I was recently given a gift certificate for a mani/pedi at a downtown spa. The day before sitting down to write this story, I hopped on a bus to take full advantage of my friend’s generosity.
The last time I had my nails done was when my mother was dying. I was also writing a book that maybe I should have put away but, honestly, writing saved me. When the woman who buffed my nails asked, “How you?” I started to cry. She swept me into the back room, sat me down and dug her thumbs into my shoulders. “Dollar a minute,” she said. I asked for an hour — half an hour per shoulder. She set the timer.
This time, in a candlelit room, Phuong smiled at everyone in a genuine way.
“You have a great smile,” I said.
“I love it here,” she said. “That’s why.”
This seemed strange to me, to “love” cutting cuticles. I reached into my pocket to be sure my tip was there. I am a big fan of genuine positivity.
I love Seattle, too, but I have noticed that it’s changing so fast. Copy cat behavior is everywhere. Sincerity, not so much.
Take the phrase, “it’s all good.” Even my barista says it now after I say “thank you.” I never understood why “you’re welcome” became unfashionable. I was just getting used to “of course” and I was delighted to discover “no problem” is finally seen as the snub it sounds like.
“It’s all good” feels like the new mental narcotic, said to smooth out any snags and dull our ability to think critically. I love what my friend Craig said about perpetually smiling people: “Some of the least happy people you ever want to meet.”
But Phuong’s smile felt real and I found myself wanting to know more about her.
“What brought you to Seattle?” I asked.
She said she replied to a request for marriage on the internet.
Because she was all of 20, I said, “Please don’t tell me he’s 80 years old.”
She looked at me and smiled. I worried she might take my comment as a cue to pull back.
But she was happy to tell me that, because there are not enough women to marry in China, Chinese men would sneak over the Vietnamese border to kidnap girls from her village.
“Oh God!” I said.
“My two cousins were stolen from our playground,” she continued. “We learn Chinese and English so we can get home if we are kidnapped.”
“That’s so... horrible.”
“More horrible when they take only the kidneys,” she said.
I think Phuong really does love her work, that people like her don’t share such stories with clients to entertain them, but because they need to talk about what they’ve gone through to stay alive.
It’s amazing to me that, considering what she told me, she manages to give the impression that she is totally appreciative of the opportunities she’s been given. Like I wrote at the top of this story — courage.
As for the contrast… In the salon, the woman sitting next to us never looked up from her phone to acknowledge Phuong, or the story she’d just had the privilege to hear, other than to ask if the lights could be turned up a little. And when told the candle light (fake candles, but still) set the mood, here came another word I find disingenuous: “whatever.”
I wanted to say, “Would it kill you to say thank you?” Instead, I asked about the logo on her tote bag.
Evidently, she had come as part of a company group. She told me the rest of her corporate team-builders were in the sauna. By the time I got to the dressing room, it looked as though they’d been carrying on like a frat party. What a mess!
Things like that make me shake my head. It’s so easy to forget someone always has to clean up the messes we leave behind. My Aunt Connie was a cleaning lady when she first came to this country. The stories she could tell.
I picked up all the wet towels and threw them in the basket.
Mary Lou Sanelli’s latest book is “A Woman Writing.” She lives in Belltown. Find more of her work at www.marylousanelli.com.