Scot on the Rocks

looked up to tell her what a great job she had done, and in so doing, let half of the cases slide off my lap and fall into the pedicure tub. My nail technician and I gasped simultaneously and began frantically fishing for the papers, as Vanessa looked up from her own work, balanced perfectly in her lap.

“Gee, your cases smell terrific,” she said.

“I think that this is a sign from God that I shouldn’t be doing work right now. Is it really ethical to bill at the nail salon, anyway?”

“Of course it is,” Vanessa said, looking down at her work and pursing her lips for emphasis.

“Men have it so easy, don’t they,” I said. “They just wash and go. If you’re lucky, you get them to shave.” Vanessa nodded her head as if she was listening, so I kept going. “Just to go to this stupid wedding, I have to get waxed, manicured, pedicured, visit the skin doctor, and take over an hour doing my hair and makeup.”

“I’m very interested to see how your dress will reveal your freshly waxed bikini line,” Vanessa said.

“I hope that Marcus appreciates all that you have to do just to get gorgeous.”

“I seriously doubt that he does,” she said, head still buried in her work.

“Well, then I hope that he appreciates all that I have to do just to get gorgeous,” I said, lifting the foot that the nail technician was not filing to show Vanessa just how hard I was working.

“I’m sure he will.”

“I still can’t believe that Trip has never met Marcus,” I said. Vanessa had missed her own law-school graduation because Marcus had been asked to scrub in on his first major surgery that day and Vanessa had gone to watch.

“Such is the life of a surgical resident,” she said, as she continued to review her documents. “Now, can we try to get some work done? It’s only ethical to bill at the nail salon if you actually do work.” I nodded, making a mental note to myself to bill Healthy Foods for the six-tenths of an hour that I actually attempted to read the cases that Vanessa had given me. Even if I did spill half of them into a pedicure tub, I still thought I should get the credit.

“So far you haven’t done anything that you can bill for,” Vanessa said. I haven’t done anything that I could bill for? Didn’t she see me concentrating, like, totally hard, on those cases for a solid six-tenths of an hour? Jeez.

“Wouldn’t it be great, though, if you could just bill for primping?” I asked her. The next best thing to billing actual clients was talking about billing them. In fact, you should be able to bill for that, too. “Just bill the client for your hair and manicures and stuff? It should really be write-off-able, if you think about it. You have to look good for court, don’t you?” Vanessa kept reading her documents, although I could swear that I saw the sides of her mouth pull a bit as she tried to keep a straight face. “And, now that I’m thinking about it, you should be able to write off your makeup, too. I mean, could you imagine if you showed up for a meeting with a client without any makeup on? That would be, like, totally unprofessional.”

“Work, Brooke!” Vanessa said with a laugh.

Seeing as Vanessa was not in the mood to discuss the issues plaguing women in today’s modern world, I picked up my wet cases and began to blow on them. They were still drenched through and through, and just the mere act of holding them up was making some of them begin to rip in half. I considered putting them under the nail dryers, but thought better of it. I began to leaf through the cases I hadn’t dropped into the pedicure tub. I looked over to Vanessa and tried to balance my cases on my own lap the way she had done herself.

The nail technician began to massage my legs. I closed my eyes and sank into it. I mean, a girl can’t reasonably be expected to read cases and bill her client during a massage, can she?

“You know, I don’t even know if Marcus is going to be able to make it to the wedding this weekend,” Vanessa said, not even bothering to look up from her work.

“What?” I asked, turning to her. As I twisted my body to look at her, the dry cases slid off my lap and fell into the pedicure tub. The nail technician, having already run this drill, slowly began to peel each case out of the water and fan the papers out next to her stool.

“I think he’s going to have to work,” she said, head still buried in her documents, documents still balanced perfectly on her lap.

“Work?” I asked.

“Yes, work, Brooke,” she said, picking her head up. “What you’re not doing right now. Work.”

“What color?” our nail technicians sang out in unison. I knew which color Vanessa would choose. Vanessa always wore the same color on both her hands and feet — Hitchcock Blonde — a barely-there nude color with a dash of pink that was only two shades away from clear topcoat. It was the sort of thing you would imagine Grace Kelly in her Princess Grace years wearing.

I usually changed it up each week, never matching my hands to my feet, a move that Vanessa considered completely déclassé and was never too shy to tell me. I knew for a fact that she obeyed the same rule about matching with respect to her bras and panties.

“I don’t know,” I thought aloud. “What color do you think?” I asked Vanessa.

“Have you tried Hitchcock Blonde?” she asked.

“Maybe a red on my toes since my dress for the wedding is nude with a black overlay?” I asked. Vanessa rolled her eyes as if to say, “Why even bother to ask when you ignore my sage advice?” and my nail technician ran off to the wall of nail polish to pick out a few reds.

“Are you going to wear red on your hands, too?” Vanessa asked me with a look of disdain that indicated that if I answered yes, our friendship may very well be over, or, at the very least, she would be unable to be seen in public with me.

“I was thinking something beigy for my hands?” I said it like a question.

“Okay,” Vanessa approved. “Hitchcock Blonde?”

“Leather and Lace?” the nail technician called over to me.

“That sounds like something Beryl would wear,” I said and she nodded, even though she had no idea who Beryl was. Presumably.

“Fresh Strawberries?” she asked and I shook my head no. Too Pollyanna. We were going to Los Angeles, for God’s sake.

“Ah!” she said, seemingly having hit gold. “Weekend in Rio.” Weekend in Rio — how perfect! This weekend was going to shape up quite nicely. This was a sign. I could tell.

“That sounds like it would match my bikini wax perfectly!” I cried out and she nodded as if I had just said something that made sense.

“That sounds a little whore-ish,” Vanessa said. I thought she was working? Was she billing the client for coming up with little wingdingers like that?

“Totally whore-ish or just a little whore-ish?” I asked. Vanessa stopped to think for a second. Grabbing the bottle from my nail technician, she studied it carefully.

“A little whore-ish,” was her final determination.

“But would it look good with nude with black overlay?” I asked. “And don’t call my dress whore-ish,” I quickly added.

“Not even whore-ish,” she qualified. “Just a bit slutty.”

“I’ll take it,” I said to my nail technician and she began to paint. “Are you upset?” I asked Vanessa.

“You can pick any color you want,” she said.

“Not about my toenails, Vanessa,” I said. “I meant about your husband.”

“You’ve been living with us for two weeks, Brooke. Haven’t you noticed that Marcus works a lot?”

“You’re right, Vanessa, I know,” I said. “I’ve only seen him once in the entire two weeks.”

“I told you to use the guest bathroom off the kitchen if you were going to go in the middle of the night,” she said.

“That was rather embarrassing, wasn’t it?” I said.

“Only for you,” she sang with a smile.

“Well, I hope that it all works out,” I said, looking at her.

“So do I, Brooke,” she said, turning to look out the window. “So do I.”