Strawberry Tattoo (45 page)
Authors: Lauren Henderson
“I thought we could stay up here until we’re off our faces,” she proposed.
“How long till the museum closes?”
“Couple of hours.”
“Oh,
well
,” I said, relaxing back into the bench. “No need to hurry, then.”
She filled two glasses and handed one to me. io us.
“Against the world.”
Plastic knocked against plastic. Across the roof the bartender in the watchcap winked at us.
“I think he likes you.”
“Nah, he’s looking at you.”
“Let’s ask him which one of us he fancies.”
“Tell you what,” I suggested. “Let’s both have him.”
“Are you joking? He wouldn’t last ten minutes.”
We dissolved into giggles. The bartender, mercifully unable to hear us, winked again, which made us laugh even harder. Then Kim started crying, and I hugged her for a while, and she dried her tears while I refilled our glasses.
“I’ve got a great idea!” Kim said as we finished that. “Why don’t we go get a tattoo each?”
“A tattoo?”
“In memory of Kate! Isn’t that a great idea?” She was slurring her words a little, but she was holding up remarkably well for someone who hadn’t had a drink in God knew how long. That was my Kim. “I know someone in the East Village with this tattoo parlour—I’ve always meant to get one and it would be so nice to do it together….”
“Now that really would be a nice present from New York for Hugo,” I said thoughtfully, my brain racing with possibilities.
So that was what we did. It was just one of those afternoons.
Copyright © 1999 by Lauren Henderson
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
Published by Crown Publishers, New York, New York. Member of the Crown Publishing Group.
Random House, Inc. New York, Toronto, London, Sydney, Auckland
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CROWN is a trademark and the Crown colophon is a registered trademark of Random House, Inc.
Originally published in Great Britain by Hutchinson in 1999.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Strawberry tattoo / Lauren Henderson, 1966-
p. cm.
1. Jones, Sam (Fictitious character : Henderson)—Fiction. 2. Women sculptors—Fiction.
3. Art, British—Exhibitions—Fiction. 4. New York (N.Y)—Fiction. I. Title.
PR6058.E4929 S77 2000
823′.914—dc21
00-024045
eISBN: 978-0-307-54759-0
v3.0