Twenty-nine

On Saturday, I went for a run, thrilled that I wasn’t as out of shape as I thought and happy to feel the natural rush of endorphins that comes from a little hard work. After my shower, I strolled down to the kitchen and poured myself a bowl of Special K. I was halfway through my cereal when Natalie flew in, looking flustered. “There you are! Why aren’t you dressed yet?”

“Dressed?” I had slipped into yoga pants and an old T-shirt after my shower.

“Yes. You have a hair appointment in forty minutes, then I thought we could squeeze in a manicure.”

Crap. I had forgotten she had made me a hair appointment. “No offense, Nat, but I really want to relax today.”

“Going to the salon is relaxing. Trust me, my place is great.”

Twenty minutes later, I was beside Natalie in her car, my wet hair in a ponytail as she drove us into town. She was blathering on about the new guy, Enzo, she was interested in, but I couldn’t even feign interest. It was still early. Our appointments would take a few hours, but I might be able to salvage the rest of the day.

I was surprised to find she hadn’t just made an appointment for a cut but color as well.

“Color?” I picked up a strand of my brown hair. I’d had highlights before, but nothing more drastic than that.

“Yes. You need a boost, and Brit and I agreed color would do the trick.”

“I don’t know.” Color was Brit’s thing. I was perfectly content being the brunette of our group.

“Just look at some swatches and see what the color artist recommends. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to, but I do think a little red could go a long way.” She winked and tossed her own red locks over her shoulder.

Almost ninety minutes later, after being dyed, washed, cut, and blown out, I got a glimpse of the new Kristen. My hair hung in big, layered curls, and the new color was incredible. Dark cherry red. When the stylist first showed it to me, I thought she was kidding, but seeing it now, I couldn’t believe that was me.

It was hard not to smile at the finished product. I felt better about myself than I had in a long time. “Natalie, you were right, this was exactly what I needed.”

When we got back home, Brit practically leapt off the couch. “No way! It looks amazing!”

“She fought me on it but finally caved,” Natalie said with a wink.

“I’m glad I caved. It looks so good. I really love it.”

“Yes, I agree. Too good to stay in. Let’s go out,” Brit suggested.

“Out?” I asked, wanting to show off my new look, but still tempted by hiding in my room with a vat of Haagen-Dazs.

“Yeah. Let’s have a girls’ night. See where the evening takes us and all that jazz.” Brit looked like her wheels were already turning.

“No guys?” I asked skeptically.

“No guys,” they agreed in unison.

“Okay, why not?” I shrugged. “But no Draught and no frat bars.”

“I can live with that,” Natalie said.

“So, what do you want to do then?”

I pondered it for a moment, then flashed the girls a broad smile. “I want a tattoo.”

“She’s taking drugs again,” Natalie said, looking heartbroken.

“I’m not taking anything. It’s something I was planning on doing with David, but seeing as he’s not here… Well, I still want it.”

“What exactly do you want?” Brit asked, eyeing me skeptically.

“Here, I have it in my phone.” I pulled out my cell and started scrolling back through pictures until I found it. It was staff lines with watercolor splotches and a very delicate G clef. I showed it to Brit. “I was planning on getting it before my Juilliard audition. I had hoped it would have brought me luck. But when David left, I canceled my appointment.”

“I can’t believe you never told me about this. It’s so pretty, and very you.”

“Like I said, it was something I had intended to do with David. He was going to get something similar. It was like this little secret between us that I didn’t want to share until I had it.”

They both looked at each other and then at me, and it was hard to read their expressions. I suddenly felt embarrassed. Maybe I shouldn’t have told them. But then I realized they weren’t looking at me like I was crazy. They were looking at me like they felt sorry for me. I wasn’t sure what was worse. “It wasn’t just for luck. I mean, music is such a big part of who I am. And I want to make sure I don’t drift away from it, ya know? Anyway… it was just an idea.”

“If you really want it, I say go for it,” Brit said.

“Yeah, you don’t need a man to get a tat. Be your own person.”

“You really think I should?”

“Why not? It’s not so rare. So many people have one these days.” Brit waved her wrist at me, flaunting her star tat and the word forever.

“There’s only one itsy bitsy problem. You don’t have an appointment for tonight,” Natalie pointed out.

“I know, but I still think they would take me. I went a few times with David over the years. He was friends with the manager, and I think they would remember me. I mean, he was such a good client to them.” I laughed lightly. “David had full sleeves. He walked in, and they pretty much saw dollar signs.”

