by Claire Cook
“Shh,” I said. “They’ll hear you. And they were just being polite.”
“My point exactly,” B.J. said. “If they thought we were still in our prime, they would have staked their claim and made us walk around them.”
My cell phone rang as we were climbing back down the ladder. I fished it out of my shoulder bag as soon as I hit the ground. Kurt’s name smirked up at me.
“Nooooo,” I said.
B.J. looked over. “What’s wrong?”
I pushed the IGNORE button. “Unbelievable. I thought I’d blocked Kurt’s number, but apparently not.”
B.J. shrugged. “Roaches are like that, too. You think they’re gone and then one day you open a cupboard—”
“Wait,” I said. “I need to concentrate.” I opened up the block app again. B.J. shrugged and reached for her own cell.
I triple-checked when I tapped Kurt’s number in this time, then pushed the SAVE button.
“Damn, she’s still not answering.” B.J. looked up from her phone. “What was that all about anyway? Can’t you just answer, tell Kurt to go screw himself, and then hang up?”
“Like I haven’t done that before,” I said.
“Give it time. Maybe you were married so long he’s temporarily forgotten how to screw himself.”
CHAPTER 15
B.J.’s stylist’s former boyfriend, Sam, lifted two handfuls of my hair up over my head and then let them fall. I assumed this was part of his process—maybe he was trying to get a glimpse of the hairstyle within the way I could sometimes see a fully formed sculpture in a hunk of rusty metal.
We looked at each other in the mirror. His eyebrows were perfectly arched and his black hair was short and spiky with a long burgundy piece on one side that reminded me of a raccoon-tail hat on sideways.
He shrugged. “So, what were you thinking?”
“Actually,” I said as I checked out my boring brown hair, “I wasn’t. To tell you the truth, I don’t really spend a lot of time on my hair. I usually just pull it back into a ponytail, so as long as you leave me enough for—”
“Don’t listen to her.” B.J. popped up from her pedicure chair. “Short and perky. Get rid of those wiry gray stragglers and add some highlights. We’re going for youthful.”
“Youthful?” I said. When I looked in the mirror, my expression reminded me a little bit of Linda Blair in The Exorcist, right before her head started to spin around. Or maybe Macaulay Culkin after he slapped on the aftershave in Home Alone.
B.J. got the rest of her pedicure, followed by a manicure. After her nails finished drying, she came over and coached Sam while my color cooked. Then she paced around outside in front of the plate-glass window and talked on her cell phone.
Two and a half hours later, I was pronounced youthful.
“Really?” I said. “You don’t think it looks too much like the pixie I had in third grade?”
“Bingo,” B.J. said. “That’s the whole point. It’s very Ellen Burstyn in Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore.”
I squinted at the mirror.
Sam tilted his head. “I’m getting a flash of Linda Ronstadt on the Heart Like a Wheel album cover. With a better haircut, of course.”
“There’s some Twiggy in that side part, too,” B.J. said, “plus or minus a few pounds. We’ll go with lots of black eyeliner for the reunion, and some false eyelashes.”
“Speak for yourself,” I said. “I don’t do false eyelashes.”
“Of course you do,” B.J. said. “You’re youthful now.”
She insisted on paying and tipping Sam for me.
“Are you sure?” I asked as she handed over her credit card.
She gave what was left of my hair a little fluff with one hand. “Absolutely. You can pick up the tab for our tattoos.”
“Ha,” I said. “Very funny.”
Back at the car, B.J. actually let me choose the song this time. I scrolled through her iPod until I found Grand Funk Railroad’s “Some Kind of Wonderful.”
Before Grand Funk even got to the first chorus, I reached over and turned it down fast. “Ugh. I just remembered Kurt used to sing this to me. I think we even danced to it at our wedding.”
“You were always too good for him,” B.J. said.
“Thank you. Spoken like a best friend.”
“It’s true.” B. J. reached over and hit the SHUFFLE button and Maria Muldaur’s “Midnight at the Oasis” filled the car.
“Ooh,” I said. “I loved this song.”
“I’m pretty sure I got pregnant to it,” B.J. said.
“Thank you so much for that image.”
“You’re welcome.”
“So, what else is new?” I said, mostly to keep B.J. from over-sharing her conception details.
“Well, when I was flipping through a magazine in the salon I found out someone is developing these new contact lenses that measure the blood sugar of diabetics so they don’t have to draw blood. Apparently tiny particles in the lenses react with the glucose molecules in tears and change the color of your eyes based on how high your sugar levels are.”
“Fascinating,” I said.
B.J. nodded. “My first thought was that I wanted to get a pair, but it’s probably a lot easier and definitely more figure-friendly to just buy tinted contacts than to try to eat enough sugar to get them to react. But then I started thinking maybe we could say we invented a new twist on the mood ring. You know, contact lenses that change the color of your eyes based on your mood.”
