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 5

She unzips the black pouch. She turns on the UV wand.

The wand throws a tight cone the diameter of a teacup. It is purple in the bridal-soft white air. She sweeps from the cuticle of Imani's index nail to the cuticle of Imani's pinky and back across the thumbnail. The cuticle line on every nail fluoresces in a steady starfield — points the size of pinpricks, distributed evenly, edge to edge across the cap. The pattern is the pattern in the registry photograph in Spring 2024. The pattern is unbroken across all five nails of the right hand.

She moves to the left hand. The pattern is the same.

She looks up.

"NMC-TA-2024-1189," she says. The microphone clipped to her blazer collar picks it up. The convention center sound system carries it. "Mica-coated borosilicate micro-glitter suspension for UV-verifiable signature in cap-layer gel formulations. Registrant Nina Tran. Peer reviewer of record: me."

The audience is quiet. The bridal bloggers are filming. Marco's gimbal is still off.

Patricia turns to face the audience. She walks past Booth 13. She walks past Booth 12. She stops at the lip of the stage and looks at Marco in the second row.

"Mr. Tran. You are the registered booth representative."

Marco stands halfway up. The wireless mic at the demo desk picks up his shirt rustling.

"Yes. The Polish & Co. method incorporates a proprietary —"

"Could you state, for the record and the live stream, the particle size and the loading percentage of the suspension you just saw."

Marco pauses.

The HVAC in the holding area, audible because the audience is silent, hums for two long seconds.

"It is — the proprietary suspension of the Polish & Co. method. We do not disclose specifics on a stream."

"It is registered," Patricia says. "It is a public record. The particle range is in the protocol on the public-facing page. The loading is in the same protocol. I am asking what they are."

Marco looks at his phone in his lap. He looks at me. I am at the demo desk, holding the handpiece in my left hand. He says nothing for sixteen seconds.

Patricia turns to me.

"Nina, please walk the room through your apex placement and your cap dose."

I walk to the center of the stage. I bring the handpiece. The burned housing catches the light. I describe the apex angle — fifteen degrees off the natural curve — and the file pattern that holds it. I describe the cap layer at one and one-tenth millimeters at the apex and eight tenths at the free edge, thinner than the manufacturer recommends because the suspension absorbs cure differently. I describe the dose: three thousandths of one percent by weight. The particle is mica-coated borosilicate, forty-two to forty-eight microns. The cure window is eighty seconds at 36 watts. I describe the protocol I wrote in pencil and mailed from the post office on Lincoln Avenue on November 12, 2024, the seventy-two-dollar filing fee on a card I keep in the second drawer of this desk, and the lot number for this batch — which I copied onto the back of an expo program folded in my back pocket. I read the lot number aloud.

I speak for eight minutes. I do not look at Marco. I look at Patricia, and at the bridal bloggers, and at minute four I look at Imani in the chair, and Imani nods once.

When I finish there is no applause. The MC does not know whether to cue it. The bridal bloggers have stopped filming. They are sending the videos.

Patricia thanks me. She returns to the judging table.

A tech from Booth 12 whispers to a tech from Booth 13 that she has been doing apex placement at fifteen degrees off the natural curve for two years and she got it from a Reddit comment that did not have a name attached.

Marco sits down. He keeps the phone in his lap.

The judging concludes at four-thirty-eight. Polish & Co. wins the live demo. The trophy is handed to me. Marco does not come up to the stage.

In the green room Patricia finds me. She does not say congratulations. She says: "Nine names. Three with NMC numbers. Two in non-disclosure. Wednesday morning at the salon. Nine-fifteen."

She hands me a card. I put it in the inside pocket of my purse.

Marco is not in the green room.

He is not in the lobby.

The Lexus is not in the parking lot when I walk out at five-forty with Imani and the trophy and the aunt's handpiece in my left fist.

Wednesday morning. Polish & Co. on lowest light. First appointment at ten — a fill from a returning client named Ruby who has been with me since 2021.

I am at my station. The aunt's handpiece is in the bottom drawer where it belongs. I cleaned the housing on Sunday night with a soft cloth and a drop of mineral oil — the burned smell is still there in the threads of the cord, but the motor sounds the way it did when she handed it to me in 2017. I ran it once on low against a practice tip yesterday afternoon. The vibration moved through my wrist the way it should. The apex on the practice tip held.

The lumbar brace is folded on the back of the chair. I have not put it on yet. I sat for ten minutes earlier and the disc on the right side complained but did not lock. I will wear the brace by noon. I will not wear it for the first hour. That is the deal I made with myself in the parking lot before I came in.