The page is filled with words, flowing script on soft skin. Let it be; no regrets; though she be but little, she is fierce. I read tattoo after tattoo, studying the way the letters flow into each other and twirl on the skin. My eyes are tracing the decorative letters of a tattoo that reads sisters when viewed one way and friends the other, when it hits me.
“Keys,” I say, holding my hand out to Cameron. He fishes them from his pocket, and the second I grip them, I run from the room, full out until I reach the car. Panting, I unlock the door and pull the journal from under the seat. In an effort to calm my heart and steady my breathing, I force myself to walk back to the shop, the book hugged tightly to my chest.
Cameron looks up as soon as the bell jingles my return. He studies my face closely and his eyes fall to the book.
“I’ve got it,” I tell the girl behind the counter.
“Coolio.” She pulls a clipboard from a box behind her. Passing it to me, she says, “I just need you to fill this out and have your brother sign it, since you’re underage.”
I nod, dumbly, and sit next to Cameron. “Brother?” I whisper.
“Yeah, sis. I explained how our parents are gone, but I’m your legal guardian, and I am giving permission for you to do this.” He fishes his driver’s license from his wallet and slides it under the clasp on the board. “They’ll need that.” I make sure my last name matches his, hoping this works.
Paperwork in, the girl leads us through a beaded curtain to another room. This one is bright. White and clinical. Four chairs line the room in a neat row, spaced evenly at wide intervals. They look like dentist chairs. Each one is in front of a small vanity and a massive mirror. A large man occupies one chair, laid fully out, facedown, with a petite Japanese woman etching a dragon over the expanse of his broad shoulders. The other three chairs are empty.
“Hey, Jimbo,” the girl calls through an open door, “they’re ready.”
The man who joins us now is thin and dignified looking. He wears black slacks with a black, short-sleeved button-down tucked into them. His hair is short and neatly combed, and he wears thin, wire-framed glasses. The rest of his appearance stands in stark contrast with the vintage sailor tattoos covering his forearms and snaking around his neck.
“I’m Jim,” he says in a quiet voice, holding a hand out to me. His handshake is smooth, gentle.
“Anna.”
“What are we doing today, Anna?”
I lay the book on the closest chair and flip through the pages until I hit #15: Be brave with my life. I point. “This. Be brave.”
He nods. “May I?” I hand him the book, and he studies the words flowing over the page, the unique calligraphy spelling out my tattoo, at the same time messy and beautiful. He hands it to the purple-haired girl. “Can you make me a copy of this, please, Allie?”
She nods and dances from the room, book in hand. While she’s gone, Jim and Cameron introduce themselves, Cameron playing the brother card. I’m pretty sure Jim doesn’t believe a word of it, but he doesn’t call us out on the lie. He turns to me. “Where are we putting it?”
I don’t hesitate. Immediately, I point to the right side of my rib cage, just below where the strap of my bikini wraps around my torso. “Here.”
He winces. “That’s a sensitive area. It’ll hurt worse than normal.”
“I can take it,” I say. It can’t be any worse than the pain I’ve been carrying with me since Storm’s been gone.
“If you’re sure.”
I nod, and Allie comes back through the beads. She hands the journal to Cameron and the copy paper to Jim. To me, she gives two blue and red gel caps. I stare at the pills resting in my palm. “It’s just Tylenol,” she says. “You don’t have to take it, but if you do it now, it’ll help a bit with the pain. There’s bottled water in the cooler if you want.”
The pills stare at me from her palm. “Can’t,” I say. “I’m allergic. Do you have any Advil?”
She shakes her head, and Jim says, “Sorry. Advil might make you bleed more. No bueno.”
Shrugging, I ignore the pills and cross to the cooler to pull out a bottle of water. I take a deep drink as I cross the room. Jim is bent over the vanity by one of the chairs, sketching onto a thin sheet of paper with a blue marker. I sit.
“Why the ribs?” Cameron asks.
“Dunno.” I shrug. “Just seemed like the right place.”
