“He’s about to start,” she warns me. “Three… two… one—”
Okay.Ouch.This will come as no shock, but the tattoo gun hurts. Of course it does, but I breathe through it and try to relax.
The tattoo artist has barely started when my phone rings in my hand. I look at the screen and go rigid when I see it’s my mom calling me.
We haven’t talked since I left California, which hasn’t been intentional. She’s called while I’ve been at Aura, and in the mornings when I try to call her, she’s still asleep. I know it would raise a few red flags if I let it go to voicemail now,again.
“It’s my mom. I have to take it.”
I motion for everyone to be quiet so I can answer. By the time I swipe my finger, the only sound in the background is the steady whirr of the tattoo gun. With any luck, my mom will assume it’s phone static.
“Hey!” I say with a smile, hoping she can’t sense my unease.
“Oh good, you answered! What are you doing? Are you busy?”
I swear the tattoo gun just got louder. “N-no, not busy. Just hanging out. Reading.”
Annika slaps a hand over her mouth so she doesn’t laugh. I shoot her a lethal warning glare.
“Is your grandmother around?” my mom asks. “I tried to call her a little while ago, but she didn’t answer.”
“Strange. Hmm. Maybe try her again in a bit.”
I’m purposely trying to sound vague so she won’t catch us in our lie. We haven’t corroborated our story, and if I make a misstep here, the jig is up. It’s starting to feel silly being an adult woman lying to my parents about where I’m really spending my summer, but I have no doubt that if my mother found out I’m currently lying on the table of some dingy tattoo parlor letting a man with facial piercings permanently etch ink into my skin, she’d be on the first flight to Spain.
“How are you and Dad? I’ve been meaning to call, but Lita’s kept me busy.”
“We’re good. Keeping busy ourselves. We had a work dinner for Dad last night that was really nice, but I want to hear about your trip so far! I can’t believe you’ve already been in France for two weeks. I bet you’ve seen so much.”
“Some. You know, less than you’d expect. I’ve been settling in for the most paaaaAAA—”
The tattooist draws his needle over a new, incredibly sensitive patch of my inner arm, and I lose it for a second.
“Sorry, what? I missed that.”
I’m sweating bullets now, looking down at my arm and trying to keep it together. “I said I’m settling in for the most part. I just—OH MY GOD!”
It’s so painful, tears spring up in the corners of my eyes. Is it supposed to sting this bad?
“What’s going on over there?” my mom asks with a light laugh. “Is Lita with you?”
Annika is miming something at me, her hands laid on top of each other and her fingers wiggling around. She bares her teeth and chomps down like she’s biting something. Oh!Oh.She’s trying to give me an excuse for why I’m acting weird. She’s pretending to be—
“A bug!” I guess wildly.
Annika shakes her head and slashes her hand through the air like she’s my partner in charades and I haven’t quite landed on the mark. She fans her fingers out for emphasis. Her fingers look like ten little legs.
“A spider—”
Her face lights up, and she nods enthusiastically.
“A hugespiderjust leapt down from the ceiling onto me. I need to go. Mom, I’ll call you back in a bit, okay?”
Then I hang up and toss my phone down beside me.
“ERRR.” Annika makes a loud blaring noise like a game show buzzer. “Technically we were looking fortarantula.”
I ignore her and throw my free arm over my eyes, trying to calm down and breathe through the pain. It’s only a few more seconds before the tattooist speaks up.
