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smackenzieSo he tells me about his work and his potential time in another studio, and he tells me about Bodie's work, and he tells me about Jonatha and her studio and the tattoo artists I know and the new people I don't. In exchange I tell him about Maya and Kona and that Rachael left so she could travel, and I tell him about Liliana and Kelly's visit, and that makes me remember the guy who turned into a hedgehog at the coffeeshop, so I tell Mel about him.
"What does that sound like to you?" I ask, at the end of my story. "Does that sound like a curse? Does it sound normal?"
"You're telling me about a guy who turned into a hedgehog in the middle of a coffeeshop, in the middle of the day," Mel says. "What about that is normal?"
"You live with a technomancer. You must have heard some weird magic stories."
"Not about shapeshifters, especially hedgehogs. Usually people claim they've seen a werewolf. Bodie's never known one of those claims to be true."
"I wasn't seeing things," I protest.
"I didn't say you were. I'm just saying that if that guy really was a shapeshifter, he's the first verifiable instance of one in... ever." Mel looks at me placidly over his beer. "Do you want me to reassure you that you're not crazy?"
"I know I'm not crazy. I just want to know what I saw. Besides a very pretty boy turning into a woodland creature in the line at The Drip and Donut. I want to know why it happened."
"Strange things are afoot at the Circle K."
I roll my eyes. "You're not helpful at all."
"I don't know anything about shapeshifters. I don't think Bodie knows anything about shapeshifters. It's not his wheelhouse. He works with numbers, he doesn't work with people. I mean. You know what I mean."
I swipe a chip through the bowl of salsa and bite into it. I overloaded it because some of the salsa falls off the chip and lands on the table. I wipe it up with my napkin. "I haven't seen anything like it since," I say thoughtfully.
"You probably won't. You can find some forums online to discuss it, if you really want to talk to people who might have more of a clue. Otherwise, let it go. Unless you really do think it's your friend from art school, in which case you now have a stellar opportunity to get back in touch with him. Tell him you saw him at the coffeeshop and you didn't realize he lived here."
"And follow it up with what? 'Oh, by the way, are you a were-hedgehog?'" I snort. "He'll think I'm still doing drugs. No, I am not doing drugs. I live a very clean life." I say it loftily, but it's pretty true - I don't smoke, I don't drink much, I don't do drugs, I'm a vegetarian (most of the time), I do yoga, I now have a cat to help me destress, when the weather's nice I bike, I haven't even slept with anyone in six months.
"How boring," Mel comments, grinning at me.
The waitress brings our food and talk about that for a while, leaving the matter of the were-hedgehog for another time.
I always liked Mel, as a person and as a tattoo artist, and it's nice to be able to catch up with him. The restaurant very kindly doesn't kick us out - the place isn't busy, so it's not as if they need the table - which means we sit there long enough to digest our dinner enough to have dessert. Mel has sopapillas, I have a flan. I shake the plate a little, so I can watch the flan wiggle. Mel laughs at me.
"What?" I say. "You have to be able to enjoy the jiggly desserts in your life. You never shook your jello when you were a kid?"
"I poked it. I remember once my brother bet me to see who could put more cubes in his mouth without swallowing them, chewing them, or choking on them. I pushed my cheeks out like a squirrel storing nuts. I was winning, too, until my sister said something funny and made me laugh. I spit jello all over the kitchen table and my granny read me the riot act. Of course my brother started to laugh, but he didn't want to spit jello everywhere, so he choked on it instead. I felt bad for laughing at him, but, you know, schadenfreude is delicious." He reaches across the table to poke my flan with his fork, just to see it jiggle.
"You can have some," I tell him.
"Thanks, but I'll pass. I don't really like custard."
"Your loss."
We have decaf coffee with our desserts, and we finally roll out of the restaurant after almost two and a half hours.
"I gotta get an early start in the morning," Mel says, as we head for our cars. "So I should go back to the hotel and crash. It was wonderful to see you. We need to catch up more than once a year."
"We really do," I agree. "Next time maybe I'll come visit you."
"You should! Say hi to all the new artists at Lotus Tattoo. Jonatha would love to see you. I'll let you know what I decide about New Orleans. Maybe you could come visit me there."