Despite myself, I flashed on an image of Kurt’s ever-changing eyes.
I shook my head to clear it away. “You’re certifiable,” I said. “But I have to admit I do miss my mood ring.”
“How about Kurt—do you miss him, too?” B.J. took one hand off the wheel and stretched it up over her head.
“Whoa,” I said. “Where did that come from?”
“Hey, you’re the one who brought him up.”
“No, I didn’t. Grand Funk Railroad brought him up.”
B.J. switched hands and stretched the other arm up over her head. I hoped she wasn’t about to launch into a full series of yoga poses while she was driving.
“I don’t know,” I finally said. “I think I mostly miss the idea of Kurt, if that makes sense.”
“I get that. A husband is a pretty good safety net, even when the marriage has a few holes in it.”
“Oh, he had a few holes, all right. Actually, I guess we both did. You know, it was kind of like I could see us drifting away from each other, but I just couldn’t muster the energy to do anything about it. I suppose I thought we’d both keep drifting, but we’d be, I don’t know, polite about it.”
“Like he’d just politely screw around on you?”
“Thanks. I guess I really didn’t think about that part. Do you know Kurt made this huge point about claiming that nothing had really happened between Crissy and him before he moved out? As if it was some kind of badge of honor.”
“Oh, puh-lease, they always say that. Like he would have moved in with her if he hadn’t slept with her first. I mean, what if she was truly pathetic in bed?”
“I cut up our bed with a chain saw,” I said.
B.J. reached over and patted my knee. “That’s my girl. I hope he was in it.”
“Ha,” I said. “I didn’t think of that.”
“Next husband, call me first.” B. J. turned down the music. “You know, it’s really starting to bother me that Veronica isn’t answering my calls or calling me back.”
“Hmm,” I said. “Jan isn’t, either. We might have a theme here.”
“They didn’t let me into Honors English, so I don’t acknowledge themes.”
“If a theme falls in the forest and no one acknowledges it, is it still a . . .”
B.J. reached for her lip gloss. “Not being able to get through to our friends is a colossal drag. Have our lives gotten that out of control? Once your kids are grown and you get to our place in life, you’re not supposed to be
too busy to pick up your phone. You’re supposed to be able to relax and enjoy and do exactly what you want to do, when you want to do it. Where is our chance to be selfish again? Where is our second childhood?”
I’d managed to sneak in an unproductive email check during B.J.’s soliloquy. “You’re not going to rant all week, are you?” I asked as I tucked my phone back into my purse.
“I never rant. Okay, let’s get serious here. Next up: tattoos.”
“Very funny.”
“It’s not a joke. It’s on the itinerary, which means it’s essentially etched in stone. Remember that time we almost got them when we were seniors in high school? And, I might add, it was even your idea. We took that endless bus ride all the way to upstate New York to stay in your sister Marion’s dorm because she said she’d take us. I can’t remember if you only had to be eighteen to get them legally there at the time, or if it was a sketchy place that did underage tattoos. Either way, it puts tattoos squarely in the category of lifelong-dream-about-to-come-true.”
“I’d completely forgotten about that. I couldn’t believe she ratted us out, and when we got there my father was waiting for us and made us ride back with him.”
B.J. shook her head. “Marion, Marion, Marion. Have you called her yet, by the way?”
“I’m working up to it.”
“Anyway, the tattoo parlor is near Plymouth Center, so we stop there first, then we head over the bridge to the Cape and make sure Veronica’s okay. Unless you think we should pick up Veronica first so she can get a tattoo with us?”
“I think it’s safe to assume that if Veronica isn’t answering your calls, she’s probably not up for getting a tattoo with you.”
“I don’t know where you’re getting that. But fine, we’ll stop for our tattoos first.”
“Your tattoo,” I said. “I’ll go with you, but no way am I getting one.”
“Oh, yes you are,” B.J. said.
“Not in a million years.”
“Exactly.” B.J. put on her blinker. “That’s the whole point. Not in a million years will any of our boring old high school classmates think of getting tattoos.” She turned and smiled at me. “We’ll be the hit of the reunion, Romy.”
“Michele,” I said. “I mean, Melanie.”
CHAPTER 16
Mustang Sally climbed the entrance ramp like a geriatric thoroughbred and then jumped into the herd of traffic heading south. My heart did a funny little extra beat, and I wondered if my highway thing was escalating again even with B.J. driving.
It was complicated. Sometimes I was convinced that driving with Kurt—his anger, his aggressiveness—had started the whole thing. And then when he left, some self-destructive part of me had transferred all those years of pent-up anxiety to my own driving. But if I looked back honestly, I’d never been a relaxed driver, and being a passenger with Trevor and Troy driving when they had their learner’s permits had freaked me out to the point that I’d turned the whole thing over to Kurt. Maybe my highway anxiety had always been there, like a cold sore, waiting for the next random outbreak, and the more I thought about it the more likely it was to happen.
