Wherever Nina Lies (10 page)

I
t’s hot out now and there’s this manic energy in the air, like we’re bubbles in a liquid that’s just about to boil. Sean is walking fast and I’m right behind him, heading down Colfax Avenue, toward where we hope we’ll find Bijoux Ink.

The street is full and we’re dodging people as we go. Two girls are walking toward us. They’re wearing these flimsy little sundresses and the sun is behind them. I can see the outlines of their legs, their small waists. And when they get closer, it’s obvious that neither of them is wearing a bra. The one on the left is eating a red Popsicle, like something out of a men’s magazine photo shoot. The Popsicle one whispers something to her friend and then points her Popsicle at Sean. She looks down at her Popsicle and then back at Sean and wiggles her eyebrows. Both girls start laughing. I feel the blood rushing to my face. I stare at the back of Sean’s head to see if he’s noticed them but I can’t tell.

“Hey, Sean?” He doesn’t turn around. My phone starts vibrating in my pocket and I glance at it—Amanda. I hit
Ignore.
Sean has stopped walking now. A couple feet away a guy is leaning against a storefront smoking a cigarette. Black sleeveless shirt, jeans, shaved head, downy-looking goatee, both arms covered shoulder to wrist in black and gray tattoos.

“I think this is it,” Sean says, pausing now, looking back.

We push through the door. No one looks up. It’s loud inside, punk music and the whirring of an air conditioner. There’s a giant gold-and-crystal chandelier hanging from the ceiling, the kind of thing you’d see in a fancy hotel lobby or at the opera. To the right two black leather couches are packed with people flipping through black binders. To the left is a huge glass case filled with jewelry—thick steel barbells, swirling ebony ear spacers, delicate gold hoops with captured rubies. There’s a dark gray curtain against the back wall, and a woman walks through it. She has choppy black hair and a fierce shark underbite. There’s a thick green snake inked all the way around her neck, its head resting on her collarbone, a bright red apple in its mouth.

Shark looks down at the clipboard next to the cash register.

“Sandrine Miller,” she calls out. Her voice is slightly hoarse like she probably spends a lot of time yelling.

A tiny blonde girl rises from one of the couches, makes an exaggerated “I’m-so-nervous” face to her tiny blonde friend and then disappears behind the curtain. Sean and I walk up to the front. Up close I can see that Shark’s shirt is covered in
tiny white bows, it looks like she’s wearing someone else’s shirt, like she scared the original owner right out of it.

“Yeah?” She’s staring at me, one eyebrow raised.

“Hi,” I say. Over her shoulder I can see into the other room. Sandrine Miller is leaning back on what looks like a dentist’s chair with her shirt pulled up, a guy with a blond crew cut is getting ready to pierce her nipple. A few feet away, a girl with bleached blonde dreadlocks tied in a knot on top of her head is applying a tattoo transfer onto the giant arm of a biker dude. The big biker dude’s eyes are squeezed shut and he’s biting his lower lip like he’s about to cry. Shark catches me looking and shoots me a nasty glare.

A guy pops his head out from behind the curtain. “Eden?” He reaches up and scratches his thick dark hair. “Did the fourteen-gauge needles come in with the last shipment?” He sounds scared.

“Should be in the back if Cedar put the order in.”

“I’ll just keep looking.”

“If she forgot to order them…” Shark aka Eden, shakes her head. “That girl’s time has just about run out.”

“We were really busy all week while you were away,” the guy says. He looks at Shark/Eden, who raises one eyebrow and you can practically see him shrink. “I should have reminded her.”

“Ron, just because she screwed you once doesn’t mean you have to take the blame for her. Stop being such a sucker. When you’re done with that client, you’re going to watch
the front. I’m going to have to head over to Utopia to pick them up.”

He winces slightly, then disappears behind the curtain. She’s looking at us again.

“Hi.” I smile, but she doesn’t smile back.

“Are you eighteen?”

“I’m not here for a tattoo,” I say.

“Oh.” She crosses her arms like, “Well, why the hell are you here then?”

“I’m looking for my sister,” I say. “Her name is Nina Wrigley and I was wondering if she had ever come in here. It would have been a while ago, two years maybe, but maybe if I showed you a picture of her, you’d recognize her?”

Shark/Eden’s expression is completely unchanged, almost like she hasn’t heard me. She glances at Sean, then back at me.

“So,” I say. “Can I show you her picture? Maybe see if you remember her?”

A muscle twitches in her jaw, but she still doesn’t say anything. I take Nina’s photo out of my pocket, open it. I hold it out in front of Eden. “This is her.”