“Is that the place that did his kiss tattoo when he just randomly walked in?” Brit asked. Ouch. I think she just punched me in the gut. Thanks for reminding me, little sis.

“Yes.”

“Do you know who did it?”

“Yeah, Pete. He did most of David’s stuff.” Pete was older, in his late forties or early fifties, and was very talented. All of David’s tattoos were art, not just a random collection.

“Cool. Then have him do this. The kiss mark he did on David’s neck looks like real lipstick. It has the cracks and everything. You’d never know it wasn’t Revlon. If he can do that, he can do this because watercolor is not the easiest ink to get right.”

My nerves started twitching with doubt. “It’s not? It seemed simple.”

“You just want to make sure it looks like someone painted you with watercolor. Not like this bold, splotchy, bursts of color. We’ll ask to see samples. Don’t worry, we won’t have you get in that chair until we approve it.”

“I’m seriously going to get a tattoo? Tonight?” I was nervous but strangely excited.

Natalie nodded. “If they have an appointment available, and we like his work, sure. Why not?”

They had an appointment. And Pete was there, behind the counter, drawing in his sketch book like I had seen him do a hundred times before. There was the sound of buzzing coming from the back rooms, but other than that, the place was pretty empty. I guess they’d be able to take me after all.

As soon as he saw me, he looked around for David. I’m sure it seemed natural that I would have come with him. I mean, why wouldn’t I have? “He’s in London,” I said before he even asked me.

“Ha! Did he get deported?” Pete was always making wise cracks. But Natalie wasn’t accustomed to his humor.

“He’s recording his first album,” she said rather snippy.

Pete’s brows popped up. “Really? No shit! I heard him play once down at that little gothic coffee house. He had talent.” He looked off into the distance as though he were remembering David on stage. I knew that look because I did that every time I was at work. “Wow. I’m happy for him.”

I didn’t answer, just nodded and smiled.

“So, what brings you here, young lady? You gals want a piercing?” He pointed to the glass cabinet he was leaning against that had dozens of bars and studs. “We have a special on tongue studs this month.”

“Ohhh.” Brit looked intrigued and stepped closer to the glass, but I pulled her back.

“I can’t send you back to Erik with a bar going through your tongue.”

She wagged her eyebrows at me. “I think Erik would like a bar in my tongue.”

“Ha! You got that right,” Pete said, a huge grin on his face. Well, she had walked into that one.

“Let’s focus on why we’re here. Kristen wants to see some examples of your watercolor tattoos,” Natalie said as though she were running a meeting. I had a feeling I knew who the next Delta Sig president would be.

“Sure, I did a few this week.” He pulled out a laptop and opened his pictures. He spun the laptop around so I could see. They were good. Like really good. But I needed Brit’s approval. I stepped aside so she could look.

“These are sick,” she said with a smile. “Like in a good way,” she corrected herself so as not to offend Pete. “Oh, he could totally give you the look you’re going for, Kris.”

“This is what I want.” I pulled up the saved image and held out the phone to Pete.

“Oh yeah, I can do that.” He pulled over his sketch pad and turned to a clean page. He drafted a sketch, and when he turned the book around, I was blown away. It was even more delicate and elegant than the one I had found online. I looked to Brit. She looked very impressed.

“It’s awesome,” she said. “But I would add…” She grabbed his pencil and gave the staff lines a little flair so they didn't stop so abruptly. “There.” She turned the book so I could see. “How’s that?”

“It’s perfect! And I love that you did that little detail. It’s like you’ll always be with me now, even after I graduate.”

“Are you seriously trying to make me cry in the middle of a tattoo parlor?” Brit looked horrified at the thought. God forbid I shake her tough girl image.

“Listen, don’t take this the wrong way, but I do this for a living, so having said that… if I may be so bold, if you’re looking to surprise David with some ink when he returns, may I suggest just below your panty line? Picture it… You guys are getting better acquainted and he discovers that… Boy will he be surprised.” Pete winked at me.

“As tempting as that sounds, the tattoo isn’t for David, it’s for me. So I’m thinking here.” I held out my left wrist.”

“Sure, I can do that. You’re the boss. Come with me.” The three of us followed him, and he stopped dead in his tracks.

“I meant her, not you two.”

“But they have to come with me. I need them for moral support.”

