Pink Toenails

It was on a whim.

I was in the checkout line at Kohl's with my mother, shopping for outfits for Senior Portraits, browsing through the random odds and ends that decorated the aisle, when I came across a few bottles of Essie nail polish. I don't know what hit me, but I implored my mother to let me buy one. Under the dim lighting it looked almost white. It looks nice and bright, I thought, Why not buy it?

When I took it home, I didn't touch it for a week. It lay on my kitchen table next to all the junk that my mother delegated to a specific corner along with dried up pens, pencils, post-it notes, and a few makeup products that we both used daily. Under the fluorescent lights, the polish looked more pearly-pink than it did white, that shade in between either color where it was similar to it but not quite. I'm sure that had I not touched it, it would've found a new home in the cabinet above the washing machine next to the downstairs bathroom, catching the scent of the nail polish remover and soap and detergents and bandaids that my mother always kept on hand.

It was a Saturday morning.

The summer sun was shining brightly on the deck of our backyard, and my father was watching old rock songs on the TV in the family room as he held a loud, boisterous conversation with my mother while relaxing languidly on the couch. I walked downstairs to put some trash away, struck with an early morning "I'm not awake yet" face, messy hair, and baggy pajamas that resembled the clothes of a homeless person. As I neared the kitchen trash, I passed next to the kitchen table, suddenly struck with the urge to paint my nails.My mother remarked that if I were to do so, I'd have to paint them outside in the deck, with open ventilation.

I stared down at my toenails. They were worse for the wear, dirty and grimy, leftover nail polish from a few years back when I'd hastily painted them for a dance performance in a plasticky red. My feet were dry, skin peeling off, and my toenails were uneven length, some curving to look like witch's fingers. Wincing, I hastily wiped them clean with acetone, trimmed them, and filed them, until they looked more like feet and less like weird appendages.

As soon as I opened the bottle, the smell of nail polish, chemical and fake, sickly-sweet, hit me. Suddenly, years of childhood, of experimenting, hours spent on rainy days painting my nails, of conversations with my friends, came rushing back to me. The morning breeze blew it away quickly, and I jolted to the sound of my neighbor's dog barking furiously next to me. I bent over with the brush and proceeded to paint my nails.

My hand was shaky and unsure, rusty from lack of practice. My feet were impatient, unwilling to be still, unused to having their nails painted, finicky like a child when their mother asks them to stay in one place for too long. My toes were rigid and unmovable. They snapped back into place whenever I pulled them apart and complained whenever I stuck a cotton ball between them to separate them. I'd move and then a bit of nail polish would wipe off or move around. The coats of nail polish were uneven, not laid on completely smoothly, and the job took about half and hour to complete overall.

When I was done, my toenails looked like the failed first attempt of a four-year old to paint her toenails. Grabbing a Q-tip, I doused it in acetone and rubbed it around my nails, cleaning up the edges, cursing under my breath softly in frustration as my shaky hand would accidentally remove nail polish from my nail as well.

Even after I'd cleaned up the job as best as I could, it was still uneven and imperfect. I was slightly perturbed, because I used to be good at this. Even now, I can still recall to mind the complicated designs I'd drawn on my toenails and fingernails all throughout middle school, the nail blogs I'd peruse to find inspiration, the tutorials I would watch to learn techniques, and the joy and confidence I'd feel when others would compliment my artwork. Today, as my "handiwork" evidenced, that talent was no more.

Throwing away all the Q-tips and cotton balls I'd accumulated, I trudged back upstairs to my bathroom, hung a towel, and put my hair up in a messy bun. I stared at my reflection in the mirror. My face was dirty and oily. My cheeks had weathered the storm of puberty, left with scars of previous acne and dry skin. My mouth now held a more serious disposition, and my jawline and chin were more prominent as my baby fat had melted away. My hair was now shorter than its original length, cut into layers, and still rebellious, curling upwards, refusing to stay down. The dark circles under my eyes were stories of sleepless nights from the stresses of high school and growing up, four years of hard work and earned test scores and grades, nights spent binging TV shows or talking with my friends. I was no longer the carefree little girl that wore pink and sparkles. That girl was unaware of worldly issues, her only concern the artistry of her nails, nails she painted while humming all her favorite songs from the 2000s with a childlike twinkle in her eye.

I stared back down at my toenails. They stood out starkly against my tan skin, imperfect and painted with a shaky hand, but they looked pearly pink and bright and pretty. As I stared back into the reflection of the mirror, my face looked as tired as ever, but maybe, just maybe, there was still that twinkle in my eyes.