Fingernail

I sat alone at sticky diner table beneath the flickering florescents, scanning the smudgy roadside window for the man I was meeting. I didn't know what he looked like, only that he was a he, presumably a well dressed he with a briefcase containing my application and the potential to change my entire life.

I drummed my too-short fingernails against the tabletop, ordered a coffee and waited.

Amidst the overwhelming stench of grease and bacon and burnt coffee, I could smell myself. I really should have made sure to shower this morning. Now the first real impression that he would have of me would be ratty matted hair, day old makeup and the smell of cigarettes and sweat. If that image didn't just scream, hire me!

The ticking of the clock on the wall mocked me with its leisure. 9:25. I had only five minutes left to mentally prepare myself. Instinctively I covered my mouth with my hand as my mind raced, gnawing at my already chewed up nails, as my eyes darted over every single well dressed passerby outside the diner. It was a disgusting and I knew it, but I just couldn't find the will to kick the habit. It was surprisingly more addictive than the smoking.

I was midway through biting off a perfect crescent of nail, lost in my own thoughts, when he walked in. Tall, dark and demeaning. With my hand still resting at my mouth I had no choice but to bite off the nail and pretend like I was scratching an itch on my lip.

He smiled at me, a polite smile that was dead behind the eyes. To him this was just another part of the job, he didn't seem to care whether or not this single interview could help me turn my life around.

I smiled too, acutely aware of the fingernail resting on my tongue. I reached out a sweaty hand to shake his in greeting. He took it tentatively, repressing a grimace and taking the seat across from me, careful that no stitch of his designer suit came into direct contact with the oily table.

To be fair, I should have wiped the glob of drying ketchup off of the surface before the interview.

My bad.

"So, Miss-" He raised an eyebrow, waiting for me to fill in the blank. He hadn't even taken the time to read my application before arriving.

I guess we were both grossly unprepared then.

I bounced the fingernail back with my tongue, willing it towards my throat, so I could swallow it and avoid opening my mouth and revealing that I'd accidentally been sucking on a chewed up fingernail. I looked around the diner for my server and the coffee I'd ordered, but the woman was no where in sight.

As disgusting as the thought of swallowing it was, I was not about to spit it out or stick my fingers back in my mouth to remove it. The nail tickled with every centimetre it crept back, I almost choked when it perched itself on the back of my tongue, unwilling to fall any further.

"Your name?" He repeated, he was growing impatient, and it was a simple enough question that I should definitely answer.

"Belle," I mumbled through mostly closed lips. It came out more like Bill than Belle though.

"Right," He looked at me oddly. A wary eyeing that one might give an unfamiliar stray dog.

I swallowed, hoping a bit of saliva might push the nail down my throat. It didn't. In fact that only seemed to irritate it more. The urge to cough tickled in the back of my throat, raising the hairs on my arms.

Where was my damn coffee?

"Ma'am are you alright?" He asked.

My cheeks were growing red, my eyes began to water. I nodded.

He leaned back in his chair, eyeing me like I might explode at any point.

I drummed my fingers rapidly against the still sticky tabletop and held my breath.

Don't cough, don't cough don't cough.

Oh no.

I couldn't fight it any longer. A guttural, gagging cough flew from my lips, and with it, the fingernail.

I covered my mouth with my hand and watched in wide eyed horror as the crescent of soggy white nail sailed through the air among droplets of spit, and landed squarely on his cheek.

All of the sounds in the diner, the dishes clanging, the coffee pouring, the other patrons chattering, all faded to nothing as he stared at me in shock.

My eyes were wet with the tears torn from the force of my cough, and they shone in the harsh diner light, thankfully blurring my vision of him. I couldn't believe what I'd just done. It was like something out of a nightmare. My whole future had disappeared before my eyes in a matter of seconds. All because of a single sliver of fingernail.

The silence stretched on for forever, we were both frozen, not even breathing.

The waitress stepped over to our table with a smile, clearly not reading the tension that surrounded us.

"Here's your coffee, love, sorry it took so long today." She dropped it off with a little clink against the table and pattered away. The dark liquid splashed around in tiny tsunamis, representative of the wave of humiliated defeat that had crashed over me.

He stood without a word, screeching the chair against the floor and straightening his designer suit jacket. He hadn't even wiped the nail off of his cheek yet. If I hadn't just blown my only chance at this job, I might have laughed. It stood out, white and shiny with spit against his bronze skin.

Without another glance at me, he turned and left. A glob of semi congealed ketchup clung to the back of his trousers from where he'd sat on it in the chair.

I glanced at the clock on the wall, it still ticked away the agonizingly slow seconds, but the minute and hour hands seemed not to have moved at all. It still only read 9:25.

Another server passing by saw me looking, "Oh honey don't check that clock, it hasn't worked in months."