Page 80 of Pierced Pages
Jen walked into the tiny room with a bag of potato chips in one hand as she wiped the other on her jeans. “Let me see.”
Morgan stepped back so Jen could examine her work. Jen looked from one side to the other, tilting her head this way and that.
“Looks perfect to me.” She grabbed the mirror from the table and handed it to the client. “Have a look, and tell her I’m right.”
The woman moved her head as she looked at her reflection with a similar series of head tilts. Then, she handed Morgan the mirror. “She’s right.”
It was the woman’s first piercings ever. She’d never had her ears pierced before, and Morgan always felt so honored to have these jobs. To give someone something they’d never had before, and prove to them it wasn’t so scary after all.
“Are you sure? I just want to get it right.”
The breakup with Danielle had shaken her more than she’d expected.
No, not a breakup. They hadn’t been dating.
But they kind of were. They just weren’t admitting it until Saturday night.
And then Sunday happened.
A full day and a crappy night’s sleep hadn’t eased her heartbreak. Or her self-confidence, it seemed.
“I’m sure,” the woman said. “Can we just do this before I chicken out?”
Morgan smiled at her. “Absolutely.”
Jen took her bag of chips and exited the room, saying, “My work here is done,” on her way out.
Morgan went to work clamping, then pushing the needle through before inserting the moonstone earrings the client hadpicked out. She did one ear then the other, and the woman hardly flinched.
When she was done, she waved a hand at the larger mirror on the wall beside them. “Take a look.”
“That was it?” she asked. “You’re really done?”
“Yup, really.”
The woman turned to look at her reddened ears, and a huge grin spread across her face. “I love them! Thank you.”
Morgan told her to sit tight while she cleaned up. Sometimes, clients got a little light-headed after the adrenaline rush of a piercing, so she always made them sit still in the room for a few minutes.
By the time she finished cleaning up, all the color had returned to the woman’s face, and she’d finished taking and sending her selfies.
Morgan handed her the after-care instructions sheet. “Touch them as little as possible and don’t turn them. Saline spray only to clean them. Keep them in for about eight weeks before trying to change them out to make sure the holes are completely healed. Everything is on this paper. Any questions?”
After the woman shook her head, she hopped down, and they headed towards the front together. Jen caught her before she rounded the corner.
“Someone is here to see you,” she said.
A frequent repeat client, she figured. She loved those almost as much as the first-timers.
But when she rounded the corner, she quickly realized her mistaken assumption.
“Take a smoke break,” Jen said, placing a hand against Morgan’s back. “I’ll ring this up for you.”
Morgan didn’t smoke, but she and Jen used that excuse whenever they needed a quick, fresh air break. It was only fair that the actual smokers weren’t the only ones getting breaks.
She meant to thank Jen, but the words never came out. Instead, they caught in her throat as she stared at the woman in front of her. The woman she thought she’d never see again.
“Hey,” Danielle said.
