Life, Love, and a Polar Bear Tattoo

by Heather Wardell

  "Lou, I really appreciate the opportunity, I do. I have to say, though, that Kegan's restaurant is quite demanding and I'm not sure I'll have time to do all my other work and meet with him as well. I don't want to let you down."

  There. Just thinking of the good of the company. How could he find fault with that?

  Quite easily, as it turned out.

  "Candice, I considered your workload before deciding to assign you to this task."

  Assigning me? A second ago, hadn't he been asking me if I'd be willing? Before I could say anything, although I had no idea what to say, he swept on.

  "Not only that, but I must say I'm not impressed with your attitude at the moment. I had expected you to jump at this chance to gain client contact, especially since you'll never be promoted to designer without it."

  Client contact. I wasn't at all sure Kegan's brand of client contact would be Lou-approved. Not to mention Ian-approved.

  "I--"

  "No, Candice. It's final. You will take on these meetings, and I expect a good report from Kegan or your job may not be quite as secure."

  I stared at him in shock, but he simply said, "You may leave." I did, and he closed the door behind me. As if I didn't have enough problems at the moment, now my job depended on Kegan's opinion of me.

  An hour or so later, I was grimly slogging my way through the research when my phone rang. I glanced at the call display and felt a wave of heat and terror sweep over me, but I cleared my throat and answered the phone as professionally as I could.

  "Candy, has Lou talked to you?"

  "Yes," I said, wishing I had the guts to say I had no idea what he was talking about and make him explain it, make him tell me why he'd done it. "I'll be working with you from now on."

  I could hear the smile in his voice as he said, "Wonderful. I'm sure we'll be great together. Do you have time to come over now? I have a few questions about your research."

  "Of course."

  "Perfect. I'll have a coffee here for you."

  "Thanks." Thanks so much.

  *****

  When I arrived, he met me at the door with, "I hope you don't mind working with me."

  "You could have warned me," I said. "I was surprised when Lou asked me."

  "But you agreed to it."

  "I wasn't really given much choice."

  My bitterness must have come through; Kegan said, "I thought it would help you out if you did it, so Lou could see how great a job you did and be impressed."

  "You did?"

  He nodded. "Plus, like I said, we've already been working together and I don't want to start again with Lou."

  Since he'd started with Lou before me, that didn't make a lot of sense, but I didn't want to argue any more. "Well, now that I'm here, let's get to work. You said you had questions?"

  He nodded, but the ringing of my cell phone cut him off. I checked the screen. "Sorry, it's Lou," I said. "Do you mind?"

  "Of course not," he said, and I answered, feeling uncomfortable both about talking to Lou and about Kegan hearing me talking to Lou.

  "Where'd you leave Frank's file?" Lou said, his voice tight. "He just called and I need it."

  I walked Lou, for probably the fifteenth time, through Richard's complicated filing system. As the call wore on, Kegan gave me a smile and wandered off.

  Once he finally located the file, Lou said, "Are things okay there?"

  "Just fine," I said.

  "Good." Lou paused, then added, "Candice, if you get stuck at all, don't forget you can ask me anything, okay?"

  Recognizing this as Lou's attempt to smooth over our disagreement, I said, "Thanks. I will."

  "Good stuff. See you on Monday."

  I hung up the phone and looked around for Kegan, eventually spotting him standing in the far corner of the main eating area, surveying the scene with an expression bordering on awe. He turned to me, startled, as I arrived beside him, and I froze, seeing something I hadn't noticed at first. "Kegan? Are you okay?"

  He shifted to face me, wiping away the single tear I'd seen just below his eye. "This place means a lot to me, Candy."

  I'd never seen Ian cry over his parents. I'd heard him once, the day they'd died, but he'd sent me away. He'd said the most hurtful thing anyone had ever said to me and sent me away, and I'd never seen any real emotion from him again. And Kegan was crying over his restaurant?

  He took a step closer to me. "A very good friend wanted me to open the restaurant. We talked about it all the time, and I promised I'd do it some day, promised I'd let him bring his lawyer buddies in and give him free food."

