More Than Lies

by N. E. Henderson

  I go ahead, taking the seat he’s offered.

  “You’re never here this late, what’s going on, Tara?” he prompts, looking concerned. Shawn’s arms fall to side as he awaits my reply.

  “Um,” I pause. Shoot, where do I begin. “I don’t know. It’s probably nothing, it’s just things aren’t adding up.” I stop talking. One, I’m rambling and not making sense. Two, my voice was increasing with every word out. That happens when I nervous and jumpy. I look around to see if Kenny heard me. He looks up, but doesn’t look curious.

  “You don’t want Kenny to hear us?” Shawn looks from Kenny, back to me. I nod my head. “Lie back in the chair and unbutton your pants.” He turns away from me.

  “Excuse me?”

  Seconds later he’s standing next to me holding what I know is transfer paper with a design. I can’t see what’s on it.

  I look up at Shawn, confused. Did he tell me to take off my clothes?

  “You don’t want anyone to hear us talking so I’m going to act as though I’m positioning a design on your hip bone.”

  “Why my hip?” This isn’t making any sense.

  “Do you want me to listen or not?” His eyebrows furrow.

  “Fine.” I lay back and pop the button on my jeans. The self-conscious feeling I tend to get when I’m around him starts to set in the moment my jeans and panties lower to reveal the skin surrounding my hipbone. It’s not like he can see anything substantial. All of my girly parts are still covered and Shawn’s seen more of my flesh when I’m in a bathing suit than in this moment. Still, there has never been a more intimate moment between us than right now. I don’t know what to do. How am I supposed to talk while lying in this position?

  All I can think about is him looking at the pudginess of my stomach. I’m pretty sure I have a stretch mark or two from my weight fluctuation.

  Shit. How did I even get in this predicament?

  “Now would be the time to start talking, Tara.”

  Shawn lays the paper against my skin, rubbing his hand thoroughly over me to make sure the marks take to my skin. His hands feel amazing, even if it’s not full contact and there is a thin sheet of paper between us.

  Shoot, my breathing starts to accelerate.

  Calming breaths are what I need.

  “Today, Tara. I’m not getting any younger.” He isn’t looking at me so I doubt he can see the way my cheeks have started to heat. I take a slow deep breath then exhale even slower.

  “It’s about Adam. Well, the studio, actually.” That causes him to pause his hand on me to look up. His palm remains flat against my body as his brown eyes penetrate mine.

  “What do you mean?” He’s curious and looking at me intently.

  I’m starting to calm. As I do, I’m able to relax further back into the cushioned seat.

  “Over the last few weeks I’ve noticed things.”

  “What things?” If he would give me a chance, I’d tell him without him having to ask. Shawn’s impatient when you peak his interest. Actually, the only time Shawn isn’t inpatient is when he’s working. It’s a pretty thing to watch. Shawn is totally and completely calm and in his own world when he’s hunched over someone with a needle clutched in his hand.

  I don’t know if you can compare the two, but his mom is the same way when she is in her element. Pamela Braden is a pediatrician. She was my doctor up until I graduated high school and technically became an adult at the age of eighteen. Both of Shawn’s parents are doctors. Mr. Bill is a Cardiologist and works at the largest medical facility in North Mississippi.

  “Adam’s finances with the business,” I tell him. I chew on the side of my lip as I look for the right words. I’m no expert here. I’m doubling in majors at Ole Miss; one in English and the other in Accounting. My dad’s doing, of course, because one major wasn’t enough to please him. “I’ve always handled just the payroll side of things.” I don’t know why I’m starting out this way, but I feel the need to explain in details.

  “I know this already, Tara. You’ve been doing it for two years now.”

  “Yeah, but when Adam got me to start paying the bills and ordering stuff he gave me—” I’m not able to finish because Shawn cut me off.

  “He what?” He’s looking at me a little dumbfounded when his eyebrows close together forming a tight crease in the center. “So he has you doing his job now? What else does he have you doing?”

