Chapter 1
The Rut
Heather
The click of metal sliding on metal, the deadbolt popping from one side of the frame to the other, was always oddly satisfying. Heather Kline pulled her key out of the lock. The rest of the keys on the ring jingled, punctuating the still silence of the shop. Her eyes were drawn immediately downwards, towards the sound. Four keys, three silver, one bronze, dangled from her hand. A fuzzy pink popsicle keychain tied everything together and made the bundle of keys easier to find in her purse, which seemed to swallow everything whole. She flipped the lock back in place once she was in. She didn’t bother with lights at the front. That would only make people think they were open and they definitely weren’t.
The shop wasn’t hers. She wasn’t even an artist. Yet. If she had her way, she’d change that in an instant, but neither Kian, the owner or the next best artist there, Mike, was looking for an apprentice. She’d been content with performing reception duties, cleaning up, answering calls, dealing with far too many whiny clients and complainers for five years. She was good at it. She loved her job. She just felt that recently, she was stuck in a rut. It grew deeper with every passing day until it felt like it was too deep to even considering climbing out of.
Heather snapped her wad of pink bubble gum, trying to form it into a flat surface so she could push it out with her tongue and blow a bubble. The gum had long ago lost its taste, on the long walk over. She could be like everyone else and take the bus or buy a car, but she liked the walk. Sometimes the stillness was exactly what she needed to combat the noise in her head.
The chimes of her phone startled her, sounding from somewhere deep in her tote back. She moved quickly, setting the bag down on the front desk and digging through it frantically. Her heart sunk when she saw the caller ID.
MOM
She debated about not answering, but knew it would only prolong the agony if she let the call go to voicemail. Her phone met her fingers, the case cool and slick. She brought it up to her ear.
“Hello.” She made sure her voice didn’t waver or bend or betray any emotion, especially not her annoyance or apprehension.
“Heather! It’s been nearly a week and I haven’t heard from you.”
Heather closed her eyes. She could actually feel her long lashes resting on her cheek. Given the thick coat of mascara she’d applied before she left her apartment, it wasn’t a wonder. “Sorry. I’ve been busy.”
“You’re always busy. Busy, busy, busy, throwing your life away at that shop. Or did you manage to get a real job yet? Have you looked at any of those applications I sent you? If you had some training you could get an admin position with a better company. Something corporate who gives paid vacations and benefits.”
“I already have benefits, mom.” Heather still didn’t open her eyes. Behind closed lids she imagined her mother’s face. Leanne was tall and blonde, a bombshell even though she was nearly fifty. She looked, and acted, at least twenty years younger. Not always in a bad way either. Her mom, when it came down to it, was a good person. Heather just wished that Leanne didn’t make her lofty ambitions for her daughter’s life apparent every single time she called.
“Your brother is doing well for himself. If you’d gone to university right out of high school maybe you’d be well on your way and I wouldn’t have to sit and worry about you.”
“I love my job.”
“You’re a receptionist.”
“If you don’t want me to do front end work, why did you send me information about admin courses?” It was an honest question, one that actually made sense, but Heather could literally hear her mother’s sigh and imagine the eye rolls that she was getting on the other end.
“Look. You don’t work in a respectable place. You don’t even look respectable.”
Heather winced. If only her mother knew the half of it. “I know you think I’m too far gone…”
“Too far gone? You’ve tattooed almost every square inch of your body! What are you going to do when you outgrow that place and you want to move on? Who is going to hire you with tattoos on your neck and chest and hands? Those are all places you can’t cover up!”
“There’s this thing they make now, mom. It’s called foundation. It actually does a fairly good job of covering it up. If someone wanted to hire me, in the future, then I guess if they wouldn’t do it because I looked like this, maybe I wouldn’t want to work there.”
“You’re being ridiculous.” Leanne’s voice was reaching another octave, ascending into the screech zone. The words blasted shrilly through the phone, piercing through Heather’s head.
“No, I’m not. You don’t know anything about it. You choose not to like the way I look or what I do for a living. That doesn’t make it wrong. You might think I’m too far gone, but there are people that think that my ink is beautiful. I’m happy with my life. I wish you could just be happy with it too.”
