She has painted nails for nine years. His face got the ten thousand followers. Her back screamed through the Chen bridal set and she finished every blossom anyway.

Page 2

The peer reviewer was a competition judge named Patricia Cole. She wrote a one-paragraph citation in Nails Pro Journal, Spring 2024 issue. She praised the particle math. She used the word disciplined.

She is the lead judge for the State Bridal Expo nail art live demo, fourteen days from today. The expo is at the convention center an hour south. Polish & Co. is competing for the second year. Marco registered the booth. I will be the demo tech on the live stage. The model is a twenty-five-year-old physical therapy student named Imani who is getting a coffin set with a hand-painted geode pattern in seventy minutes in front of three hundred seats and three judges.

I will be putting the starfield in the cap layer.

Patricia will be eight feet from the chair with a UV wand in a pouch on her clipboard.

She does not know my face.

She knows the registry number.

I lift the brush off Sofia's eleventh flower. The flower is clean. The lumbar brace is biting. My handpiece is in the bottom drawer. The booking app on my phone, face-down on the desk, has not pinged in twenty minutes — Marco is on a coffee run.

I do not tell him about the registry. I have not told him about the registry. I am not going to tell him about the registry.

Eight days before the expo Imani comes in for the consultation.

She is twenty-five and she has the long fingers a flutist has, which she is not. She is studying physical therapy. She has read the Nails Pro Journal piece. She read it before the appointment. She tells me which paragraph in the second column. She asks about the particle density before she asks about the geode pattern.

Marco is in the consultation seat next to me. He has his phone out. He is filming a vertical clip for B-roll. Imani notices. She glances at the lens. She does not move her hand.

"So we're doing geode," Marco says, lowering the phone. "Marbled inclusions. The Polish & Co. signature. Right Nina?"

"There is no Polish & Co. signature," I say. "There is a particle suspension at three thousandths of one percent in the cap. There is a geode pattern. We are doing both."

Imani looks at me in the desk mirror.

"Right," Marco says. "The signature. The protocol." He is searching his phone notes. He cannot find the word. He puts the phone down. "I'll let you handle the consult. I have a vendor call." He walks to the back office. He closes the door.

I open the second drawer. I get out the formula card I made the night Imani's booking came through. I show her the card. She reads it. She asks about the cap thickness. I tell her one and one-tenth millimeters at the apex, eight tenths at the free edge — thinner than the manufacturer recommends because the particle suspension absorbs cure in a way that leaves a marginally softer edge. I have run the test on my own thumb and on three loyal clients. The thinner cap survives a binder clip. I show her my thumb.

"Have you done this on a stage," she says.

"No. I have done it at this desk fourteen times. The seventy-minute version is the same protocol, compressed."

She nods. She puts her phone in her bag. She does not take it out for the rest of the consultation.

When she leaves I sit at the desk for a minute. The shop is quiet. The last appointment of the day cleared out at six. I open the second drawer. I take out the registration letter. I take out the formula card. I take out a clean piece of paper.

The expo rules require the lead tech to submit a written protocol three days before the demo. The protocol becomes part of the live record. The judges read it on a clipboard during the rest period. They cross-reference what they see on the model.

I write the protocol. I write the cap thickness, the cure time, the sequence of color drops for the geode. I include the particle suspension at three thousandths of one percent and the registry number — NMC-TA-2024-1189, peer-reviewed Nails Pro Journal Spring 2024 — in the line for proprietary additives. I do not show the protocol to Marco. I mail it the next morning from the post office on Lincoln Avenue.

—

The morning after that Marco brings me a coffee. He has not brought me a coffee in seven months. He sets it on my station. The cup says ROSEWOOD BREW in dark green — from a place ten blocks away he thinks is more on-brand than the place around the corner.

"The judges' panel has a hospitality on Friday," he says. "Wine, cheese boards. I am the registered representative. I will be there. The lead tech can come if she wants but it is more for owners."

"I am the registered tech on the entry form."

"You are. Hospitality is for owners."

"Patricia Cole is judging."

"I know. I have been studying her column for three weeks. Patricia uses very precise language. Particle density. Cure window. Cuticle math."

"Cuticle math."

"It is in her piece in March."

"Patricia is a tech."

"Patricia is a brand voice."

I do not say anything. I drink the coffee. It is too sweet. I taste vanilla syrup. I have not ordered vanilla in any drink since I was nineteen. I drink it anyway. He stays at my station for thirty seconds. He picks at a chip in the laminate of the desk.