“Sorry, honey, I can’t. Health codes and shit. It’s not my rule.”

“Pete, I came back there with David all the time.”

He twisted his face in frustration. I had him there. I decided to go in for the kill. “And I’d hate to have to tell him I got my first tattoo, scared and alone, because you wouldn’t let my sisters in with me.”

“Sisters?” He eyed us skeptically.

“Sorority, but it still counts.” Natalie put her hands on her hips.

“All right, I can’t piss off my best client, but only one. So you gals toss a coin and meet me in the back.”

I turned to Natalie, who waved us off. “I know you need to do this together. I’ll just be out here looking at bleeding skull art.” She pointed at the wall and shivered.

“It might take about an hour,” Brit said, and I froze.

“An hour? Seriously?”

“Yeah, I mean, you don’t want him to rush this. It’s permanent.”

“I’m scared.”

“Don’t be. It’s a rite of passage.” She took my hand in hers. “Ready?”

I nodded, wanting so bad to absorb some of her courage through my palm. We walked into the back room, and Pete already had rubber gloves on and was getting his needle and inks ready. I had seen this procedure so many times with David. The first few times, I was a nervous wreck, but then I got used to it. David was always so calm in the chair, and after a while, instead of freaking out, I started to see it as sexy. I loved that he wouldn’t get a new piece unless I was there. He always wanted my opinion, as if he was afraid to disrespect me by putting something on his body that might offend me. When we first started dating, I sort of shrugged it off and told him to get whatever he wanted. But after a while, I saw that he truly valued my opinion, and that made me take an interest in his little hobby. I no longer saw the tattoos as a fad or a phase of his life. They told a story, and they truly were a carefully crafted masterpiece wrapped around his arms.

Pete gestured for me to take a seat on the big leather chair. It looked like a dentist chair. But bigger. I sat down, feeling dumb as I put my legs up. Brit jumped on beside me. He looked like he wanted to object but refrained. “I was wondering if David had left me for another artist,” Pete joked. “I still need to finish the clock on his shoulder. When is he coming back?” He took the stool beside me and wheeled over to us.

“Uh…” I glanced at Brit. “I’m not sure.” Pete gestured for me to give him my arm then started wiping my wrist down with an antiseptic. It was cold. Brit squealed. I think she was more excited than I was.

“Yeah, I bet he’s loving the rock star life now. Are you going to visit him there this summer?” I knew Pete was only trying to calm me down. He was chatting me up so I’d be distracted, and he could work without my girly sobs and freak outs, but I really didn’t want to talk about David.

“I’m not sure. It would be expensive.” I figured it was best to keep the charade going rather than break down and tell him about how we had broken up. Besides, he might not let Brit stay then.

“Come on! He’s a rock star now. He should be flying you out there with all his millions.” Pete winked.

I forced a laugh and watched him put the purple stencil over my wrist. He rubbed over it until it transferred, then peeled it back. “All right, that’s where it will be. If you don’t like it, speak now or forever hold your peace.”

Even in purple it looked so good, and I realized then, I didn’t just want this tattoo. I needed it. I held out my wrist to Brit, who nodded in approval.

“All right, Pete, you have the green light. Take my ink virginity.”

“With pleasure, sweetheart.” He bent over and held my wrist firmly but gently. “All right, let’s make a memory.”

The buzzing began, and when the needle first touched my skin, I squeezed Brit’s hand so hard I thought I would shatter her fingers. “Kris, you can hold my hand, but you can’t break it.”

“Sorry,” I spoke through clenched teeth. “Distract me.”

“Uh…”

“You are so not helping.” Pete pressed the needle in deeper and I drew in a sharp breath.

“Uh….”

“Brit!”

“Sorry, I buckle under pressure. Got it.” She broke out into song. It was My Shot and I burst out laughing because I knew Brit would only rap for me. I joined in, singing the chorus and belting out the lyrics when it hurt too bad. If this was a tattoo, I couldn’t even fathom labor. I took breaths, singing with her through the pain, and the entire first act of Hamilton before Pete gave me a break. Whether that break was actually for me or him, I wasn’t sure. Still, it was a relief to have the needle off my wrist even for a few minutes. He had finished the staff and the G clef, all that he needed to do was the watercolor.

“Wow, it already looks so good, you know, minus the blood,” Brit noted.

“Yeah, the worst part has to be over, right?”

