“Can you do it all in one day?”
“Maybe.” I turned his arm once more before letting him go. “Yeah, I think we can get through it in one session.”
He held his own wrist, fingers wrapped securely around the place I’d just held him. “I work during the day, but I could maybe take some time off.”
I reached below the counter and pulled out my appointment book. My schedule was another point of contention with my well-meaning best friend. He never understood why I wouldn’t switch from paper to digital, but I was an artist. There was something to be said for paint and pencil in hand, paper beneath my fingers. I appreciated the ease of contact that came from cell phones, but I honestly hated being constantly connected. It was nice to disconnect and let go, even if that was a lesson I learned the hard way.
“I have an opening Friday in the morning, but after that I’m pretty booked through the end of the month.”
Smith peered down at my schedule like he was checking to see if I was lying or not.
“I’ll make Friday work,” he said. “What time?”
“Ten.”
He nodded and slid his cell phone back into his pocket.
“You’re eighteen, right?” I asked.
“Twenty-five,” he answered with a small flash of a smile. “So, no. But for all intents and purposes, yes.”
It was the most he’d said since he walked into the shop, and I did find the briefest curiosity around what he’d have to say once he got talking. I’d find out soon enough, I wagered. Getting somebody into the tattoo chair was just like a therapist’s couch, but with a higher hourly rate. There was something about the needle hitting the skin that split people open in more ways thanone, and I didn’t mind being a stand-in talk doctor for most people. But the push to chat once the needle started was the prime reason I hadn’t been tattooed in three years.
There was simultaneously too much and not enough to say.
“Alright,” I said. “I’ll put you down in the book. Here’s my card; can you text me that picture?”
“A card,” he murmured back, taking the black cardstock and flicking the edge before sliding it into his pocket.
“I like old things,” I told him.
That earned me a quick look from beneath the dark fan of his lashes, and as quick as his attention was on me, it was gone again, up to the ceiling, the window, the floors.
“This building is old,” he said. “What, like, thirty-nine?”
“Exactly. How could you tell?”
“The shape of it mostly,” he said, gesturing toward the window. “But it’s also my job.”
“What is your job?”
“Historical restoration.” He shoved his hands into his pockets next. “So, Friday at ten?”
I closed my portfolio, returned my schedule to its shelf beneath the counter.
“Friday at ten.”
“Thanks,” he said, and he was gone.
I’d barely made it back to my French fries when my phone buzzed with an incoming text from a 310 number and that weird trees and buildings picture Smith had shown me. Another message quickly followed.
Unknown
This is Smith
You probably knew that.
On account of the art.
