Souvankham Thammavongsa

Ning is a retired boxer, but to the customers who visit her nail salon, she is just another worker named Susan. On this summer's day, much like any other, the Susans buff and clip and polish and tweeze. They listen and smile and nod. But beneath this superficial veneer, Ning is a woman of rigorous intellect and profound depth. A woman enthralled by the intricacy and rhythms of her work, but also haunted by memories of paths not taken and opportunities lost. A woman navigating the complicated power dynamics among her fellow Susans, whose greatest fears and desires lie just behind the gossip they exchange.

As the day's work grinds on, the friction between Ning's two identities – as anonymous manicurist and brilliant observer of her own circumstances – will gather electric and crackling force, and at last demand a reckoning with the way the world of privilege looks at a woman like Ning.

Told over a single day with razor-sharp precision and wit, Pick a Colour confirms Souvankham Thammavongsa's place as literature's premier chronicler of the immigrant experience, in its myriad, complex, and slyly subversive forms.


Pick a Colour

I am about to turn fourty-two. It's a good age to be. I don't have to become anything anymore.

She stares at me blankly, like we are not speaking the same language. 

"There's apple red," I insist, "cherry red, pen red, sexy red, demure red, pale red, lipstick red, shy red, hot red, blood red, car-brake red, swimsuit red, New Year's red, strawberry red, wet paint red, gummy red, rose red, flower red - now rose is a flower but it's not flower red, it's its own red, rose red. Then there are other shades of red like orange red, purple red, blue red, yellow red..."

Children notice one thing and exaggerate it on the page. Arms and legs are never the same length and height. Everyone is always standing, never sitting down. Always facing the page with their whole face. They are never turned to the side. Hair is a squiggle of circles or curls or blunt bangs. Or none at all. I notice they never used the gold-coloured crayon. I guess nothing ever calls for being gold.

I watch everything closely. The girls don't like it. Even when they know what they are doing, it can make them feel like they don't. Makes a person nervous to be looked at. Simple things like picking up a tool makes them pause and wonder if it's the right one. Just my looking says to them maybe they don't know what they know. So I watch closely, but I don't let them see me.

Eileen leans back and laughs. Her laughter starts out alone, then foams and bubbles around the room to us, and we help her and add ours to it. 

I look at her smallest toe in my hand and it wriggles around as if it's laughing too. I wonder if she knows it does that sometimes. I look up at her face, and wonder what happened to her that she can't tell she is happy already.

You never can tell with people. About who they say they are and who they really are. And over time, they change – not because they lied about themselves. They just changed, that's all. And they aren't that anymore.

I turn the lock. To make sure. Make sure the lock does click into place. Doesn't get jammed. In an emergency, things like that happen. Locks don't turn. Locks don't click into place when you need them to. Just checking. I think of turning the lock back, but I am alone.

People can have their eyes open and be looking at something, but that doesn't mean they are looking at it. Her mind is wandering somewhere they way my ear does in the shop and for the world outside. I wonder who she is thinking of, what voices she hears. And are they kind to her?

I go and stand by the window and look out at everything. I feel myself smile and a warmth unfolds inside me. It is like a tight coil has come undone somewhere and I know it's safe to turn it loose. I reach for my finger, for where I have been touched by her. There is so much light now. Maybe too much. And I wait. Wait for the dark to come in to me.

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