My Stupid Girl

by Smith, Aurora

  I looked over at her wall and saw some awards for her work. I only had one nagging thought in my head that I had to get straight before I went ahead with this.

  Approaching her hesitantly, I cleared my throat, trying not to disturb the fine lines she was tracing over my sketch.

  “Excuse me, ma’m?” I tried to say it quietly.

  “What’s up, bub?” She spoke without looking up.

  “Can you tell me about some of your own tattoos? It doesn’t look like the stuff in your album.” It looked pretty terrible compared to the stuff in her album, actually. I wasn’t going to say that, but I had to know why a woman so talented would be a walking billboard for dumb tattoos. She seemed to understand exactly what I was asking because she laughed as she put down the pencil and looked up at me.

  “You want to know why my arms are covered in ugly tattoos, right?” Her eyes were dancing with amusement.

  “No, I mean, they’re cool, I’m just…” I stammered, hoping she’d cut in but she just watched me, gleefully, “…wondering… why – what. Um. Okay. Your album is great. You do great work on your clients. Who tattoos you?” That seemed like the right kind of question because she smiled and went back to tracing, answering me as she drew.

  “I own this shop. Before I owned it I was one of the senior artists. I’ve been here a looong time. And tattooing is a trade where people have to work in it to learn it. There’s no schools or anything. People start out dumb as bricks and work their way up, learning as they go. Most of my tattoos are from various apprentices I’ve had over the years. They need a live body to practice on at some point and I would NEVER let them touch a client until they could do way better than the skills they learn working on bananas and orange peels. Only way to get them past that cocky hump that all artists have is to let them at some skin and then see how badly they need training.” She paused, lifting the pencil and looking up at me.

  “Does that answer your question?”

  I nodded, smiling in reply to hers, and walked back to my friends.

  “Ok, I’m doing it,” I said, determined not to back down. Lucy squealed in glee and Isaiah clapped me on the back. “But guys, she said it’s going to be a lot.” I looked over at the two of them apologetically.

  “Don’t worry about that. We have it.” Lucy looked excitedly at me. Her eyes were as big as saucers.

  “How come you look so excited, Luce?” I sat her on my lap, making a bigger show of affection than I normally would in public for Justin’s sake. Fake girlfriend my butt.

  “I think tattoos are seriously hot.” She said it in a loud voice.

  She definitely hadn’t taken her Ritalin. This was turning out to be a great birthday.

  “Oh, so is this present for you or for me, really?” I teased.

  “Definitely me!” She chirped without shame, then kissed me harder than usual. I kissed her back enthusiastically. I looked up and saw Justin’s mouth open and arms down limply at his sides.

  “I told you she was amazing,” I said to him.

  Isaiah was holding my sketchpad, flipping through the pictures while we waited, Justin looking over at them. I had a twinge of embarrassment when I thought of a few of the pictures, but I got over it quickly. I doubted he would even stop and look twice at those, but they were more personal for me. My favorite was still the one of my grandma’s and Lucy’s hands. I had drawn that one after the night I had gotten sick and come out to see them sitting together and talking. There were others that I had drawn of Lucy as well, they were of just her eyes or lips and I loved to look at them when I missed her. I was reminded of the tattoo I had drawn for her.

  “So, are you getting your tattoo?” I asked, half joking but half serious.

  “I already called, there is no way they will give me one unless I’m eighteen.” She actually looked sad.

  “Then I guess that’s what we’re doing for your birthday.” I kissed her forehead again.

  “Ok, come over here and let’s work out the placement.” The lady came over, not even asking if I had decided to get the tattoo or not. Isaiah had been right, she knew. She held the weird-looking piece of wax paper that had my drawing on it. I stood up and started rolling my sleeve, but her laughter stopped me.

  “You’re going to have to take your shirt off, babe.” She stood there, expecting me to fling my clothes off.

  “You can’t do it with my shirt on?” I wasn’t really jazzed about disrobing in front of everyone.

