"Becky picked a beautiful pink," I said.
My best friend proudly showed my mother her selection of a pretty pastel nail color.
"Lovely choice, Becky. Raven, what have you picked?"
"Well…"
"We're ready for you," a pixie-like girl with spiky short red hair said, her white shirt stretched tightly around her pregnant belly. "I'm Cami."
"I'll pick you up in half an hour," my mom said. "Remember, when the girls have finished, don't touch anything! You don't want to smear your manicure."
Cami led Becky and me past a dozen hairstylists' chairs to the nail room or what I'd call a vampire's nightmare. The walls were made of mirrors, and bright fluorescent lights filled the ten-by-ten-foot room. Alexander wouldn't last two seconds in here.
A half-dozen white manicure tables—each with a black desk lamp, white hand towels, and pastel polishes— faced the mirrored walls. A few pedicure bowls were sitting on the floor, all occupied by the feet of adolescent fashionistas.
Jenny Warren and her Prada shoe-snob friend, Heather Ryan, sat underneath foils with one foot in a spa bath and the other resting on a pedicurist's lap, their flawless model's toes being primped for their walk down Prom Princess Road.
Cami showed Becky to her seat, then directed me to the vacant chair next to hers. As I settled in, a middle-aged veteran manicurist nodded to me as she stood over her client, whose hands were drying underneath a heating lamp.
Becky and I watched as Cami started removing Becky's nail polish.
"You must be Raven," my manicurist said, placing a plastic finger bowl filled with sudsy water on her table. "I'm Jean."
"Nice to meet you," I responded with a smile.
I glanced over at Becky, who was engaged in conversation with Cami as if they'd been friends for years. Cami looked like she'd just graduated from beauty school.
My manicurist, however, with her crazy colored bifocals, resembled my grandmother. Her own thick nails weren't painted and looked weathered. Who could blame her? By the end of the day, she was probably too exhausted to decorate her own nails.
"What color have you picked?" she asked, looking at me above her bifocals.
"Well…I haven't decided yet."
Jean began removing my black polish with a cotton ball. It took her a few minutes to get it out of the nooks, the dark color imbedded in my nails.
"Your mother said your dress was a dark red."
"Yes," I said, our conversation stilted.
Jean opened her drawer and pulled out a bottle of red nail polish. "How about this?"
"I prefer something darker."
Jean placed my hands in the finger bowl filled with warm, bubbly water.
"This color is very popular." She held out a bottle of metallic pink.
"I was thinking of black."
"How about something more feminine," she said, ignoring my request.
I could feel Becky slink down in her chair next to me. Becky and Cami continued to talk but kept eyeballing Jean and me.
Jean rose and went to the front desk. In a moment, she returned with a few bottles of reds and pinks.
"I thought you'd want to look like Cinderella, not Frankenstein," she quipped, placing the colors on her manicure table and sitting down.
"I'd really like black."
"But we don't carry black," she insisted.
"No problem. I brought a bottle with me." I reached for my purse, accidentally dripping water on her desk as I lifted my hand out of the bowl.
Jenny and Heather giggled at me.
"Hold on," Jean grumbled. "Allow me."
Jean mopped up my spills with a hand towel and threw it into a small white wicker laundry basket underneath her desk. She picked up my Corpse Bride purse, examined it as if it might bite her, then pulled out a half-filled bottle of Morbid Mayhem.
Jean placed my polish on her desk as if she were holding a bottle of poison. She squeezed eucalyptus-scented lotion on my hand and vigorously massaged it into my skin. She filed, smoothed, and pushed back my cuticles and reluctantly began to paint my nails a morbid black.
"So who are you going to prom with?" she asked.
"My boyfriend."
"Would I know him—or his family?"
"He doesn't go to our school."
"Is he from out of town?"
"No, he's homeschooled."
"That's interesting…What's his name?"
This was more like an inquisition than a manicure.
"Alexander Sterling."
"You mean the Sterlings on Benson Hill?" she asked, surprised.
"Yes."
"I've heard about them. They moved into the Mansion a while ago."
"That's right."