I don't know what creates the fretful tone here: the matrons, the young fashionistas, the management or the program on the television. On the flat screens, one can see beautiful, wild little animals snapping and clawing ineffectually at boisterous, teasing Australian animal enthusiasts. An angry snake is protecting her odd clump of eggs from the pesty, exploring hand of a conservationist. She raises up and strikes, hot black eyes flashing. But he's too wily for her, knowing in advance how to avoid what are, to me, frightening movements.

Perhaps the surly ambience is one of domination and submission among women: kneeling Asian attendants, nimbly manipulating the lonely fingertips and toes of peevish American women, who recline loose-limbed, sulky, demanding even subtler finessements. No one seems to be paying attention to the animal show, and I wonder why it is playing, asking the young manicurist if it is a favorite of the girls working there. She asks me if I don't like it, as if I am lodging a complaint. But when I make it clear that I am not complaining, only curious about the choice of entertainment, she says that no one has requested otherwise so it is just "what is playing." It is only then I realize the snappish animals are making me tense.

Despite the informal and relaxed atmosphere, the tone among the patrons is one in which no one seems willing to be bothered to muster even the most basic courtesies: a hello, a smile, a nod, even a pleasant facial expression, common gestures of social acknowledgment. No. All are there to be catered to, period. Gentle, aesthetic caresses on the hands and feet, the recipient required to do nothing more than sit back and glower. I look about at the faces of the women, and some look back. Their faces do not say "hello," or "isn't this lovely?" No one even seems to be enjoying the ministrations. Their expressions, even in the beautiful faces, are vaguely snarling, baleful, like the odd, gleaming, raccoon-like animal now attempting to claw the conservationist as he pokes her with a little stick on the television.

I wonder if my manicure has placed Monsieur Chariot in an inviolate space, if I am an intruder among women. But I notice several other men scattered among the decumbent figures. One is a young Hollywood rocker, slender, easily mistaken for a girl, with dark shades, a pierced lip and an overlarge sports cap perched at a precarious, studied angle. Receiving a mani-pedi combo, he swings between slack-jawed relaxation and boyishly teasing the attending girls, mannered like a performer in a music video. Two tanned, soignée, Semitic gentlemen in shorts and cellphones, one 40-ish and the other in his 60s, assumingly father and son, chat languidly while girls lean over their digits. I ask my manicurist what country she is from, and she tells me she is from Viet Nam.

I inquire if she watched much television in Viet Nam, and she says she didn't have one to watch, but that she watches Viet Namese programs here, mainly on DVD. I inquire about Viet Namese entertainment, and she turns me on to one of her favorite singers, Tuan Ngoc, writing his name down on her card on my request (so that I can look him up later on iTunes). She is reluctant to pronounce the name, but does so on my insistence, and I am charmed by the pop consonance of it.

Two teenage girls in sparkly jean jackets appear at the counter, one saying: "I want to be airbrushed." They are led to a wall adorned with plaques featuring row upon row of colored plastic nails, ornamented with tiny painted flowers and symbols and creatures, where they confer about their choice of decoration.

Later when I am leaving, I effect a smile at a woman seated, waiting on the white leather sofa by the storefront exit. She is reclining in a summery shift, one braceletted elbow on the arm on the chair, her hand on her face, the small finger curled under her nose. Her visage, as she looks back at me, is not friendly but coldly appraising, one eyebrow raised, as she scrutinizes my trousers, my waistcoat, my top hat, my face.