It's tempting. I haven't been to New Orleans in a long time. I remind him to keep me in the loop, and hug him. Mel gives great hugs, he always has. As we pull apart I notice what looks a lot like a gold band on his finger, where a wedding ring would be if he and Bodie were married. And I don't think they are, otherwise I'd know.
But then it's gone, so it must be a trick of light and shadow and maybe a tiny bit of wish fulfillment.
We say goodbye about four times before we both get in our respective cars and go our separate ways. Diego is snoozing on the couch when I get home, but he deigns to get up and twine around my ankles as a way to say hi. I sit on the couch and he sits on me while I read my mail and watch twenty minutes of an action movie on TV before dislodging him and going to bed.
If I dream, I don't remember it in the morning.
After breakfast I call the animal shelter to see if Kay has come in. I'm disappointed but not surprised when the girl on the other end of the phone apologizes and says no, he hasn't been back. I do my morning yoga, play with Diego for a little bit, wonder where else I can look.
I'm standing in line at The Drip and Donut with orders from Maya and Kona, staring at nothing in particular and thinking about what I have to do today, when I focus briefly on the head of the woman in front of me - she has stunning orange-red hair that looks natural - and, much to my surprise, see a tiny black car, like a Matchbox car, appear behind one shoulder, drive across her back past her neck, and vanish behind the other shoulder. I blink. How on earth am I hallucinating? Was my breakfast yogurt expired? Is it because I haven't had enough caffeine yet? Do I need a hot coffee for reasons besides the wake-up call?
What the hell is going on? Maybe I did really see a wedding band on Mel's finger last night, except I wasn't seeing an actual band, but rather a hallucination of one.
I'm having visions. I don't know why, but I'm having visions. This must be what it's like for Kay
There's a snake curled around the barista's head, when I finally get up to the counter to order my coffees. It looks like a garter snake, and a second later it's gone.
I am not going to be able to work like this, if I keep seeing things that aren't there. I don't care that whatever I see is there one second and gone the next. I know I won't be able to concentrate on my clients and their ink.
I need to find Kay, or I need to figure out a way to unearth him, or drag him out of hiding, or something, so I can ask him about this weird new talent I seem to have acquired.
I'm not worried, because I already have some magic so it's not an entirely unfamiliar experience, but all the same, it's really weird. People don't tend to spontaneously generate an entirely new magical talent for no reason.
I don't know how to explain it to Maya or Kona, so I don't. It turns out that it's not as bad a distraction as I thought it would be, and I don't have any more trouble than usual inking my clients. My first job is a cover-up, involving a small and badly-done butterfly on the client's hip, right at her bikini line, which she wants me to turn into a brightly-colored bird of paradise. It's not a difficult job - the butterfly is small and a little faded, and the bird is larger and much brighter - and it's fun. I let my free hand rest on the client's leg a little more than I normally would, partly because she keeps tensing up from the pain and partly because I don't want to think that I've exchanged my magical talent for calming people with a touch for these strange new visions. But she seems to relax, so I let myself think it's because I've magically made her do it, and I stop worrying.
And then much to my surprise and relief, Kay calls in the afternoon. Maya happens to be up front and answers the phone. Of course I'm working - my client is a young man who wants a latin charm inked up the inside of his arm - but I can't expect him to call me back. So I tell the young man to take five minutes to catch his breath, which is a good thing because he's looking a little pale, snap off my gloves, and go into the office, where I can shut the door and talk in privacy.
"Kay? Where are you?" I demand. "Two of your friends came to tell me you were missing."
"I'm sorry," he says. "I had to go. I just... I had to be by myself. I was staying with my grandpa."
Grandpa's dead, his friend Alene had said. Guess not.
"I'm in the middle of a piece," I continue. "I can't talk. Just tell me where you are."
"The, um, the bus station. Can you come get me? Not right this second, but when you're done? I don't know anyone else with a car."
"Can't you take a city bus home?"
"I'm in, um, I'm in Winslow."
Winslow is about half an hour away. I don't know where the bus station is, but I can find it.
"What are you doing there? Wait, don't tell me, I don't have time. I have to finish with this client and then I'll come get you. Sit tight, ok?"