“Ready?” Jim says. I nod, hoping I look more confident than I feel. He holds up the paper he was working on, the stencil he’ll use, and there it is, the words I’ll have on my skin for the rest of my life.
Be brave.
After I pull my dress down to my hips, Jim reclines the chair and has me lie on my left side, my right arm draped over my head. He pulls on a pair of gloves and cleans my skin with something cold.
“All black?” he asks. I nod.
A buzz sounds by my head. In the mirror, I see Jim adjusting the tattoo gun until the buzzing is even, humming. A tiny pot of black ink sits in front of him.
“Here we go,” he says.
My body tenses the second he touches my side, anticipating the pain. It’s intense, white-hot, like a demonic kitten scratching me over and over with laser claws. Jim works slow and methodical, taking his time to make sure each line and letter looks just right. I squeeze my hands into fists and clench my jaw.
Suddenly, my endorphins kick in, and I know what people mean when they talk about a “tattoo high.” The pain is still there, burning away at my rib cage, but I no longer care. There’s something cathartic about it, almost soothing. My face relaxes, and before long, I find myself drifting off, existing only in my own world.
The click of the camera shutter, followed by the mechanical buzz of a Polaroid being spat out into the world, draws me back, and I open my eyes to find Cameron standing in front of me, watching the progress. He sets the picture on the vanity, well away from Jim’s setup, and lays the camera beside it. “How are you doing?”
“I’m fine,” I say. “It hurt bad at first, but it’s no big deal now.”
“Good.”
“Even better,” Jim says then pauses for a shockingly long time before saying, slowly, “we… are… done.”
He turns off the tattoo gun, and in the sudden silence, I can hear the man on the other chair snoring softly. I don’t blame him. Jim wipes my side one last time with a soft paper towel then follows up with some sort of lotion. “You ready to see it?”
He raises the chair up, and I slide off, standing on wobbly legs. With a deep breath, I turn toward the mirror and raise my arm.
It’s perfect. Better than I imagined. The tattoo, the words, her writing—it looks like it belongs there, hugging the side of my body. I could have been born with it, it fits so well. Tears rush to my eyes, and my nose burns.
“It’s amazing,” I say. “Thank you.”
“Of course,” Jim says in his soft voice. “Let’s get you covered up.” He slathers the tattoo with some kind of gel and tapes a rectangle of plastic wrap over his work. As I’m repositioning my dress, Jim goes over the care instructions with me. He hands Cameron a small tub of gel. “Make sure she uses this.”
Jim turns back to me. “Thank you for letting me work on you, Anna. It’s been a pleasure.” He gives me a loose hug, kisses me on the cheek, and disappears through the back door.
Allie is leaning back in her chair reading Rolling Stone as I approach the counter. I pull my wallet from my purse, but she waves me off. “Your brother already took care of that.”
“Oh, okay. Thanks for everything,” I say lamely. We step back out onto the sidewalk.
“What did I say about paying for things?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Cameron says.
“Liar.” I link my arm with his. “Thank you for today. It was awesome.”
“Oh, it’s not over yet.” He grins a Cheshire cat grin.
“What else could you possibly have planned?”
“You�
�ll see. But first, lunch.”
Chapter 22
We find a café nestled in a corner near a row of tourist shops. The tables are covered with red-and-white checked oilcloth, and the walls display rows of plates featuring kittens playing with yarn and kids frolicking hand in hand through fields. The front counter holds a glass display case, packed with more pies than I’ve ever seen in one area.
As soon as we step through the door, a woman calls out to us, “Go ahead and sit wherever you’d like. I’ll be with you in a second.” She’s gorgeous, with creamy skin and vibrant red hair pulled up in victory rolls. She wears an old-fashioned diner dress—short-sleeved with a Peter Pan collar—a starched white apron contrasting the dress’s bright aqua. Her upper arm is a tangle of black and gray lines, a tattoo swirling from her elbow to somewhere hidden by the dress. She has thick, black eyebrows and about six sparkly earrings in each ear. It’s like looking at a bizarre time warp.
