Her eyes narrowed. ‘Of course not.’
‘Good.’ I reached the top table and turned to face the room. Seeing all the faces staring at me, a lot of them familiar, I nearly lost my nerve. Public speaking had never been my thing, but I’d come this far, so I took a deep breath, slapped on a smile and went for it.
‘Hi, some of you might remember me, although maybe not. It’s been a while,’ I admitted. ‘Fourteen years, in fact. I’m Taylor Calderwood.’
‘Hamilton,’ Celia corrected, without thinking. ‘For now, anyway.’
I grimaced. ‘Yes, legally. But not for much longer. I’m Moira’s daughter, Moira Calderwood. I grew up on Bayside Drive. Raymond Owens…’ I pointed at him ‘…is my great-uncle. A lot of you probably know him, whether you want to or not.’
‘Get to the point,’ Ray said.
‘Yes, thank you for that, Ray. Uh, I think Jack’s right, and a tattoo pop-up studio would be a great addition to the festival. I specialize in ocean and marine tattoos, which is obviously quite fitting for the townandfor the festival theme.’
‘Can you do them outside though?’ someone asked. ‘Don’t you have to be in a shop?’
‘I can do them anywhere,’ I answered. ‘I can have all the gear I would need sent here from my studio back in New York. We have portable machines. I could also offer tattoos to the kids,’ I added, warming up to the idea and spitballing on the spot.
‘Absolutely not,’ Celia snapped.
‘Faketattoos,’ I clarified. ‘Stick-on, temporary ones. Kids love that sort of stuff.’
‘That’s true,’ a blonde woman in the front said, nodding. ‘My kids would definitely be up for something like that.’
‘Mine too,’ another woman agreed.
I gestured towards her, grateful for her support. ‘There you go then.’
‘I’m still not convinced this is a good idea,’ said Celia.
‘No one’s expecting you to get one,’ I snapped back at her. ‘So I don’t really see how it affects you.’
She drew her five-foot-two body up straight. ‘This is my festival.’ Then she remembered where she was. ‘Our festival, I mean. Pine Harbor’s.’
‘Then I think it’s only fitting that the people of Pine Harbor should decide.’ I faced the crowd. ‘Show of hands. Who thinks we should have a tattoo stall at the festival?’
Almost every hand in the room went up, except for Celia’s, of course. And Doug’s. And another lady on the committee whose name was Mary, according to the sticker stuck to her chest, but she looked about ninety-eight years old, so I wasn’t sure if she’d even heard the question.
‘Looks like the people have spoken,’ I announced, unable to keep the grin off my face. ‘I’ll get onto my studio straight away, get them to courier over everything I need.’
If looks could kill, I’d have been dead. ‘Fine. I guess we’re having a tattoo stall.’
I searched for Jack’s face in the crowd, and when I found it, he gave me a thumbs up, his face grinning as broadly as my own.
‘So, Mr. L.A.,’ I said to him, a few minutes later after the meeting had ended and we were joining the queue to file out of the hall. ‘You’ve been looking me up, huh?’
‘I might have typed your name into a search engine,’ he admitted. ‘Purely for research purposes.’
‘Researching what, exactly?’
‘I just like to know who my neighbors are.’
‘Find out anything interesting?’
‘Plenty. You’ve made quite the name for yourself in the tattoo world. You even have your own Wikipedia page.’
‘I do?’
‘Yeah. If that’s not making it, I don’t know what is.’
