Chapter 6
Tai had only a few more minutes to put the finishing touches on the design he’d worked out for his seven o’clock appointment.
Transferring the intricate details of the lacelike mandala with jeweled edging from the flat surface of his tablet to the rounded contours of Darla Shapiro’s head would take skill.
Especially since he’d have to freehand the design instead of use a stencil like he usually did for his tattoos.
“Tai, your seven o’clock is here,” Maggie shouted back at him from the reception area.
Tai added the last teardrop to finish out the symmetry of the mandala, then saved his design in his drawing software.
He kept the document open so he could show Darla and get her approval before he got to work applying it on her skin.
Tucking the tablet against his side, he made his way to the front of the shop and smiled when he saw the woman in her midfifties he’d met the week before when she’d come in and shared her vision with him.
“Good to see you again,” he said with a warm smile. Some of the first-timers were nervous when they walked through the doors of a tattoo shop. Needles tended to do that to people. Not that she had that particular concern today. “Want to come on back?”
“I’m really excited to see what you came up with.” Darla followed him to his station, then took a seat in the chair that resembled something you’d see in a dentist office.
Tai dragged over his rolling adjustable stool and sat beside his client, turning the tablet around so she could see the screen. “What do you think? Let me know if there are any adjustments you want to make.”
A telltale sheen washed over her eyes as she stared at the picture he’d created. “This is perfect.” Emotion clogged her throat as she handed the tablet back to him.
“A headdress fit for a warrior princess.” He held her gaze a few moments so she’d know he meant what he’d said. People like Darla held a hidden strength that he could only imagine.
Customers came into the parlor for many different reasons.
Tattoos were personal and permanent. Most patrons took a lot of time to decide what they wanted forever inked into their skin.
Sometimes a person wanted to memorialize a lost loved one in a piece of art, or a couple wanted a lasting symbol of their relationship, or someone wanted a quote they could look at and be reminded of in moments of doubt or weakness.
Darla, however, was a fighter. And the dye he would put to her skin was an outward representation of that fighting spirit she carried within.
“Are you ready?” He didn’t want to rush her. There was a lot of emotion surrounding what they were about to do.
She looked at him and smiled. “I’m ready.” Reaching up, she grazed her fingers at the hairline above her forehead. A second later, her hair slid off her head, revealing a bald dome the wig had previously covered.
Tai blinked. That was it. How could he have missed it before?
The something that always niggled at him whenever he looked at Evangeline.
The wavy curls framing her face were part of a wig.
Was she locked in a similar battle as Darla?
The thought caused an ache to bloom behind his breastbone.
Evangeline wasn’t anyone to him, but he hated the thought of her going through such a fight.
Beside him, Darla gave a nervous chuckle, snapping him out of his dazed epiphany.
Right. The woman he should be focusing on at the moment.
He set his tablet on a mount, then pulled on a pair of medical-grade disposable gloves.
He’d already prepared the henna the day before, per his research, mixing the henna powder with lemon juice, sugar, and tea tree oil, and letting the paste rest to release the dye.
“You said you’ve never done this, right?” Darla’s voice didn’t sound nervous, just matter-of-fact.
Tai turned from the equipment to face her. “Henna, no. Although I did practice and I have done my fair share of mandalas, so you needn’t worry on that account.”
She leaned back in the chair. “I’m not worried.” She rather looked like she was ready for a day at the spa. Speaking of . . .
“Were you able to exfoliate the skin within the last three days like we discussed?” For the tattoo to last longer, the dead skin needed to be scrubbed off so it wouldn’t fall away, taking the dye with it.
“My daughter gifted me with a sugar scrub that smelled divine.”
“Good.” He moved to stand behind her. “I’m going to touch your head now and get a feel for your skin and the contours of your skull.”
“Go right ahead.”
He ran a hand over the top of her head, noting that she’d already shaved the area.
He stepped back in front of her. “I’m going to get started, but tell me if you need a break or, well, if you need anything at all.” There wouldn’t be any needles involved. No pain to take a break from. But still. He wanted to put that out there just in case.
She eyed him behind squinted lids. “I promise you, I won’t break.”
He smiled at her softly. “No. I imagine you’re made of stronger stuff than that.”
“I’ve got to be, don’t I?” She repositioned herself in the chair. “Besides, I plan to walk into that first chemo treatment with my chin high and shoulders back. I’m not going to let cancer make me tuck my tail between my legs.”
Thus the reason behind the henna and not the needles and ink. Permanent tattoos left open wounds that needed time to heal and, quite frankly, a strong immune system to back it up. With Darla going in for chemo, her immune system was about to take a major hit.
Tai quickly cleaned and dried Darla’s head, then transferred the henna paste into the special plastic bags he’d purchased for the occasion.
When he’d practiced, he’d felt a bit like a baker piping and decorating a cake.
He had to squeeze the henna paste out of a cut coned edge, paying particular attention to the pressure he applied to the bag.
