The bottle of Essie nail polish was missing from the display. Linh knew because she had arranged them by color that morning, light to dark, the way she always did. Tidepool was gone. She looked at Mrs. Kowalski's purse, sitting open on the small table beside the pedicure chair. The blue-green bottle was visible between a wadded tissue and a pill container.
"The color today?" Linh asked, though Mrs. Kowalski always chose the same pale pink.
"Ballet Slippers," Mrs. Kowalski said. "Same as always."
Linh nodded and began removing the old polish from Mrs. Kowalski's nails. The woman's hands trembled slightly. Age, maybe. Or something else. Linh had noticed the tremor getting worse these past months.
It was Tuesday, two in the afternoon. The salon was mostly empty. Tommy was at the next station, working on a woman who wanted tiny rhinestones on each nail. He was talking about some show on Netflix. The woman was scrolling through her phone, making small sounds of agreement.
Linh focused on Mrs. Kowalski's hands. The skin was thin, spotted. Blue veins showed through. There was a bruise on the left hand, yellowish-green, fading.
"You fell?" Linh asked.
"The ice," Mrs. Kowalski said. "Last week. The sidewalk outside my building."
It was April. There had been no ice for six weeks.
Linh said nothing. She filed the nails into neat ovals, pushed back the cuticles. Mrs. Kowalski's wedding ring was loose on her finger. It slipped sideways when Linh held her hand.
"You should get that sized," Linh said.
"It's fine."
Linh had been watching for three weeks now. First, it was an emery board. She thought maybe it had fallen into Mrs. Kowalski's bag by accident. Then a small bottle of cuticle oil. Today, the nail polish. Each time, Linh said nothing.
She thought of her mother's hands on the boat. They had been at sea for five days when her mother stole the rice from the family next to them. Just a handful, while they slept. Her mother's hands shaking as she pressed the grains into Linh's palm in the dark. Linh was seven years old. The rice was already cooked, cold and hard. It tasted like salt water.
"My daughter is coming to visit," Mrs. Kowalski said suddenly. "From California."
"That's nice," Linh said. She began applying the base coat.
"Next month. Maybe."
Linh had been doing Mrs. Kowalski's nails for three years. The daughter had never visited.
"You have grandchildren?" Linh asked, though she knew the answer.
"Two boys. Teenagers now." Mrs. Kowalski pulled out her phone, an old model with a cracked screen. She showed Linh a photo. Two blonde boys in basketball uniforms.
"Handsome," Linh said.
"They're busy. Sports, school."
Linh applied the pink polish in smooth strokes. One coat, then another. Mrs. Kowalski's hand was steady now, resting on the small cushion.
At the next station, Tommy was telling his client about his weekend plans. Lake Minnetonka. A friend with a boat. The client was now looking at Instagram, double-tapping photos with her free hand.
"You have children?" Mrs. Kowalski asked.
"No," Linh said. She had been married once, briefly, to another Vietnamese refugee she met at the community center in St. Paul. He wanted children. She couldn't explain to him why her body refused, how it remembered hunger in ways her mind tried to forget.
"It's better sometimes," Mrs. Kowalski said. "Children. They grow up, they leave."
Linh applied the top coat. The pink was perfect, shiny, like the inside of a shell.
"Twenty-five dollars," Linh said.
Mrs. Kowalski reached for her purse. The Tidepool bottle had settled deeper inside. She pulled out her wallet, counted out twenty-five dollars in small bills. Exact change. No tip. There hadn't been a tip in six months.
"Next time, two weeks?" Mrs. Kowalski asked.
"I'll put you in the book."
After Mrs. Kowalski left, Tommy came over to Linh's station.
"That old lady never tips," he said. "You should tell Jennifer. She doesn't have to take appointments from people like that."
"It's fine," Linh said.
"It's not fine. This is America. People tip."
Linh began cleaning her station. She thought of Mrs. Kowalski walking to the bus stop. The Number 6 bus that ran down Cedar Avenue. She had seen her waiting there in the rain last month, no umbrella.
That night, Linh drove past Mrs. Kowalski's apartment building. She knew the address from the client records. A brick building near Lake Street, four stories, built in the 1960s. The kind of place where the heat never worked right and the hallways smelled like old carpet.
She parked across the street and waited. Mrs. Kowalski's apartment was on the third floor, corner unit. The lights were on. Linh could see the blue flicker of a television.
