Open Road Summer(79)

Gia and a few of Blake’s other tattooed acquaintances have often tried to persuade me to get inked. People with tattoos are like evangelicals, ever-eager to spread their gospel. What can I say? I’ve never been a joiner. It seems to surprise people that I don’t have tattoos already, though I’m not sure why. And, really, I prefer to not be who people expect.

“Yeah.”

“Exciting! Do you know what you want?”

“Actually, I was hoping you had a few examples of birds.”

The second night I had the cast on my arm, I was sitting at the kitchen table with Dee and her mom, and I laid my head down on my good arm. I’m such a disaster of a person, I said. Mrs. Montgomery smiled. Nonsense, she said. You’re just a broken-winged bird. And there are two things you can do with broken wings: you can roll over and die, or you can lay low, heal, and start fresh.

I joined the tour as a broken-winged bird. Even as pain throbbed in my wrist and in the left side of my chest, I didn’t roll over and die. I’m made of tougher stuff than that—of leather and suede, of railroad steel and Tennessee soil. This tattoo will be my reminder. Like Darwin’s tiny birds, I can evolve, slow but sure.

“Birds . . . yes.” Gia pushes off the counter. There’s a pile of binders, and she digs through them, studying the titles on their spines. “Here.”

She hands me a white binder, open to a few pages of birds. “Mind moving to the back room for me in case anyone walks by?”

“Not at all.”

I follow her behind the back curtain, where there’s an identical setup—a padded chair that looks like it belongs at the dentist’s office, an array of tattoo tools, a stool for the artist. I guess this room is for people getting tattoos in below-the-belt areas. And, apparently, people like me, getting tattoos underage.

Sitting down on the chair, I set the open binder on my lap. A fleet of birds spans the page. Some are more cartoonish; some are meant to be realistic. Some are perched, others in flight.

“Where are we doing this?” Gia asks.

“My wrist,” I say, flipping over my left arm, which is still thinner than my right. I point to the pale underside of my wrist, where I imagine the break in the bone once was. “Here.”

“Okay—be right back. You’ll have to sign a few papers.”

My attention settles on one bird in particular—the smallest one. She’s not like the others, who are either colorful or solid black shadows. She’s somewhere in between, her body an outline, waiting to find definition. Her wings stretch wide, but she’s not soaring; her clawed feet are not tucked up against her stomach. She seems . . . ready. Like she’s getting there.

Gia returns, and I tap the picture of the bird. “This one.”

“The finch?”

My heart stops. “What?”

“The finch.” She looks up again, pointing to the bird that I have my finger on. “This one, right?”

I cover my eyes with the palm of my hand. “You have got to be kidding me.”

“No? Everything okay?”

Tilting my head up to the ceiling, I sigh exaggeratedly. “Yeah. It’s nothing. A weird coincidence.”

Maybe the tattoo is meant to be. The finch will symbolize the summer’s spectrum, from the shattering moments to the parts where it felt like I could almost sprout wings and fly.

Or maybe it means: Don’t change your body when what you actually want to change is the way you left things with Matt. I hate that he’s sneaking back into my life like this, where I least expect him.

Gia crosses her paint-palette arms, and her red lacquered nails look startling against her pale skin. “I know it’s none of my business, but can I give you some advice?”

“Sure.”

“As a tattoo professional, I should probably tell you to go for it.” She says this gently, as if trying not to offend me. “But as someone who knows what it’s like to get hurt, I’m going to suggest that you give this some more thought. Maybe try something temporary first, to see if it’s really what you want.”

Given the circumstances, this suggestion feels like a great kindness. I nod.

“Let’s do mehndi—henna,” she says, pulling a drawer open. “Do you know what kind of design you’d want to try?”

“Something simple. Small.” I sigh, leaning back in the chair. “Anything but a finch.”





I leave with a henna tattoo on the inside of my wrist. Gia’s been studying Eastern art, but instead of the elaborate, traditional designs that Indian women use, she gave me a delicate constellation—Ursa Minor, the Little Dipper. She moved her hand slowly, explaining as she connected the stars with thin lines of wet ink. The star at the end of Ursa Minor is Polaris, the North Star, Gia said. The guiding star.

Outside, the atmosphere has fulfilled my wish for decisiveness. Rain pours from the sky, smacking against the awnings of nearby shops. It smells like summer—the scent of hot asphalt rising into wetness. Once inside my car, the rain beats on the roof, and I pull onto the puddled street. I’m not usually a nervous driver, but my ancient windshield wipers can barely keep up with the streams of rain. By the time my exit sign becomes visible, I have a talon-grip on the wheel. A few precarious turns later, and I’ve never been so glad to see the wooden fence that runs the perimeter of my house.