  “Nope. Besides, in about ten minutes you’re going to be sweating and you’re going to be glad your shirt is off. You’re probably going to be wishing those jeans were off, too.”

  Sighing deeply, I sucked it up and took off my shirt in front of everyone. I would like to say that I looked awesome doing it, but my lip ring got caught on my shirt, which had never happened to me before in my entire life. I almost ripped the dang thing out of my lip. After I’d untangled myself, the lady put the wax paper carefully on my arm and wrapped it around, the drawing peeking through, looking exactly the way I imagined it. She peeled off the paper and, in its place, was my drawing all in blue.

  “How does it look? Is it where you want it? Do you want it smaller, bigger?” She asked, still chomping.

  “Actually, it’s perfect,” I said, marveling that something I made was on my body. It wrapped completely around my arm and looked really cool.

  “Like I said, I won’t be able to finish it today. I’ll be able to do the outline and start on the fill-in, but you’ll have to come back in two or three weeks when it has stopped peeling to get it finished. Okay?” I looked over at Isaiah and Lucy, who both nodded vigorously. I copied their motion to the lady. She smiled and led me to the reclining chair next to a bunch of medical equipment in sterile wrappers. She spent a few minutes laying out the tools, and breaking out some black gel-looking paint. I was surprised when she unwrapped a disposable razor and shaved all the hair off that part of my arm; it had never occurred to me that my arm hair might be a problem. Finally, after re-drawing a few of the lines, she made eye contact.

  “You ready?” I looked into the mirror beside me at my arm again, then back to the platinum blond ready to mark me forever.

  “I’m ready.” I laid my head back, having no idea what I was getting myself into.

  “How long do you think the outline is going to take?” Lucy asked as the lady pulled on some disposable gloves. This was feeling more and more like an operation.

  “I would say about three hours.” She picked up the little gun and pressed a button on the side; the gun started to make a drilling sound. Dipping the gun into the small container of ink that sat on the counter next to her, she pressed it against my arm, dragging it across my skin.

  I sucked in a deep breath of air and closed my eyes. Wherever the gun was felt like an electric shock mixed with a tiny bit of burn. Wherever it had been, it felt like someone was drawing a sunburn on me. I felt Lucy’s hand go into my free hand.

  “Does it hurt?” Her eyes looked worried.

  “Kind of, but it’s not unbearable. It sort of feels like I’m being stung by a bee.” I spoke through my teeth. I heard the tattoo artist snort. She would stop about every ten seconds to wipe off ink and blood with a paper towel. After about twenty minutes I realized that it wasn’t even the needle itself that was painful. It was more the vibrating. I could feel it down in my bones. And the paper towel was really starting to hurt, brushing harshly on raw skin.

  “You’ve eaten recently, right?” The tattoo lady asked me, stopping the gun to refill the black ink in the little container.

  “It’s been a few hours; I didn’t eat much then.” I wished she would just start again before I got cold feet and lived forever with an outline of a tattoo that wasn’t even a quarter done. I was breaking out into a cold sweat and my arm was starting to shake a little.

  “You, goody girl, go get this boy some soda and a pack of crackers. We need to make sure his blood sugar stays high. He’s looking pretty pale.”
She started again but the relief I felt was short-lived because she had a fresh, evil square of paper-towel.

  “We’ll go.” Isaiah gave me a jealous look. “That’s going to look awesome, David.” I nodded my response. This thing better be the most amazing thing in the world if I had to sit down for another two and a half hours of this.

  “You think this hurts, you wait till I start filling it in.” She winked at me as I groaned.

  “It's so cool David, you should look,” Lucy said putting her hand on the top of my head. She was on my right side which normally would be stressing me out, but right now she could have shaved my head and I wouldn’t even have noticed. I decided not to look and kept my eyes fixed on the ceiling tile above me.

  After three and a half hours, a large coke, a candy bar, and a few breaks, the whole tattoo was outlined on my arm.