  When he didn't speak again, I said, "And now you're doing it. He must be--"

  "He's dead," Kegan said.

  Stunned by his bluntness, I searched for a response, but he went on. "I've never said that right out loud. George is dead. Damn it, he's not supposed to be dead."

  The anger and pain in his voice made me want to hug him hard, but I couldn't. I put my hand on his arm instead, and he put his over it and squeezed. "He was my age. Guys in their thirties aren't supposed to have heart attacks, you know? And now he'll never see Steel. It's not right."

  "No, it's not," I said through the lump in my throat. His hand on mine was warm and strong, and so alive. None of the sparkly shocks like there'd been before when he'd touched me, just the companionship and comfort we both needed. "When did he..."

  "Three weeks ago."

  "Is that why the short deadline?"

  He nodded. "Anniversary of the day I met him. George would have laughed his head off. 'Waits around for years and then throws himself on the grenade.'" He shook his head. "And he'd probably be right."

  Kegan gave my hand another squeeze then let it go, and I dropped it away from his arm. He took a deep breath. "Well, enough about me. You've got the research? Let's get to it."

  I followed him to the desk, amazed both that he'd had such a strong reaction and that he'd let me see it. I wasn't used to men who'd even admit they had feelings, never mind display them in public. We sat beside each other and I dug in my bag for my notebook and Lou's files.

  "Thanks for listening, Candy," Kegan said, so softly I barely heard him. I turned to face him, and the sweet, nearly shy, look on his face choked me up again. Unable to speak, I just smiled. He smiled back, holding my gaze, then said, "I'm happy to return the favor if you want me to."

  Suddenly I did want him to, wanted to tell him everything about Ian and his parents and my test. Only Ian and I knew what he'd said to me the day his parents died; I hadn't been able to bring myself to say it to anyone else in case they thought it was true. Only Larissa and I knew about my test. Nobody but me knew everything. I wanted someone else to know everything too. But that someone else couldn't be Kegan. Could it?

  "I'll keep that in mind. You, um... you said you had some questions?"

  He did indeed, and they were tough ones. We went through my research in painstaking detail, but I was proud of the fact that I had answers for nearly everything he asked, and knew where to find the answers I didn't have. We'd left the personal side of things behind, but we were easier with each other than we'd been before.

  Just after one o'clock, one of his staff came over. "We're heading out for lunch, Kegan. Do you two want to come along?"

  "I've got a better idea. Why don't I take all of you out to thank you for your hard work?"

  The word spread quickly, and soon ten of us left the restaurant, headed to the Markville, one of the hottest restaurants in the neighborhood.

  Kegan made sure I was sitting next to him, telling his site manager with a laugh that he needed to make use of all his time with me since Lou was charging him a fortune.

  I was about to defend Lou and his rush-job pricing when Kegan looked at me and said quietly, "You're worth it, though." His tone told me that the words were meant for me, but I forced myself to take it as him saying that the company was worth it. I didn't want or need compliments from Kegan.

  He took forever to c
hoose what he'd have for lunch, analyzing the menu with many comments about how he was going to do things differently. Finally he picked something and set the menu aside.

  "While we're waiting to order, why don't you guys let me know how things are coming along? If anything's important for Lou to know, Candy will keep track of it. Okay, Jason, how're we doing?"

  The site manager said, "Really well. The main area's demolition is nearly finished, and we'll be starting on the bathrooms later this week. We should be just fine."

  "Excellent," Kegan said, and turned to the next person. About halfway around the table, the waiter arrived and we paused so that everyone's order could be taken. Once that was out of the way, Kegan continued with his status meeting.

  I sat and listened, taking occasional notes when I felt I needed to, but otherwise just listening to him and watching how he handled the meeting. He was keenly interested in every detail, no matter how small, full of ideas to make things better, and now I understood why it all mattered so much to him. I was again pierced with the desire to care that deeply about work, to be that driven to succeed, to have such a strong passion for something. Anything.

