Leaving home young and living a life under the watchful eye of someone more concerned with controlling me than loving me left me without any of the friends I had when I was in school. In the four years while I was separated from all of my former friends, they found lovers of their own, some had children, and others moved away.

Stevie was brash, crude, and annoying at times.

But she was very easy to like.

She moved her foot away from the switch, lifted the tattoo machine from his chest, and glared at him. “If you keep whining and squirming around like a little bitch, I’m going to have Riley paint your fingernails, put lipstick on you, and kick your ass out into the street. Fuck, can you just shut up?”

Lying flat on his back on the table, her client was very thin, pale, and appeared to be not much over the eighteen-year-old age requirement. He opened his eyes and gazed back at her.

“It fucking hurts,” he whined.

“It’s supposed to hurt, it’s a fucking tattoo. Maybe you should have got a dove on your ass instead of an eagle on your chest,” she said.

He nodded his head and blinked his eyes. “I think I’m okay. Go ahead.”

She stepped on the pedal. The machine began to buzz, and she pressed the needle against his skin. After a few seconds, he wailed out into the room and waved his hands in the air.

“Stop, stop, stop…I’m done,” he said.

She had started the tattoo merely minutes before, and had just begun the outline of the eagle’s head.

“You’re fucking kidding, right?” she asked.

“No,” he said as he sat up in the chair. “I’m done.”

She stood from her stool, still gripping the tattoo machine in her hand. “Giving up, huh?”

“Yea, I can’t take it. What do I owe you?” he asked.

“Hundred bucks,” she said.

“A hundred for this?” he said as he pointed to his chest.

“You fucking pussy. Do you think that eagle drew itself? I drew that motherfucker by hand. It took me almost four fucking hours. You didn’t leave a deposit, so yeah. A hundred bucks is cheap,” she seethed.

He shook his head.

She pressed her foot against the pedal and leaned forward as if she was going to poke him with the buzzing needle.

“Fine,” he said as he reached for his wallet.

After handing her a handful of money, he reached for his shirt. As he walked toward the door, he pulled the shirt over his head, mumbling to himself the entire time. I wondered as he pushed the door open, stepped out onto the side walk, and turned away just how many people were wandering the streets with half-finished tattoos on their skin.

“Wow, that was funny,” I said.

“What a twat,” she said as she pulled her gloves off and tossed them in the trash.

“I can’t believe he didn’t even make it fifteen minutes,” I said.

“More like five,” she said over her shoulder as she tossed the inkwell into the trash.

With her hair now colored grey from her roots to the tips, she seemed so much different than when we met. After commenting on her newest choice in color - which I actually liked a lot - she warned me not to become too attached to anything she did with her hair, as she changed the color no less than once a month.

“I know you said you’re going to change it, but I really like your hair,” I said.

She glanced in my direction and grinned. “Thanks. I like yours too. It always looks so healthy.”

“It’s almost brown,” I said.

She shook her head and stared. “It’s blonde as fuck.”

“If I didn’t color it, it’d be brown. Like almost black,” I said.

“No shit? I like it blonde. It looks good,” she said with a nod.

She glanced around the shop. Thursday mornings were normally busy, but with Stevie’s cancelled appointment and Blake in Winfield with Jackson until noon, the shop was completely empty.

“Thanks,” I said.

“Let me braid it for you,” she said as she reached for my hair.

“Uhhm, okay,” I said.

“We’re going to be sitting here with our thumbs in our asses until somebody walks in,” she said.

“Come over here and sit,” she said as she sat down in her chair and patted the stool beside her.

I sat down in the stool, and almost immediately she began to run her fingers through my hair. It reminded me of when I was a little girl and my mother would braid my hair before school. On the occasions she chose to do so, I always felt special and spent the entire day believing I was much more beautiful than any of the other girls in my class.

As she separated each section of hair, I wondered what it might look like when she was done. My hair had grown quite long, and was at least a foot past my shoulders in length. I closed my eyes and smiled as the music played and she quietly continued to tug against my hair and fold it into place.

“So you and Blake are quite the couple,” she said.

I opened my eyes. “Why do you say that?”

“You’re like teenagers the way you look at each other,” she said as she continued to work her fingers through my hair.

“We’re in love,” I said.

“Well, it shows. It’s cute. Makes me want to have a guy who’s normal,” she said.

I turned my head slightly to the side and shifted my eyes until she came into view. “What happened to Vince?”

She slapped her hand against the side of my head. “Turn around.”

I faced forward, laughing to myself at her harsh nature and wondering just how much of it was a simply a show and how much was genuine.

“What happened to Vince?” I asked again.

“I heard you, hold on a minute,” she said as she worked her way around the back of my head.

“He came in, got three knuckle tats, and we talked. That was it. Didn’t even offer to take me for a ride,” she said.

“That sucks,” I said.

Stevie was beautiful. If she didn’t say anything, most men would be intimidated by her beauty, and probably wouldn’t even think they had a chance of ever being with her. When she opened her mouth, a long string of expletives soon followed, and eventually the conversations always went to the subject of sex, regardless of whether she was in the presence of a man, a woman, or both. I suspected her outgoing personality and her sailor mouth prevented her from finding the man she wanted, but I feared telling her so.

“Yeah, sucks balls. Oh well, there’ll always be another,” she said as her hands moved along the right side of my head.

“So, what exactly are you doing?” I asked.

“About what?” she responded.

I chuckled lightly. “With my hair?” 

“You’ll see,” she said. “Almost done. You’re a pretty bitch, just so you know.”

“You’re a pretty bitch,” I said over my shoulder.

She slapped the left side of my head sharply. “Turn the fuck around.”

I reached up and scratched my head where she had slapped me. A few minutes and a few tugs later, she tapped me on the shoulder.

“All done,” she said.

I stood from my seat, pressed my hands against my hair, and felt the braids. As I stepped in front of the mirror I inhaled a sharp breath.

“Oh my God, it’s beautiful. What…” I stared at myself in the mirror as I raised my hands to my head. “What’s it called?”

“Waterfall braid. It’s easy,” she said as she walked up behind me.

“I love it,” I said.

“Can you teach me?” I asked.

She shook her head. “Sorry. You’re too much of a ding dong to understand.”

“I’m serious,” I said.

“So am I,” she said with a laugh as she turned away.

“I can’t wait till Blake sees it,” I said.

“Neither can I,” she responded.

I turned to face her. “Why’s that?”

She shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t know. It’s just, you know, seeing you two makes me kind of happy or whatever. I almost trick myself into thinking one day I might have something similar. Not with some pinch-faced rat like Blake, but some guy that at least acts like him.”

I scrunched my nose and narrowed my eyes. “Pinch-faced?”

She shrugged her shoulders again and grabbed her pink mannequin head, the one labeled “Bad as Fuck.” As she placed it at the front of her drawing table, she glanced over her shoulder.

“Grab your stool and come here. I’ll show you how to do it,” she said.

I grinned and turned toward the front of the shop. As I walked back with the stool I realized Stevie wasn’t much different than me, or anyone else for that matter. She was what my mother had always called an M&M.

Hard on the outside, and sweet once you cracked the outer shell.

As we wove the pink hair together into a beautiful waterfall braid, I couldn’t help but smile.

Having Stevie as a friend was best described by the writing on the face of her expressionless mannequin head.

Bad as Fuck.