Women Drinking Benedictine by Sharon Dilworth

mood turns sour at his refusal. She wants to ask if that woman is coming over, but she knows it’s none of her business.
    â€œAre you sure?” she asks.
    â€œThanks, anyway,” Mitch says. He watches Mr. Schott and his son toss a baseball back and forth. He is calm, clearly unaware how much his casual, non-interested attitude frustrates her.
    Carol has never been so forward with a man. Most of the others simply assumed that she was interested in them and took it from there. But with Mitch, she doesn’t know what to say to express how she feels. This night she doesn’t get a chance. Mr. Schott misses his son’s throw, and Mitch runs to retrieve it. The three of them form a triangle and toss the ball back and forth. The rest of the daylight disappears, and soon it is too dark even to see the ball, let alone catch it.
    The beauty shop is at the dead end of a one-way street in the center of Ann Arbor. The closest parking structure is full and Carol circles the block three times waiting for someone to leave. Finally she drives down a residential street and parks in the shade of a mountain ash. The shop is a converted Victorian home with window boxes full of geraniums and a white railing up the front steps. Carol tells the receptionist that she’d like to see the manicurist, Pamela. Before she can explain that she doesn’t want to have her nails done, the receptionist calls Pamela’s name on the intercom system. “There’s a walk-in here if you can take her.”
    Carol starts to explain that she just wants to talk to Pamela, but the phone rings again and the receptionist flips the large pages of the datebook forward. She puts her hand over the receiver.
    â€œYou can go on up.” She jerks her head to the stairs and then resumes the conversation. It is obvious by the fast pace of her conversation that the person on the other end is not a customer but someone close to the receptionist. Carol climbs the dark-carpeted steps to the second floor, where the hand-printed sign directs her to Pamela’s table. Pamela stands up from her manicure stand and asks Carol to take off her rings and watch.
    â€œWe give hand massages here,” she explains. “You don’t want any metal on your body.”
    Carol slips off her jewelry and sets it next to the dish of soapy water. She feels intimidated by Pamela’s looks. Her hair is wound tight on top of her head, and her hands and makeup are perfect. Nothing is out of place, and Carol feels underdressed, more like a tomboy in her jeans and faded button-down.
    Pamela examines her hands, picking the loose skin with a pair of tiny silver scissors.
    â€œI don’t usually get manicures.” Carol feels she must explain why she is here. “Except if I’m in someone’s wedding.”
    â€œYour nails are strong,” Pamela says, not looking up, “but you’ve got bad cuticles. You shouldn’t pick at them.”
    â€œI actually came to see you about a friend of mine,” Carol says. “Donald Rice.”
    â€œI don’t have many men customers,” Pamela tells her. “Men who live in big cities get their nails done, but here in Ann Arbor, we really only get women.”
    â€œHis wife was a client,” Carol explains. Pamela places her right hand in a dish of warm soapy water. “Do you remember Evelyn Rice?”
    â€œThat woman owes me money.” Pamela wipes her hands on the folded white towel and then flips open the drawer. “Yes, I know.”
    â€œShe owes me fifty-two dollars.” She shows Carol her ledger, full of numbers and red marks. She points to Evelyn’s name in the left column.
    â€œShe won’t return my phone calls.” Pamela puts the book away. “I call her almost every day, and her husband just beats around the bush about paying me back.”
    Pamela begins digging under Carol’s left nail with a long toothpick-type instrument. It