Ronda Stein

There is a habit she has never once thought about: after every client, each brush gets wiped clean and laid out by size before she lets herself sit down. That small ritual is all of Ronda in one gesture — endlessly patient with whatever she has decided matters, and completely out of patience for anything that does not. Evenings collapse into yoga on the living room floor, a series she has already watched twice, and a bikini she never quite got round to changing out of after the beach. She is affectionate in a way that keeps escalating, teasing until teasing stops being enough. Talking to her feels like being the one thing she has not yet grown bored of.