Katy stepped up beside them.“Is this how the guys in your novels are described?Because I won’t lie.That’s hot… in a barbaric, alpha kind of way.”
“Mmm-hmm,” Maddie agreed.“Dude looks like he’d wield a wicked paddle.”
Lola rolled her eyes.“I swear I can’t take you two anywhere.”
“Can I help you?”
The three of them whipped around, and Maddie’s hair slapped Lola in the face.Lola’s heart pounded painfully in her chest.
“Mother of peacocks, you scared me.”Katy leaned forward, resting her hands on her knees and taking deep breaths.
Lola rubbed her chest, trying to calm her beating heart.
Perched upon a lofty stool behind the counter, an elderly woman greeted them, her eyes curious.
“Maybe make some noise next time before speaking and scaring the bejesus out of us.Like, I don’t know, ring a gong or something,” Katy said.“It would fit with your whole relaxation theme.”
“She doesn’t mean an actual gong,” Lola jumped in.
“What?”Katy snapped her head around to Lola.“What other kind of gong is there?A metaphorical one?No, I absolutely meant a gong.”
“It’s just a suggestion,” Maddie said, her voice much less accusatory than their brunette friend’s.“Businesses like customer suggestions, don’t they?”
Lola quickly agreed.“Yes, that.”She pointed at Maddie.“She’s just offering a suggestion, but it’s obviously not something that we’re going to give you a bad review over.I mean, it was just a little startling, and that was just because we were so engrossed in the amazing artwork on the wall.You can get a gong if you want one, or you could just toss that suggestion out the door with yesterday’s bathwater.But it could add to the ambiance of the place.Not that it’s not already great.A little different.Definitely not what we were expecting.I mean there’s–”
“Lola,” Maddie bit out.
“Yeah?”
“Shut.Up.”
Lola nodded.“Thank you.Shutting up now.”What is wrong with me?She scolded herself.I just went off on a tangent about gongs.Gongs!Okay, it was official.She needed therapy.Lots of therapy.
“She does have a point,” Katy said.“A gong could totally liven up the place a bit.Make it feel a little less sleepy.”
“You could make gongs cool again,” Lola offered.
“Yes.”Katy nodded emphatically.“You could bring them back to the forefront of the tattoo industry.”
“Because I’m sure they could have been involved in the tattoo process in some ancient culture,” Lola continued where Katy left off.“Like every time a gong rang, a new warrior received his victorious battle tattoo.Or maybe the gong was rang when it was time to bring the next generation of warriors into the clan and that was the call to get their warrior ink.”What happened to shutting up?“Or maybe a woman received a tattoo once she reached puberty, and the gong was rang as a way to signify the moment.”
Katy’s eyes lit up as she looked at Lola.“Nice.I like it.What else do you got?”
“Somebody kill me now,” Maddie muttered and ran a hand down her face.She held up both hands.One in front of Katy and one in front of Lola.“What my two idiot friends are trying to say in their weird, never been discovered, and never should ever be used again, language, is hello, it’s nice to meet you.”
Lola snapped her lips shut.Her arms tucked behind her, fingers fidgeting with one another as she begged for a hole to appear and swallow her up.She blinked, and was sure she looked comical as she stared at the woman, who stared silently back at them.Lola took a small amount of comfort in the fact that the elderly woman's lips were turned up in a small smile.
Ancient was actually a better word than elderly.The woman had wrinkles on top of wrinkles.Just imagine all the things she’s probably experienced in life.She was probably around long before televisions.She might not even have had a phone line in her home.This woman probably had a wealth of knowledge.
Katy pushed Maddie’s hand out of the way.“Maybe,”she began, and Maddie cursed under her breath.“No offense, but you’ve got to be rocking some serious digits, and you know more about the gong than even our diligent reader here.”She motioned to Lola who really, really wanted to disappear.“I mean, I’ve not seen anyone with hair as white as yours since that crazy dude with the messed up hair in Bram Stoker’s Dracula.”
“You mean Dracula?”Lola deadpanned.
“Yeah him, and I definitely haven’t seen anyone with so many wr—”
“Laugh lines,” Maddie blurted.“So many beautiful laugh lines.”
The woman actually did laugh at this.She raised an arm that was covered in spider tattoos and gently patted her white hair.That’s odd.I’ve never seen a grandmother with so much ink.And why so many spiders?