"Ok. Thanks." He hangs up and I go back to my client, who seems to have gotten a grip on himself. He's not quite as pale as he was. I touch his arm to calm him before washing my hands and putting on fresh gloves and getting back to work.
words: 1863
total words: 26,940
"What does that sound like to you?" I ask, at the end of my story. "Does that sound like a curse? Does it sound normal?"
"You're telling me about a guy who turned into a hedgehog in the middle of a coffeeshop, in the middle of the day," Mel says. "What about that is normal?"
"You live with a technomancer. You must have heard some weird magic stories."
"Not about shapeshifters, especially hedgehogs. Usually people claim they've seen a werewolf. Bodie's never known one of those claims to be true."
"I wasn't seeing things," I protest.
"I didn't say you were. I'm just saying that if that guy really was a shapeshifter, he's the first verifiable instance of one in... ever." Mel looks at me placidly over his beer. "Do you want me to reassure you that you're not crazy?"
"I know I'm not crazy. I just want to know what I saw. Besides a very pretty boy turning into a woodland creature in the line at The Drip and Donut. I want to know why it happened."
"Strange things are afoot at the Circle K."
I roll my eyes. "You're not helpful at all."
"I don't know anything about shapeshifters. I don't think Bodie knows anything about shapeshifters. It's not his wheelhouse. He works with numbers, he doesn't work with people. I mean. You know what I mean."
I swipe a chip through the bowl of salsa and bite into it. I overloaded it because some of the salsa falls off the chip and lands on the table. I wipe it up with my napkin. "I haven't seen anything like it since," I say thoughtfully.
"You probably won't. You can find some forums online to discuss it, if you really want to talk to people who might have more of a clue. Otherwise, let it go. Unless you really do think it's your friend from art school, in which case you now have a stellar opportunity to get back in touch with him. Tell him you saw him at the coffeeshop and you didn't realize he lived here."
"And follow it up with what? 'Oh, by the way, are you a were-hedgehog?'" I snort. "He'll think I'm still doing drugs. No, I am not doing drugs. I live a very clean life." I say it loftily, but it's pretty true - I don't smoke, I don't drink much, I don't do drugs, I'm a vegetarian (most of the time), I do yoga, I now have a cat to help me destress, when the weather's nice I bike, I haven't even slept with anyone in six months.
"How boring," Mel comments, grinning at me.
The waitress brings our food and talk about that for a while, leaving the matter of the were-hedgehog for another time.
I always liked Mel, as a person and as a tattoo artist, and it's nice to be able to catch up with him. The restaurant very kindly doesn't kick us out - the place isn't busy, so it's not as if they need the table - which means we sit there long enough to digest our dinner enough to have dessert. Mel has sopapillas, I have a flan. I shake the plate a little, so I can watch the flan wiggle. Mel laughs at me.
"What?" I say. "You have to be able to enjoy the jiggly desserts in your life. You never shook your jello when you were a kid?"
"I poked it. I remember once my brother bet me to see who could put more cubes in his mouth without swallowing them, chewing them, or choking on them. I pushed my cheeks out like a squirrel storing nuts. I was winning, too, until my sister said something funny and made me laugh. I spit jello all over the kitchen table and my granny read me the riot act. Of course my brother started to laugh, but he didn't want to spit jello everywhere, so he choked on it instead. I felt bad for laughing at him, but, you know, schadenfreude is delicious." He reaches across the table to poke my flan with his fork, just to see it jiggle.
"You can have some," I tell him.
"Thanks, but I'll pass. I don't really like custard."
"Your loss."
We have decaf coffee with our desserts, and we finally roll out of the restaurant after almost two and a half hours.
"I gotta get an early start in the morning," Mel says, as we head for our cars. "So I should go back to the hotel and crash. It was wonderful to see you. We need to catch up more than once a year."
"We really do," I agree. "Next time maybe I'll come visit you."
"You should! Say hi to all the new artists at Lotus Tattoo. Jonatha would love to see you. I'll let you know what I decide about New Orleans. Maybe you could come visit me there."
It's tempting. I haven't been to New Orleans in a long time. I remind him to keep me in the loop, and hug him. Mel gives great hugs, he always has. As we pull apart I notice what looks a lot like a gold band on his finger, where a wedding ring would be if he and Bodie were married. And I don't think they are, otherwise I'd know.