  “Besides payroll, I pay all the incoming invoices, and order everyone’s supplies.” I bite the inside of my mouth behind my lips. If this is pissing him off, what I tell him next may flip his lid. “He also asked me to interview a piercer he has coming in next Friday.”

  “Are you shitting me?” He’s seriously shocked. I didn’t think it was possible to shock Shawn.

  “Yeah, I mean he only asked me today if I’d do it. He said he was going out to Vegas and didn’t want to reschedule the guy’s interview.” Maybe Shawn was the wrong person to bring this to. Heck, I haven’t even gotten to the point of what I wanted to talk to him about.

  Shawn takes his right hand off of my hip and places it onto the smooth surface next to my left side. He starts to shake his head.

  “He’s having you do his fucking job so what he can take a vacation? Unbelievable.” His expression turns hard. “He’d better be paying you more to do all of the shit he’s supposed to be doing.”

  Paying me? As if.

  “Umm.” Yeah, I don’t really know how to say this next part.

  “He’s not, is he? Cheap motherfucker.” Again he shakes his head as if he can’t believe the ways of his boss. It’s true. Adam is cheap. I mean, I have to bargain-shop for the basic things the studio needs, like toilet paper and hand soap.

  “He’s never paid me. At all,” I add.

  “Come the fuck again?” His jaw locks and his eyes turn dark. He’s mad.

  “He doesn’t pay me, Shawn and frankly I don’t think he can.” Not after seeing his bank statements. Adam is barely keeping the lights on in here.

  “The hell he can’t. Business is great and has been for a while now. None of us are sitting on our ass without clients to service.”

  “Look, this isn’t what I wanted to talk to you about.”

  “Then what is it? Spit it out already because I have a boss’s ass to kick. You can’t let him or anyone else take advantage of you like that, Tara. What the hell were you thinking?”

  “First, it started off as a favor and it was working to my advantage too. I was learning things I could use for my accounting classes and it’s not as if I hate coming here. The opposite, actually; it’s a job without being a job, I guess.”

  I’ve never seen myself doing anything other than writing. My dream is to get published and it’s something I intend on making happen. My father wanted me to go into law like him since it was obvious my brother wasn’t going to follow in his footsteps. I’m not either, but for me that meant also majoring in something I could fall back on, if the whole “writing hobby”, as my parents put it, doesn’t work out.

  It’ll work out, I’ll make sure of it, because I’ll be damned if I’m ever going to be financially dependent on a man like my mother is. I don’t understand it, to save me. I’m not judging here, it’s just the way I see things. I’ll never feel as though I can’t make my own way in this world. For me, that means getting out and earning my own living. Bringing my own food to the table, so to speak.

  It’s the reason I have a part-time waitressing job at Mac’s Pub. It certainly isn’t because I like the job. I don’t. Most of the patrons are nice, but there are always the creepy, cheesy men that make little comments, or place their hands on me. Not to mention, I have to wear a top that shows off my boobs.

  “Look, I’m sorry, maybe I shouldn’t have brought anything up. It’s not like I know if anything is going on, but I didn’t want to go to Adam without talking about it with someone. And I don’t want him to think I screwed something up.”

  That’s my real issue. I�
��m afraid he’s going to blame me for something I know I didn’t do, or at least didn’t do intentionally.

  “What are you talking about? Please explain it to me because I’m not following.”

  Shawn looks back down at my waist. A few seconds later, I feel the paper being lifted off of my skin. I’m dying to see it, but I don’t look down yet. I need to get everything out so that someone else can confirm that I’m not crazy.

  “I’ve been noticing the online bank statements are way off from the written ledger Adam keeps in his desk. I only use it when I write down anything I pay out. That’s it, I swear.” I say this like I’m guilty of something when I’m not. “Two weeks ago I decided to figure out where the discrepancies were coming from. It’s taken a while, but I think I figured it out, with the help of one of my teachers.”

  Shawn balls up the paper and tosses it into the trashcan. He’s still looking down at me. His eyes are big. Shawn has big round brown eyes to start with, but right now they are wider than normal as if he’s in awe. Surely he’s not.

