Simone is still lounging on the couch when I come in with sandy feet and salty hair. “Where have you been? I’ve tried your mobile all morning.”
“Out surfing.” I hang my bag near the door. “I need to rinse off, but then do you want to come with me to get a tattoo?”
“Awhat?”
I’m already walking into our room, heading for the shower. “A tattoo! It’s on the list, remember?”
By the time I’m dressed, Simone’s gathered a small group. Annika and Felix join us as we set out to walk to the tattoo shop near our apartment complex. I did some research and feel confident about this place. The online reviews promised sterile equipment and professional staff, which is really all I care about. The design I want is simple enough that I’m sure any tattoo artist could pull it off.
It’s an acronym, “wwwd”: What would Winnie do. I want all the letters to be lowercase, cursive, and fluid so thew’s run together like waves in the ocean. Unless you know better, it won’t look like letters at all.
I have no doubt the design will seem half as cool in five or ten years, but I don’t worry about it. Bodies are only good for so long. Winnie wanted a tattoo and she never got the chance, so I’ll do it for her.Justas soon as I get the nerve to go into the shop.
We’ve been standing out on the sidewalk for the last few minutes. My palms are sweating and I can’t stop pacing.
“Are you really doing this?” Annika asks me.
“Yes. Now, who wants to get one with me?”
“Are you mad?” Simone laughs.
Annika shrugs. “I’ll do it.”
Felix looks at his sister like she’s grown a second head. “No you will not.”
“Yes I will,” she says stubbornly. “Why not?”
“Yeah. Okay. If she’s doing it, I will, too, then,” Simone says with a nod.
I clap my hands. “Excellent.”
Isabel would never get a tattoo.Elleapparently… will. Before I can keep thinking of all the reasons why I should turn right around and go home, I yank the door open and go inside.
I called ahead while I was in the taxi on the way home from the beach, and with the help of a translator app, I set up three appointments for this afternoon. I had a gut feeling Annika and Simone would be tagging along.
The guy who comes forward to collect us from the small waiting area is no older than nineteen or twenty, with buzzed black hair and tattoos covering his neck and arms and hands. Piercings litter his ears and eyebrows, but he offers a timid smile and greets us in Spanish. I like him immediately.
He doesn’t speak English well, but between all of us, we patch together instructions for what we want. I decide to go first since I already have my design in mind. I draw it (poorly) on a scratch piece of paper and then he tweaks it (expertly), bringing my idea to life in a way that actually makes me emotional over the process.
“I love it,” I say, giddy now with nerves. “Me encanta.”
He chuckles, then points to my body, asking in Spanish where I want the tattoo to go. The design is no more than an inch wide and a few millimeters tall—as far as tattoos go, it’s extremely small. I could place it just about anywhere, but I want it inside my arm, right above the crook of my elbow. It’s the samespot Winnie wanted hers, and the outlined letters will be faint enough to nearly go unnoticed.
He nods for me to lie back on the table so he can angle my arm perfectly. Simone catches my eyes and waggles her brows.
“You’re really going to do it?”
“I’m lying here, aren’t I?”
The tattooist touches something cool to my arm and I jump a mile in the air. “S-sorry. Lo siento.”
My friends laugh as Annika tells me, “He was just cleaning the area. Chill.”
“Let’s see how calm you are when it’s your turn!”
The tattoo artist transfers the stencil of my design onto my skin and holds up a mirror for me to inspect it. I love it, but I also know that if I linger over any detail for too long, I’ll talk myself out of the whole thing, so I hand him back the mirror and tell him to proceed. “It’s bueno. Perfecto.”
Simone takes my hand and squeezes as he continues his prep. I can’t look at him. Already I’m sweating.
