Key West Coral

She flipped the passenger seat sun visor down and clumsily applied Fire Engine Red lip liner and satchel (her word for lipstick) to her lips. I smiled from the driver's seat and thought to myself: The day she stops putting on lip satchel when we leave the house is the day I know she's really sick.

The occasion was Thursday evening, after my afternoon at home with her. The outing was one of a few things: K-Mart (or K-Market as she liked to call it), Wal-Mart (Wal-Market), Belks (to Mom, Belks was the mall, and the mall was Belks -- just like all sodas are Coke), or sometimes we skipped shopping altogether to get her nails done.

It's a memory I'll never forget.

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In the parking lot of the Serenity Nail Spa, I leaned over to wipe stray lip satchel from her teeth and straighten her liner with my fingernail before helping her inside. The music of foreign chatter enveloped us when I opened the door, the trademark sound of every nail spa in America, I imagine. The ladies paused briefly to look at us, me steadying mom under her arms and fumbling with the door.

She want nails done?

At my nod, they motioned us further in.

Mom picked OPI's Key West Coral, and the ladies helped me escort her to the pedicure throne. Mom didn't get pedicures before the brain tumor, so her almost childlike enjoyment of professional grooming couldn't solely be attributed to being couchbound for so long. Getting a pedicure was something new, and it was right up her alley.

She dipped her feet in the bubbling water and "ooo, ooo, ooo-ed" from the heat.

It too hot for her? The ladies asked me.

No, I assured them, she was just new at this. She ooo-ooo'ed at lots of things.

I can picture her right now, perched on that pedicure throne, listening curiously to her attendant's chatter, leaning towards me for a sip of Diet Coke whenever I presented the straw. The ladies painted her toes and then her fingers, and invariably we'd need a touch-up before walking out the door.

You such good daughter, the ladies would say as we were leaving. When you bring your mother back?

Again soon, I said.

Seeing Mom's painted fingers and toes made me believe for half a second she wasn't sick, the sight was so Anne pre-cancer. In fact, Mom used to tell a story about how Drew, as a baby, would cry when she didn't have polish on her fingernails. Polish to Mom was right up there with lip satchel and rouge.

When we got home and back to the couch, she pushed the blanket into a heap at one end, fearful of getting sheet marks (her term) on her nails were she to come in contact with it.

Turns out I wasn't the only one who loved seeing Mom's nails coated in Key West Coral. I think it also reminded her of herself pre-cancer, her hands and feet, she used to say, were the only things untouched by cancer and its treatments.

I'd call home for days after our Serenity trip to ask her how her nails were doing.

They look good, don't they, Mom?

Yes, she'd say. They look real good.

I hung up happy. Happy that she was happy.

I'm still happy thinking about it.

Key West Coral.

My Mama to a tee.



I sent this picture to Leslie while we were at the salon. I had lost track of it,
but she still had it. Sweet friend said she could never take it off her phone.