“Yep,” he says with a smile—a real smile. I can see David’s beautiful teeth, and I am instantly happy. I can feel a smile of my own spreading across my face. He’s excited about this. It isn’t what I thought we would be doing, but I like the idea of it.
He takes my hand and we walk across the street together. When he opens the door, I look up at him and he is still smiling.
I spend the next six hours topless and hunched over a table. The same man who put the phoenix on David’s back is now putting something on mine. His name is Jake. I don’t know how old he is, but his face is beat to hell. He’s one of those guys who could be a rough-looking twenty-five or a decent-looking fifty-five.
The thing is, I have no idea what Jake is making on my back. When we walked in the door, it was clear that he and David had already discussed the whole thing. That they had already come up with a design. David said that he was here yesterday, looking over a few ideas and refining them until they were both happy with the result. He said they would show me the design if I wanted them to. In fact, they had planned on it. But I told them that I didn’t want to see it. They should just do it. They clearly know way more about tattoos than I do. I told them that as long as there were no names or faces on it, and I can easily keep it covered at work, I’m good with whatever it is. They both looked at me in disbelief, asking me repeatedly if I was sure. I don’t know why I am putting so much trust in David, but I am. It feels right.
As Jake is working, David and I talk. He tells me more of the things that he did after he and Lucia split—and getting the phoenix on his back was the least-crazy of the bunch. Matt was right. David was all kinds of ape shit. Echoing both Matt and Saz, but in his own words, David tells me that he completely lost it when things ended with Lucia. She made such a mess of things. She turned his life into a chaotic mess, and he couldn’t handle it. But he is back on track now. Things are perfect, he says with a smile. I know he is trying to distract me from the pain, which actually isn’t nearly as bad as I thought. It hurts, yes, but no more than a deep brush burn. In a way, it pleases me knowing that David thinks I am strong enough to handle this. He wouldn’t have brought me here if he thought I wasn’t able to deal with the pain. And he sure as shit wouldn’t have chosen a design as extensive as this one for my first time.
As the hours pass, I feel the needle slowly stretching from one side of my upper back to the other and then down my right side, just next to my spine. In the mirror in front of me I can see little tubs of colored ink sitting on a table next to Jake, and every few seconds, he dips the needle into one of them as he uses his other hand to wipe my back off with a paper towel. Other than a few cigarette breaks, Jake works steadily for hours. He is so focused.
When he’s done, he tells me to sit up straight and asks David to come around and let him know what he thinks. I drop the towel that I was using to cover myself and cup my hands over my breasts. I watch David in the mirror as he walks around my side and looks at my skin. His scalp retracts and his mouth unlocks into a big-as-fuck smile. His eyes move to Jake’s, and then he nods. He and Jake’s palms clasp in a fierce, satisfied handshake.
“Nice fucking work,” David says to him. “Unbelievable.” And with that one word I feel like the goddamned Mona Lisa. If it makes David this fucking happy, I don’t even care what’s back there.
“You wanna see it?” David asks me, shining teeth and all. I quietly nod and try to keep from mimicking his smile until I actually see the tattoo. “Go to that set of mirrors over there.” He points to a small platform with three angled mirrors around it, just like you would see in a dressing room. I walk over and step up onto the platform. David and Jake are standing behind me, watching my face very carefully. I turn to the side.
Oh. It’s beautiful. Really, really beautiful. Jake has played Mother Nature and graced my back with a tree branch sprinkled with a dozen or so soft pink flowers. The base of the branch is just to the right of my tailbone, and a handful of gnarled twigs twist up and out of it, extending across each of my shoulder blades and up on to the top of my left shoulder. The four petals creating each blossom are heart-shaped; like those of a dogwood. On the twig that extends over to my left side, there is a bird. A dark, thick bird. I smile knowingly, staring at the raven under my skin.
“It’s beautiful, David. Just beautiful.” I want to say more, but I can’t find the right words. Instead, I pull him toward me and put my lips on his.
The skin around the tattoo is red and puffy, and when I pull away from David, Jake spreads some kind of gel across my back. Then he covers it with a large bandage and hands me a page of instructions titled “Caring for Your New Tattoo.” He smiles and shrugs at David as he hands the paper to me—he’s fully aware that David already knows everything that’s printed on it. I take it anyway and put it in my purse.