By spring of 1977 Mai was physically exhausted. She had worked at the Lotus Nail Salon nearly eighteen months, usually eight hours a day, with one short break to fetch Witt from school. The Major came in only once a week. When he did, it was to account for the revenue and pay Mai her wages.
But there was a problem. Mai was being shortchanged. She was not receiving forty percent of their proceeds. There was always a different excuse: the new girl’s salary had to be split between Liên and Mai; Mai had ordered too many new colors of polish and they would only pay for some of them; the heat cost more last month and she should have been more careful with the temperature.
As a result Mai was feeling resentful and short-tempered. The way she’d felt about Chị Chi Tâm all those years ago when Tâm told her what to do. She hadn’t put up with Chị Tâm then. Why should she put up with the Major?
There was another problem as well. When the Major wasn’t complaining about the money, or she was able to talk him out of reducing her paycheck, he reminded her that she owed him gratitude. When she said she was grateful, he demanded that she show him.
The first time he said that, she was shocked but tried to laugh it off. “Major, I know you are joking with me. I will not take it personally.” She hurried out of the back room. Luckily, a client had just come in. A week later, however, after handing over her paycheck, he did it again, and this time he unzipped his pants. Mai bolted from the back room, grabbed her coat, and fled.
After that Mai knew her days at the salon were numbered. Joy would be snatched from her hands yet again. But this time it was different. She had help. That evening, she called the Chapmans and invited them to tea at her home. She talked about being shortchanged financially by the Major but left out his sexual advances.
“I’ve been thinking. I want to open my own nail salon. I would like to ask the bank for a loan. What do I need to do so they will give me the money?”
Dave was silent. Irene looked at him as if waiting for him to answer. He cleared his throat. “I think it is wonderful that you are ambitious, Mai. Not many immigrants have your moxie. But you need—”
She cut in. “What is this ‘moxie’?”
Irene laughed. “Moxie is an American expression for a person, often a woman, who has a lot of energy and determination. Like you, my dear.”
“This is good?”
“Very good.” Dave smiled. “But you are still very young. You have no credit. It’s not your fault, of course. You just came to the U.S. But the bank will think they are taking on a lot of risk with someone like you.”
“I took a risk coming here to America. I will tell the bank I am not afraid to work hard. I have been doing that all my life.”
“You’re not even twenty-five, are you?”
“I will be soon,” she lied. Some things never changed. “And because of Liên and her husband, I know how to run the business. I can manage it myself. And I know what I want to do with it. I have ideas to make it grow.”
“That is all good. But you will probably need someone to cosign the loan with you. In case it doesn’t work out. How much money do you want to borrow?”
“I think 2,000 dollars.”
“Do you have any financials on that?”
Mai held up her hand. She went to Đêm Nguyệt’s room and returned with a piece of accounting paper headed with “Income and Expenses.” Items were neatly filled out under each appropriate section. “Witt helped me,” she said proudly.
Dave and Irene looked it over. “We’ll think it over,” he said. “There may be a solution.”
Three months later, in August, Mai’s Nail Boutique opened on Lawrence Avenue, one of the main thoroughfares running through Chicago’s Uptown. The Chapmans agreed to guarantee the loan, and Mai vowed they would never need to pay a penny out of their own pockets.
She set up three manicure stations with comfortable chairs for clients, and stools with trays for her employees. She hired Hoa, the manicurist who worked at Chị Liên’s salon, as her second employee and advertised for one more, part-time manicurist. It was a perfect job for a woman; she could choose a morning or afternoon shift. She selected one from more than twenty applicants.
Mai also decided to apply the idea she’d first thought about for Lien’s salon. The idea came to her when Đêm Nguyệt played in the shop. Instead of setting up a fourth station, she hired a babysitter part-time. For a small fee, her clients could completely relax for forty-five minutes and let the sitter take care of the children.
Women, primarily Asian, flooded the salon. And on Saturdays, a line often formed outside the door. Mai wasn’t sure if it was the manicure or the babysitter that attracted them, but she didn’t care. In 1978 she opened a second salon closer to their apartment on Argyle, near Kenmore, paid off the bank loan, and was out of debt. Witt was flourishing. They weren’t rich, but she could afford to buy him whatever he needed. And she was now twenty-five years old.