Sunshine nails, p.1
Sunshine Nails, page 1
Thank you for downloading this Simon & Schuster ebook.
Get a FREE ebook when you join our mailing list. Plus, get updates on new releases, deals, recommended reads, and more from Simon & Schuster. Click below to sign up and see terms and conditions.
CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP
Already a subscriber? Provide your email again so we can register this ebook and send you more of what you like to read. You will continue to receive exclusive offers in your inbox.
For Gemma,
my little sunshine
CHAPTER ONE Debbie
If Debbie Tran could go back in time, she would stop herself from reading that damn Yelp review.
It had been such a lovely day up until that point. She’d made offerings of mandarins and daffodils to the altar, cooked all her family’s favorites, and cleaned the entire house. In a few hours, her eldest child would be coming home for good. Nobody in the family knew exactly why, but it didn’t take a genius to figure it out. Eight years ago, Jessica moved to Los Angeles for love and a job, and now she had neither. Whatever the reason, Debbie didn’t care. She was so thrilled Jessica was returning that she happily paid for the flight.
Debbie pulled out her tablet and did what she always did whenever her children got on a plane: tracked the path of the flight. As she watched that little green plane inch closer and closer to Toronto, that’s when that stupid notification popped up at the top of the screen.
You’ve received a new review.
Without thinking, Debbie clicked on it and a big fat one-star review appeared on the screen.
I came to the salon for a manicure and pedicure on the weekend. The lady who was working on me was SO rude and she had disgusting black gunk underneath her fingernails. They were so long and unkempt. It was gross. She also cut my nails too short when I specifically told her “not too short.” She doesn’t speak English that well so she probably didn’t understand me. Still, SO UNPROFESSIONAL. I’m never going back again!!! Can’t wait till that new salon opens nearby. Bet it’s light years better than this one!
Debbie looked at her nails. Okay, so they were a little dry and her cuticles a little overgrown, but by no means was there any “disgusting black gunk” underneath her nails. She washed her hands so often that cracks had formed on her fingertips. Besides, in her twenty years of running the salon, not one single person had ever complained about this.
And what was this about a new salon? There was no other nail salon in the area for miles. This person had to have been mistaken. Debbie checked their overall rating. The review dropped Sunshine Nails from four stars to three stars.
That bitch.
She checked the flight status again. Jessica’s plane was going to land any minute now. It would take her another hour or so to get through customs, baggage claim, and traffic on the highway. Phil and Thuy were still at the salon. Dustin would be home from work soon. She needed to fix herself up. Wash her hair, put on some makeup, pick an outfit that—
Not too short? How dare that person assume she didn’t know English. She’d lived in Toronto for over thirty years, took ESL for those first two, and aced all the tests. In fact, she did so well she was invited to come back as a guest speaker to show the new cohort what a success story she was. Too short? Next time that woman came into the salon Debbie would show her what too short really looked like.
It wasn’t like Sunshine Nails had never gotten negative feedback. They’d been slammed on everything from the decor (“A bit tacky but in a charming kind of way”) to the lack of air-conditioning (“Felt like I was stranded in the Arabian Desert!”) to the service (“The staff was impersonal and abrupt”).
But there was a difference between constructive criticism and personal attack. And this latest review was clearly an attack on their livelihood.
Debbie was just glad her husband didn’t see it. Phil got even more worked up over these things than she did. Once, he stayed up until three in the morning responding to every single negative review he could find. They were not professional or eloquent responses by any measure, but they had worked too hard, sacrificed too much, to let some ungrateful people get away with saying nasty things about their salon.
Debbie looked at herself in the mirror. She couldn’t greet her daughter like this, all angry and a mess.
A bath. That’s how she would calm down. She wasn’t going to let this review suck all the joy out of this special day. She didn’t even remember working on someone named Erin. Maybe it was one of those internet phenomena Dustin had warned her about. What was it again? A troll. Yes, that must be it. It had to be a troll.
While soaking in the tub, she thought about all the times she felt wronged in her life. There were too many to count. Bloodthirsty communists forcing her out of Vietnam was one. Being thrown onto a perilously overcrowded boat on the South China Sea was another. This one-star review? It was up there, too.
As she sank a little deeper into the warm bath, she turned her white jade ring round and round on her finger. That ring was as much a part of her body as her organs. It never left her hand, not since that treacherous voyage of 1983. When those pirates ransacked the boat and abducted the prettiest girls, Debbie instinctively tucked the ring underneath her upper lip and prayed the pirates would see her simple, undecorated body and leave her alone. They took one look at her, spat on her face, then moved along. To this day, Debbie swore the ring saved her life all those years ago. Tonight, she prayed it would bring her the peace she needed in time for her daughter’s homecoming.
As her calluses began to soften in the warm water, so did her resolve to punish whoever this person was. She closed her eyes and focused on her breath. In and out. In and out. She tried very hard to let nothing and nobody penetrate her thoughts now.
But Erin’s words were like a hangnail that wouldn’t go away. She couldn’t let it go. How could she when it felt like someone had just shit on everything she’d worked so hard for? Debbie sat up straight in the tub, reached for the tablet, and typed up a response.