Pete chuckled, and I knew the worst hadn’t even begun yet. I suddenly had a new respect for David. I had sat here for thirty minutes and fought tears, trembling teeth, and the need to crush Brit’s fingers. He sat calmly and told me jokes. And just like that, thinking about him in this very chair, winking at me while Pete inked up his arms, I missed him terribly.

I looked around for a napkin, but there weren’t any.

“What’s wrong, love?”

“I need a place to blot my lipstick.”

David tilted his head. “Right here.” I laughed. He was so cute sometimes. I reached over and placed my lips on his neck, giving him a generous kiss. He gave a soft moan as I pulled away.

“There. Now I claimed you as mine.”

“Let me see.” David extended his hand, so I’d put my compact mirror in his palm. Looking into the mirror, he smiled. “Brilliant. Let’s make it permanent, shall we?”

“Permanent?”

David was already on his feet, and his grin was filled with mischief. He dropped money into the bill fold and took my hand as we left the cafe. We scurried past the stores, and it wasn’t until he had stepped up to Pete’s tattoo parlor that I understood what he had meant by permanent.

“David, no way!”

“Yes.”

“You can’t… it’s so… permanent.”

“Exactly.”

I pulled my hand away and shook my head. “Absolutely not.”

“The only reason you’re scared is because you think this won’t end well.”

“Well, we don’t know.”

“I know.”

“I think you should sleep on it. We’ve only been dating a few months, this is very… sudden.”

“Kristen, I am more in love with you than I’ve ever been with anyone my entire life. You are the only girl for me. I know you’re young, you need time. But I’ll wait. I’ll wait for you forever.”

“You sound insane.”

“I’m insane about you. I’m not trying to scare you… I just want a part of you with me… always.”

“What…what if we break up?”

“Trust me, love, if you care for me half as much as I care for you, that will never happen.”

He bent down and swept his lips across mine. He was right. I had never fallen for anyone as hard or as fast as I had fallen for David. In the past few months, he had become my whole world.

“Do it before I change my mind,” I said, completely under the spell of his kiss.

“When will it stop hurting?” I asked, holding back the tears. I was in the living room of the sorority house.

“I mean, I know it stings, but he gave you cream for the pain,” Brit said with slightly less sympathy than I would have hoped for.

“No. I don’t mean the tattoo.” I looked down at my bandaged wrist. “I mean the pain of losing David.”

The girls went quiet. I had brought down my sleeping bag and a few pillows to camp out in their room tonight. We were watching Tristan and Isolde, and I just couldn’t hold back my tears any longer. They had let me pick the movie, and I stupidly went for the cathartic cry. That and the bottle of red wine didn’t help, either. David and I used to always share a bottle of wine on special nights. Even the empty bottle made me miss him. Maybe that’s why I had brought that bottle of red to Harry’s. I was trying to fill the void.

“I don’t know,” Brit said softly. “But maybe the hurt equals the love.”

“What do you mean?”

Brit traced her own tattoo lightly with the pad of her finger. “I mean, maybe your love is measured in your pain. So when you look back you can think about what a great love you once had.”

“That really doesn’t help.”

“But it should. If you got over David in a weekend, it would diminish your relationship. So at least you know you didn’t waste those three years.”

“No, I definitely didn’t waste them.”

“Do you want to date?” Natalie asked.

“No, especially not after the confusion with Harry. I still don’t really know how to classify that.”

“Did you like him?” She rested her cheek against her pillow.

“Well, yes, of course. But I don’t know how real my feelings were. Maybe I was just drowning the sorrow. Or maybe it was just the drugs. Who knows.”

“Well, how do you feel now when you think about it?” Natalie looked at me with sincere curiosity.

I didn’t even have to think. The emotion had sat in my stomach like a rock ever since Boston. “Guilty.”

“My gut says you need to stay away from him. I know in the beginning he was there for you, but he always seemed to have a thing for you, so part of me wonders…” Brit trailed off.

“What? Spit it out.”

“I wonder if he only gave you those pills to try to take advantage of you.”

“No, he’s not like that at all,” I said with complete conviction.

“It’s just weird. I mean, he’s a gorgeous guy who could get any girl, so why offer you drugs? It seems like a logical explanation to me.”

“Well you just don’t know him the way I do.”

“Well, do you know him? Really know him?” Natalie asked.

“I…” I thought I had. “I don’t know.”