6.
Chloe
I woke up the next morning with a headache and a bad taste in my mouth, even though I thought remembered brushing my teeth before I went to bed. Or maybe I was thinking about the previous night? I couldn’t be completely sure. Either way, the sun streaming through the windows seemed way too harsh, and the song birds I usually enjoyed listening to sounded cacophonic. I buried my head under the pillow, which helped with the searing sunlight but did nothing to ease my headache. I got up and gingerly made my way into the bathroom.
I felt a little better after getting a drink and splashing some cool water on my face. I’d only had two and a half glasses of wine—was that even enough to constitute getting a hangover? It seemed kind of pathetic.
I made my way downstairs and into the kitchen. I could see my mother through the window above the sink, sitting out on the veranda, sipping something. I looked at the clock, shocked to see that it was almost noon. Noon? How had I slept until noon?
I poured myself some orange juice and popped a slice of bread in the toaster. I tried to remember what happened last night. The memories came back like when you try to recall a dream you had—fleeting and hazy, and when you tried to grasp on to any one instance, it slipped away.
There was dinner and drinks. There was the club, later, and another glass of wine, which I hadn’t finished. There was the loud, throbbing music, a feeling of giddiness that I hadn’t experienced before. Then, a little bit later, Tara whispering to me that she’d just had the best idea and we needed to leave. We’d gone to a tattoo parlor. And the guy there said he wouldn’t give either of us tattoos, which, for some reason, bothered me more than it probably should have.
His logic for saying no made sense, after all. If anything, it showed that he took his profession seriously. Maybe it was the alcohol, maybe it was that talk that I’d had with my parents earlier, but I had found myself wanting a tattoo more than anything. Nothing that big, and certainly not in a place that couldn’t be easily covered up by clothes—it would be like my own, little secret, something that my parents would probably flip out over if they knew, but they wouldn’t ever have to know.
Before I lost my nerve, I got dressed and headed back down to the tattoo place.
*****
I didn’t let myself think about it as I drove, and I didn’t stop to think about it when I parked and walked in. “Hey,” I said, realizing that maybe it hadn’t been the smartest idea not to at least think of what to say beyond hey, because I had no idea. I felt shy, suddenly, as I always seemed to around good-looking guys. He was especially handsome though, with his beard and short, tousled hair. His eyes were dark blue, like the color of washed denim, and even though he was physically imposing, there was a kindness in his eyes that put me a little more at ease. “I don’t know if you remember me, but I was here last night with my friend.”
He smiled. “Sure,” he
said. “Chloe, right?”
I returned his smile, pleased that he had remembered my name. “Right,” I said.
“And I’m not drunk.”
There was a pause and I felt my face start to flush again. I had meant that last part to come out sounding lighthearted, joking, but it sounded more like a proposition, or maybe a threat.
He looked at the clock on the wall behind me. “Seeing as it’s one-thirty in the afternoon, I’d say that’s a good thing.”
“Yeah. So ... I would
like to get a tattoo. Something simple, and small. I like flowers a lot. I know
that’s kind of a cliché, but I don’t want something that’s totally wacky just
for the sake of being different. And ... yeah. ”
He leaned across the counter and was doodling something in a sketchbook as I
talked. I realized how vague I was sounding, but I was having difficulty
describing what it was I wanted. It was as though I could see it in my mind but
couldn’t adequately explain it with words.
“And I’m thinking it
might have to be somewhere that isn’t visible. I don’t want one on my lower
back, because I’d actually like to be able to see it myself, so maybe ... well
... where would you say people usually get them when they want to be able to
hide it?”
He stopped drawing and straightened. “There’s a lot of places, actually, it
really just depends on what your preference is. Bottom of your foot, back of
your neck—if you wear your hair down—between your fingers, ribcage, upper
thigh. ” He spun the sketchpad toward me. “Something like that?”
I looked down at what he’d drawn and felt my breath catch in my throat. How long had he spent doing that? Two minutes? Less? He’d rendered, in perfect, thin, black lines of ink, a delicate stem with ten or eleven offshoots of poppy blooms. It was minimalist and simple, but also stunningly beautiful.
“That’s exactly what I wanted,” I said. I looked up at him. “How did you know?” I realized I sounded like an awestruck fan girl, but it really was like he’d somehow managed to access the part of my brain that knew what the tattoo was supposed to look like, even when I myself couldn’t articulate it.
He shrugged. “That was just the first thing that came to mind after you described what you wanted.”
Now it was just a matter of figuring out where it should go. I didn’t want it on the bottom of my foot, and though it was small, it was too big to go between my fingers. Plus, I didn’t know how long the recovery time would be or what exactly it would be like, and I needed both my hands to start working on my sculpture. The back of the neck might be okay, but then I would only be able to see it if I looked in the mirror. It was such a pretty image that I wanted to be able to look at it easily. And, I wanted other people to be able to see it, too.
“Here,” I said, touching my inner forearm right below the elbow crease. “I want it right here.”
“That’s a good placement,” he said. “But you’re going to have to wear long sleeves all the time if you want to keep it hidden.”
I shook my head. “I think I changed my mind about that. I don’t actually want to keep it hidden.”