  I stood near one of the huge mirrors, staring at my transformed arm. It was amazing; I couldn’t believe it. I had an insane rush of endorphins a few minutes after we’d finished, and it hadn’t faded yet. I’d do this again in a heartbeat. I suddenly understood why people got multiple huge tattoos.

  Lucy was standing behind me, looking at me looking in the mirror. I couldn’t help smiling when I saw her eyes get big, then she would look away when she noticed I was looking at her. She touched it once, but I yelped. A manly yelp.

  “Sorry.” She put her hands instead on my forearms so she could look closer at it. “What colors are you going to use?”

  “I don’t know, I’m going to have to color it in. Or maybe I’ll let Marlene decide.” The tattoo artist smiled at the mention of her name and told me 'whatever I wanted.'

  “Ok, you can pay over here.” The girl with the black hair and bright red lipstick came over to Lucy. Isaiah flushed again and followed the two girls to the cash register.

  “That’s so cool, David.” Justin spoke quietly, handing me my shirt.

  “Thanks, man.” I put on my shirt slowly, it was like pulling sore muscles to lift my arm up. The shoulder was irritated by the cotton of my shirt. Again, very similar to sunburn. Marlene spoke as she walked us out of her cubicle.

  “What you need to do is put Vaseline or Neosporin on that arm for a week straight. Do not pick the scab, you could pull out some ink, and I know you don’t want me to re-do anything, right.” I shook my head vigorously.

  “Gina will give you an instruction sheet for all the care and stuff, just make sure you treat it like any other wound. It looks crazy cool but it’s sensitive right now!” She gave me a sweet smile before walking to the back room.

  I couldn’t believe that I had just placed my obsessive compulsive self in her hands. But she had done an amazing job. I couldn’t deny it. Soon, Lucy came back to my side and helped me put on my jacket.

  “Now, for the second part of the night.” She smiled at me and started jumping on her toes again.

  16. BRAND NEW USED

  They let me ride in the car without the pillowcase. Lucy asked Isaiah to drive again, though. She wanted to sit in the back with me.

  I’d known I was lucky to have Lucy in my life, but after a few months she had grown on me and the fascination had begun to wear off.

  But seeing the way Justin was looking at us whenever we touched or kissed, I was reminded of how incredibly lucky I was. Lucy was awesome, and she wanted to be with me. There was something about an amazing person choosing to spend all their free time with me that just made me feel invincible.

  We had driven about twenty minutes away from my school, in the opposite direction of my grandma’s house, so it took us over a half hour to get home. Lucy chatted at me about her week. Even though we had talked every night, she still remembered things that she hadn’t told me. I sat in the middle of the back seat and she sat on the right side of her car with her back against the door and her legs up on my lap.

  I didn’t know where to put my hands; I went with the safest move I could think of and rested them on her shins. This was the first time, since I’d discovered her Ritalin secret, that she’d been off her meds. It wasn’t hard to notice the effects of her not being on it. Although, I have to say, her wildness wasn’t as bad as I remembered. Maybe I was just more used to her now.

  She was definitely more wiggly and spoke in a lot of incomplete sentences, but deep down she was just Lucy. My Lucy. She touched me a lot more; her hands were either in my hands or on my arm, or my back. It seemed she always had her hand on some part of me. Honestly, I was enjoying every minute of it.

  As Isaiah drove into my grandma’s neighborhood, I saw him get on his cell phone. He looked back at me and glared.

  “The eagle has landed,” he growled into the phone then snapped it shut.

  “What on earth is going on?” I asked with sweet innocence.

  “Hit him for me, will you Luce?”

  “Yep!” She reached her hand out and smacked the side of my face lightly, followed by a long kiss that lasted until the car had come to a complete stop in front of my grandma’s house. Once we parked she released me, her eyes sparkling.

  When I looked up to open the door I saw Johnny’s car and, to my surprise, Sean’s and Michelle’s as well. Sean’s car was a pleasant surprise but I was shocked to see Michelle’s. I hoped she was in a good mood. I liked Michelle plenty when I was feeling normal, but she was a total downer when life was going really well. Which it was today, no question.