She thought again of the boat. After her mother stole the rice, she stopped eating her own portions. She gave everything to Linh and her younger brother. By the time they reached Malaysia, her mother couldn't stand without help. The Red Cross nurse said another day at sea and she would have died.
Her mother lived for ten more years in America. She cleaned office buildings at night in downtown Minneapolis. She never learned more than a few words of English. She died of a stroke in the break room of the IDS Tower, a sandwich half-eaten in front of her.
Linh sat in her car for an hour. The lights in Mrs. Kowalski's apartment stayed on. No one came or went from the building. Finally, Linh drove home.
The next day at work, Jennifer called a staff meeting.
"Inventory is off," she said. "We're missing products. Small things, but they add up."
Tommy looked at Linh. "Maybe someone's stealing," he said.
"I'll keep better track," Jennifer said. "Everyone needs to watch the clients. Make sure bags stay closed during services."
Linh said nothing.
Two weeks passed. Mrs. Kowalski came in for her appointment. This time, Linh watched her carefully from the moment she walked in. The woman moved slowly, favoring her left hip. Her coat was wool, good quality but old, with a tear in the lining that had been mended with the wrong color thread.
"The usual?" Linh asked.
"Yes. Ballet Slippers."
As Linh worked, she noticed Mrs. Kowalski's eyes darting to the retail shelf. There was a new shipment of hand cream, small tubes, perfect for purses.
"That cream is very good," Linh said. "But expensive. Eighteen dollars."
Mrs. Kowalski's hand twitched slightly.
"Everything's expensive now," she said.
"Yes."
Linh finished the first hand, started on the second. She could feel Mrs. Kowalski watching her, evaluating.
"You're from Vietnam," Mrs. Kowalski said. It wasn't a question.
"Yes."
"When did you come here?"
"1979. I was seven."
"With family?"
"My mother and brother."
"Your father?"
"He stayed."
Mrs. Kowalski nodded. She understood about men who stayed behind, who disappeared.
"I came in 1968," Mrs. Kowalski said. "From Poland. With my husband."
"Long time ago."
"Yes. Different world."
Linh finished applying the polish. While it dried, she stood and walked to the retail shelf. She picked up one of the hand cream tubes.
"I have extra samples in the back," she said. "From the sales rep. They're going to expire soon."
It was a lie. There were no samples.
"I'll get you some," Linh said.
She went to the back room, took three tubes of hand cream from the box, put them in a small paper bag. She paid for them with her tip money from the jar she kept in her locker. Thirty-six dollars.
When she came back, Mrs. Kowalski was sitting exactly as she had left her, hands under the UV lamp.
"Here," Linh said, placing the bag beside Mrs. Kowalski's purse. "Free samples."
Mrs. Kowalski looked at the bag, then at Linh. Her eyes were pale blue, watery.
"Thank you," she said quietly.
"Your nails are dry," Linh said.
Mrs. Kowalski paid the twenty-five dollars. As she picked up her purse and the paper bag, she paused.
"My husband worked at the Ford plant," she said. "Thirty-five years. Good pension. But now..." She stopped. "Everything costs more. The pension doesn't go up."
"I understand," Linh said.
"The social security, it's not enough. My daughter says I should sell the apartment, move to a senior place. But it's my home. You understand?"
"Yes."
Mrs. Kowalski looked around the salon. Tommy was with another client. Jennifer was in the office.
"The nail polish," she said quietly. "I'm sorry."
"What nail polish?" Linh said.
Mrs. Kowalski's eyes filled with tears. She blinked them back.
"I'll see you in two weeks," she said.
After she left, Linh went to the display and rearranged the bottles. She moved them around until there was no gap where Tidepool should be.
That night, she called her brother in California. He was a pharmacist now, married with three kids.
"You remember on the boat?" she asked. "When Ma took the rice?"
"Why are you thinking about that?"
"I just remembered it today."
"I was too young. I don't remember much."
"She stole it. From the family next to us."
"She kept us alive."
"But it was stealing."
"Linh, that was forty years ago. Different situation."
"Was it?"
Her brother sighed. "You think too much about the past."
After they hung up, Linh sat in her apartment, looking out at the lights of the city. She thought about Mrs. Kowalski in her apartment, maybe putting the hand cream on her spotted hands. She thought about her mother in the break room of the IDS Tower, eating her sandwich alone.
The next time Mrs. Kowalski came in, she brought a small container of homemade cookies. Polish cookies, she said, made with her mother's recipe.
"For the break room," she said, handing them to Linh.
Linh knew they weren't for the break room.
"Thank you," she said.
