Faces in the Fire

by Hines

  But after watching all of Lance Armstrong’s interview, after absorbing everything he had said, she hadn’t laughed. In an odd way, what he’d said made sense. A little bit. After all, this whole cancer could be a chance to change her life, reprioritize, get back in touch with people she hadn’t talked to forever, explore the things she’d always wanted to do someday.

  But she hadn’t done that. Two weeks after diagnosis, a round of chemotherapy under her belt, she had told herself she was going to be more impulsive, do some different things the next week. Just as soon as she’d recovered from the chemo a bit, which had exhausted her.

  Two weeks after that, well, she was just a week out from her next chemo, and she didn’t want to do anything that would interfere with it. Her blood counts needed to stay high, and if she went anywhere, caught a cold, she could jeopardize it all.

  Two weeks after that, she’d been in the middle of a new project, and the second round of chemo hadn’t been that bad at all, and another two weeks after that—

  Well, that’s what brought her here now. With incurable lymphoma, it turned out.

  When it all started, she had a highly curable form of cancer. That had seemed somehow comforting. That made it a test, a thing to be conquered, a challenge that could be referred to in the future as the best thing that ever happened to me. That’s what Lance Armstrong had said, and that’s what she had believed.

  So she went through the motions, believing all along that she would have time to make all those healthy changes, do all those impulsive, life-celebrating things. She was already ahead of most people, ahead of people who never faced any kind of scary diagnosis like cancer. It was a wake-up call, but she could press the snooze button and go back to those changes at some point down the road. After all, she had a highly curable form of cancer.

  But now she realized she’d done nothing with the wakeup call. Instead, she’d slipped into that dark zone where you never woke up. She’d been told, in a lot more words, that this cancer was going to kill her. It wasn’t a challenge, or an obstacle, or a chance to reprioritize. It was death.

  Maybe it was the best thing to ever happen to Lance Armstrong, but it would be the last thing to ever happen to her.

  And so, it really was time to be impulsive. She’d always wanted a tattoo. What better time to get one? What better time just to drop everything and do something unexpected?

  Two weeks ago she might have told herself it was dangerous to get a tattoo at this time, with her immune system impaired by chemo and the risk of infection or complications or any of a thousand other things going wrong. Swain would have a coronary if he saw her doing this.

  But really, what was the worst that could happen? She would die? Cancer was already taking care of that; might as well enjoy the ride on the way down.

  The cabbie pulled to the curb, pressed the button for the final fare, turned, and looked at her. “Fifteen-sixty,” he said, announcing the fare.

  She pulled out a fifty, shoved it at him. “Keep the change,” she said.

  He paused. “Fifteen, not fifty,” he said, pointing at the fare.

  “Yeah, I know,” she said, smiling. Her wig—the dark, dark one—itched her scalp, but she ignored the sensation. She wanted to concentrate on Spreading a Little Love to others, and she’d start by giving a cab driver a giant tip.

  The cabbie held the bill up to the light, inspecting it.

  “You think I’m passing you a counterfeit fifty?” she said, a bit incredulous and insulted.

  He shrugged.

  “How about, ‘Wow, lady, thanks for the big tip,’ something along those lines?”

  “Wow, lady, thanks for the big tip,” he deadpanned, stuffing the bill into his pocket and looking out into traffic, waiting for her to get out of the car.

  She slid out the door, turned to speak to the cabbie again. “You know, I have terminal cancer, so I’m trying to spread a little goodwill. You’re not helping.”

  He flipped on his left turn signal without turning. “I got hemorrhoids, lady. I keep ’em to myself.”

  She closed the door, and he zoomed out into traffic. So much for that good deed.

  She was in the heart of Fremont, the Seattle neighborhood generally acknowledged as the artsiest, quirkiest, funkiest, everythingiest. With a troll under the Aurora Street Bridge and a Lenin statue on its most famous street corner, the neighborhood embraced the odd, and Corrine had always liked that. In Fremont, she could find Fellow Travelers, people who weren’t afraid to let their bottom-feeder flags fly.