I watch Shark/Eden’s face. There are deep lines around her mouth and creases between her eyebrows, like she’s so sure that something is about to make her mad that she’s making the appropriate angry face in advance. But when her eyes focus on Nina’s picture, her face softens, just for a second. And then she quickly shakes her head. “Don’t know her,”
Eden says. She shakes her head again. “Sorry.” She shrugs, she turns around and starts walking away, then she stops, turns back. “Please don’t stand here at the counter, this space is for customers.” And then she disappears behind the curtain.

“Fuck,” Sean whispers under his breath.

He starts walking toward the door, shaking his head. I just stand there frozen.

I look back at Shark/Eden and she’s watching us. Sean comes back, grabs my arm. “Let’s go,” he whispers. This doesn’t seem right. Something just isn’t right here.

Back out in the bright sunlight, I turn toward Sean.

“I think she’s lying,” I say.

Sean stops, his lips part slightly. He cocks his head.

“About her not knowing Nina, I mean.” As I hear myself say it, I become more sure. “I think she does.”

“Reeeeeally.” The word oozes slowly from Sean’s mouth, and by the time he’s done, he’s grinning. “What makes you say that?”

“This is going to sound crazy,” I say.

“All the best ideas do.”

“It was the expression that was on her face when she looked at Nina’s picture. Her face got softer, or something, and she smiled the tiniest bit just for a second, like she was a little bit amazed and a little bit amused and she wanted to take care of her…She was looking at the picture of Nina the way people always looked at Nina, the person. Which
makes me think she actually
knew
her. Maybe even knew her well. But, then, why would she lie?”

I look up at Sean, but he’s not looking at me anymore.

“Was she trying to protect Nina from someone or something?” I bite my bottom lip. “That’s the only thing that…”

“So where do you want to get lunch then?” Sean says loudly. He puts his arm around my waist and pulls me close. Eden is passing right by us going fast up the hill. Sean keeps his arm around me until she’s gone.

“Maybe she’s just one of those people who likes to be in control,” Sean says softly. “Wants to be the one with all the power.”

“Fuck that,” I say. “I’m going back in there.” I turn around and start walking.

“To do what?” Sean calls out behind me.

“I don’t know.” I’m walking, faster and faster. “Just look around I guess. I’ll figure it out when I get there.”

I push back through the door. The girl who just had her nipple pierced is standing in front of the couch talking to her friend. “No, seriously,” she’s saying, she has her pointer finger looped inside the neckline of her clingy tank top and is holding it out away from her body. “It was just like a little pinch. I’m sure Mike’s bit it harder a billion times! You should do it. We’ll be nipple-twins!” She leans forward a little bit and her friend looks down her shirt. “Look how cute.”

Her friend leans and looks down her shirt. “Awww,” she says, in that voice people use when they’re looking at a baby or a bunny rabbit. “
So
cute!”

I walk up to the register. The dark-haired guy, Ron, is standing at the front counter. He’s leaning against it, reading a magazine called
Terminal Ink
. On the front cover is a picture of a girl covered in tattoos and wearing a black forties-style bathing suit. He is nodding at the magazine, like it’s suggesting something to him that he agrees with.

Behind him the curtain is opened ever so slightly. I need to get back there.

“I’m interested in a tattoo,” I blurt out.

He looks up. “Weren’t you
just
in here? Talking to Eden?”

“I was,” I say. “I was going to get one but I got scared.” I bite my bottom lip, an exaggerated expression of coy embarrassment. “Y’know, needles, ack!” I hold up my hands and wave them around. “But I
really
want one.” I’m making this up as I go along, but it seems right somehow.

“First one?” he asks. I nod. “You have a design in mind?”

“Um…nope.” I shrug. “I’ll just figure it out when I’m back there.”

Ron looks at me suspiciously.

“I’m crazy like that!” I say.

“We like crazy here,” he says and he starts to smile. “But,
Crazy, here’s a question, are you eighteen?” He puts his hands on his hips. He’s flirting with me. Guys like him
never
flirt with me, they barely even see me.

“Oh, yeah,” I say. And then I roll my eyes although I’m not exactly sure what I mean by that.

“Do you have ID?”

My heart is pounding. I reach into my back pocket and take out Nina’s passport. Before I even have time to think about it, I’ve opened it up and slapped it onto the counter. Ron picks it up, looks at it, then back at me, then at the picture again. I try to make my most Nina-esque face, flirty and warm, and at the same time edgy and unconcerned. I think I end up looking cross-eyed, but it doesn’t even matter apparently, because Ron is nodding.

“Okay. Nina.” Ron nods. He hands me back her passport. “I liked your hair better the other way,” he says. He’s talking about Nina’s hair—in the picture it’s pink. I feel a rush of something like triumph.