  “Let's get this over with,” Isaiah grumbled from the front seat. Even with his special occasion cranky-pants on, I knew the guy loved me. He stepped out of the car and pulled a cigarette from behind his ear. Before any of us even blinked Lucy had snatched it from his fingers, broken it, thrown it to the ground, and stomped on it. Isaiah’s eyes narrowed as her heel ground the tobacco and paper into little bits. His bottom chin went out in anger but Lucy just stuck her tongue at him and began walking toward the front door.

  Justin was laughing behind us. I shot him a warning glance because I knew he was thinking of the cigarettes he gave me every once in a while. If Lucy found out about that I knew she would eat me whole, right in front of everyone. I wouldn’t say I was a smoker, not like I used to be. Before I met Lucy I’d smoke at least ten cigarettes a day. Now I could count on one hand the number of cigarettes I smoked in an entire month. I hoped that’d go in my favor if the subject ever came up.

  Everyone stood at the front door, waiting for me to unlock it.

  “Oh, darn, I lost my keys!” I pretended to fumble around for the “lost” keys.

  “Knock it off.” Lucy grabbed my keys from my hands and opened the front door. Seconds later, a bunch of people jumped out from behind furniture and yelled “Surprise!” Then they all spent a few minutes standing in my living room, laughing and clapping for me as I went around and said hi to everyone. Even though they’d been obvious about being there, it was such a cool gesture. I’d never had anyone throw a party for me before, and especially not a surprise party at the tail end of an awesome surprise-tattoo session. I felt a warm something in the pit of my stomach; it grew when Lucy grabbed my hands and started laughing.

  “So dude, I want to see it.” Johnny grinned at me as I greeted him, Jennika by his side.

  “See what?” My grandma piped up from a few feet away, her old eyes locked on me.

  “Umm.” I shot Johnny my special “you are dumber than a rock” look. His eyes got huge as soon as he realized the magnitude of the mistake his stupid big mouth had made. His shoulders started to shake with silent laughter although he at least had the decency to look down at the ground in shame while he laughed at me.

  “What?” My grandma asked again, looking suspiciously at me. “See what?”

  I looked over at Lucy for help but she had mysteriously vanished. I turned in a complete circle. A shadow was following my back wherever it turned, making sure to stay out of my line of sight I glanced over at Isaiah, who had the hood of his sweatshirt over his head and face, completely bunched closed, and tied so that nothing but
his nose was showing. He was leaning against the wall with his arms and legs crossed, not moving, hoping to blend in with the paneling probably. Justin just stood in the middle of the carpet, eyes frozen like a deer in the headlights.

  “I can’t believe you guys are throwing me under the bus like this!” All I heard in response was uncontrolled squeaking from behind me.

  “David, what is everyone laughing about?” My grandma reached both her hands out. In slow motion, I watched in horror as she put one hand on each side of me, gripping my upper arms in concern. I screwed my face up in pain and sucked air through gritted teeth. Her face was awash with worry, knowing she’d hurt me but trying to figure out how. Then, like she was seeing her old, weak hands for the first time, she looked at me with paralyzing suspicion.

  “David Anthony, what have you done?” Her usually sweet voice snarled with disgust. I started to chuckle. I put my hands on her shoulders to try and calm her down, but my non-repentant face and Lucy’s unsuppressed giggling from behind my back was making her even more upset.

  “Lucy?”

  “I didn’t do anything.” She said from behind me. My grandma gave me a look that I had come to recognize as the business-face. I put my hands up in surrender.

  “Ok, Grandma. Don’t freak out.” I took off my jacket and laid it over Lucy’s face. She didn’t protest. I think she was happy for an extra layer of camouflage.

  I pulled on my long left sleeve and slid my arm out, being careful not to rub too hard on my skin. I unfolded my arm from underneath my shirt and showed my grandma what I had just done. She grabbed her chest like she was having a heart attack.