Page 38 of Yours Truly

She lays it all out and flicks on the lamp. Picking up my pencil, I blink down at the sketch, my mind a mess. What am I doing? I look at the flag rippling in an invisible wind, wondering what Ivy would look like wrapped up in a flag, in nothing but her birthday suit.

“Talk me through how you double-check,” she says, getting the ball rolling. She presses her finger to the edge of the design, where the edge of the flag nearly meets the paper. “Would it be cool to add some wear to the seam? I mean, don’t disrespect the flag or anything but… just show that it’s been relentlessly up against the elements for a long time.”

I nod. “That’d be dope.” And with her suggestion, I tuck into the sketch and start working. With her by my side, I forget everything.

The fear, the pain, everything.

Only she has that effect.

It’s not every day someone signs up to get a tattoo but shows up to the appointment horrified to go through with it. And I’m not trying to be sexist, but statistically speaking, the number of times men have been terrified of the needle? Not high.

It’s part of the reason why I’m so puzzled this afternoon, half way through the long session. The client is a twenty-five-year-old man, one who of course knows Ivy.

The Bluebell energy of everyone knowing one another is great. Cozy. But every man knowing Ivy? Eager to talk to her, desperate to hug her hello? Makes me want to take her to the biggest city in the world, get lost with her, so that no one will know her name and no one will think they have the right to hold or touch her.

“It’s all right, Jere,” Ivy soothes, using a side of her I haven’t seen much. The softness of her tone and the way she calmingly strokes his shoulder with the backs of her knuckles…

I’m jealous.

Even though I’m the one training her, I’m the one helping her shape her craft, which is arguably the most important thing to her, I’m the man sitting at her side day in and day out for the last few months. Still. I am fucking jealous. The pen vibrates in my hand, color seeping through the needle, into his skin, and still, my eyes dart back and forth between the client and her knuckles, soothing him in repetitive, gentle strokes.

“Jeremy,” I say as I turn off the machine, sitting up under the guise of stretching my spine. “You want a break?”

He peers down at me, positioned at his waist as his American flag tattoo is across his stomach. “I’m okay,” he says, the sweat on his forehead glittering beneath the overhead lamps. He does this little wimpy, shriveled smile at Ivy, then says, “Her support is really helping.”

Gag me.

I glance down at the finished ink. I’ve done the outline, I’ve done the stars and all the shading in and behind them. I had only planned on Ivy shading the red stripes and the shadow behind the flag, and I’d never put a client at risk but she can absolutely handle what’s left.

“I hope my support is just as good,” I tell him, eyeing her, lifting the plastic protected pen in my gloved hand. “You’re up.”

Her eyes widen for a moment before she recalls the jab I made about shock and insecurity. I hate that I said that because I know she was only excited. I know she isn’t insecure in her abilities but more so, she just isn’t fully comfortable with the pen yet. Which is normal.

Still, I broke her down as much as I could.

Without a single question, her blue eyes capture mine as she smiles, saying, “Perfect.”

Jeremy props himself up on his elbows, looking a little pale and a lot woozy. Ivy offers him a Jolly Rancher casually, in a way that doesn't suggest she sees how bad he feels. She’s got a bedside manner, and that's good.

I keep working. The design, for frame of reference, is about one foot wide and half a foot long. In the grand scheme of ink and pain, it’s not a mountain. It’s more like… a hill.

“You’re… you’re gonna switch?” he asks, struggling to be cool in front of me but also clinging to her battling inside him. I can see it. His gaze flicks between us, his chest moves a bit faster, and I have to pull my old cup of coffee to my lips and take a drink just to hide my satisfied smirk.

What kind of guy gets an American flag on his gut to show his badassery but whimpers when a beautiful girl won’t hold him like an infant and whisper sweet nothings? A guy named Jeremy, that’s who.

Most of the tattoos I got were without numbing cream, in silence, done by myself, absolutely sober. I invited the pain. Welcomed it when and if it came. The burn of the needle was always tolerable for me.

“Yep. Ivy here is an apprentice to the shop. She’s working with me?—”

“Hey” Jeremy sits up further. “I knew you looked familiar. You’re Trace Calhoun, from Needle Ninjas, right?” He shakes his head in dismay, like he’s just realized Tom Cruise is right in front of him. There may have been a time when I enthusiastically welcomed being recognized—basked in it, even—but now it just feels awkward.

“I am Trace Calhoun,” I agree with a singular nod of my head.

“I watched your show all the time. You are so badass,” he breathes, no longer looking at Ivy with puppy dogs eyes but now his focus is solely on me. “I saw the tattoo you did in Great Lakes, for that plane crash survivor. The phoenix rising from the plume of smoke,” he recalls, making me also recall the ink.

I remember the guy. I remember the tattoo.

I also remember it was all bullshit. Something the show paid the guy to say and do. He was never in a plane crash, and the entire storyline was contrived for TV ratings. The ink, though, was real. And it was a great tattoo. One of the only borderless tattoos I’ve done.

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