“Me, too,” I say. A weird part of me is kind of enjoying this. “I had to dye it back to normal when I got my job.”

“Oh?” Ron asks. “What’s that?”

“I’m a bartender,” I say.

“Where?”

“Um…New York!” I’m digging myself deeper. I don’t even know why. Do bartenders in New York even
need
normal hair?”

“Cool,” Ron says. “My buddy owns a rock-and-roll bar there, on the Lower East Side. Lipsynch.”

“Oh of cooourse,” I say, nodding. “Lipsynch.”

I turn back and look at Sean who’s standing a few feet behind me. He winks, and the Nina in me winks right back.

Ron leads me behind the curtain. “Nina, meet Petra.” He motions to a girl with long black hair held off her face by a thick red headband.

“Petra, Nina.” Petra is skinny in a cigarettes-and-too-much-coffee kind of way. She’s wearing a paper-thin white tank top and a million heavy bracelets on each wrist. Both arms are covered in tattoos. We smile at each other.

“Petra’s the best,” Ron says. “We just stole her a month ago from the biggest tattoo shop in Nashville. She’ll help you pick something out.” He looks up at Petra. “Nina here is a virgin.” He turns toward me and smiles. And then he walks back out into the front.

“So.” Petra’s grinning. “First one, huh?”

“Yup.” I nod. “I just decided what the hell, y’know?”

“Oh, do I!” Her grin widens. “Five years ago I looked just like you and then one day I was bored and I’d just broken up with someone and was thinking about how I’m always either in love with someone or missing someone so I got this.” She taps the outline of a red heart on her bicep. There’s a dashed red line in the middle and underneath in tiny script letters is written
your name goes here.
“But be careful, they’re
addictive!” She holds out her arms, which are covered in red and black.

And even though, to be honest, I am not entirely sure
what
I think about all this, I just say, “fuck yeah!” because it seems like something Nina would do.

Petra nods and smiles at me like we’re buddies, like we understand each other.

“I’ll go get the books,” Petra says. “And maybe you’ll get inspired.” Petra walks away and I’m left sitting in the leather tattoo chair. Off to the side the blonde-dreadlock girl is still tattooing the Harley Davidson man who is now actually whimpering out loud as the needle deposits ink into his skin. I look around the room, at the shelves full of equipment—latex gloves, disposable needles, antibiotic cream. I stand up to get a closer look at one of the framed photographs on the wall. It’s of a group of guys in black T-shirts and jeans. The one in the middle has a cowboy hat on, and right next to him Petra is standing, looking proud. Suddenly Petra’s standing behind me. “They’re
Saddle Up Susie
, big in Nashville,” she says. “I know, no one up here’s ever heard of them…but they were passing through town two weeks ago. I absolutely love them.”

“Cool,” I say.

Petra hands me a thick black binder. “Take a look at this one, I’m just going to go get the others.” She disappears down a small staircase. I get up and slowly continue wandering. Hung up on the walls, filling every available space, are more
framed photos of Bijoux Tattoo’s clients with their tattoo artists, proudly displaying their newly modified body parts. I vaguely recognize some of the people in the pictures: a guy from an indie-band that Eric pretends to like because he thinks it’s cool, a giant-eyed model that Amanda thinks looks like a lizard, a performance artist I once read an article about when Amanda and I were flipping through magazines at the bookstore. I stop in front of one photo in the corner and freeze, staring at it, my heart thumping in my chest.

There in the photo is my sister, staring right back at me.

I raise my hand up to my mouth. Her hair is a very faded blue, the color of jeans that have been washed too many times. She’s standing with three guys in their early twenties. Two of the guys have red hair and red goatees and they’re pointing at a third dark-haired guy whose pants are pulled partway down to reveal a giant tattoo on his lower stomach right below his belly button. The tattoo is a stylized picture of the faces of the other two guys in the band, surrounded by musical notes. Nina did this. The tattooed guy has one arm around her shoulders. Her mouth is curved into the shape of a smile. She looks very far away, not how I’d pictured her when I saw the drawing on the mirror. At the bottom of the photo is a scrawly signature, but it’s impossible to make out what it says. I turn around, the dreadlock girl is hunched over Harley Davidson’s arm. His eyes are squeezed shut. I reach up and grab the framed photo off the wall. I flip it
over, there are three little metal pieces on the back holding a piece of cardboard in place. I pry them up with my nail, my heart is pounding. I shake the cardboard out and grab the photograph. I lift the front of my T-shirt, push the edge of the photograph down my cutoffs, and pull my T-shirt down over it. I drop the now empty frame behind a black metal cart just as Petra walks back into the room, holding a big stack of black photo albums. She holds them out toward me expectantly.