Chapter One

Debbie

If Debbie Tran could go back in time, she would stop herself from reading that damn Yelp review.

It had been such a lovely day up until that point. She’d made offerings of mandarins and daffodils to the altar, cooked all her family’s favorites, and cleaned the entire house. In a few hours, her eldest child would be coming home for good. Nobody in the family knew exactly why, but it didn’t take a genius to figure it out. Eight years ago, Jessica moved to Los Angeles for love and a job, and now she had neither. Whatever the reason, Debbie didn’t care. She was so thrilled Jessica was returning that she happily paid for the flight.

Debbie pulled out her tablet and did what she always did whenever her children got on a plane: tracked the path of the flight. As she watched that little green plane inch closer and closer to Toronto, that’s when that stupid notification popped up at the top of the screen.

You’ve received a new review.

Without thinking, Debbie clicked on it and a big fat one-star review appeared on the screen.

I came to the salon for a manicure and pedicure on the weekend. The lady who was working on me was SO rude and she had disgusting black gunk underneath her fingernails. They were so long and unkempt. It was gross. She also cut my nails too short when I specifically told her “not too short.” She doesn’t speak English that well so she probably didn’t understand me. Still, SO UNPROFESSIONAL. I’m never going back again!!! Can’t wait till that new salon opens nearby. Bet it’s light years better than this one!

Debbie looked at her nails. Okay, so they were a little dry and her cuticles a little overgrown, but by no means was there any “disgusting black gunk” underneath her nails. She washed her hands so often that cracks had formed on her fingertips. Besides, in her twenty years of running the salon, not one single person had ever complained about this.

And what was this about a new salon? There was no other nail salon in the area for miles. This person had to have been mistaken. Debbie checked their overall rating. The review dropped Sunshine Nails from four stars to three stars.

That bitch.

She checked the flight status again. Jessica’s plane was going to land any minute now. It would take her another hour or so to get through customs, baggage claim, and traffic on the highway. Phil and Thuy were still at the salon. Dustin would be home from work soon. She needed to fix herself up. Wash her hair, put on some makeup, pick an outfit that—

Not too short? How dare that person assume she didn’t know English. She’d lived in Toronto for over thirty years, took ESL for those first two, and aced all the tests. In fact, she did so well she was invited to come back as a guest speaker to show the new cohort what a success story she was. Too short? Next time that woman came into the salon Debbie would show her what too short really looked like.

It wasn’t like Sunshine Nails had never gotten negative feedback. They’d been slammed on everything from the decor (“A bit tacky but in a charming kind of way”) to the lack of air-conditioning (“Felt like I was stranded in the Arabian Desert!”) to the service (“The staff was impersonal and abrupt”).

But there was a difference between constructive criticism and personal attack. And this latest review was clearly an attack on their livelihood.

Debbie was just glad her husband didn’t see it. Phil got even more worked up over these things than she did. Once, he stayed up until three in the morning responding to every single negative review he could find. They were not professional or eloquent responses by any measure, but they had worked too hard, sacrificed too much, to let some ungrateful people get away with saying nasty things about their salon.

Debbie looked at herself in the mirror. She couldn’t greet her daughter like this, all angry and a mess.

A bath. That’s how she would calm down. She wasn’t going to let this review suck all the joy out of this special day. She didn’t even remember working on someone named Erin. Maybe it was one of those internet phenomena Dustin had warned her about. What was it again? A troll. Yes, that must be it. It had to be a troll.

While soaking in the tub, she thought about all the times she felt wronged in her life. There were too many to count. Bloodthirsty communists forcing her out of Vietnam was one. Being thrown onto a perilously overcrowded boat on the South China Sea was another. This one-star review? It was up there, too.

As she sank a little deeper into the warm bath, she turned her white jade ring round and round on her finger. That ring was as much a part of her body as her organs. It never left her hand, not since that treacherous voyage of 1983. When those pirates ransacked the boat and abducted the prettiest girls, Debbie instinctively tucked the ring underneath her upper lip and prayed the pirates would see her simple, undecorated body and leave her alone. They took one look at her, spat on her face, then moved along. To this day, Debbie swore the ring saved her life all those years ago. Tonight, she prayed it would bring her the peace she needed in time for her daughter’s homecoming.

As her calluses began to soften in the warm water, so did her resolve to punish whoever this person was. She closed her eyes and focused on her breath. In and out. In and out. She tried very hard to let nothing and nobody penetrate her thoughts now.

But Erin’s words were like a hangnail that wouldn’t go away. She couldn’t let it go. How could she when it felt like someone had just shit on everything she’d worked so hard for? Debbie sat up straight in the tub, reached for the tablet, and typed up a response.

I have never met you before in my life. This review is a complete fabrication. Furthermore, we have never once had a complaint about our staff’s hygiene. We take very good care of our customers and take their concerns seriously. You, however, are a liar and you should be ashamed of yourself. P.S. How is my English now?

As soon as she hit that publish button, she felt euphoric. Then came the notification. Jessica’s flight had landed.