  The second-last person to speak said, "Well, basically things are going very well." He paused, obviously hoping Kegan would be satisfied with that and move on.

  "What isn't going well?"

  The man swallowed hard. "The granite floor tiles that you wanted for the entranceway arrived yesterday, but they're the Black Pearl color instead of Blue Pearl. I called the company and they're picking them up tomorrow and replacing them with the right ones, but it'll be nearly three weeks before they arrive."

  "Who made the mistake?" Kegan's voice held no emotion. I shivered suddenly; the air conditioning must have kicked in.

  "I... umm..." The poor man was clearly terrified. But why? Sure, it looked like he'd made the mistake, but it was fixable, so why was the guy so scared? He drew a deep breath and said, in a rush, "I did. I accidentally ordered the item number above the one you wanted. I'm sorry, Kegan."

  Everyone around the table sat absolutely still. There was silence, like the silence that comes after lightning flashes but before the thunder rolls, for what seemed like forever. I looked down at my lap, not sure what to do, and caught a glimpse of Kegan's hands under the table, clenched into tight fists. I turned to look at him. His face was utterly calm.

  He brought his hands up, rested them, palm down, on the table, and said, still with no hint of emotion in his voice, "It's all right, Adam. Things go wrong. I'm sure the new tiles will arrive on time."

  Adam's face regained some of its lost color. "Thanks, Kegan. I'll make sure they do."

  "Good," Kegan said, turning to the next person. I wondered if I'd imagined the tension and the stress around the table. I didn't think so, because the rest of the staff looked nearly as relieved as Adam.

  *****

  I half-expected Kegan to ask me out to dinner again, but he didn't, just saying a friendly goodbye and wishing me a nice weekend. I wouldn't have been able to go anyhow, since I'd agreed to meet Tasha after work for some sort of secret shopping expedition. She'd refused to say what we'd be doing, and I was intrigued in spite of my fatigue.

  Sometimes one member of a friendship is totally pulled together and has everything under control, and the other member always gives off the air of someone running desperately to catch a bus, even when she's just standing still. With Tasha, I wasn't the 'running for the bus girl', a rare occurrence in my life.

  She looked her usual self: hair swept up in an unruly ponytail, a solid inch of dark roots showing at the base of the blonde, lipstick a bit crooked, one earring just barely hanging on.

  We hugged, and I fixed her earring, and then we headed into the subway.

  "So, where are we off to?" I asked, just making conversation.

  She shushed me as though we were spies and I'd almost given away the mission. "It's embarrassing," she hissed at me.

  "I know, you said that before. But I still want to know."

  "Oh, all right, lean over here."

  So I did, and she whispered something in my ear that sounded like, "I'm going to get my wood pierced."

  "Your wood?"

  "What? No, c'mere again."

  This time, I distinctly heard, "hood".

  "What's a hood?"

  "You know, your....errr..."

  Tasha accompanied this rather unenlightening statement with a vague wave toward her lower half. I raised my eyebrows in the universal 'I have no clue' formation, and she repeated the gesture.

  "Sorry, Tasha, I don't get it. Just tell me."

  So she did. And I nearly died.

  Tasha, who I'd always thought was relatively normal, was planning to get a hole punched through the tiny piece of skin covering her most sensitive 'girly' bit. And then have jewelry pushed through the hole.

  "Will you get it done with me?"

  I tapped my ear, pretending I'd gone temporarily deaf. "I'm sorry, I thought you asked if I'd get it done with you. That can't be what you said, because that would mean that you're insane, and I'd hate to have to have you committed. All that paper work, you know."

  Tasha pouted. "I went with you when you had your..." She repeated her vague lower body gesture, aiming it at me this time.

  "When I had the wart on my foot removed? You can't be serious. This is totally not the same thing, and anyhow, you didn't get your wart removed, you just came with me. I'll come along, but there's no way I'm letting some guy--"

  "It's a girl."

  "Pardon?"

  "My piercer. She's a girl."

