My Stupid Girl (27 page)

“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.