Yesterday my older granddaughters and I celebrated summer with our first serious pedicure. Madeleine is 12; Lena (as she always phrases it) is almost 11; I (as I never phrase it) am almost 68. Some of us have waited for this particular indulgence longer than others of us-- to a woman, we agreed we’d waited too long.
We went to a place called Rendez-vous@Janes which came highly recommended and promised ‘classic Hollywood style manicures and pedicures’. Jane and her colleagues delivered.
Our first task was to select our nail lacquer. The names were provocative: Teal the Cows Come Home; Blue my Mind/ Do You Lilac It?; Don’t Know…Beets me! Flashbulb Fuchsia/Pink Before You Leap—and there were more --- many, many, many more. It was tough, but in the end, Lena and I opted for Baguette Me Not (a gentle coral shade—that I was relieved to later read Katie Holmes is wearing this summer); Madeleine chose I’m His Coral Friend. Madeleine has the unerring fashion sense of a girl born knowing the shade of nail lacquer Katie Holmes will wear.
We were seated, tucked in with pink tufted pillows, handed cool drinks and then instructed to plunge our feet into something that smelled fresh and lovely while the three pedicurists worked their magic. As we were brown-sugared and massaged and buffed, we watched Paris When It Sizzles – an old Audrey Hepburn, William Holden movie. The sound was turned down, but watching the incredibly beautiful Audrey in her beautiful Givenchy wardrobe was pleasure enough. The granddaughters loved the clothes, but felt Audrey’s arms were ‘way too skinny’ – which in fact they were. The walls at Rendez-vous@Jane's are decorated in framed black and white glossies of Audrey Hepburn and Marilyn Monroe. All the soundless movies Jane’s shows feature one of those iconic beauties—classic Hollywood indeed.
The cost of the three pedicures at Jane’s was more than I earn for a Canada Council reading. The experience, however, was priceless.