Big Easy Bonanza

How’re you doing? I just came in for a manicure.” She broke out in a sweat. If Janessa’d been told about her visit her well-laid plans had just gone terrible awry.
    The hairdresser answered, “There’s one ahead of you—it’ll be about half an hour.”
    “I can wait.” Oh, yes. Gladly. She’d now finished her Susan Dodd novel, but she’d brought a book of poetry. She could wait absolutely as long as she had to, and she hoped it was quite awhile.
    She glanced at the manicurist and sucked in her breath in surprise. If she’d pictured a polished, spoiled Black American Princess, she couldn’t have been further off the mark. This girl was as unlike her Aunt Mozelle as Talba was; and she was nothing like Talba, either. First of all, she was lighter, milk chocolate-colored; she was a whole lot heavier, and somewhat taller; and she was sloppy about her appearance. The worst case Talba’d expected was someone with a Queen-of-Sheba hairstyle and stiletto nails.
    The way this girl looked really threw her. Her collar-length hair was unstyled, just brushed back from her face as if she didn’t know what else to do with it. She wore a T-shirt and shorts that revealed heavy thighs, and she sat like a truck driver. To her surprise, Talba was as dismayed as Miz Clara might have been. She thought about why it bothered her so much.
    It was because she associated this look—one she saw a thousand times every day—with a sense of hopelessness; a deep depression about everyday life, the unshakable feeling that it has to be like this. You have to be fat, for instance; and that’s because food eases all the other things you can’t make go away. Not a mere depression, but a lifelong condition, a sullen acceptance of your fate as bad, deserved, and unchangeable.
    She associated it with something else as well—poverty and lack of education. Poor social standing and poor self-esteem. Miz Clara had scrubbed white ladies’ toilets twelve hours a day to send her and Corey to college. Before that, she’d browbeaten them into doing their homework and doing well in school. She’d limited their television hours; she’d yelled at them and grounded them. She’d metaphorically gotten down on all fours and pushed their reluctant behinds into the middle class. Talba forgot all that most of the time; took her educated status for granted.
    This girl, despite the fancy home from which she’d fled, looked like trash. The thought shocked her. Talba didn’t think she was the kind of person who thought in those terms.
    Depressed, she picked up her poetry anthology and wished it were a novel. She needed something diverting, not challenging. After awhile Marcelline the waitress stopped by to chat on her way out. “Looking forward to your performance.”
    “Oh, you don’t have to say that. You’ve seen my routine a million times.”
    “Are you kidding? I bow to the Baroness.” She executed a sort of mock curtsy, causing Talba to giggle and other people to stare. Talba went back to her reading.
    Despite everything, she managed to become sufficiently absorbed. She heard the summons, when it came, only as background noise, “Okay, I’m ready for ya.”
    The girl repeated it a moment later, louder. “I’m ready.”
    Talba looked up and caught the eye of the manicurist, who nodded, eyes narrowed, as if she were summoning someone to an execution rather than a feminine pampering experience. Tucking away her book, Talba approached warily.
    She smiled at the girl. “Hi. I’m Talba.”
    “I know who you are.”
    Talba sat down and held out her hands. “What’s your name?”
    Lowering her eyes, the girl spoke almost inaudibly. “Janessa.”
    “Glad to meet you.” Not answering, the girl took Talba’s hands and began filing her nails.
    This is weird,
she thought.
We’re holding hands.
    “How long have you worked here?”
    Janessa flicked her eyes up, then down again. “Couple months.”
    “You like your job?”
    Once again, the girl’s eyes flicked like a snake’s. There was no mistaking the hostility in them. “Why you care?”
    “I was just making conversation.”
    For a long time, during which Janessa filed nails (none too expertly), and snipped at cuticles, there was deep, pregnant silence. Finally, the girl looked up, glancing at Talba sideways. “Why you come to see me?”
    “You know me?”
    “I know about you.”
    “What do you know about me?”
    “You the one that come here. You talk.”
    Talba was breaking