  “I’m listening.” He finally looks up.

  “The amounts deposited each week don’t add up to what I’ve been paying to each artist based on their commission and what the studio profits off each artist’s clients.”

  “What exactly are you getting at?”

  “It looks like I’m overpaying the artists, but Shawn, I check myself multiple times. There’s just no...I don’t know how I could make mistakes like that.”

  “Tara, stop.” Shawn glances back down to where he laid the design. It’s only a second or two, but it’s as though he can’t stop looking at it. I really want to see it now. “I check my shit every week. I can’t speak for most of the jacklegs in this place, but I know Adam and Kenny check their shit too. If you were overpaying one of us, we would have caught it. Kenny is a stand-up guy. He’s honest. I’m damn sure he wouldn’t let that go on without correcting it, and neither would I.”

  “Then.” I stop, not wanting to continue. Continuing means I’m accusing other people of stealing without any proof. “Fuck,” I sigh out in a long breath. Shawn raises his eyebrows in surprise. “Oh, like you’ve never heard that word, come out of my mouth before.”

  “Sure I have. Maybe once or twice, but only when I provoke you.” He smiles his half smile that normally melts me on spot. “Then what? Finish what you wanted to say.”

  “There are only three people that touch the money that comes into this place. Adam, Sabrina, and myself.” Sabrina is the receptionist for the tattoo studio. She runs the front. Answers the phones, schedules most of the appointments for the artist, and makes daily deposits to the bank. “I would never steal from Adam or anyone. I—”

  “Tara, stop defending yourself to me. I know you wouldn’t and not for a second did that thought ever cross my mind.” He’s serious. I breathe in relief, knowing Shawn believes me. I don’t know how much weight that will hold though; it’s Adam that has to believe me. “I’m going to tell you something, but it stays between us until I’m ready for others to know, okay?”

  I nod my head once, telling him I understand and agree.

  “I’m buying the studio from Adam. I sign the paperwork and hand over the check on Monday. If someone is stealing money from the business, I need to know ASAP. Whether it’s my friend and soon to be former boss or some little cunt that needs to get a boot in her ass and shoved out the goddamn door, I need to know who and I need to know now.”

  I’m startled, but not at his use of the “c” word. I thought Shawn stopped shocking me years ago, but at the confession that he is not only staying in Oxford indefinitely, but also he’s going to be the proud owner of a business in three days.

  I was worried what would happen after graduation. None of us have really talked about it. I know Shawn loves his grandparents’ house, but I also know Chance, Adam’s cousin who is coincidentally another of our brother’s good friends, offered him a spot at his tattoo studio in Las Vegas. I over-heard a discussion about it this past summer. Shawn is a talented tattoo artist. His work should be seen everywhere and where else but to get his name out there than in Sin City.

  “What do you want me to do?”

  “We need to figure out who’s taking the money. I gotta say, I don’t see this being on Adam’s shoulders. I mean, it’s his business and I know he’s disconnected from it and simply put, he sucks at managing which is another reason I decided to give it a go.”

  “So you’re thinking Sabrina, then?”

  “I don’t want to think anyone that I work with day in and day out would stoop that low, but sometimes you don’t really know people. People are out for themselves and a lot don’t care if they harm someone else in getting what they want.”

  I stop and think about everything from the past few weeks that I’ve been mulling over. I didn’t really consider someone taking the money. I think I was too worried that Adam would think I screwed up and even though I know I’m thorough, I considered the fact that maybe I did mess up. A light bulb comes on and I peer up at Shawn.

  “You keep an appointment book of everything right?” I know he does which is why I don’t wait for his reply. “Sabrina keeps an appointment log for all artists too. If I can add up the costs and what should be deposited daily, then that will tell us if someone is taking money out before it hits the bank.”

  “True, but it won’t tell us who.”

  “Then I don’t know what to tell you.”

  “I’ll figure something out. Lie back. Let me wash this shit off of you.”

  “No way. I want to see it.” I smile and rise, but Shawn places his palm onto my shoulder and stops my movement.

