Oasis IX: Wendy

At around 5PM I stopped at the hair store for a pack of press on nails, praying they would have the nail polish I wanted. Everything you see at Walgreens or CVS or Target has the worst selection of colors. It’s red, Dolly Parton sparkling red, an array of nudes, black and anything else—good luck, maybe blue? There are two Persian men situated diagonally from the other, one always by the entrance with a heft of keys, and his brother sits high up at the cashier counter. The hair store is a dream if you’ve never been. Only at the hair store is there a wall of plastic envelopes filled with fake silver and gold hoop earrings; berets that say “SLAY” in diamantés. Some hoops are so large you could put your head through them. It’s a place you can get 10 yards of bleached remi hair for $20, a pair of counterfeit fuchsia Versace platform heels, a Sunny D, incense, strip lashes, Takis, sensual body oil, and a color coord jumpsuit all in one go.

I spotted a multi-tiered acrylic shelf toward the ground to the left of the incense. And there it was, just as I knew it would be: dark purple metallic nail polish. $3. I snagged it. Normally I get my gold nail polish here, because no one sells that. But the hair store…you can count on it. It’s a place with the word Heaven or Venus in the title, and posters of lacquered lipped African American women with extensions in every window. Men go in for a black and mild and women go in for neon orange lace fronts. I go for the nails, because they have the XXX long kind, deadstock Y2K styles with the curve. Then there are the artificial sweets which skirt the check-out counter. I pushed my goods toward the young boy, then paused. Airheads, Skittles, gummies shaped like hamburgers, Laffy-Taffy. Two grape Tootsie Pops had been placed in another candy’s carton. I took one. “This too please”. A purple Tootsie Pop for my purple nails.