How hard he squeezed correlated to the line weights he needed to make the design come out the way he planned.
Less paste resulted in thinner lines. More paste meant thicker lines.
He had a few bags with different sized tips to help with the weight of the lines as well.
“Can you tilt your head to the side for me, please?” He positioned himself to her left. It would be best to work from one side of her head, across the top and back, then finish on the other side.
Darla bent her head so her opposite ear nearly touched her shoulder. “So, how did you get into tattooing?”
Tai hovered the bag near her scalp, careful not to let the edge of the cone touch her skin to prevent any scratchy marks. He squeezed the bag, pulling the string of henna paste to form a delicate scallop design around the curve of her ear, leaving the dark paste on her scalp much like puffy paint.
“I mean, I’m not sure I’ve ever met a kid who said, ‘When I grow up, I want to be a tattoo artist,” Darla continued.
Tai chuckled. “When I was a kid, I wanted to be a professional baseball player.”
“A baseball diamond is a long way away from needles and ink.”
“You’re telling me.” The thing with mandalas was that to make them look good, you had to have precise symmetry.
Tai concentrated on his lines, glancing at the tablet screen every now and again to reference his design.
Most people were chatty in the chair, however, so he was used to having a conversation while he worked. “Art kind of rescued me, though.”
“How so?”
“I was a bit of a sickly child. Fairly severe asthma, and my mother in particular worried about me a lot. I had to stay inside most of the time. Art became my escape. My way to express myself. Even an avenue to experience the world.”
“What do your parents think of the tattoo thing? Are they supportive, or do they wish you’d gone a direction without as much stigma to it?”
Tai readjusted the bag. “My mom, being the worrier that she is, is happy that I have a job that’s inside instead of out in the elements and that doesn’t make me exert myself physically.”
“Has the asthma not gotten better as you’ve gotten older? I thought a lot of kids outgrew it.”
Tai’s lips twisted in a wry grin. “It’s a lot better and more manageable now.
In fact, it hardly ever bothers me. Okay, you can straighten your head now.
Do you need to take a break to use the restroom?
” Tai shook out his hand. He was used to holding the tattoo machine for hours, but that was all vibration and didn’t require his grip to constantly tighten.
He was starting to get a small cramp near the base of his thumb.
“I’m good.” Darla crossed her ankles.
He didn’t know much about chemo, but he imagined it required long stints sitting in a chair, hooked up to an IV. Darla was going to be a pro.
“Can you lean forward a bit for me?” He gently nudged her shoulder.
She did as asked, her eyes wandering around the studio. “It’s a nice place you have here.”
“Thank you.”
“I’m surprised you get enough business in this location.”
Tai smiled ruefully. Even though his shop had been open less than a year and was off the beaten path, he was booked out for months.
He worked for a few moments in silence, but Darla Shapiro apparently wasn’t one to stay quiet for long.
“Can I admit something to you?” she asked, her voice not quite as strong as it had been before.
Tai didn’t answer. The question seemed rhetorical, and he figured Darla was going to share either way. That she needed to.
“This”—she waved her hand to indicate the artwork he was applying to her head. “It may look like I’m brave, but inside I’m really scared.”
Tai lowered the henna bag and walked around to face Darla once again. Her chin wobbled in a show of vulnerability. He picked up her hand and ran a thumb along her knuckles. “Bravery isn’t the absence of fear.”
“No?” Her eyes watered. “What is it then?”
He squeezed her fingers. “Bravery is just the voice telling fear he can’t win today.”
Darla took in a deep breath and nodded once, resolution hardening the set of her jaw. “Not today.”
Tai let go of her hand but didn’t resume the tattoo. It wasn’t his place, but . . . “Miss Darla, do you have someone going with you to chemo? If not, I could—”
Darla shook her head as she managed a trembling smile. “Oh, honey, does this town have you pegged wrong. You don’t have a single bad bone in your body.”
“I don’t know about that.” He winked at her, cloaking himself in the outward appearance of how he knew many still saw him. The shadow of teenage rebellion and poor decisions was long.
“Mm-hmm.” She looked unconvinced. “But don’t worry about me. My sweet husband will be by my side.”
“Good.”
He finished the tattoo, then let it dry for thirty minutes. To get the best color, he mixed lemon juice and sugar and applied it to the design with a cotton ball, wrapping Darla’s head with plastic wrap to keep the henna paste safe as she let it set into her skin.
“Keep this on until tomorrow. The paste will flake off after you remove the wrap. If the color isn’t what you expected right away, don’t worry.
It takes a little while for the dye to darken in color on your skin.
Keep away from water and soap for at least twenty-four hours, and if you need to use a moisturizer, then coconut oil or olive oil will work better for the longevity of your tattoo than conventional moisturizers or creams.”
Darla stood. “Thank you so much. You don’t know what this means to me.” She gave him a hug, then picked up her discarded wig.
Seeing the long strands of synthetic hair immediately made Tai think of a certain librarian. What exactly was Evangeline Kelly’s story?