But then it's gone, so it must be a trick of light and shadow and maybe a tiny bit of wish fulfillment.
We say goodbye about four times before we both get in our respective cars and go our separate ways. Diego is snoozing on the couch when I get home, but he deigns to get up and twine around my ankles as a way to say hi. I sit on the couch and he sits on me while I read my mail and watch twenty minutes of an action movie on TV before dislodging him and going to bed.
If I dream, I don't remember it in the morning.
After breakfast I call the animal shelter to see if Kay has come in. I'm disappointed but not surprised when the girl on the other end of the phone apologizes and says no, he hasn't been back. I do my morning yoga, play with Diego for a little bit, wonder where else I can look.
I'm standing in line at The Drip and Donut with orders from Maya and Kona, staring at nothing in particular and thinking about what I have to do today, when I focus briefly on the head of the woman in front of me - she has stunning orange-red hair that looks natural - and, much to my surprise, see a tiny black car, like a Matchbox car, appear behind one shoulder, drive across her back past her neck, and vanish behind the other shoulder. I blink. How on earth am I hallucinating? Was my breakfast yogurt expired? Is it because I haven't had enough caffeine yet? Do I need a hot coffee for reasons besides the wake-up call?
What the hell is going on? Maybe I did really see a wedding band on Mel's finger last night, except I wasn't seeing an actual band, but rather a hallucination of one.
I'm having visions. I don't know why, but I'm having visions. This must be what it's like for Kay
There's a snake curled around the barista's head, when I finally get up to the counter to order my coffees. It looks like a garter snake, and a second later it's gone.
I am not going to be able to work like this, if I keep seeing things that aren't there. I don't care that whatever I see is there one second and gone the next. I know I won't be able to concentrate on my clients and their ink.
I need to find Kay, or I need to figure out a way to unearth him, or drag him out of hiding, or something, so I can ask him about this weird new talent I seem to have acquired.
I'm not worried, because I already have some magic so it's not an entirely unfamiliar experience, but all the same, it's really weird. People don't tend to spontaneously generate an entirely new magical talent for no reason.
I don't know how to explain it to Maya or Kona, so I don't. It turns out that it's not as bad a distraction as I thought it would be, and I don't have any more trouble than usual inking my clients. My first job is a cover-up, involving a small and badly-done butterfly on the client's hip, right at her bikini line, which she wants me to turn into a brightly-colored bird of paradise. It's not a difficult job - the butterfly is small and a little faded, and the bird is larger and much brighter - and it's fun. I let my free hand rest on the client's leg a little more than I normally would, partly because she keeps tensing up from the pain and partly because I don't want to think that I've exchanged my magical talent for calming people with a touch for these strange new visions. But she seems to relax, so I let myself think it's because I've magically made her do it, and I stop worrying.
And then much to my surprise and relief, Kay calls in the afternoon. Maya happens to be up front and answers the phone. Of course I'm working - my client is a young man who wants a latin charm inked up the inside of his arm - but I can't expect him to call me back. So I tell the young man to take five minutes to catch his breath, which is a good thing because he's looking a little pale, snap off my gloves, and go into the office, where I can shut the door and talk in privacy.
"Kay? Where are you?" I demand. "Two of your friends came to tell me you were missing."
"I'm sorry," he says. "I had to go. I just... I had to be by myself. I was staying with my grandpa."
Grandpa's dead, his friend Alene had said. Guess not.
"I'm in the middle of a piece," I continue. "I can't talk. Just tell me where you are."
"The, um, the bus station. Can you come get me? Not right this second, but when you're done? I don't know anyone else with a car."
"Can't you take a city bus home?"
"I'm in, um, I'm in Winslow."
Winslow is about half an hour away. I don't know where the bus station is, but I can find it.
"What are you doing there? Wait, don't tell me, I don't have time. I have to finish with this client and then I'll come get you. Sit tight, ok?"
"Ok. Thanks." He hangs up and I go back to my client, who seems to have gotten a grip on himself. He's not quite as pale as he was. I touch his arm to calm him before washing my hands and putting on fresh gloves and getting back to work.
words: 1863
total words: 26,940