I have never met you before in my life. This review is a complete fabrication. Furthermore, we have never once had a complaint about our staff’s hygiene. We take very good care of our customers and take their concerns seriously. You, however, are a liar and you should be ashamed of yourself. P.S. How is my English now?
As soon as she hit that publish button, she felt euphoric. Then came the notification. Jessica’s flight had landed.
CHAPTER TWO Jessica
According to her phone, Jessica was sixteen minutes away from her parents’ house. She shifted in the back of the cab, praying for road closures or heavy traffic, anything that would stretch those sixteen minutes to infinity. She knew the moment she got home she’d be blasted with questions: Why are you home? Why did you and Brett break up? Why did you lose your job? Why is your hair like that? Actually, she could handle that last question. In fact, if all they grilled her about was her new blond hair, she would consider the night saved.
She peered over at the meter. Fifty-six dollars and counting. Her parents insisted on picking her up at the airport, but she insisted harder on getting a cab. She probably should’ve said yes to the free ride, given there was a little under two hundred dollars in her bank account.
The money started dwindling four months ago, when she found her fiancé fucking a woman against their brand-new marble countertop. She froze. She didn’t know what to do. What was the right course of action when the person you loved for eight years, the person you were supposed to marry in six months, was cheating on you? The only thing she could think to do was turn around, drive to the parking lot of a Trader Joe’s, and cry and cry until the sun went down. She felt so stupid for spending thousands of dollars on that kitchen renovation. You don’t get marble in a home you don’t plan to die in.
In the following months, Jessica slept on a series of couches belonging to sympathetic friends and estranged cousins who felt obligated to host her. Brett didn’t even beg her to come back. Didn’t even beg for forgiveness. The last thing he said to her was that he’d take care of canceling the wedding, that she need not worry about a thing. And like an idiot, all she said in return was thanks, as if he was the one doing her a favor. That was the part that hurt the most.
How easily he had let go of her.
Jessica tried to pour all her energy into her job, but she couldn’t even will herself to care about the casting career she admittedly prioritized over everything else. One morning, she went into the casting agency high on weed, hoping it would make the day go by faster. It didn’t. It only made her brain foggy. When the casting director asked her to read a scene with an Oscar-winning actor, all she had to do was throw an apple across the room. Except she missed and threw the apple right in the actor’s face. His glasses fell to the floor as he clutched his face hard, trying to keep the blood from gushing out of his nose. Jessica was fired before she could even say sorry.
That night, she drank an entire bottle of wine and stripped her hair from black to blond because she wanted to look as ridiculous as she felt.
“We’re here,” said the driver. “We got lucky. Hardly any traffic.”
“Great,” Jessica muttered. She took a quick glance at herself in the rearview mirror. The stale plane air made her hair stick up. She matted down the static, applied some lip gloss, and sprayed some rose water on her face before getting out of the car.
The two-story semidetached house looked exactly the same. Faded brick exterior. Peeling porch railing. Sagging wired fence. Everything around it, on the other
Her father was the one who answered the door.
“You made it! How was your flight? How was your drive? Did he bother you? I saw on the news the other day that some drivers will take passengers on long roundabout routes to bring up their final fare. Did that happen to you? I told you I should’ve picked you up.”
Her father looked the same, too. At five feet five, he was a soft man with droopy, mournful eyes and a gappy smile that reminded her of the fence slats in the backyard. His straight black hair was parted to one side, showing roots that were sparingly peppered with vermicelli-like hairs. He was sixty-two, but the years he spent working as a wood chopper in Nha Trang left his face a sprinkle of sunspots and a complex river network of sunken lines, which was why many people thought he was closer to seventy.
“You haven’t changed a bit, Ba. And no, my driver did not scam me.”
“Everyone’s in the kitchen. Come inside.”
“I’m just going to use the bathroom first.”
It had been eight years since she’d stepped foot in her childhood home. And yet it took no time for that muscle memory to kick in. Her legs knew how to get to the bathroom. Her hand knew to hold the flush lever down for three seconds. Her ears knew to brace for that awful foghorn sound that happened every time the toilet flushed. It was comforting how so little had changed.
After greeting her mother and brother—both of whom stroked her hair like it was a new puppy—she took a seat at the dining table. Her head was pounding; she only had a glass of merlot and some overpriced Pringles all day. Fortunately, her mother made a feast: crab legs with ginger and scallions, barbecue pork fried rice, turmeric noodles with toasted sesame rice crackers, spring rolls, minced beef congee, crispy bánh xèo, and her favorite, bánh bát lọc, tapioca dumplings drenched in spicy fish sauce. Her mother need never say the words I love you because the proof was on the table.
“Who wants a drink?” said Dustin, his face already flushed. “Ba? Whiskey? How about you, Jess? Wine?”
Jessica probed her mother’s face first, searching for a sigh, a scrunch of the nose, any sign of disapproval. Then she remembered she was not twenty-two anymore. She was thirty, a grown woman who didn’t need to hide her drinking from her parents anymore.
