Like My Mother Anthony Tran

Saturdays were the days I followed my mom to work. Her boss would pick us up from our home in Brooklyn to the store that was miles away in Long Island. The hour-long ride felt like a trip across the country; forests and wheat fields greeted us as we ditched the concrete jungle.

Entering the store when it first opened at 9 in the morning, I was faced with a spectrum of colored bottles on a wall and the mixed scent of incense and acetone that lingered from the day before. The maneki-neko was perched at the front desk, with its cute, white porcelain hand waving at me as if it knew that I was coming to the salon today.

Customers wouldn't come in until a few hours after opening time. In the meantime, my mom told me to take my socks off and go to the pedicure station. As water filled up the tub, I dipped my two tiny feet into the lukewarm pool. The fun started when I could feel the fizzy air bubbles tickling my ten toes; it reminded me of the sensation of drinking a cold can of Sprite on a hot summer day. After my mini-pedicure, my mom let me choose a color to paint her nails. I always chose the sparkling yellow on the top shelf, because it reminded me of the golden amulet that the store's fortune cat holds with its other hand.

I was...