As she did Mrs. Kowalski's nails, they talked about the weather. How spring was late this year. How the construction on Cedar Avenue was making traffic terrible. Normal things. Safe things.
When it came time to pay, Mrs. Kowalski gave her thirty dollars.
"Keep the change," she said.
Five dollars. The first tip in six months.
"Thank you," Linh said.
This became their routine. Every two weeks, Mrs. Kowalski would come in. Linh would happen to have "samples" of something - hand cream, cuticle oil, a buffer. Mrs. Kowalski would bring cookies or, once, a jar of homemade jam. They would talk about small things while Linh painted her nails Ballet Slipper pink.
Jennifer never mentioned the inventory problem again. Maybe she decided the losses were too small to matter. Or maybe she knew and chose to say nothing. Linh didn't ask.
One Tuesday in July, Mrs. Kowalski didn't come for her appointment. Linh waited an hour, then called the number on file. No answer. She called again the next day. Still nothing.
On her lunch break, she drove to Mrs. Kowalski's building. The nameplate by the apartment had been removed. She asked the building manager, a young Somali man who was fixing a broken mailbox.
"The old Polish lady? She moved. Couple weeks ago."
"Where?"
"Don't know. Her daughter came, packed everything up. Took her to California, I think."
Linh stood in the dim hallway, looking at the space where Mrs. Kowalski's name had been.
"Did she leave anything?" Linh asked. "A message for anyone?"
"No. Nothing."
Linh went back to work. Tommy asked if she was okay.
"Fine," she said.
That afternoon, a young woman came in wanting gel extensions with elaborate nail art. She had a photo on her phone of what she wanted. Tiny flowers and vines. It would take two hours at least.
As Linh worked, the woman talked on her phone to a friend about a concert, a guy she was dating, problems with her roommate. Normal problems. Young people problems.
"These are perfect," the woman said when Linh finished. "You're an artist."
She tipped twenty dollars.
After work, Linh stopped at the Walgreens on her way home. She stood in the nail polish aisle, looking at all the colors. She found Tidepool, that blue-green Mrs. Kowalski had taken. She bought it, along with Ballet Slippers.
At home, she painted her own nails for the first time in years. First the blue-green on her left hand. Then the pale pink on her right. She sat at her kitchen table, waiting for them to dry, looking at her hands in the lamplight.
She thought about Mrs. Kowalski in California with her daughter. Maybe in a house with a yard. Grandchildren coming to visit. Or maybe in another small apartment, another city where everything cost too much.
She thought about her mother, how she never painted her nails, never had time for such things. How her hands were always working, cleaning, cooking, reaching across the space between what they had and what they needed.
The polish was dry now. Linh held up her hands, examining them. The colors were pretty in the light. She thought she would keep them this way for a while. One hand blue-green like the sea they crossed. The other pink like the inside of a shell, like something that once held life.
The next day at work, Jennifer noticed her nails.
"Pretty," she said. "You never paint them."
"I felt like a change," Linh said.
A new client came in that afternoon. An elderly woman, Chinese, who spoke limited English. She pointed to a deep red on the color chart.
"This one," she said.
As Linh worked, she noticed the woman's coat was frayed at the cuffs. Her purse was vinyl made to look like leather, the kind sold at discount stores. When it came time to pay, the woman counted out the money slowly, quarters and dimes mixed with the bills.
"I have a coupon," Linh said suddenly. "For new customers. Five dollars off."
There was no coupon. Linh would pay the five dollars herself.
The woman smiled. "Thank you," she said in accented English.
"Come back in two weeks," Linh said. "I'll have more coupons."
After the woman left, Linh went to the back room. She sat on the small bench where they ate lunch, looking at her mismatched nails. She thought about all the things people take. Rice from strangers. Nail polish from a strip mall salon. Dignity from those who have little left to give.
And what they give. Handfuls of grain in the dark. Cookies made from a mother's recipe. The fiction of free samples. Small mercies that say: I see you. I understand. You're not alone in this.
Tommy knocked on the door. "You okay? Your next appointment is here."
"Coming," Linh said.
She stood, straightened her uniform, and went back to her station. The client was waiting, a middle-aged woman looking at her phone. Linh washed her hands, arranged her tools, and began.
"What color today?" she asked.
The woman held up her phone, showing a picture of a celebrity's nails.
"Something like this," she said. "But not too flashy."
Linh nodded and reached for the polish display. Her own nails caught the light as she moved, two different colors, like two different stories. Both true. Both hers.
"I have just the thing," she said.