“Don’t make this about me. I’ve worked harder than you’ll ever know to give you and your brother a good life. It’s because of me that you even have the opportunity to work, since I made sure you got a good education and went to school. I looked after you both when people my own age were out partying and drinking and making bad choices. I started you both out on the right path.”
“I know that. I’m thankful for everything you did. Really.”
“Then get it together. Quit working there, go get some laser work done and read the damn college applications I sent.”
The phone went silent and when Heather moved it away from her ear, she was greeted with a picture of her cat. It was her home screen background and a dead giveaway her mother had just ended the call.
Some people just didn’t get it. Heather knew that her mother had sacrificed for both her and her brother. Leanne had Jay when she was just sixteen. She tried to make a go of it with their father and had Heather two years later. Unfortunately two kids is a real wake up call for most people and Leanne was left raising two kids under two by the time she was eighteen.
Heather never heard from her dad again. Leanne never talked about him. Heather didn’t even know what he looked like. She figured though, judging from the way her mom sometimes looked at her, that she was a spitting image of him. It would explain her thick, raven black hair, her waif like build and dainty features. Her mother was blonde, tall and all model like angles and curves. Jay looked far more like their mom than she did. At least he was blonde and tall. After that the resemblance ended.
Heather didn’t need to be told, growing up, that Jay was the golden child. She loved her older brother. Jay was fiercely protective of her, but at the same time, she knew their mother loved him more. He was the favorite. He could never do anything wrong. He was doted on and spoiled. Heather… well, sometimes she felt that her mother just did her best to try not to ignore her. It stung growing up, but as an adult, she almost preferred the weeks of silence, sometimes the long weeks, in between calls.
She didn’t go home for holidays. Not even Christmas. The whole ‘too far gone’ speech was wearing thin and she didn’t need to hear it more often than she had to.
With a snap of gum, which had finally formed itself into a satisfying shape to blow a bubble with, Heather set down her phone on the edge of the large reception desk. The thing was handmade, wood on the back, stone on the front. It had a ledge to keep clients from seeing exactly what it was she was doing or reaching over it at any time.
She dug in her tote and produced her laptop. She lifted the screen and it powered open a second later. It was absolutely satisfying to get on social media and browse mindlessly through a news feed of people she didn’t even know. Clients added her sometimes. Followed her. Whatever.
Blinking back the burn of tears was easier when she was the only one at the shop and there was no one there to see her cry. Even if the tears fell, she could always touch up her makeup. She made sure she had a fresh set in her purse at all times. Annoyed at her inability to concentrate and keep her mind from wandering back to the past, she clicked open the shop’s social media sites and started her morning updates. It would only be an hour before Kian or Mike arrived. She wanted to have their appointments set out, though she’d confirmed them the night before and have all the incoming emails and inquiries answered.
She was damn sure that if she had a daughter, she would do anything for her. She certainly would love her unconditionally. What she wouldn’t do was call every other week as a token follow up to see if her kid was still alive and when she found out she was, judge the hell out of her for every single decision she’d ever made.
College applications. Please. It was just her mother’s way of trying to mold her into something she was never going to be, likely because Leanne had lunch with a couple of her friends and they were talking about how well their kids were doing. Her mother never told anyone that her daughter worked at a tattoo shop. She never told anyone Heather was heavily inked either. Does she talk about me at all with her friends?
Leanne had a robust social life. Even growing up, Heather remembered her mother being involved with just about everything she could be. Parent teacher boards, bake sales, school fundraising. She really wanted to be involved in her kid’s lives. Well, in Jay’s life at any rate. She was a good mom. She did her best, and like she said, it was far better than most people were doing at that age. Heather didn’t think she could have done it, had the roles been reversed. It was the only reason she tried not to be so hard on her mother. It was the only reason she still answered her phone at all.
That rut just kept growing wider. Was it the ultimate irony that her mother wanted her to quit a job she felt like she’d outgrown and she defended it anyway?
At that moment, the backdoor opened, the chime echoing through the shop. Kian or Mike had obviously arrived early. Their impeccable timing saved her from any further introspection or tough early morning questions. Sometimes the rut was the exact place she wanted to be.