Dear Diary
In late November, I got an email from my friend Karen Hodges in Key West, Florida, announcing her recovery from an unexpected mastectomy. Shock was the only response I had--until I got a call from Karen's good friend, Jenny Markakas in Australia, which jump-started worldwide efforts to help her out.
   Over the next week, Debbie Doerrlamm from Beautytech.com, Jenny and myself assembled techs to help Karen in her salon as she recovered. (Karen works alone and has no family nearby, so she needed help keeping her doors open.) A group of us--Candice Welch from Miami, Maxine from Jamaica, Simmy Bell from New Jersey, Mindy Borrego from Connecticut and me-spent the better part of 10 days helping Karen in her salon, cleaning her house, cooking, doing inventory and just plain being there for her as she recovered. Each one of us could tell a version of this story, but here's mine. -Vicki Peters

 

Christmas Eve. I hate night flights, but I did what I could to get myself to Key West on Christmas Day. My nail cruise partner, Tonya Hibdon, donated her frequent-flier miles for my airline ticket. So off to LAX I went. I arrived in Fort Lauderdale at 5 a.m. on two hours of sleep! A rental car and five hours later, I pulled into Key West, where Simmy Bell, Karen and her dog were waiting. After a killer Christmas dinner, we all went to bed early.

Wednesday, Dec. 26. Simmy and I tag-teamed on my first day at the salon, with Simmy handling pedicures and me manning the manicure table. Karen's salon, Morning Glory, is about 300 square feet, but it's well laid out and roomy enough for all three of us to work. Simmy gave me a pedicure, and I gave Simmy a set of what she refers to as "Vicki Nails" before the first client arrived. My biggest concern was staying on time-it takes a certain rhythm that I don't usually have when I'm not working regularly. Plus, working at someone else's table takes some adjustment, especially since both Simmy and Karen are left-handed, but I managed nicely.
   One of the first clients I saw was a local jewelry-store owner. She gave beautiful jeweled angelfish to Simmy, Karen and myself because she thought we were all angels for what we were doing for Karen.

Thursday, Dec. 27. Simmy left today, so our first stop was to take her to the airport. There were a handful of clients scheduled for today, and Karen even felt up for a pedicure. She has the best pedicure bowl-it's a large, round, flat-bottomed bowl, and she covers it with small river rocks that hold heat during the entire pedicure. However, it's very heavy, so it slips right under the pedicure chair and out of the way when not needed. Handling that and heavy foot-filing were the only things she couldn't do.
   It's amazing how much we seasoned techs can still learn from each other. Watching Karen customize a milk-and-honey pedicure was pretty cool, and she said the same thing about watching me provide services for her clients with my choice of drill bits and products of mine that she hadn't seen demonstrated before.

Friday, Dec. 28. Today, I had a few acrylic clients, managed a pedicure and did more gel fills. It truly was a pleasure to work over Karen's work. She worked as well, doing a couple of pedicures herself as I worked on nails. Today was a pretty smooth day and we didn't have much downtime, which is how I like it-one right after another.