“Nail Lady and Ernie” by Ella Kopelman

If her nails weren’t done she wouldn’t leave the house. She couldn’t stand anyone seeing the bareness, the nakedness of a color-less nail. It made her feel like a child. It reminded her of digging holes to China in overalls and chasing rolly-pollies in the playground. But, she doesn’t do those things anymore. Now, she sips martinis at work parties and flirts with her boss. Now, her nails were always painted, usually a sophisticated color of bubble gum pink or bright red.

She works at the publishing company of a girly magazine. They are slowly running out of business due to their unwillingness to adapt to a digital form and their everlasting competition with Cosmopolitan. But this didn’t stifle the companies’ pride of being loved by teenage girls and bored housewives for many years. Every wall in the office was plastered with covers of their previous issues. A large printout of a blonde popstar was hung up across from the woman’s desk. Angie Parker shares her daily meal routine! Ten exercises to get a flat belly! What your boyfriend really means when he does this…

The woman and Angie Parker had staring contests all day long. Angie Parker always won. The woman knew that image by heart. She noticed how each strand of Angie Parker’s child-blonde hair fell onto her shoulders. She studied the whiteness of her teeth and the lack of pores on her skin. She held resentment that Angie Parker’s meal routine had left her hungry all day and that the ten exercises didn’t get rid of the woman’s flabby lower belly. Her nails––today, a sparkly deep magenta––tapped on the cold hard surface of her desk. Each click held a resounding echo of boredom.

“Would you mind not doing that?” The woman’s desk neighbor said this without looking up from her computer. She was about two years younger than the woman and was meaner than most people in the office. She wore her auburn hair pulled back into a tight bun and had wrinkles in between her eyebrows from constantly scowling.

“Sorry,” said the woman as she lifted her hands from her desk and folded them in her lap. It was 4:45, only 15 more minutes until she got to leave. She thought about the microwave pasta dinner she had waiting for her at home. She thought about maybe doing her hair like Angie Parker’s. Her hair was naturally dark brown and wavy, but with enough product and at least an hour alone with her blow dryer, she could achieve the effortless silky-smooth hair that Angie Parker wore with such elegance.

She decided that on her way home she was going to stop at CVS and pick up a new nail color––she was thinking a hot pink would be suitable for tomorrow––and a bottle of her favorite $5 chardonnay. When 5 o’clock came, she was already packed up with her coat on. She had taken a June issue of their magazine from the pile on her neighbor’s desk because she was curious about what star sign her soulmate is going to be. She wondered if she was ever going to find a soulmate. She wondered if soulmates even exist.

She sat on the train squished between an enormous man nodding his head violently to whatever music was playing through his headphones and a squeamish looking old lady who was chewing her gum so loudly that the woman almost had to cover her ears. She opened the magazine to distract herself from her current discomfort. She flipped to the page about star signs. If she is a Libra then that would mean her soulmate has to be a Gemini. She didn’t know what this meant. She never really understood star signs.

She got off on the next stop and walked three blocks to the CVS. She gave a dollar to the homeless man sitting outside the entrance. His “God bless you” made her smile. 

*******

Ernest Blackwell works as the retail store manager at the CVS on 7th street. Most of his friends call him Ernie––his friends being his employees, his mother, and the homeless man who sits outside the CVS waiting for Ernie’s daily dollar and granola bar.

Ernie thinks he is a good boss: very responsible, very fair. He never fired people if he could avoid it. About three months ago he had to lay off a cashier due to budget cuts and cried about it for days.

 Ernie is tall, but has features of a small man. He is skinny and has a soft chin that

looks like it is almost a part of his neck. He has big ears that stick out on the sides of his head. He used to try to cover them by keeping his hair long and shaggy, but with the humidity and heat that takes over the city in the summer, he was forced to cut it short. Besides his ears, his most prominent feature is his bright green eyes. The color of his eyes mixed with his abnormal ears and red CVS polo sometimes gave him the look of a Christmas elf. 

Besides the daily phone calls with his mother, Ernie doesn’t really talk to many people outside work. He does talk to his succulents because he read an article once that said if you talk to your plants it will make them live longer. So far, they seem healthy. He keeps them on the window sill in his kitchenette, right next to the recipe books that he uses to make himself a special meal on his birthday.

Ernie’s mother sometimes tries to set him up on dates. It’s usually the daughter of one of his mother’s friends from Mah Jong Club who just moved to the city and wants to meet people. Ernie would put on a newly ironed button down, usually green to bring out his eyes. He would meet the girl at a restaurant or bar. They would have small talk: he would tell her about his work, she would tell him about her new apartment. The girls were always nice, smiling and nodding as he told stories about restocking the nail polish section and having to do inventory which everyone hates. After the date they would give each other a quick hug and she would say that it was so nice meeting him. Then she would walk away leaving Ernie to go home to tend to his succulents.

Ernie understands that he just never really learned how to flirt. He went to an all-boys Catholic school and kept to himself. He liked reading so that’s how he spent most of his time. The only girls he interacted with were his cousins and the girls in his church group. He didn’t really mind that he didn’t know how to flirt and that women generally didn’t like him romantically. He had never known otherwise.

One day at work Gloria had food poisoning and Ernie told her to take the day off.  He told her about a tea his mother used to make him when he was sick and said he would fill in as cashier when things got busy. He enjoyed working the cash register, it made him feel close to his employees; made him feel like he was one of them. This day was particularly busy because Valentine’s Day was tomorrow and the store was filled with frantic men rushing through the aisles looking for a card, some chocolates, or a stuffed teddy bear. The cash registers were decorated with pink and red heart shaped doilies and cut-out cupids were taped onto the walls and counters.

Ernie had just rung up a middle aged man whose purchases included a Hallmark card with a baby chick on the front, a bag of chips, some Valentine’s Day themes white chocolate Kit Kats, a tube of toothpaste, and a box of Viagra pills. Ernie wished the man a happy Valentine's Day and he left with a grunt of recognition. The next customer in line was a young woman––looked about his age––with long dark hair who was clutching a bottle of wine, a magazine, and what looked like a handful of different colored nail polish.

“Next in line, please” Ernie called out to her.

She walked over, struggling to hold all of her items and released them onto the counter in front of him.

“And how is your day going,” Ernie said with a smile as he started ringing up the nail polish. He thought it was odd that they were all varying shades of red or pink. Probably for Valentine's Day, he assumed.

“It’s alright, thank you” the woman responded.

Ernie started to ring up the magazine when she stopped him and said “Oh, I brought that with me.”

Ernie looked down at the magazine. He noticed it did look more ragged than one she would have just taken off the shelf. He recognized the brand, they sold it in the store.

“I see,” said Ernie. “We sell these here, you know, so I just assumed.”

“Of course” the woman said. She had begun clicking her long nails on the counter. He wondered if he was moving too slow and she was getting impatient. They train the cashiers to work at a high speed so as to keep the line moving. He hurried up and finished ringing up her wine bottle and handed her her receipt.

“Happy Valentine's Day” he said.

“Thank you, Erneast” she said, eyeing his name tag. “You too.” She gave him a small smile and she left the register with her CVS bag in hand. 

Ernie felt a little twinkle in his stomach and the ends of his large ears went pink.

Ella Kopelman is a rising sophomore in LSA who is incapable of making a decision on what she wants to study. In her free time, she loves to read, watch movies, listen to music, and eat the food that her friends cook for her.