It feels like the first time.

I've been sick for a couple of days with a nasty, spiteful summer cold. I spent most of Monday horizontal, trying to will myself to get well. I intentionally didn't sleep during the day, though, so I could sleep at night. Then I couldn't sleep at night. I awoke with one half of one functional nostril. But nothing, nothing, I tell you! could keep me home from school today. Because today was the day we got all our stuff & some of us, including me, went out to work on the clinic floor.
We got our kits this morning: big, black, rolling suitcases full of everything from shears to a new mannequin head to pin curl clips & a manicure set. A gazillion brushes & combs! Clippers! Hair dryer, marcel iron, flat iron! A big ol bunch of rollers! Etc, etc. After we inventoried all that & made sure we had everything we were supposed to, we had our individual evaluations with the director. My seat in the classroom was closest to the door so she took me first. Honestly, I was pretty overwhelmed & tired at that point, so I don't remember exactly what my grade is. She showed me how I was doing & said nice things ("Your grades & your attendance are both really good! Just what I like to see!") & some nice things that were funny ("You got a perfect score on your attitude & your appearance. Not everyone in your class did.") & I know I'm doing well. That went pretty quickly & then she said, "OK, if you want to, you can go ahead & get your stuff & get your station all set up," & I said, "Oh...ah...oh, that's ok. I mean, I think I'll just wait til someone else is coming out, too, y'know..." & started wandering away when I was pounced upon by one of the teachers, a small, energetic woman. She said, "Here, let's get you set up & then I'll get you a client to work on." I believe I spluttered in response. At least, in my head I did. "WAIT!" I wanted to say, "EVERYONE ELSE IS STILL IN THERE!" Or possibly, "Uh, I really don't feel good today." Which was true & I had this terrible vision of working on one of the many tiny, frail old ladies who come in to get their hair done, giving her my cold, & then later hearing that she had died. I guess I was in a melodramatic mood. In reality, I just fetched my stuff, bade farewell to my classmates, & headed out.
I set up my station as slowly as possible, unboxing & unwrapping all my new stuff & stowing it in the cabinet under my station (I'm not really clear on why it all came in a big rolling suitcase, which I just brought home at the end of the day). The other six people who had enough hours to work on the floor starting today filtered out over the next hour. Then, suddenly, the tiny energetic teacher appeared by my station. And she was holding a yellow ticket. "I have a client for you. Manicure." I gave her a terrified look (I don't just think that I did, it was confirmed by the people around me; "deer in the headlights" was the phrase I heard the most) & said something like, "Um." Now, I am not particularly good at manicures & we don't focus on them at all, but we do have to do them. Tiny Energetic helped me gather up what I needed & set up a manicure table. I went out to the lobby & called the client's name. I tried to act relaxed & normal. I've been told that when I'm very nervous, I actually look really calm. I always think that it's the same principle that I remember from the Oliver Sacks book/DeNiro movie "Awakenings": I'm shaking so fast that I appear to be completely still. She was 18 & I decided that was good, how many professional manicures could she have had in her life? Plus, as I looked at the price on the ticket, for $5.50, she shouldn't have grand expectations. She chose a metallic green polish from our selection of mostly old, clumpy bottles. I started in & the teacher whose class I just left walked by. "Ah!" she said, "A manicure!" & smiled at me kindly. I know she knew how nervous I was. We'd been expressly forbidden to tell the clients that they were our first service, so she couldn't really say anything about how new I was. She turned to the girl & said, "She does very good work. You're going to love your manicure." And that made my day. Maybe my month. I did a fine job & the girl did seem happy at the end.
And so ends the story of my first paying customer.