I live in a world of Susans. I got name tags for everyone who works at this nail salon, and on every one is printed the name “Susan.” So many girls come and go. I don’t want to bother getting new name tags each time. Besides, you know, it’s never difficult to pronounce a name like Susan.
None of our clients notice. They come in and we are ready and set to work. That’s all that matters to them. We all have black shoulder-length hair and wear black T-shirts and black pants. We are, more or less, the same height, too.
And, anyway, the clients will never be wrong when they ask for Susan. Dear Susan is always available and at your service! Susan never takes a day off and Susan is never fully booked if it’s you who called for her. Susan, our dear, sweet Susan, always makes time for you.
The Susans and I are friendly, the way you are with someone you work with, with someone you have to see every day. I like to keep my distance, not get too close to any of them. They aren’t family. Even with family, I like to keep my distance.
I did my time.
The brightly lit box we work in is called “Susan’s.” There are others like us scattered around the city, and some are just a few doors down from us. But we’re the best. It’s no lie and I’m not kidding anybody when I say that. We’re the best. I get people in and out, in and out, and so do the Susans.
I’m in charge, and I do what I want. I can do it all. I am the first to arrive and the last one to leave, and I never take a day off. I have got four girls—Mai, Nok, Annie, and a new girl coming, Noi. I know our names sound the same, but because I know what their names mean in our language they aren’t the same to me. Any one of us can answer the phone and take appointments. Only the ones with more experience can do the manicures and pedicures, facials or waxings. And someone’s always on standby, just a call away.
You can’t fit much in the shop. Five chairs lined up along the pink wall, four stations, and our centrepiece—a white leather chair that leans back and spins. The chair is mostly for facials, waxings, threading, but we can do mani-pedis there too. We usually reserve it for someone who wants the works. Or just to make someone feel special. But they can sit anywhere in the shop, and we can go to them and do it all from there. There can’t be more than three of us, each with a client. Face, hands, feet. Any more than that and I lose track of who is doing what and when.
And I don’t like to lose track, to not know.
My day begins at seven in the morning. When I open my eyes I know exactly what I will see. The ceiling. There’s a crack in there. It has the shape of a single black hair with a split end.
I live in this tiny apartment on the top floor, right above the shop. Hardwood floors, a kitchen and bathroom with a shower and tub. It is just one room, but I don’t need that much space. There used to be some plants, but I didn’t care for them. So I don’t have anything like that around.
I am alone because I want to be. If you want to know—because people like to know stuff like this where I work—I’m not married. And I don’t have kids. I am a family of one. You can be that, you know. A family of one. I could have had what everyone else has, but it didn’t turn out. I am about to turn forty-two. It’s a good age to be. I don’t have to become anything anymore.
It is the middle of August.
I should open a window, but I don’t want the hot air from outside to get in. It already feels like I’m inside a mouth. All wet, so little room, and there’s no place to go but down. I do love it at the shop. I can’t remember the last time I spent any time away from it. I live down there, really, spend more hours there than I do here. Been here, on my own, for just about five years. It’s a solid number, isn’t it. I got my start working for someone else, watching how they ran the whole thing. And before that, I had a whole other life. I was a boxer. My dad got me into it. Convinced I could go to the Olympics or do something like that. I never made it that far, didn’t win anything.
And I hurt a girl real bad one time. Put her in a coma for a few weeks. My coach, Murch, said I was glorious, but that’s not glory to me. Once you’ve been in the ring, you don’t forget it. It doesn’t take much for a memory to strike me. A sweat bead on someone’s forehead, the length of someone’s arm, a bruise. I’m quick to read people, see if I can take them out. And that thing I have been told—protect yourself at all times—I still do it. Just can’t let anybody in. I’m not too hard up on any feelings about leaving the whole thing. Why turn my face toward something that spit me out? Anyway, I aged out of it real quick, too. I didn’t know what to do with myself after and kicked around, doing various jobs, living in a bunch of small towns. But I missed the city. The streetcar, the pigeons, the sound of the ambulance.
Maybe my old coach felt sorry for me. Saw how I was spit out into nothing and wanted to help. Told me about one of the guys at the gym. Said the guy had a sister who owned a nail salon and if I needed work she’d give me something to do. I was twenty-five then. For a long time, I answered phones and did just the basics. I shared a room with a bunch of girls who worked at the nail salon. Then one night, Rachel—the guy’s sister—said, “You’re the oldest girl here. I don’t know what you’re thinking, but I don’t want to grow old with you.” I never thought of myself as old. I felt the same as I was when I first started. But I wasn’t outside looking at my own face like she was. The way she was looking at me. I just felt like I wasn’t welcome anymore. She cut my shifts after that. Part-time. And then suddenly there wasn’t work for me. Twelve years, I was with her, and I was spit out of that too.
I still had my finger then.
It was winter when I got this place and moved in upstairs. The trees across the street, in the park, looked like upside-down trees. The roots frayed with nowhere to go. I know the feeling and when I saw that I knew this place had to be mine.
I hear the phone ring downstairs. It means someone out there wants me today.
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From Pick A Color by Souvankham Thammavongsa. (Little, Brown, published September 30, 2025). Used with permission of the publisher, Little Brown and Company. Copyright © 2025 by Souvankham Thammavongsa.
