Located in an up-and-coming section of uptown Dining Room, My Daughter’s Nail Salon is a small, locally-owned business that opened seven minutes ago. It’s a new venture for owner Esmerelda Sparkles, who recently decided to expand her burgeoning beauty empire. Working with an untied shoestring budget, the salon prefers to drum up business the old fashioned way: By word of mouth.
“Would you like me to paint your nails?” she asked as I walked by.
“You look familiar. Do I know you from somewhere?” I asked in return.
“I was your hairstylist a while back. Remember? Back when I was a hairstylist?”
“Oh right. It’s all coming screaming back to me now.”
I had previously met Esmerelda one bright and extremely painful afternoon when she opened My Daughter’s Hair Salon in downtown Living Room and gave me what she referred to as a “blow-up.”
“So, can I do your nails?” she asked again, pulling me out of my trauma-induced haze.
It was with no small amount of trepidation that I agreed. But seeing as how I’m always willing to help out an ambitious female entrepreneur, I reluctantly sat down and settled onto the proffered upturned five gallon bucket.
“I can also do your hair after I’m done with your nails,” she added, a hint of hope in her voice.
“NO!” I exclaimed, subconsciously reaching for my bald spot. “I mean, you did such a good job the last time, I don’t think I need my hair styled…ever again.”
As she arranged the bottles on the badly scarred IKEA end table she had laboriously dragged over for the occasion, she mentioned to me that she was also a mother.
“How did you know I’m a mother?” I asked.
“You’re not wearing any makeup,” she replied. “I’ve got 10 kids myself. How many do you have?”
“Two.”
“Two? Wow. That must be easy.”
“It often feels like a lot more.”
Esmerelda gave me a sympathetic smile and took a hard look at my nails.
“These are in really bad shape,” she told me.
If there is one thing you can say about My Daughter’s Nail Salon, it’s that the business lives and dies by the motto “honesty is the best policy.”
“I do a lot of housework,” I replied sheepishly.
“No, you don’t,” she said.
Some might say brutal honesty.
Esmerelda gestured to the wide range of nail polish she had set up on the table.
“What color would you like?”
“Is that my good Chanel polish?”
“No. So, which color?”
I pointed to a dark red that looked suspiciously like one I had owned very recently.
“How about this one?” I said.
“Hmm. Nevermind. I’m just going to do every nail a different color.”
As I watched a line of sparkly pink flirt dangerously with the second knuckle of my pointer finger, I asked Esmerelda what made her decide to get into nail art.
“Well, I can’t get anyone to let me do their hair anymore so I thought I’d try this. I’m so good at it too!” she said as a swath of pale blue appeared on three-quarters of my middle finger.
“Should we lay down some newspaper?” I asked with gritted teeth, unable to look away from the precariously tipped bottle of polish in her hand.
“Oh no. I hardly ever spill.”
While Esmerelda’s bold, unconventional style might not be for everyone, I did admire how she didn’t let little things such as the natural lines of the nail interfere with her artistic vision. As she bathed my ring finger in metallic green, which juxtaposed nicely with the vibrant orange that took up most of the real estate of my pinkie and a shade simply called Sequins! on the top half of my thumb, I mentioned to Esmerelda that I felt this might be a better fit for her than her previous occupation.
She sighed dramatically before staring off into the middle distance.
“Yes, but doing hair is my real passion.”
She then asked me for eighty hundred dollars. Luckily for me, she was having a sale apparently.
“Wait, what about my other hand?” I asked with a mix of confusion and pre-emptive relief.
“Eh. I’m bored now. Are you sure I can’t do your hair?” she asked as I got up to leave.
“Oh, I’m sure! All the sure. But you know who I bet would love to get their hair styled?” I replied as I caught the panicked eye of my husband walking by. “That gentleman. And if you start running now, I bet you can catch him.”
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