She nods. “Okay.”
I feel bad. I don’tnotlike kids. I just haven’t spent a lot of time with them since I was one. And the whole fact of her being here is…well, pretty weird. Like, a daycare, this is not.
But it does beat the alternative. Of whatever she’d be headed to. If the system’s anything like what it used to be, then even the worst kids don’t deserve that.
And, from what I can tell, Wendy seems like a good kid.
I decide just to go about my business. If she needs something, I reason, she’ll ask.
I pass about five, maybe ten, minutes that way before I realize I’m being watched.
I’ve always had a kind of sixth sense for that, probably an overactive nervous system always on alert for someone noticing me, especially when I’m working. Because being noticed is the first step to, well, having the shit kicked out of you. So doesn’t matter if someone’s silent as a goddamn ghost; I will justfeeltheir presence, and I can certainly feel hers now. But even if I couldn’t, the dainty little clicking of that dog’s toenails would be a dead giveaway.
Wendy’s definitely watching me.
At first, I just ignore it.To be polite, I think, and not weirdly hover over this kid like some kind of helicopter parent. But after a few minutes of straightening my cart, flicking through my bookings, and warming up in my sketchbook, it occurs to methat maybe letting a ten-year-old roam unsupervised in a tattoo and piercing parlor isn’t exactly safe. Or legal.
Plus, she keeps getting closer, like she’s trying to see what I’m doing.
Finally, I sit back up, push my glasses up my nose, and set down my pencil.
“Can I help you?” I ask.
Wendy giggles. I hadn’t really meant it as a joke, but…I guess I’m glad it makes her laugh. Better that than sounding scary.
“Oh. No. Sorry. I just…” She backs off a little, but cranes her neck at my sketchbook. Not very subtly.
“I’m sketching,” I explain. “Drawing. You know, tattoos?”
“Oh.” Wendy nods.
For a moment, she’s silent. Then:
“Um, not to be rude, but don’t tattoos go on people?”
I set down my pencil. Again.
“Well, yeah. But I have to know what I’m doing first, you know? You can’t erase on skin. So you want to have something planned out first.”
“Oh, yeah.” Wendy nods like she does know. She bites her lip, rocks back and forth on her heels. I pick up my pencil, but I don’t bother getting too invested, because sure enough:
“So you drawall this stuffbefore they even come in?”
“Yeah,” I say again. This time I look up, swivel around on the stool. “Unless they’re doing flash. That’s like, stuff I’ve already drawn and they can just pick out. Or unless they’re a yoman.”
Wendy frowns. “What’s a yoman?”
“They’re those guys who come in and say”—I put on my best dumbass bro voice—“yo, man, I’ve got twenty-five bucks, what can I get?”
Wendy laughs.
I don’t hate kids.
“Also,” I go on. No idea why I am still talking to her. “I just like to draw, so.” I lift a shoulder, look back at my sketchbook. Wendy stands there.
“Yeah,” she says. “Me too.”
“Really?” I ask without looking up from my sketchbook. This piece is going to be tricky. The client wanted a Joan of Arc sleeve—girl power and all that—which I thought sounded cool. I’ve been running with this sort of stained glass inspired style, like a church window, but curvature of it all over her arm is going to be complicated, and the style already isn’t especially conducive to accurate anatomy. “What kind of stuff?”
