“What, do you think it would be ugly?”
“What?”
My eyes snap to her, then down the aisle where the other woman’s voice carries as she coos to her baby.
“My hair?” Aislin says, waving a box of vivid dye in my eye line. “Green peek-a-boos? Too early two-thousands?”
“No. That’s— it would be cute on you,” I tell her with a smile.
“You need a vacation,” she laughs, tossing the box into our cart before reaching forward to lovingly pat my cheek. “It’s been what, like, two years since you took a day off? Girl, take a week. I can hold it down at the salon.”
My heart slows in my chest, and my veins fill with lead as Aislin pulls up her long hair to ball it on the top of her head and secure it into place with the scrunchie wrapped around her wrist.
“Come on,” I say, gripping onto the cart’s handle, “we’ve done enough damage, let’s get out of here.”
My senses fill with the rich aroma of a delicious array of spices as a plate of stuffed chicken is set in front of me, accompanied by a fresh green salad.
“This smells amazing, Lovey,” I tell my husband with a smile.
“B would lose his shit if he knew I air fried it,” he chuckles.
My fork pushes at the greens on my plate while he steps back into the kitchen to put together his own meal. He’s always served my food to me first, even when we’ve only shared fast food meals in the car, and even in the middle of us not speaking to one another.
I’d asked him early into our relationship why he does it, and he explained to me that his mother always served his father’s meals before her own as a sign of respect to him. It’s a small gesture, one that I’m not sure he thinks very much of, but it means a lot to me.
“Are you gonna sit?” I ask him as he finishes plating his meal.
He surveys his options; either sitting with me or in front of the television like he does most nights, while I normally take a plate up to our bedroom.
With an affirmative bob of his chin, he seems to make a decision, pulling out the chair in front of him and resting his plate onto the table. As he takes his seat across from me, he pulls his napkin into his lap, hesitating for a moment before smoothing it out.
“Did you have any fun clients today?” He pulls in a breath as I ask, letting the tip of his tongue wet his lower lip. “I’m not asking about money. I just want to know about your day.”
I guess I can’t blame him for assuming. I have been on him so much lately about our finances. There’s an irony somewhere in there that etches an uncomfortable sting into my chest.
Cargill women aren’t taught how to manage money; that’s the responsibility of our husbands. When Tripp and I first started dating, I didn’t even know how to check the available balance on my credit card or how to pull cash from an ATM. He had to teach me how to do all of those things.
And now, I nag him about money all of the time.
Maybe it’s more than just nagging to him. Maybe he sees it as an insinuation that he’s failing. I know he feels that on quiet days in his shop, and there’s a part of me that knows that I make it worse when I bother him about our accounts.
“Yeah,” he says with an exhale, unlocking the screen of his phone on top of the table. “Some girl came in wanting her sternum blasted and she told me to do whatever I wanted with it.”
Sliding his phone to me, a picture of the tattoo in question fills the screen. A large image of a coyote’s skull covers her chest, webbing leading down into the space between her breasts, her nipples covered by flesh-toned pasties.
My veins fill with lead again as I click off the power to the screen and hand the cell phone back to him.
“You did a really good job,” I tell him.
“You hardly looked at it.”
I saw enough, I think, with the back of my jaw tensing.
“You’re not getting what you need here,” I say, poking at my salad with my fork, “and these beautiful women are coming into your shop and taking their clothes off for you.”
“I can’t tattoo skin I can’t get to,” he tells me. “I’m notlookingat them, I’m just working. The only thing I’m looking at is their skin.”
Pushing the food around my plate, I keep my gaze on the table. My teeth chew at the inside of my cheek as my skin heats, and my leg bounces against my chair.
