what color to choose, like it was as important a decision as picking a name for a child, while others came in already knowing the name of the shade they wanted, the same red their friend had, the same bronze an actress wore in a magazine picture. Brittle tips were shaped into triangles, feet that smelled like spoiled milk soaked, buffed, and scrubbed. Calluses, tough and hardened like mean nuggets of tree bark, were sanded down, dead skin scraped away.

After two mani-pedis and one pedicure, my next customer only wanted a mani. She chose a purple polish and held her hands out, primed for service. She was chewing gum, her mouth moving beneath a coat of brown lipstick.

Base coat, first coat. I dared my customer to look at me. Her bare nails were thin and yellow, a sign of too many manicures. I finished her right pinkie and twisted the bottle shut, glad I hadn’t been roped into waxing mustaches like the other girls. I switched on the hand dryer and motioned to the customer. “Wait to dry, okay, then we’ll do the second coat,” I said in English.

I checked my cell phone, which Michelle frowned upon. I yawned; I’d barely slept. In the morning, Leon had sought a truce. “I’ll think about Florida,” he said. “It’s a good opportunity for our family. If we have another child, we’ll have space for him.” Startled, I agreed. “We can talk more tonight,” Leon said. But when I embraced him, he didn’t hug me back. He kept his arms at his sides and presented his cheek for my kiss, not his lips.

The new girl at the next station was struggling to keep her brush steady. “It’s easier if you do it fast, or else the polish gets sticky,” I said. “Flick the brush, one-two-three, don’t give yourself time to think.”

The girl scowled. Her ponytail hung like a mouse tail against the back of her shirt. She bent closer to her customer, her body rigid, too nervous to do good work. Her customer tapped her feet.

I began my customer’s second coat. One of the new girls was smearing hot wax onto a woman’s upper lip. The new girls chattered to one another in Vietnamese and to the customers in limited English, and the speakers in the front of the salon played a radio station with American songs while Michelle watched Korean movies on a TV in the back office. I could hear operatic crying and swelling string music.

I would finish this lady’s nails, and if nobody else came in, take my break. Didi was off today, at her English class, and I thought again about Star Hill, the house you and I and Leon could live in.

My customer’s hand twitched. I’d painted her skin by mistake.

“Sorry,” I said.

She met my gaze at last, sucking her teeth in one long intake. I wiped the blob of polish off. The second coat was glossy and dark.

I finished the left hand, picked up the woman’s right, concentrating so hard on applying the polish that I didn’t notice the men who had come in, not until the customer had yanked her hand away and the girl at the next station had jumped up and there was a clatter, voices shouting in English and Vietnamese.

Men were yelling. “Down! Down!” They were policemen, uniformed.

Customers grabbed their purses and ran out with their nails still wet. One woman left with a stripe of wax above her lip. My customer fled without paying. “Stop her!” I yelled, and then I was shoved into a mass of bodies.

The new girl with the ponytail spat out words that sounded like curses. “What is going on?” I shouted.

Static voices buzzed over the men’s walkie-talkies. “Stay down,” one of them said, and pointed at me.

The door was closed now, guarded by another uniformed man. A third man had handcuffed Michelle, who was cursing in English.

The first man turned to me. Years ago, riding in the truck from Toronto to New York, bumping over potholes, stiff with fear, I had thought, This is what it’s like to be dead. Now, as I felt my arms pulled back in a decisive motion, like trussing a hog, I thought of you. It was you that I thought of. Always, it’s been you.





Eleven



Yong was practicing his speech again. “I come from humble beginnings.” He looked at his notepad. “Like so many of you.” His gaze traveled to a point over me, landing on the wall behind the couch. “Many, uh, obstacles were met.”