When Fatima enters the bathroom again I am still sitting on the toilet seat.
“All right,” she says. “I’m going to show you how to do this. Let’s switch.”
“What?”
“Up, up. We’re switching places.” Fatima kicks off one of her shoes.” You’re going to do my nails as practice; then you can do your own.”
“You want me to give you a pedicure?”
Fatima chuckles and kicks off the other shoe. “Yes. Why not?” When I hesitate, Fatima says something else. “I know you’re used to other people kneeling before you, but I’m not going to do that. And maybe it’s time you kneel before someone else for a change?”
My cheeks burn. I nod, getting up but not speaking. Fatima has stolen my words. She’s right. I set out the range of colors and Fatima chooses a pale pink, so pale it’s almost white.
“That way it won’t look like my toes are bleeding if you go outside the lines,” she says. Then she plops herself down.
I get on the floor before Fatima’s feet and begin to work, silently, while she offers instructions and I listen, doing my best to obey. Start there. In the center. Then work to the edges. Go over that one again. Take your time—this isn’t a race. After a few botched toes I think I’m getting the hang of it.
“I’m sorry about what I said before,” Fatima says.
I pause, not sure if I can paint nails and talk at the same time. “It’s okay. I deserved it. It’s true.”
“Look at me,” she says.
I finish the nail I’m painting, and return the brush to the bottle. Then I sit back on the bathroom tiles and meet Fatima’s gaze.
“You don’t deserve anything,” she says. Her dark eyes are full of concern. “You’ve lived a complicated life, you’re young, and you’re doing the best that you can.”
“Do you think I’m a bad person?” I ask.
Fatima takes a long time to answer. Too long.
I try not to feel betrayed. “You do.”
“No,” she says quickly. “No, no, no, Marlena. I meant what I said, that you don’t deserve anything. You don’t deserve to feel badly about your choices, especially since it’s the first time you’ve had the opportunity to make choices for yourself.”
I slump against the tub behind me. “Yeah, but now that I have the opportunity, am I making bad choices? All the wrong ones?”
Fatima thinks for a long time before answering this question, too. I try to be patient, and not jump to conclusions.
“Not necessarily,” she says.
I curl my knees into my chest and wait for Fatima to say more. She’s in her uniform skirt for work. Her shins are veined and there is a long scar up the side of one.
Fatima’s eyes drift to the bathroom counter. The array of nail polish bottles lined up by the sink. “I think that your mother raised you to believe there is only one way of you being you, Marlena. And that way is very extreme, in my opinion. Very restrictive. Now that you have some freedom, you being you has come to mean you being the opposite of how your mother raised you. Which is also a bit extreme.”
This assessment I do not like. “You think I’m being extreme?”
Fatima’s eyes shift back to me. Little wisps of hair have escaped her bun and frame her face. “Honestly? In a way, I think you’re being like every other teenager I know, because you’re rebelling.”
This perks me up. “So I’m normal?”
“Oh, Marlena.” Fatima takes a peek at her unfinished toes. “I think you are you, which is different than most of the other girls your age—and there is nothing wrong with that,” she adds quickly. “But it’s like I said before, I don’t think that you have to make this choice between a life as a healer, or a life as a ‘normal’ girl, as you like to say. I wish you would take a step back, maybe slow down a bit, and give yourself time to listen to whatever it is that heart of yours is telling you. The choice between healer and ‘normal’ might not be that stark, when you get a bit of distance.”
I shift position until I am on my knees again, bent before Fatima’s feet, carefully brushing the pale-pink polish across her remaining toenails. At one point, I say, “Maybe I don’t have to worry about that sort of thing anymore. Maybe my gift is gone.”
I hear a sharp intake of breath, but I keep my eyes on Fatima’s feet. “Or maybe it’s that your gift is changing,” she says. “Did you ever think of that?”
“Changing to spite me,” I say.
“Changing along with you,” she says without hesitation. “Changing to accommodate the young woman you are becoming.”
I bend closer to the floor, doing my best to paint Fatima’s tiny pinkie nail, which requires all my attention. Then I sit back onto my feet and look up. “Done,” I say. Before she can evaluate my careful work, I ask something else. “Do you think God punishes us for our mistakes? If he thinks we’re being ungrateful?”
Fatima’s eyes widen. “Marlena!” She leans forward. Puts her hands on my shoulders. “If you are asking me if I think God will punish you for . . . for painting your nails red and wearing a bikini on the beach and going out with a boy, the answer is no. I do not believe God is that way and I don’t want you to either.”
“My mother does.”
“She may indeed, but you don’t need to believe everything she does.”
Fatima lets go of my shoulders.
“Do you ever wonder if there’s a God at all?”
She sighs, then starts to chuckle. “Meu Deus, you ask difficult questions.”
“You give difficult answers, Fatima.”
She chuckles again. “Well, I guess that makes us a good pair.”
“Thank you,” I say. “For everything. For being honest.”
“Oh, stop thanking me.” She gets up and straightens her skirt. She looks down, wiggling her toes. “Thank you for the pedicure. It’s not bad for your first time.” Fatima nods at the red nail polish on the counter. “Now it’s your turn. I’ll supervise. But hurry up. I’ve got to get back to work.”
I open the bottle of polish and, as Fatima stands over me, watching, pointing, barking instructions, I listen as best as I can until I have ten toes that gleam a shiny candy-apple red. The entire time Fatima’s words about having to get back to work ring in my ears. That means this, what we are doing here, painting each other’s nails, talking, she doesn’t consider as work. Which means that I am not work for Fatima. When I am finished, she slips her shoes onto her feet again and walks out the bathroom door.
Within an hour I am in my new bathing suit, big Hollywood sunglasses covering my eyes, hair pulled back, bright-green towel in my bag, bright-green flip-flops thwacking a trail across the house. My red toenails clash and make my feet look like Christmas, but I don’t care. I don’t care if my mother sees me in this bikini and I don’t care if the townspeople recognize me and do a double take at all of the skin I’m showing.
Well, I try not to care. In truth, I do feel self-conscious. But it’s time I go for a swim in an actual bathing suit, and today it’s warm enough. I walk to the beach, and as I breathe in the ocean air and hear the sound of the waves, the self-consciousness fades, replaced by excitement.
I’m going to the beach.