“Give me a Corona,” Jessica said. “Extra cold, please.”
She caught her mother shifting her eyes down to the new tattoo on her thigh. It looked as if she was having a series of mini heart attacks. The tattoo was of the famous Trưng sisters wielding swords atop a pair of elephants. The two Vietnamese warriors used their skills in martial arts and swordsmanship to rebel against the Chinese overlords and become queens of the land. Jessica thought they were the most badass duo east of the Mekong. It wasn’t until a week later, when the scabs began to fall off her skin, that she found out the Trưng sisters eventually accepted defeat and drowned themselves in a river.
Her father stood up and raised his glass. “Welcome home, my daughter! My heart feels full now that both of my children are home.”
Everyone raised their glass, even her mother lifted a cup of tepid water. She ladled the congee into four small bowls, giving Jessica a little more than everyone else, and sprinkled scallions over the top. “Ăn, ăn. I bet you haven’t had a proper home-cooked meal in months,” she said.
Jessica slurped the rice porridge, being careful not to burn the tip of her tongue in the haste of hunger. The carbs and salt were already easing her headache.
“Thanks for cooking all this, Má.”
“More, more. Look at those skinny arms. I could practically break them. Ăn cho no, Bích.”
Bích? Jessica hadn’t heard her real name in years. She changed it when she was eight after kids kept taunting her and calling her a bitch. “It’s pronounced bick!” she would routinely shout on the playground.
Her mother was against the change because she named her after her lucky jade ring, but Jessica didn’t care. All she wanted was a normal name. Ashley, Emily, and Jennifer were all contenders—names of likable white girls she knew in real life or on TV. But when the Sweet Valley High series debuted in the fall of 1994, introducing the world to those beautiful twins, she decided to go with the name of her favorite Wakefield.
Besides, her parents were ones to talk. They, too, went by English names to make it easier on their customers. Tuyết and Xuân were now Debbie and Phil, named after their favorite eighties singers, Debbie Harry and Phil Collins.
After five more helpings, Jessica’s headache was gone, replaced by indigestion. “Seriously, there’s too much for the four of us,” she said, rubbing her stomach.
“Thuy was supposed to be here,” Debbie said, pushing the plate of dumplings towards her. “She wanted me to tell you sorry that she couldn’t be home for dinner.”
“Thuy?” It completely slipped Jessica’s mind that her cousin from Vietnam was now living here.
“You don’t remember? Trời ơi, didn’t we tell you? Our sponsorship application was approved and she has been living with us for the last ten months. It was such a painful process, all that paperwork and waiting, but now that it’s all over with, it was the best decision we ever made. She’s been a huge help at the salon. Isn’t that right, Phil?”
Her father nodded gently. “We only trained her for a month, and she picked it up just like that,” he said, snapping his fingers. “I don’t want to brag or anything, but her work is the best in the city. The best! Look at these pictures.”
He took out his phone. “Your uncle told me she was artistic, but I didn’t believe it until I saw it with my own eyes.”
For the next thirty minutes her parents raved about Thuy. How she could transform blank nail beds into mini-paintings worthy of their own spot in an art gallery. How she became the most requested nail technician in the salon. One of her designs—a supposedly mesmerizing speckle of stars set against a galaxy backdrop—was featured in a national fashion magazine one time. Jessica couldn’t help but notice her mother repeat this fact three times during dinner.
“That’s nice.” Jessica wiped her mouth. “Where is she anyway?”
“She had to work late at the salon,” said Phil. “A customer wanted 3D bows attached to her nails at the last minute. You wouldn’t believe how happy I was to hear that! I’ve had a set of acrylic bows sitting in the back for months, just waiting for someone to request them one day.”
Jessica peered over at the clock. It was almost nine o’clock. “Does she always work this late?”
“You think that’s late? Just wait until prom season. In a few weeks, we’ll be lucky if we get home before eleven,” Phil said, stretching his neck.
“She’s been working really hard these days. Why don’t we give her the day off tomorrow, Phil?” Debbie said. “Jessica, you should spend some time with her, get to know her better. She’s shy and doesn’t have any friends here.”
Jessica quickly tried to think of an excuse, but none came to mind. “Fine.”
The following hour went as Jessica had hoped with the conversation staying exactly where she wanted, on the surface. They gossiped about the neighbors. Ate. Talked about Dustin’s job. Ate again. Complained about the rising cost of food. Ate some more. They moved between two languages like it was one. She tried to keep up, but her Vietnamese had gotten so rusty she had to constantly fetch translations on her phone.
Then it happened.
“How is Brett?” Debbie asked in English.
Everyone stopped chewing, or in Dustin’s case, sucking the juice from his crab leg. Judging by the intensity of everyone’s stares, it was clear they were heavily invested in this change of topic.
“I wouldn’t know. We don’t speak anymore,” Jessica said, keeping her head down. What was she supposed to say? It was close to six in Los Angeles. He was probably picking his new girlfriend up from work, taking her home to their house, making her dinner in their twenty-thousand-dollar kitchen, pouring her a drink in one of their Williams Sonoma wineglasses.
