Disclaimer: I do not own Jimmy Neutron or it's characters.
Note: I know lots of people go to the salon now. So this chapter is inspired by the first and last pedicure I will ever have.
Chapter 7,
About four or five hours later this trio of girls had several different outfits, which was probably silly when you consider the fact that almost everyone in this town sticks to one basic look. Never the less it was probably the most fun Judy had ever had with Jamie/Jimmy.
Maria was lucky enough to find a female Ultralord shirt and this beautiful jean jacket that someone sewed a colorful Mexican blanket into its design. She matched this with a mid-calf layered skirt that faded from dark blue to light.
Jamie couldn't convince herself to wear a skirt, so she settled for comfortable medium blue jeans, and a cotton polyester Frock top which was mostly red, but with yellow lace and ribbon. The three girls walked into 'Rio de Works' lugging probably one too many bags of clothing.
"Ah, Mrs. Neutron. It has been too long." A familiar looking Brazilian woman called from her desk.
"Valentina, I agree, but I am so excited to get that lovely wax pedicure." Judy said.
"Ah, well it looks as if you have some new faces with you today." Valentina said smiling to Maria and Jamie.
"I sure do. You would never believe it, but Jimmy and a few of his friends were randomly selected to be part of a student exchange program." Judy said and Valentina's eyes flickered with confusion.
"Odd. My son tells me nothing about this." Valentina said and Jamie turned to the wall of nail polish, half drowning out the chatter. She wondered how there could be so many different bottles of the same color. Reaching up, she found three bottles of red that looked exactly the same.
"Honey go ahead and pick a color, we will be painting our toes and our nails." Judy and Jamie sighed quietly.
Why is this girl process so much easier for Maria then for me?
Jamie wondered as Maria grabbed purple nail polish. On instinct, Jamie wanted to just grab red since that is what she normally wears, but it may be too much red. Others could potentially think that she was trying too hard to be a girl. On the other hand, most girls like to match, so she should pick yellow or blue, but those colors didn't sound appealing either.
"Jamie, would you like to try that wax pedicure with Maria and I?" Judy asked and Jamie turned to her.
"Um, I've never had a massage before, so I would be more comfortable starting with something basic." She replied and Judy nodded.
"Ok, that's fine." She then turned to Ms. Valentina.
"So two wax, and one basic package." Judy finished and Valentina nodded.
"Understood, we are a bit slow so we can start right." She said and Judy smiled walked over to the wall by Jamie and grabbed a green nail polish.
"Come along Jamie." She said and Jamie went ahead and grabbed a random color from the wall, which happened to look very unique. The color was a blend of black and green and had tiny sparkles that reminded Jamie of dragon scales.
At the pedicure chair, the first thing the girls had to do was take off their shoes, which was a given, but Jamie still didn't like it. Valentina worked on Judy's feet so they could keep talking, so Maria and Jamie were assisted by two other women. Maria received a talkative 24-25 year old and Jamie received an older woman who just wanted to get the work done. Basically the only thing she said was 'left foot... right foot'.
She put some soapy substance on her hands and rubbed Jamie's feet, even going between her toes, which just felt odd. But that was the highlight of the massage. The woman dig her thumbs deep into Jamie's feet, which hurt like dickens. Jamie didn't want to complain, after all she is an expert, so she knows what she is doing. So instead Jamie bit softly at the inside of her cheek, and dig her nails into the arms of her chair. After about 10-15 minutes, but felt much, much longer, the woman dried off Jamie's feet and put this odd foam divider between Jamie's toes.
Relaxing, finally, Jamie looked over at her mother and saw Valentina wrapping an ordinary plastic bag around Judy's feet and then pouring this pink wax in the bag. Jamie wondered how some sort of Candle wax was suppose to make your feet feel better; but she knew that it would have been better then her massage.
"There, I'm done. I'll get Valentina's boy to do your hands. Please sit at the first table." The older woman said and Valentina picked up at this.
