ugly nails and the woman-made woman
A miscommunication at a nail salon triggers a rapid descent into self-destruction and surreal revelations about choice, embodiment, and the sting of wanting something you can't have.
I walk past three nail salons to get to the one I go to. The others always have people inside too and I can’t imagine why. Those salons are so ugly. Much uglier than the one I go to. I assume my nails would be uglier too if that was where I went. What does that say about me?
There are carnations planted in a box of dirt outside of the deli on Smith Street. The one with the good turkey sandwich. It dawns on me I’ve never seen them in the dirt. Carnations. Only wrapped in plastic in grocery stores. They are man-made flowers.
Emily files my nails, asking them politely to get in line. I wish I could file myself down into the thinnest line of a woman to ever exist. A woman-made woman. I don’t think that is her given name - Emily - but I think her chosen name is nice. It’s good to have choices.
“Emily, please can you paint tiny blueberries on my nails?”
“Why would I do such a thing?”
“Emily, I don’t know. Why wouldn’t you?”
I close my eyes. I don’t like to eavesdrop on a woman’s art.
Emily asks if I like it and I open my eyes to inspect her work. Emily doesn’t always understand me. Does anyone?
“Emily, those are cherries.”
“Yes, like you asked.”
“Emily, I didn’t ask for cherries.”
Emily pulls out her phone to show me a photo that indeed depicts small cherries painted on the fingernails that belong to a hand model. I’d love to know more about how hand models make a living.
I look back to my own hands. A sharp sigh.
“Emily, where did you find this photo? The one I showed you had blueberries on it. Deep, dark blueberries.”
This is all wrong.
“This is the right thing.”
I leave the nail salon. I’ll go to the ugly salons from now on and get ugly colors painted on my nails. At least I will get what I want.
It’s not that I don’t like cherries. They’re great. But I am allergic to them. Only slightly. They are either too sweet or too tart and they sting the back of my throat. The dark blue of a blueberry is better. They are not very sweet, only in the late summer.
My fingers are burning and turning red. Like a cherry. I ought to pick up the pace. I pass the deli on Smith Street and the carnations were never carnations after all. They were something absolutely different. I knew the man-made flowers could not grow in the dirt that came from stardust.
The redness is spreading to my arms. I need to put an end to this. I pause to think and look inside my purse for ointment. It’s empty. I check my pockets, and feel a long thin object.
Emily’s nail file.
I get to work on filing myself down. I file my nails off entirely but the redness has spread too far to stop there. I file the flesh and meat from my fingers until there’s none left and then from my arms and legs and torso.
I look up into the window of the deli to inspect my work. I am a skeleton with a heart that beats and a brain that thinks. There are no cherries on my hands and I think I look perfect.
A woman-made woman, stripped to the bone. I am so hungry. I walk inside the deli for the good turkey sandwich.
This is the right thing.