Cameron picks a table close to the window and we sit, the journal, camera, and recent Polaroid placed in the table’s center. I look like I’m sleeping in the photo, stretched on the chair, Jim positioned behind me, leaning over and working the letters into my skin. I touch my side. It feels hot through my dress—tender, but not painful.
“This one doesn’t need a caption,” I say, plucking up the picture to take a closer look. Cameron snapped the photo just before Jim declared my tattoo finished, so the only caption I need is already there: “Be brave,” etched permanently on my side. I slip the picture into the journal.
“Here y’all go,” the woman says, dropping a couple menus on the table along with two glasses of water. “Sorry about that. I was having a major sweet tea catastrophe back there.”
“No worries,” Cameron tells her. “Can I actually get some of that sweet tea?”
“Oh, me too, please,” I echo.
The waitress’s laugh is deep and throaty. “All right. Y’all want the stuff I just dropped on the floor?” She winks at Cameron and whisks back to the kitchen.
She’s back almost immediately, two tall glasses in hand, a slice of lemon perched on each rim. As she sets down the tea, she eyes me curiously. “Hey, didn’t I see you running into Jim’s earlier?”
I nod.
“I thought that was you. It’s hard to forget that hair. It’s gorgeous. Mine is supposed to be blonde, you know, but I could never get it to look like yours. I tried and tried to get that effortless beachy look, but it never stuck. So I gave up.”
I’m trying to imagine the girl in front of me with my pale, golden hair. It doesn’t match the vibrant look she has now. “I love your hair,” I say. “How long does it take to style?”
She cups one hand over a victory roll. “It took me forever the first time. For. Ever. But now that I’ve beaten it into submission, it goes pretty quickly. So, what’d you get?”
“Uh?…”
“Your tattoo? Jim did all of mine. He’s the best in town, not that he has much competition. But he’s such a nice guy, right? What’d you have done?”
I gesture lamely to my side. “It’s, uh, right here, my sister’s—”
“Here,” Cameron interjects, saving me from my own lameness. He fishes the picture out of the journal and hands it to her.
“Oh, that’s great!” she exclaims. “That lettering is amazing. Where’d you find it?”
“My sister wrote it.”
Handing the picture back to Cam, she says, “Well, she’s really good. You should tell her to sell designs to studios. She could probably make some cash.”
“Um… thanks. I’ll do that.” My face burns. I stare intently at the table.
“I guess I better give y’all a couple minutes to look at the menu. Just holler when you’re ready. Name’s Sam.”
“Thanks, Sam,” Cameron says, and she walks away, practically bouncing into the kitchen. “Anna, you okay?”
“Fine.” I shrug, forcing nonchalance.
“She reminds me of her.”
I follow his gaze to where Sam disappeared.
“Storm had that same intense retro thing going on, ya know?” he says.
“Yeah.”
“Remember that one summer my mom thought she would take up portrait painting?”
A laugh bubbles up my throat. “I’ll never be able to forget. She made us sit still for hours.”
“She always gave us cookies at the end, though, so it was worth it.”
“Those cookies were the only reason I agreed to do it.” I crack my menu open and skim past the offerings.
“That was the year Storm starting dragging me to those vintage clothing stores,” Cameron continues. “My mom told her she looked like some old model from the black-and-white photo days, and Storm just ate that up. Wanted to dress like the model and everything.”
“Bettie Page,” I say. I remember the day like it was yesterday. Mrs. Andrews had us over for portraits, maybe the third time she’d painted me. She’d just finished mine, and I was digging deep into the cookies. As she arranged the couch for the next painting, I asked, “How come you never paint me and Storm together?”
She turned to me, a streak of golden paint under one eye, and said, “Because, Miss Anna, you are all gold and yellow and bronze, a palette of one color, and your sister”—she paused, beaming—“Stormy is a study in contrasts.”
She was right, I realized as I looked at us both in the mirror, standing side by side. My blonde hair faded into tan skin, pale brown eyes matching the glow of my cheeks. Beside me, Storm was all milky skin, black hair, and vibrant blue eyes. Everything a defined line, standing in stark contrast.
