The Balance Thing by Margaret Dumas Page A

the pain leveled out and it was the humiliation that bothered me.
    When I thought I was done, the sadist in charge of the wax gave me an inquiring look.
    â€œBikini?”
    I closed my eyes, thought of England, and nodded.
    The facial, on the other hand, was actually rather pleasant. Lots of yummy-smelling creams being massaged into my ready and willing pores while I reclined comfortably. I was just starting to love being a girl when someone began poking my face with a sharp needle.
    â€œOw!”
    â€œExtractions,” muttered the aesthetician, a woman whom I’d been (wrongly) thinking of as a kindly Eastern-Europeanaunt. “So many blackheads.” She clicked her tongue in profound disappointment and kept poking.
    The sea salt scrub had something of an I’m-naked-and-stretched-out-in-front-of-a-stranger aspect to it, but the procedure itself was limited to a massage with bits of grit in the lotion. Not bad.
    â€œNow you’re beautiful,” the therapist said when it was done. Then she hosed me off and sent me on my way.
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    I MET ROGER in the salon, where I was scheduled for a manicure and pedicure. These treatments were no strangers to me, and I was actually sporting a cheerful cherry red on my toenails already.
    â€œDo you really think this needs to be redone?” I asked my spa Sherpa.
    Roger recoiled. “Becks.” He rubbed his brow. “You can’t seriously want the feet of a Spanish harlot on Connie’s wedding day.”
    â€œOh.” I looked at my cheerful Spanish harlot feet. “Of course not.”
    Roger brightened. “Look who’s here!”
    Vida. And not happy to be in a salon. “I can keep my fingernails clean without an intervention from you,” she announced loudly in Roger’s direction, rather disrupting the whole blissed-out spa vibe. Vida turned to me. “He booked me an appointment without even asking, can—what the hell happened to you?” She had just taken in my spa attire and presumably glowing skin.
    â€œI’m getting gorgeous,” I told her, keeping my voice low. “It’s Phase One of my Sir Charles Shipley plan.” I barelybreathed the name, fearful that one of the women currently being filed, clipped, or painted might overhear. Vida had already drawn their attention and not a small amount of disapproval.
    â€œYou’re already gorgeous.” Vida was perfectly matter-of-fact. “You don’t need to spend a fortune on this junk.” She picked up a bottle of hot pink polish and set it down again dismissively. “I mean, look at me.”
    I looked at her. She glowed with health. Her blond hair was held back in a clip, and she was wearing what for Vida passed as a good outfit—yoga pants, a T-shirt, and a zippered hooded jacket that all matched. She looked like the surfer and athlete she was, and like she didn’t give a damn about nail polish.
    However. “How are things going with Ian’s brother?” I asked.
    She opened her mouth to speak, then closed it. She looked at Roger, whose eyebrows went up in hope. She compressed her lips and nodded in grim determination. “Okay, but no pink.”
    She made Roger’s day.
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    IT BECAME OBVIOUS in the time it took to soak our feet that in the theory and practice of flirting, Vida and I were the blind leading the blind.
    â€œHave Max take you out tonight,” she suggested. “He’s good at it.”
    â€œWon’t you come with us?”
    â€œOw!” Vida snatched her hand away from the manicurist and sent a look of loathing toward Roger, who was flippingobliviously through a magazine in a chair near the door. “No, I’m going to the cocktail party. The plan is for Connie and Ian to go on to some chamber music thing afterward, with this guy who has a box. If Phillip ends up going with them, I’m tagging along.”
    â€œChamber music? You must really be crazy about this