  “I don’t think so.”

  “I do think so, now move.” I push his hand off and I sit up. I’m dying to see what a tattoo designed by Shawn might look on me. I’ve wanted one for so long.

  “Tara, just let me clean it off.” He looks really nervous. I don’t know why. “It’s not anything worth seeing. It was something I drew up for a chick that decided not to get it done.”

  Again, I’m getting the feeling that isn’t true. Shawn isn’t usually one to lie, as in ever.

  I push him backwards and get out of the chair before he’s able to stop me. There is a long mirror that runs the length of the back wall. It starts from the ceiling and ends where the countertop begins. The counter is thigh high so that artists can reach for anything they have on it when they are sitting down.

  What I see when I look in the mirror has moisture pooling in my eyes.

  Freakin’ hell, it’s beautiful and perfect.

  Oh my God.

  This is it.

  The one.

  I have to have this inked on me.

  “Shit, Tara, I didn’t mean to make you cry. I told you to let me wash it out. Fuck.” I look in his direction as a tear slides down. God, I’m such a girl sometimes. Shawn looks almost hurt and maybe disappointed.

  “I want it.” I declare because I really do. “Oh, my God, this is the prettiest thing I’ve ever seen.”

  “Huh?” He shakes his head. “No, you don’t. Let me clean you off, now.”

  “No way, I’m absolutely serious. I do want this tattooed onto my body and I want it now.”

  The design is a thick storybook, opened and placed onto my hip. The spine of the book is on my hipbone. There are swirly words and birds placed as if they are flying from the pages. Black birds fly in every direction, trailing words behind them. Words like: love, hate, joy, tears, drama, pain, and so on. There is even a little birdie trailing an “HEA”.

  There are almost no words to describe what I’m looking at.

  Perfection is the closest.

  “Now?” He’s questioning me. I don’t think he understands the way I feel, and I have to make myself clear if I’m going to talk Shawn into letting me have this and doing it himself.

  “Yes, now. Come on, do this for me, please. Besides banging the first tramp you see in a bar, what do you have to do to
night? There will still be plenty of time to screw a random whore after you do me.”

  That last part came out wrong.

  “Tara, a tattoo is permanent.” Well, freakin’ duh. Does he think I’m stupid?

  “Really? I had no idea. Thanks for the heads up Mr. Genius.” He huffs at my sarcasm. He deserved that.

  “No. I’m not doing it. I’m not going to put something on you that you might regret. No, Tara, not happening.”

  “What the hell makes you think I’m going to regret it? I wouldn’t. Shawn, you’re an amazing artist. The only person I’d want tattooing me, but if you aren’t going to then I’m going to get someone else to do it.” Apparently I’m not above blackmail here. “I want this design and I want it tonight.”

  The chime of the door sounds. Shawn and I turn our heads just as Adam walks through the door.

  “Forgot my GD phone.” He looks in our direction and is taken aback when he sees me. “You’re never here this late. What are you doing here, girlie?”

  “Adam,” I sing, at the same time I turn to face him. “What do you think of this?” I widen my smile into a toothy grin. If I have to pretend I want Adam to tattoo me in order to get Shawn to do it, then so be it.

  “Nerdy, but hot on you.” He strides over, not taking his eyes off of my body.

  “Shawn won’t do it. Will you?” I raise my t-shirt up a little to give him a better look.

  “Besides the nerdy side of it, it’s a pretty rockin’ tat and it looks killer on her. What gives, brother?” He aims his question in Shawn’s direction. I glance over, taking in the hard eyes that are staring at Adam. I don’t know if it has to do with the tattoo I want or what I revealed to Shawn about the business he’s buying.

  “Because I said she’s not getting a tattoo, period, end of fucking story.”

  I’m getting this done whether he likes it or not.

  You see the thing about Adam is, he likes a girl with an extra-large chest. I don’t flaunt what I have around here. Heck, I don’t flaunt it anywhere, really. But if I need to use it to get what I want, why the hell not, right?