“Come on, Bettie Page,” Mrs. Andrews said, leading Storm across the room to the couch. I’d never seen my sister smile so big.
Now, Sam dances back into the room. “Y’all ready? Sorry if I couldn’t hear you calling. It gets kinda loud back there.”
“That’s fine,” I say, glancing at my menu to the first thing that stands out. “I’ll have the fish and chips and a side of slaw, please.”
“Excellent.” She grabs my menu. “What about you, handsome?”
Cameron passes his own menu to her. “I’ll try that blue cheese bacon burger with the home fries.”
“Good choice.” She winks. “My favorite. Y’all want some hush puppies to nibble on while you wait?”
“That’d be great, thank you.” Once she’s gone, I ask Cameron, “Well, what are we doing after this?”
“Nice try.”
“Come on, you know you wanna tell me.”
Shaking his head, he leans back in his chair, arms crossed over his chest. “Not a chance.”
My phone buzzes. I want to ignore it, but just in case it’s Aunt Morgan, I fish it out of my purse.
PIPER: what the hell? not answering my calls now?
Swiping my screen, I see that I missed seven calls this morning. I didn’t even think to check for messages after parasailing. I tap out a quick response.
ME: Sorry! My phone was silenced.
PIPER: so call me. NOW.
I sigh. Talking on the phone is about the last thing I want to do. I love Piper, but she can be exhausting. She tends to thrive on drama. But she is my best friend, and I left her behind without even telling her. If our roles were reversed, I don’t know that I would have acted any differently than she did. At least she’s calling; maybe she’s decided to forgive me for ditching her. I wave my phone and tell Cameron, “I gotta call Pip. I’ll be right back,” and step outside.
She answers immediately. “About time!”
“Sorry. Cameron woke me up at the butt-crack of dawn to take me—”
“I don’t want to hear about your trip right now.”
I’m taken aback. I guess she hasn’t forgiven me after all. I try to shake her words off, ignore the harsh bite to her voice. Leaning against the café’s brick wall, I wait for her to continue.
“Guess what?” She’s back to her chipper self, the need to spill gossip more intense than h
er anger. “Taylor had this party last night, right? Just a small thing, movies and whatnot, but, like, everyone was there.”
I slip down the wall and sit cross-legged on the sidewalk, watching tourists as they pick their way through shops lining the street.
“Anyway, I’m like not loving the movie Luke picked, so I decide to wander around and see who else is there, and I go out into the backyard, and guess what I see?”
“I have no idea,” I deadpan.
“Jovani and Shelly! They were out on the swing where anyone could see them, just making out. Like, full-on make-out, like it was no big deal. I could’ve killed him.”
“Why?”
“Why?” She’s yelling now, working up to full-blown rant mode. “Because you’re my best friend, that’s why! I can’t believe he’d do this to you. I mean, I know you totally abandoned us, but still.”
“I didn’t abandon you,” I say evenly. “I’ll be back soon.”
“How soon?”
“Soon-ish… but, Pip? If Jo wants to make out with Shelly, that’s fine. We like Shelly, remember?”
She scoffs into the phone. “Yeah, right. You know you two are perfect together. Admit it, this drives you crazy.”
I suppress a sigh. “Really. It’s fine. He’s free to kiss whoever he wants. I think Shelly’s great for him.”
A voice sounds in the background, and Piper says, “Hey, I gotta go. Chase is here.” She hangs up before I can say anything.
Back in the café, the plate of hush puppies is empty, and Cameron is staring at his burger. A basket of fried fish and french fries sits in front of my chair, a ceramic bowl heaped with coleslaw next to it. “You didn’t have to wait for me, you know.”
“I didn’t. You totally missed out on those hush puppies.” He picks up his burger and takes a giant bite, a look of ecstasy on his face. After he swallows, he asks, “How’s Piper?”
“Ugh. I don’t wanna talk about it. Let’s just eat.”
An hour later, Cameron parks the car and turns to dig through the stuff in the backseat.
“Here,” he says, rotating back and dropping Aunt Morgan’s camera bag in my lap.
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