Ava nods excitedly.
‘Maybe next time,’ her father mutters, sounding like there might be an icy blizzard in hell before there’s a next time.
The tension between them is palpable and I try to ease it. ‘Right, one dead fairy coming up. I have a box somewhere.’
Ava laughs at my description and I can feel her eyes on me as I crouch down to root around behind the counter. Most things I sell don’t come boxed, but I keep a selection of boxes that are likely to fit certain items, and bubble wrap for fragile things, and it’s all in a heap under the counter shelves and I can never find anything when I want it.
‘Is that a mermaid on your arm?’
Ava has spotted my tattoo and I stand back up and lift my sleeve, revealing the outline of a mermaid sitting on a rock. We can only see her back and her long hair as she looks out into the distance, and most of her is hidden under the sleeve of my T-shirt, but her tail wraps around my elbow.
‘That’s so cool.’ Her fingers reach out and brush over the scales of the mermaid’s tail. ‘I want a tattoo but Dad won’t let me.’
I laugh out loud and then glance at her dad. ‘I don’t think me and your dad would agree on many things, but he might have a point with that one. Maybe one day, eh?’
‘Why doesn’t it have any colour when you’re so colourful?’
I blush again because I haven’t felt colourful for a while now, but my cheeks go so red that they definitely qualify.
‘I couldn’t decide what colour I wanted it. I was going to go for a green tail and red hair, but she wasn’t meant tobeAriel, so then I thought of a blue tail and black hair, but… I was going to go back when I’d decided but I never did. What colour would you choose?’
‘Allthe colours! A rainbow mermaid! Something bright like you.’
My cheeks burn as I blush even harder than I ever knew it was possibletoblush. ‘Do you want to colour it in for me?’
‘She’s thirteen, she’s not a tattoo artist.’ Her father sounds exasperated.
‘I know, but I meant… Look, I found these a few weeks ago.’ I crouch down again and root around underneath the counter, wondering where the heck I put the pack of pens in question and how things manage to go walkabouts in this shop as soon as I take my eyes off them.
‘Here they are— argh!’ I stand up to thrust them in the air victoriously and let out a scream of surprise. The father has finally stepped into the shop, and now he’s leaning so far over the counter to see the disorganisation behind it that I nearly collided with him. He jumps backwards and holds his elegantly fine jaw like I’ve punched him in the face with the pens, even though I’m certain I would’ve felt it if I’d made contact withthatstubble, and my shop has surely caused him enough injury for one day.
I put them down on the counter with a satisfied nod, and he peers at them. ‘You shouldn’t put ink on your skin. I have enough problems without strangers in shops teaching my daughter that it’s okay to draw on her skin with Sharpies.’
‘They’re not Sharpies, they’re tattoo pens. They’re completely safe for skin – you use them to test out designs and placement for tattoos before getting anything final done. They wipe straight off.’
His raised eyebrow has ‘disbelieving’ written all over it, so I add, ‘Look, I’ll prove it.’
I draw a star on the back of my left hand, shake it for a few seconds to let it dry, then clumsily tip water out of my bottle and wipe it away with a tissue. It fades slightly but leaves a definite star-shaped stain. I hide my hand behind my back. ‘Well, it’ll come off with a bit of soap.’
‘Can I, Dad?’ Ava is already selecting her colour choices from the pen pack.
‘Only if…’ He looks bewildered as he holds a hand out towards me, asking me to fill in my name.
‘Oh, Mickey. I’m Mickey.’
‘Only if Mickey doesn’t mind,’ he finishes.
‘It would be an honour to see someone else’s vision for my plain tattoo.’ I rest my elbow on the counter and stretch my arm out so she can reach the entirety of the mermaid.
Her hand clamps around my arm to hold me in place. ‘Mickey like the mouse?’
I laugh because it’s not the first time I’ve heard something similar. ‘Mickey as in short for Michaela, but no one’s called me that since the headmaster in primary school when I helped the class hamster make a bid for freedom.’
She giggles. ‘I’m Ava.’
The dad doesn’t offer to introduce himself, so while she colours my arm like a colouring book, I look at him expectantly until he relents with a reluctant grunt.
‘Ren.’