  She liked the tattoo shop. Tattoo parlor. Whatever you wanted to call it. It was sandwiched between a taco shop and a place billing itself as a “bohemian outfitter,” one of the small street-front spaces in a converted warehouse of some kind. She’d been drawn to the name immediately when she’d done her Web search the night before: GraceSpace. Sounded like a place for a fresh start, a renewal.

  A giant chained gate covered the storefront, and a round, hand-painted iron sign was bolted to the brick above her. GRACESPACE, the iron sign said, intricate black cursive letters on a lemon yellow background, with ivy adornments. Artsy. She liked it.

  She was drawn out of her reverie by a woman unlocking the chain gate in front of the storefront. The woman didn’t look like a tattoo artist, but what did Corrine know? She’d never gotten a tattoo.

  Maybe she’d expected some Goth girl with powdered makeup and pierced, bloodred lips; instead, she was staring at a middle-aged woman with shoulder-length hair, unassuming slacks, and a long-sleeved print blouse. Corrine stepped in and helped her raise the gate.

  The woman turned, thanked her. Corrine noticed dark, sunken eyes. Clammy skin. Almost as if she were a chemo patient herself. It added a bit to the Goth vibe, but still, she seemed more Soccer Mom than Tattoo Chick.

  “I want a tattoo,” Corrine said, watching the woman now unlock the door behind the gate and feeling like a fiveyear-old asking for candy. She followed the woman inside, offered her hand when she turned around again. “I’m Corrine,” she said.

  “Grace,” the woman answered, shaking her hand.

  Grace. That would explain the name. GraceSpace. Grace’s Space. Corrine decided she liked that, too, this woman who was unafraid to claim her own bit of land. Like some kind of intrepid explorer at the North Pole.

  A soft beep was coming from the phone’s digital answering system, and she could see the woman—Grace—glance in the phone’s direction nervously. Obviously, she didn’t want to check messages with a potential customer here.

  “Better check your messages,” Corrine said, trying a smile. It felt grotesque. The wig itched her scalp.

  “You sure you don’t mind?”

  “No, no. Not at all.” Corrine sat in one of the wooden chairs in the main reception area. Nice and cozy inside, almost a Beaux Arts feel. A little help from the “bohemian outfitter” next door, maybe. She waved her hand at the woman, a motion that said go ahead.

  The headset on the woman’s phone was way too loud, and Corrine heard every message. She tried not to listen, but attention to detail had been pounded into her since her days on the traveling sales crew. Standing at someone’s door, you always looked for clues to help you make the sale; harvesting e-mails from the Web, you always looked for clues that would tell you what kinds of messages people might respond to. Details.

  Every message the woman listened to revolved, in one way or another, around something called Black Tar. Tattoo slang, obviously.

  Eventually, the woman hung up the phone.

  “What’s black tar?” Corrine asked, and Grace spun to look at her, seemed to lose her composure for a moment. “Sorry,” Corrine said, filling in the awkward silence. “Your headset—I couldn’t help but hear it.”

  The woman nodded. “Black Tar is a new ink I’m using. Good coverage, darkest black you’ll ever see.”

  Corrine felt a bitter smile on her face. You want to see true darkness, try looking at the blood that drips out of your vein aft
er they finish a six-hour chemo session. Try sitting in Swain’s office while he stares at his reports, stumbling his way through a complete sentence. Try looking at your bald reflection in a mirror after you’ve been told a transplant is a no-go.

  This woman had no idea what the darkest black looked like.

  “I’ve seen some pretty black stuff,” Corrine said, but she could tell the woman was just giving her a polite smile.

  Still, Corrine liked her. She felt . . . comfortable with this woman. Grace. Especially after being stuck in rooms with nurses and radiation techs and Swain, people who stuck needles into her skin and prodded her while barely acknowledging her presence.

  It would be nice to have needles in her skin by choice for a change.

  “Let’s do it,” she said too cheerfully. “Let’s use some Black Tar.”

  The woman offered another polite smile. “Okay, well, I usually do a consult on a design—give me an idea what kind of tattoo you’re looking for, where it’s going, that kind of thing. Then we schedule a time.”

  Corrine nodded, feeling oddly lightheaded and chipper. “Here’s the thing,” she said. “I made an oath to myself a couple months ago to be more impulsive. Only I haven’t been. Until now. Until last night, actually. I decided I wanted a tattoo, so today I’m getting a tattoo.”