He regarded me, and I couldn’t tell if he was trying not to laugh. I felt myself start to blush. Yes, I was coming across as a fool who didn’t actually know what she wanted, but so what? Really, I was feeling proud of myself for coming down here alone to begin with. For someone like Tara, it wouldn’t even be a thing, but for me ... this was actually a big deal.
“Are you about to laugh at me?” I asked. “Because I’m not actually trying to be funny.”
“I’m not going to laugh at you,” he said, in such a way that made me believe him. “But, I am curious—who are you trying to hide this tattoo from?”
I hesitated. I didn’t want to say my parents, because that made me sound like a teenager. Which I wasn’t, so it wasn’t as though my parents could actually do anything to me anyway.
“It’s something my parents probably won’t be too thrilled about,” I said. “Not that it matters, though, because I’m twenty-one. I’m just ... I’m just staying with them this summer, so I’ll be seeing them more than during the school year.”
“You’re in school?”
“Yeah. Art school. Which, according to my parents, isn’t really school and I’m wasting my time.”
He leaned across the counter again and looked at me with those deep, blue eyes. “So, is this tattoo more about being rebellious? Which is totally fine, if it is. People do that.”
“No. Yes. Well, I don’t know!” And I really didn’t. Would I be here right now if my parents hadn’t made me feel like such shit about being in art school? Probably not. I’d probably be dutifully working on my sculpture, completely ignorant and blissful about how excited my parents would be that I had something that was going to be in an art exhibition.
“I’ve been doing a lot of hand-poked tattoos lately,” he said. “And this will come out really nicely if I do it that way.”
“Okay,” I said. “But ... excuse my ignorance, what is that?”
“I’m not going to use the mechanical gun. It’s a bit of a slower process, but I’ve come to like it a lot better. And it’s perfect for something like this. A hand poked tattoo is usually made up of a lot of lines, dots, negative space. This will come out really nice.”
“Sure,” I said. “That sounds great.” I had no idea what he was talking about, to be completely honest, but I didn’t want to tell him that. “I’m ready.”
He smiled. “Okay. Let’s get started. Well, I’m going to need to see some I.D. first.”
If I were Tara, I’d say something coy about looking like I was over eighteen, but I just fumbled in my purse for my wallet and extracted my driver’s license. “Here you go.” I also decided against saying something how it was the worst picture ever, even though I was pretty sure that it was.
He looked at it, then looked at me, then looked back down at the picture. It took me a second to catch on, but then I laughed. “It really is me,” I said.
He winked as he handed it back to me. “I’m Graham, by the way; I don’t think I ever actually introduced myself. You ready to do this?”
I put my I.D. back in my wallet and took a deep breath. If I stopped to think about it for too long, I was probably going to chicken out. “I’m ready.”
It ended up hurting less than I expected, mostly, except in a few places where it actually hurt more. I bit the inside of my cheek and winced a little, but the pain never got so bad that I didn’t think I’d be able to handle it.
“You’re doing great,” he said. He had purple latex gloves on, but I could still feel the warmth of his hands on my bare skin.
“It feels ... different than I was expecting.” I was glad there wasn’t really any blood. “It doesn’t really hurt that much.”
“It’s funny—I’ve had guys in here, these big, total jock-type dudes, and they’ve been in tears before I’m even halfway done. You know, they look like the sort of guys that could crush bricks with their skulls or something, but they are literally begging me to hurry up and get it over with.” He smiled a little and shook his head. “And then someone like you who can handle it like it’s not even a thing.”
“It kind of isn’t,” I said. “I mean, it’s pretty small compared to some of the stuff you’ve done, I bet.”
“You’re right—it’s not the biggest thing I’ve ever worked on, but it doesn’t really make a difference to me. I want every piece to come out looking awesome.”
“I know what you mean. There were some kids in art school that were only interested in working on the really big projects, the ones that they thought might have a chance getting into the show at the end of the year. So they wouldn’t give enough time to the smaller assignments we had, and in the end, it usually wound up backfiring because their bigger projects wound up lacking depth. Or that’s what one of the professors said, anyway.”
“Well, he’s right. So you’re in art school?”
“Yeah. I’m actually going to be in an exhibition at the end of this summer.”
“No shit? That’s great.”
“It is, except I’m kind of struggling with what the sculpture’s going to be, and then how I’m actually going to pull it off. I want it to be really good.”
“Of course you do, especially if it’s going to be on public display. I could give you a hand, if you want.”
“Really? That would be great.”
I think we were both
surprised; I was surprised he had offered to help and he was surprised that I
had accepted the offer. But I could tell he was a talented artist. And there
was some part of me that just wanted to hang out with him. “Do you want to meet
me at the Bennet Center for the Arts? That’s where I’m going to be working out
of.”
“I’d be happy to,” he said. He wiped gently at my arm. “What do you think?”
I looked down, not expecting the tattoo to be finished so quickly, but it was.
And it looked so perfect there on my arm that my breath caught in my throat. It
was even more beautiful on skin than it had been on paper. I looked at him,
unable to keep the grin from spreading on my face.
“I love it,” I said.