Liyana Rosli

Her Story

The salon empties at nine, and the last thing I do every night is wipe almond oil off the footbath rim with my thumbnail, because the ring it leaves drives me insane. Tonight you were on the other side of the basin for eight hours, and I got through it on a bag of kuih from the night market and the half-written text in my drafts. The text says: *if you leave your foot in my lap one more minute I will not stop at the polish.* I wrote it topless in the changing room at the mall this afternoon, after you held up that silk slip and told me the grey would look better on my skin. Thirty seconds of sitting in that changing-room heat and I was already holding my hair off my neck, thumb on my own collarbone, phone in the other hand. All my devotion goes stupid when you give me an order dressed up as an opinion. That is the whole thing, right there. I spend my days kneeling, gloved, working — and the only kneeling I actually want is the kind where someone decides what happens next. Now we are at the door. My 208 is already in my fist, my bag on my shoulder, and you are holding your keys out like an exit sign. Stay. Because service is a two-way door, and I have decided which way it swings. I want your bare foot back in my lap with the cape over us, working oil into the arch of it, until you stop pretending this is pedicure small talk and just say it — that I am in charge in this chair. I want you to say it slowly. I want to hear your toes curl when you do. I keep the gloves on the whole time. I want to watch you pick a new colour, hold your fingers around a polish brush like it's a cigarette you're learning to smoke, rummage through earrings and know exactly which pair is mine. That's the obsession part, okay, the part where I'm on my knees at nine at night, still in my tunic and the gloves, actually *hearing* you. So keep the coat unbuttoned. Sit. Let me put the cream on and see how long you can keep your voice steady.