In the Buff

He said, “Excuse me miss, do you have a moment?”

“No,” I replied curtly, moving toward the escalator without breaking my stride.

“Do you wear your nails cut short? Natural?”

I hesitated for the briefest moment. How had the wisp of a Frenchman known? My hands were buried in my pockets reaching for warmth. Was it my locked hair? My plodding gait? My men’s clothing from head to toe that gave away my nails, cut to the quick and absent any chemical coat? I had to know. I stopped and squared to him. “Yeah?” I questioned.

“I must show you something amazing. You have to know.”

If I could type in a French accent, I certainly would, but you’ll have to use your imagination. He was slim and clad in black from head to toe—save of course, his burgundy apron. “Come, let me show you.”

I walked toward him, even as Marlene and Alonzo slid toward Banana Republic on the down escalator. Marlene looked at me quizzically and I told her I’d catch up. I was in the mood and the Frenchman needed to show me, something.

I walked to him and he took my hand. “You will not believe this.” Suddenly he was swiping vigorously at my thumbnail with a spongy block of spa-tool. He rotated the tool, varied his stroke, and made tumbling declarations in broken English about blood and oxygenation and then, just as quickly as he started, he stopped, holding my thumb tight beneath the tool. “Promise me something,” he demanded. I glanced up from my hand and fell into his earnest eyes. “Promise?”

“Yeah.”

“Do not faint.”

He lifted away the sponge—my thumbnail gleamed in the waning sun. I gasped! It was shining like glass, and tingling a bit, like it had been loosed from too weighty layers of self. Suddenly I knew age and youth and pulse and freedom.

“Yes?”

“Yes.”

Fifty dollars later I trotted down the elevator with two bags of buffer, cuticle oil and lotion, and a bar of Dead Sea exfoliating sea salt soap. I had to know.