FAITH
“You look mighty happy,” Sunny, my nail tech, says, a telling look in her bright green eyes. Her braids are piled high on her head, giving her the look of wearing an artful crown.
“I’m always happy,” I say, and follow her to one of the rows of pristine tables.
“You’re always pleasant.” She takes the seat across from me. “There’s a difference.”
“You’re too much,” I say, not wanting to spill about Aiden. But something in my heart bubbles like the tang of champagne after a good shake. When she sits and takes a look at my situation, she purses her lips in a way that lets me know I’m not off the hook. “This new place is great. Even if it’s a little farther from me.”
Sunny’s the only person I let near my nails. Once, I went to a place where I got an infection from a nail clipper. I almost lost a finger. When I was growing up, my mother and aunts always insisted that we had to look our best. Put your best foot forward to the world. Someone is always going to have an opinion about what you wear or what color you paint your nails—or ask if your hair is natural. I never believed them until I went to school and started internships in conservation agencies. When I came back home, finding Sunny was the best thing that could have happened to me after nearly losing a finger to some foul nail clipper. When she moved to a luxury spa, I was just glad it was in the Garden District by me.
“Well, thank you for bearing the traffic to come see me,” Sunny says, getting to work with my usual blush-pink color. She sets up the UV machine, brings the emery boards and all.
“Actually,” I say. “I want something different. Let me see your reds and pinks.”
“Finally. Can you let me give you some extensions, too? Maybe then you’ll stop biting your nails.”
I pull my hand out of her intense inspection. “I do not bite my nails.” Then add “Anymore.”
Because for a long time, I was bloodying my thumbs raw from anxiety. It’s gotten better, and treating myself to this every two weeks definitely helps. It’s not a long-term solution, I know. I go through the red and pink palettes. There’s one shade, a bright red that looks the way Aiden makes me feel. A red that is bright and full of life. The red of azaleas and the sway of his hips against mine. The red of kisses stolen on dark streets.
“Faith Charles, is that you?” A cheerful woman’s voice snaps me out of my Aiden reverie.
It’s probably a good thing, because I have to cross my legs to calm the pulse between my thighs. The downside is the person sitting at the station beside me. The place is packed with clients, and it’s just my luck that Virginia Moreaux sits next to me.
“How are you, Mrs. Moreaux?” I ask, and stick my hands into the warm water Sunny has put out for me. There’s no reason why this woman’s presence should make my heart rate spike. I’m glad I can keep my fingers busy with the smooth marbles at the base of the water bowl.
“Please, call me Ginny. It’s been a long election season for all of us. I hope you don’t mind if I sit here. My usual girl’s out.”
“Of course not,” I say.
Virginia Moreaux, the first lady of New Orleans for two election cycles, has always been immaculately dressed. Her family comes from old Massachusetts money. It was her grandfather who lost it all, then her grandmother left the old man, took his two kids, and moved down south to start over. She found success in leather goods and started a small empire. Virginia Moreaux might be married to a caricature of the Monopoly man, but I respect the women in her family. She even has a scholarship program under her maiden name for high school girls in Louisiana. That doesn’t mean it isn’t awkward to see her after her husband’s campaign has tried to slander my mother.
“What’ve you got going on this weekend?” Sunny asks me, trying to save me from having to talk to Virginia.
I hold my hands out for Sunny to dry them. Then she gets to filing them almond shaped. “Just quiet nights in, you know.”
“I heard there’s a new club going to open soon,” Sunny says. “Lots of business coming in this next year.”
Lots of business that may or may not hurt the city in the long run. Virginia’s husband created policies that would allow for other companies to get bigger tax breaks than the local ones. It’s not blatant, but written in small ways. We look at each other at the same time, and I wonder if she’s thinking the same thing that I am.
I smile, and she smiles, and it’s on the edge of awkward.
“Faith, you’re so young,” she says. “I know I’m just being a big old buttinsky, but live your life! You’re only twenty-five!”
“Twenty-nine, actually,” I say and laugh. “Next month. I’ve always been okay with staying in.”
“I wish my Lena were more like you,” she says. “Don’t get me wrong. She’s got the Campbell spirit—starting protests with her friends and boycotting nearly everything in sight. I blame my own mother.”
“You’re a Campbell, too,” I remind her, amused that this is what Virginia Moreaux worries about.