  The woman seemed serious for a moment. “Well, that’s part of why I do the consult. Make sure you’re not doing it on just an impulse, make sure you’re comfortable with something that could last the rest of your life.”

  For once Corrine controlled the impulse to laugh. It was her natural reaction to bad news and stress, true. But now would be a bad time. Still, that was a good one—right up there with some of Swain’s zingers. And Lance Armstrong’s. A tattoo from a box of old Cracker Jacks might last the rest of her life, as far as she knew.

  She took a deep breath, looked at Grace. Time to play the cancer card.

  “I, uh . . . I was diagnosed with incurable cancer a couple months ago. That’s when I decided to be more impulsive, like I said. And . . . I guess I’m running out of time to be impulsive.”

  So she’d fibbed a bit on that; she’d actually been diagnosed with a highly curable form of cancer, but . . . well, that had been a fib told to her, now, hadn’t it?

  Grace stared for a few moments before she nodded. At least the woman didn’t spout off about being sorry, her voice going syrupy-sweet as if she were talking to a three-year-old. It had happened to her before. More than once. Often in the chemo room at the oncology center. Or at the front desk. Ms. Tight Blouse.

  “What were you thinking of doing?” Grace asked her.

  “I don’t know. Impulsive, like I said. Call me a blank canvas.”

  The woman sat in thought, then abruptly stood. “Okay, then,” she said. “Let’s do it.”

  Corrine followed her to a small room at the back of the shop. Dark. No windows. Grace crossed the room, turned on a light clamped to a small table covered by white paper. Next to it was another table, this one sans paper on its gleaming chrome surface, and a large dentist’s chair.

  “Have a seat,” Grace said, sitting down on a wheeled stool and pulling on surgical gloves.

  Corrine hesitated. Maybe this was a bad idea. It looked a little too much like . . . a little too much like a chemo session. Comfy chair, designed to make you think this really wasn’t a Big Deal at all, this poison getting injected into your bloodstream. Low light to keep you quiet and still. Sharp instruments on a clean worktable, ready to Make Everything Better. Grace was even fastening a surgical mask to her face, of all things, and she turned to peer through the darkness at Corrine.

  “Time to be impulsive,” she heard Grace’s voice say, but it was disconcerting being unable to see her lips.

  Be impulsive. Who had said that? Oh, yeah. She had.

  Corrine walked across the floor, settled into the chair, tried to relax. She wanted to check her hair, make sure she hadn’t jarred the wig when she sat down, but she didn’t want to draw attention by messing with it now. At least it had stopped itching.

  Grace had her back to her, messing with stuff on the table. Preparing. After a couple of minutes, she turned again, holding an instrument that looked somewhat like a bad kitchen implement.

  “This is the tattoo gun,” Grace said, obviously picking up on the questions in Corrine’s eyes. “I attach the needle here, draw ink into the tube up here. Just relax.”

  Relax. Sure, she could relax. Breathe. Breathe normally.

  “Okay,” Grace continued. “Any more thoughts on what you want? Where you want it?”

  “My arm,” she said. “Something big. Something strong.”

  Grace nodded, adjusted the task light so it was focused on her arm. “Maybe slip this arm out of your shirt,” she said. “So we don’t stain it.”

  Corrine did as instructed.

  “Now,” Grace continued, “like I said before: just try to relax.”

  Corrine heard a whirring sound—also something like a bad kitchen implement—and immediately felt a ripple of pinpricks on her arm, followed by a few seconds of silence. She watched as Grace wiped away some ink, then triggered the gun again with another whirr. This time, the pinpricks didn’t feel quite so bad, and her eyelids seemed heavy.

  She closed her eyes, listening to the tattoo gun grind, the wheels on Grace’s chair squeak with subtle movements, the lightbulb in the work lamp hum, and within seconds, she felt nothing.

  3.

  The appeal of being on a traveling sales crew had faded faster than a cheap T-shirt.