"Oh, Sweetie, you are going to love my son. He is so good to your hands, being very considerate in your relaxation before he even starts on your nails." She said with a smile. Jamie uncomfortably walked from the pedicure chair to the manicure table, waiting for some random boy to walk up. Although her head was a little light headed from her stressful massage, so she decided to lay her head on her arms for a moment to get some peace.
Men get massage sometimes, though. So maybe this isn't just a girl thing, maybe I'm just not the kind to enjoy a massage.
Jamie determined. Suddenly she felt a feather-like pressure on her hand and she shuddered softly from pleasure. Lifting her head, she saw someone she wasn't expecting.
"You?" Jamie asked and Nick chuckled.
"Yep, it's me. I already told you that I was here to help out my ma." Nick said as if his presence were the most obvious thing in the world.
"Well, excuse me if I didn't know what your mom did." Jamie said half-sarcastically and Nick shrugged and sat down in the chair opposite Jamie. With his soft hands, he gently took Jamie's right hand and gently moved his fingertips around the skin. Jamie's hand trembled at the sensation and something in her lower region tightened then released, which instantly confused her.
"Did you know that you can tell a lot about a person just by looking at their hands?" Nick asked and Jamie wanted to scoff at this, but she was enjoying his touch too much.
"How do you mean?" Jamie asked and Nick smiled.
"There have actually been scientific studies on this thought. It's really interesting though. Your hands can even tell people your emotional stage, your likely course of action with the future, if your an introvert or an extrovert, or surprisingly enough, the highest possibility of whether a person's gay or not." Nick said and Jamie jerked her hand a bit, but kept it in Nick's grip.
"I'm sure that's a mistake." She commented and Nick shrugged.
"That's just what they said in the article I found online." Nick said and Jamie glanced away and then back at Nick.
"What did they say?" She said and Nick gave a tilted smile.
"Well, and don't quote me because I'm sure I have the numbers wrong, but the gay population takes us about 30% of the states, and over 70% of them were left handed. So there is that, and the pattern of hair growth can be an indicator. That may just be for men, but if their hair grows in a clockwise pattern, your most likely straight, and if your hair is in a counter-clockwise pattern, you are more likely gay. But the biggest indicator, is actually the size of your ring finger. Apparently the size of the ring finger is a result of how much testosterone you were exposed to in the womb. So normally a man's ring finger is longer then their pointer finger, because they had more testosterone. Women on the other hand have ring fingers that are about the same size as their ring finger, because they had less testosterone. The interesting thing is that for many gay individuals, their sizes are reversed. Meaning gay men with have shorter ring fingers, and gay women would have longer ones." Nick said and Jamie was a bit impressed. Their odd sort of friendship started because Nick failed the 5th grade so he got held back. And now he was actually talking about studies?
"Maybe that means being gay is abit more biological then others would want to admit." Jamie said and Nick glanced at Valentina.
"To be honest, I never thought it was a choice but mom thought it was a choice but mom thought it was." Nick whispered and Jamie paused to determine what to say.
"I confess that I never gave the matter much thought." Jamie said and Nick smiled.
"I'm not surprised, but-" Nick paused when he flipped over Jamie's hand and peered inside her palm.
"Is something wrong?" Jamie said and Nick grew flustered.
"It's just... I've never seen a genius line this visible before. You might be as smart as Neutron." Nick said and Jamie shifted uncomfortable but was still a bit flattered.
"Who is Neutron?" Jamie said with a small smile. It felt a bit odd to play dumb with people when he normally strives to prove how smart he was.
"Well that's his last name. It's Mrs. Neutron's son, Jimmy." He said gesturing to Jamie's mom.
"Ok, then why don't you just call him Jimmy?" Jamie asked and Nick quickly brushed her nails with some sponge nail file and then started to paint her nails.
"I use to, but... er..." Nick sighed.
"Perhaps Im still mad at him." Nick said and Jamie was taken back at this.