  Tasha really seemed to think this would change my mind. So deluded.

  "Why would it be better to have a girl piercer?"

  "I don't want to have a guy looking at me like that."

  "And you'd be more comfortable if a girl did?"

  "Well..."

  We continued to bicker, in our comfortably familiar way, until the subway reached our station. We exited the train, made the usual 'it smells like refried garbage in here' faces at each other, and climbed the stairs to the street. Tasha became more and more quiet as we walked. When we arrived at the door of the piercing place, she turned to me with an expression of pure terror.

  "I can't do it!"

  "You don't have to."

  "But I want to. But I can't. But I want to get it done. Really, I do."

  "Who're you trying to convince, me or you? If you want to, let's go in. If not, let's go shopping. Totally up to you. After all, you're the one who wants to get a hole punched in your--"

  "Don't!" Tasha moaned, then she marched into the shop. I followed.

  The main room was brightly lit and smelled of disinfectant, its walls covered with pictures and drawings of tattoos and piercings. I stared at them as Tasha took herself off to the counter. A woman in her mid-twenties bearing an incredible number of piercings and at least five tattoos smiled at her as she approached.

  Tasha leaned in and whispered something to her. She smiled reassuringly and yelled into the back room, "Hood piercing!" Tasha closed her eyes in mortification as every head in the place swiveled to check her out.

  A beautiful coffee-skinned woman came out of the back area. She shook hands with Tasha and began to lead her into the back room, but Tasha asked, with a slight hint of desperation in her voice, "Can my friend come too?"

  Uh, no, thank you.

  "I'm afraid not," said the woman. "There's just room enough for you and me back there."

  Whew. I threw Tasha an apologetic smile and watched her head off to her date with a very sharp needle.

  I spent the next few minutes checking out the tattoo drawings and photographs. Some of them were pretty freaky, but some were absolutely gorgeous. A band around a girl's upper arm, shaded to look like flames. A small cat, created out of a few lines so that my eyes had to fill in the picture instead of having it all right there. A bracelet of twisting lines with a star in the center, done in rich shades of purple, blue,
and green.

  "Interested in a tattoo?"

  I jumped and turned to the woman at the counter. "Oh, no, I'm just waiting for my friend."

  She grinned. "That's how I got my first one. Once you start, you can't stop."

  "Like potato chips."

  "You got it. If you have any questions, let me know."

  I smiled and returned to the designs. I'd never considered getting anything other than my ears pierced, but the thought of a tattoo had always been intriguing. But then again, tattoos, in my limited experience, were found on people who were vibrant themselves. I probably wasn't the kind of person to get one.

  A gorgeous wolf tattoo, so realistic each strand of its fur was clearly drawn, caught my eye. I stared at it for a minute, then went to the counter. "Could you do a polar bear as a tattoo?"

  She smiled. "We can do anything. There's probably a bear or two in our flash book." She dragged a huge binder out from under the counter and flipped through it. "Here we go."

  She turned the binder toward me, and we looked at the bears together. Most were either more like cartoons or like some strange nightmare with vicious claws and fangs, and the few that were okay just didn't grab me somehow.

  "Thanks anyhow."

  "Don't give up yet. We can always do a custom design, and there might be more in here too," she said, turning the page.

  And there it was. A polar bear, staring up at a full moon, standing on the edge of an ice floe. The bear was done with soft strokes around its outline, so that it appeared sort of furry, and the water somehow looked both welcoming and frozen. The bear of my dreams.

  I touched the bear with a fingertip, and looked up at her. She grinned at me. "I've seen that look before. When will you get it done?"

  I smiled back. "I won't. I'm not the tattoo type."

  "There's no such thing. If you love it, you're the type."

  I looked down at the bear. "How much would it cost?"

  "It'd be about one fifty. It'd be perfect on your lower back."

  I nodded. "I'd want a star instead of the moon, though."

  "Not a problem," she said, flipping through the binder again and showing me pictures of more stars than I could ever need. I spotted the perfect one almost immediately.