  Corrine had answered an ad in her local newspaper just a few months earlier, a small ad filled with exclamation marks and promises: Earn $100+ Every Day! Exciting Travel Opportunities! Full Training! The ad had said nothing about traipsing from door to door, aiming to look like a poor, starved soul doing your best to stay off the streets and stay out of trouble or, depending on the person who answered the door, to earn scholarship money for college. After a few months on the road, Corrine had begun to write the ad that lured her in her own style: Earn $100 Every Day for Your Crew Leader! Exciting Travel Opportunities for Anyone Who Loves Riding a Thousand Miles with Six People Stuffed into a Junky Van! Full Training, Complete with Hotel Lockdowns and Beatings!!

  Corrine had figured out in her second week that she’d signed up for something like a forced labor camp. Marcus, their crew leader, kept them locked away—all six of them in one room—when they weren’t on the streets selling. He pitted them against each other, making them compete to get the most sales. Sometimes, if you didn’t meet your quota, he handcuffed you to the bed in the dive hotel room, kept a gag over your mouth.

  Yes, the wonderful world of traveling sales was certainly Exciting! Still, Corrine had figured out the most effective way to deal with it was to roll with the changes, keep your eyes forward, don’t stand out by being at either the top of the ladder or the bottom.

  But not everyone in her crew was like that. One of the girls, Jenny, seemed to have this odd fascination with Marcus, a hero-worship thing. Something like the dog that gets beaten by its owner, yet always runs to lick the owner’s hand when he holds it out. Jenny, you had to be careful of; if you said anything in the hotel room at night, she would run and tell Marcus the next morning.

  At the opposite end, a round-faced kid from Iowa named Terrance often seemed to thrive on the abuse. He tested Marcus at every turn, almost willing him to beat him or take away his money or lock him away for the day. Terrance, it seemed, thrived on being the whipping boy. And after he’d been on the crew just two weeks (he’d joined about a month after Corrine, at another of the endless stops across the Midwest), she saw the pressure building between Marcus and Terrance. She understood that pressure would naturally find its release in an explosion, and she also understood she would very likely be standing at ground zero when it happened.

  So it came as no surprise to be here, at this very moment, stuck in the third seat of the minivan next to Te
rrance somewhere in the middle of Oklahoma, as Marcus screamed at him from the driver’s seat. Corrine watched casually as Marcus’s hateful gaze darted to the rearview mirror every few seconds, fixing on Terrance in the backseat beside her. Terrance, for his part, simply smiled beatifically every time he saw Marcus glance at him in the mirror, which in turn caused fresh waves of anger to radiate away from the front seat.

  It had been like this the whole hour they’d been on the road this morning, and they had about another nine hours to get to Sioux Falls, their next destination.

  Terrance, she thought idly, might actually be energized by nine more hours of listening to Marcus losing his selfcontrol. What little self-control he had. The rest of them in the car winced every time Marcus screamed—especially Jenny, who seemed to take every uttered expletive with a painful jolt.

  Of course, Corrine could stop it. She could step into the middle of it, be the peacemaker, calm Marcus’s frustrations, distract Terrance with some idle chatter. Terrance had a thing for her, anyway. She could tell.

  But that would go against her personal code. She needed to stay invisible, in the middle of the pack. Just ride the waves and get through it. That code had brought her through her first couple months, and it would bring her through a couple more. Until she figured out her next steps. Until she figured a way out of this white van with the taped-on bumper and the red passenger door retrieved from a junkyard.

  Just before the accident, Marcus had said something she knew would stick with her forever, a bit of Confucius-inspired wisdom that would change her life even though Marcus had meant it as just another of his many insults.

  Marcus looked into the rearview mirror, beads of sweat on his angry red forehead. “You’re just a bottom-feeder, Terrance,” he said. “You’re all just bottom-feeders, and that’s all you’ll ever be.”

  Yes, there was something that rang true about that in Corrine’s mind. She liked the image of herself as a bottomfeeder; it was comforting.

  But the image didn’t have long to give her comfort, because Marcus had kept his eyes away from the road for too long, staring at Terrance, who dumbly smiled and nodded. Jenny had time to get out a single “Marcus!” (and even in her panic, Jenny had managed to inject his name with a reverent tone) before the van slipped off the small shoulder and into the ditch running beside the highway.