"Pardon me?" Jamie said and Nick shifted.
"I probably shouldn't concern yourself with this. After all it seems like you two know each other, otherwise you probably wouldn't be staying with them." Nick said and Jamie furrowed her eyebrow at this now crushed creature. She tried to remember what she had done to Nick that could make him this upset.
"Try me." Jamie said and Nick glanced up at her.
"You sure?" He asked a bit surprised and he saw Jamie nodding her head.
"Well... Jimmy and I met years ago because I failed a grade and I went to Jimmy for help so it wouldn't happen again. Again if you met Jimmy you know that he is really smart. But I liked that he didn't care about me being popular. He just treated me like a regular kid which was refreshing. But later it sorta seemed like he was using me to embarrass Cindy, since she liked me. And then we stopped hanging out and I started calling him Neutron because I wasn't happy at him abandoning our friendship. It kinda stuck." He said and Jamie dropped her gaze. She had no idea that Nick cared about their friendship that much. She only figured that being a popular kid, he didn't even notice their friendship fading. But Nick noticed more then she ever did, and being a scientist, that means more then she could ever say.
"Maybe you can bring your friendship back?" Jamie suggested and Nick looked at her, studying her face.
"What about you?" Nick asked and Jamie paused when Nick put down her right hand and started massaging her left hand.
"Ooo..." she muttered softly at his gentle touch, and Nick smiled satisfactly.
"Um, what about me?" Jamie asked with a blush on her face.
"Well, you said that you didn't have a boyfriend. But what about your life back home? Tell me about your life?" Nick probed and Jamie knew that she would have needed to answer this question eventually m, but not so soon.
"I really don't know where to start." Jamie said honestly.
"Well, I love science." Jamie said unsure if this was safe enough to start.
"Then I guess that it's good that your here. Because of Neutron we use most of our school funding goes to the science wing. Made a real dent in the sports equipment though. Mom has even gone around collecting donations when we couldn't afford to get new basketballs." Nick said and Jamie paused when he said this. She recalled once that Sheen took one of her laser pens to school and destroyed half of the gym. She helped rebuild the actual building, but she didn't stop to think of the equipment at all.
Jimmy was constantly treated like an outsider by the children, but he didn't think that his brain caused most of the displeasure. His show and tell's were constantly more advanced, he shifted the costs of school funding, and he constantly did damage to the town, and yet they hardly effected him. Perhaps he spent too much time alone inventing instead of focusing on way to make the community better. But maybe in her new state, she could try to make things better.
"Well, at least you got the equipment you needed." Jamie said and Nick smiled.
"How is it that I ask you to tell me about yourself and you get me to talk about the uncool side of me." Nick asked with a tilted smile and Jamie smiled back.
"If I had to take a guess, I would say that when one suppresses a part of themselves, they secretly crave release. So if you suppress everything you find 'uncool' then your suppressing the part of you that is true. So... well... how can you search for someone and expect them to be true, when you yourself are not true to yourself." Jamie said and her words struck a cord in Nick and he subconsciously squeezed Jamie's hand and she hissed in pain.
"Oh, sorry." He muttered, relaxing and Jamie turned her head slightly to get Nick's attention and it worked.
"You know, there is this quote by C.S. Lewis that you should probably hear." Jamie said and Nick straightened his back.
"C.S. Lewis...? Didn't he write those Narnia books?" He asked.
"That's right." Jamie simply said and Nick sighed.
"What's the quote?" He inquired.
"It's 'be weird. Be random. Be who you are. Because you never know who would love the person you hide' end quote." Jamie said and Nick seemed to contemplate this.
"Easier said then done." Nick said and Jamie nodded.
"I agree, but that doesn't mean that it's not true." She said and with a smile she carefully grabbed Nick's hand and gave it a small squeeze to show her support.
"Heh, if you mess up your nails you would be stuck here longer." Nick said and Jamie tilted her smile.
"I'm starting to not mind that." She said and they both let out a short chuckle.