AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“My fucking father died,” I say, as she untangles herself from me and her boots hit the floor.
“Oh shit, babycakes,” she says. Then she looks behind me. “Is this Rex?” she asks.
Rex steps forward and holds out his hand.
“Ginger?” he says. “Nice to meet you.”
She scoffs at his hand and hugs him too, though it’s considerably harder, since he has about a foot on her.
“Come upstairs,” she says. “You’re staying with me, right?”
“If it’s okay,” I say.
“Obviously,” she says, rolling her eyes at me. Fuck, I’ve missed her. “Hey, guys,” she calls into the private tattooing rooms, “close up for me?”
“Yeah, I got it,” a voice calls back.
“Hey, Marcus,” I call.
“Hi, Daniel,” he calls back.
I SINK down on Ginger’s purple velvet couch, which, despite all the shit I give her about how ugly it is, is actually quite comfortable. I love Ginger’s apartment. It’s a perfect reflection of her. The wood back of the couch is painted gold and it and a leather armchair flank the wagon wheel coffee table. Hung above the doors and windows are animal skulls encrusted in black glitter. She painted the ceiling so it looks like it’s cracking, and the cracks run from a spot near the window where she’s painted it to look like a realistic skeleton hand has broken through the ceiling and is reaching down. The walls are hung with friends’ art and her own. There are paintings by her friend, Jonah, which are Day of the Dead animals; collages of outer space by some woman who traded them for a tattoo years ago; a gorgeous nude of a man covered in tattoos that she traded two of her own paintings for.
I love Ginger’s work. Many of them are based on tattoo designs, realistic black and gray skulls morphing into candle flames and melting wax, panthers morphing into sleek, black-haired women, and a very creepy one of a snake swallowing a grouse. My favorite hangs over the bed. It’s a self-portrait Ginger did from a photograph of herself from behind, so it’s really just her hair and shoulders. The detail in her long curls and short stubble are amazing. It’s stark and mesmerizing but framed in a heavy old baroque-looking gold frame. I’ve spent hours tracing the lines of the curls with my eyes when I woke up hungover in Ginger’s bed.
Rex is doing what everyone does the first time they come over to Ginge’s, which is walking around her apartment checking out all her stuff. He lingers over a puzzle box on a stand near the bed. Ginger did a tattoo of a really complicated Escher piece on this guy a few years ago. He was a puzzle maker—that’s how he described it. His signature work was these puzzle boxes carved out of chunks of wood from his family home, which partially burned down. He was a weird guy. Anyway, he came back when the tattoo had healed because Ginger wanted to take a picture of it for her portfolio and he brought her the puzzle box as a gift. It’s gorgeous, the wood stained this really dark chocolate brown. I’ve fiddled with it a million times.
Rex is turning it over in his hands, poking and prodding it. I should have known he’d go right to it, with his love of taking things apart. After a minute, though, which is how long it usually takes people to give up and assume it doesn’t open, Rex pulls something and pushes something else, and the first pieces come out.
“Holy….” Ginger mutters and we both walk over to Rex.
“Is it okay? Sorry, I should’ve asked,” Rex says, looking like a kid whose favorite toy might get taken away.
“No, no, it’s fine. Please,” Ginger says, raising her eyebrows at me as Rex gleefully sets his attention back on the box.
After five minutes he has it open and casually starts to put it back together again.
“Wait!” Ginger yells. She reaches into the center of the box and pulls out a piece of paper. In cramped handwriting, it just says, I’m impressed.
“Oh my god,” I say.
“What?” Rex asks, sounding nervous. He looks between me and Ginger. She’s gaping at him.
“No one’s ever opened that thing before,” I tell Rex. “Not even Ginger. We had no idea there was something inside either.”
“Holy mother love bone,” Ginger says, a grunge oath she reserves only for things that truly delight her. “Dandelion, you hooked a genius.”
“I know, right?” I link my arm with Rex’s. He’s actually blushing and he looks quite pleased. “Except, now, all I can think of is what happens to the idiots who open the puzzle box in the Hellraiser movies.”
Ginger laughs—she loves Hellraiser—but stops abruptly.
“Um, so your dad?”
It comes rushing back so suddenly that I can’t believe I ever forgot. I sink down onto the couch and Rex sits next to me, looking ridiculously beefy reclining against purple velvet. I tell Ginger about my dad. About getting the call and how the guys waited a whole day to bother telling me. When I get to Colin’s accusation that I didn’t care that Dad was dead, Rex is vibrating with anger.