The woman sighs, her hand out for the nail tech to file into short squares. “A mother’s worst fear is that she won’t do right by her kids. I just want her to succeed. I want her to have all the things that I didn’t. Travel the world. Fall madly in love.”
“Didn’t you do that?” I ask, trying my best to not be judgmental. “I remember seeing pictures of you from when you were younger. You and Mr. Moreaux in Italy and Hungary.”
Virginia takes a deep breath and smiles. But I’ve lived my life so long with my mother being in the media and in front of audiences and cameras and constituents. I know what a fake smile looks like. The kind that masks a deep hurt.
“Oh, of course.” Her voice is airy. “What about you, dear?”
“Well, after my mother wins,” I say light enough that we both chuckle amicably and everyone around us eavesdropping chuckles as well, “I’d like to return to conservation. There’s so much of this city that we can’t lose to developers.”
Virginia’s smile becomes genuine. “The apple never falls far from the tree. But what about love? Anyone special in your life?”
I shake my head. “Not really.”
That’s when Sunny snorts. And I could kill her. The last thing I need to be doing is talking to Virginia Moreaux like she’s my love therapist.
“Now, why don’t I believe that?” Virginia says. “You’re positively gorgeous. You’re educated and you’re your own woman. I can see why some of the local men would be intimidated.”
“You flatter me,” I say, trying to match her tone. “There’s someone. He’s sweet. Kind. I took him to the conservation center.”
Virginia’s big green eyes go wide. “My, you really put that boy to work. Wherever did you find him?”
I can’t tell my mother’s opponent’s wife that I picked up a man at a bar. Besides, why am I telling her all of this anyway? All I know is that there is a fluttering sensation in my chest when I think of Aiden. It’s a great big butterfly that turns into a thousand little butterflies, and those go on and on. I feel sick.
“A mutual friend set us up,” I say, which isn’t not true. “He’s from New York. Which is weird.”
“A city boy,” Virginia says. “Even better. Make sure you take him for a dinner at Sylvain. I’m sure you have your own connections, but if you can’t get a table, drop my name.”
I do, as a matter of fact, have my own connections. “Thank you, I appreciate it.”
Sunny starts painting the azalea red on my nails, and she makes a face that tells me she also thinks Virginia is too much.
“A New York boy,” Virginia continues. “I do hope his football team isn’t set. That might present a conflict with your father.”
I laugh. “It’s not serious, don’t worry. Plus, I don’t think he’s into football. He was born in Colombia but grew up in New York.”
“Does he call you ‘mi reina’?” Sunny asks, and the memory of that phrase makes me see that shade of red behind my closed eyelids. My brother-in-law does that.”
I answer with a restrained chuckle. Beside me Virginia has gone rigid. I shoot Sunny a wink because maybe that’s all it took to make the first lady of New Orleans blush.
We go through our manicures in pleasant chitchat, commenting on the new menu at Galatoire’s and how we hope it doesn’t rain on the day of the masquerade ball. She no longer pries into my personal life, and other than parties, we don’t talk about the campaign that has linked us this way.
“What a pretty color,” she tells me as I examine the bright shade, so strange after my usual muted pinks and beige. “Very exotic.”
I cringe inwardly at the word, but smile all the same. “See you next Friday.”
There’s something strange about the worry frown on her brow. “Will you be bringing your not-so-serious gentleman?”
Aiden in a tux? “That’s the plan.”
“Good for you. Good, good.” She takes a deep breath, pulling her purse open to fish for her lipstick and compact. When I was little, I always admired how she was so put together, like a Barbie. That was before I realized how trapped Virginia Moreaux always seems, a deer skittering around a forest she doesn’t know. She draws on her blush-pink lipstick. My mother doesn’t get to bother with lipsticks because the campaign managers tell her that it’s distracting. And I wonder, why do women always get relegated to two very different types of people? “Take care of yourself, darlin’. It’s important to find someone that makes you radiant from the inside out. Someone who sees you for who you are and not who the world wants you to be. That’s how you make love last, I think.”
Sunny and I trade confused glances. “Time for your facial, Faith.”
I don’t have a facial scheduled, but I can tell she’s giving me an out.
“Thank you, Mrs. Moreaux.”
And I’m left wondering why a woman like her would say such a strange thing to me.