I held my breath and waited for more symptoms. Nothing. We’d put Mustang Sally’s top back up outside the salon before we headed for the highway, and now she felt shady and safe inside, almost like a cocoon.
I breathed a long sigh of relief.
“I knew you’d come around.” B.J. took one hand off the steering wheel and turned up the music again. Rod Stewart broke into “Maggie May,” and we sang backup on the first chorus.
“So, basically,” B.J. said as Rod launched into the next verse without us, “I think the where of the tattoos might be even more important than the what, so I’ve done some research.”
“On body parts? Gee, I would have thought that you, of all people, would have those down by now.”
“Cute.”
I ran a hand through what was left of my hair. It was freeing, in a Peter Pan kind of way. B.J. put on the blinker and reined Sally into a faster lane. We passed the sign for the exit to the pool where Trevor and Troy used to go for swimming lessons, a long, long time ago. I could still smell the chlorine and remember the way their fingertips wrinkled like raisins by the end of the class.
“Okay, guess,” B.J. said. “Where is the last place that sags?”
“Your head?”
“Lower.”
“Your feet?”
“Higher.”
“I give up. Okay, where is the last place that sags?”
B.J. flipped her hair out of the way and pulled her white, boat-neck top down over one shoulder.
“Upper arms?” I said. “Are you out of your mind?”
“Shoulders,” B.J. said, “are the last to go.” She took her hands off the steering wheel and gave hers a quick shimmy.
The Mustang veered over the line. The car next to us beeped, loud and long.
I waited until we were back in our lane and I was sure we were still alive, then I closed my eyes. “Please don’t do that again,” I whispered.
“It wasn’t me,” B.J. said. “That guy’s an idiot. Okay, so we get the tattoos high up on the backs of our shoulders, safely away from upper-arm territory. And then we wear off-the-shoulder peasant blouses—you know, the ones with that big ruffle that goes all the way around the top. A whole lot of sexy with a little bit of retro thrown in.”
I opened my eyes. “Not that I’m even considering this, but where would we even find blouses like that?”
B.J. laughed. “I’ve got them on hold at Macy’s. Two different sizes, just in case. And three colors—I didn’t want you to think I was hogging all the control here.”
One of my favorite things about B.J. was that she was easily distractible. I found the lukewarm water bottle that had been in my purse since Atlanta, screwed open the top, and drank it dry.
“Boyohboy, am I thirsty,” I said. “You know what I could really go for, with all this talk about high school?”
B.J. kept her eyes on the road. “A tattoo?”
I waited a beat to let the suspense build. “A Tab.”
“Tab!” B.J. let out a loud scream, completely drowning out the Ramones, who were busy singing “I Wanna Be Sedated.”
I smiled.
“Tab,” B.J. whispered. “I lived on Tab. I had my first one of the day for breakfast and brought one into my bedroom with me at night. All chemicals, no calories. And if you added a slice of lemon, it was practically a meal in itself.”
I didn’t say anything.
B.J. launched into full rant. “Why the hell did everyone have to get so healthy? I can understand not smoking and using condoms and eating dark chocolate and switching from white to red wine. But what in the name of all that’s retro is so wrong with having a simple Tab every now and then? I don’t know about you, but I am so seltzered out.”
She turned to look at me. “Do you think they still make it? I haven’t been in the soda aisle for years.”
“I’m pretty sure,” I said, even though I had absolutely no idea. It was the quest for Tab I was going for here, not the actual Tab.
“Wait. There’s an Ocean State Job Lot at the next exit. Do you mind making a pit stop?”
“Pit stop,” I said. “Aww, I completely forgot about that expression.”
Ten minutes later we were loading four cases of Tab into the trunk of the Mustang.
“Can you believe how expensive this stuff was?” B.J. said. “Who knew it was a collector’s item. I think we seriously lucked out to even find it.”
“We sure did.” I reached up and got ready to close the hood of the trunk. “And now I really think we need to head straight over to Veronica’s house so we can get some on ice right away.”
B.J. ducked under my hand and freed two Tabs from their plastic collars.
“Surely you jest,” she said as she handed one to me. “Warm Tab is the only way to go.”
“Do Me?” I said.
B.J. shrugge
d. “It was either this or Do Me Too at the next exit. I figured the flagship would have the more experienced tattoo artists. Only the best for you, Romy.”
We were parked outside Do Me Tattoos looking at the posters taped on the storefront window. I had some serious Tab aftertaste in my mouth, almost as if I had licked a piece of metal. I reached for a mint.
“You’re certifiable,” I said.
“There was nothing in Consumer Reports—”
“You’ve got to be kidding. Consumer Reports doesn’t rate tattoos? I am so canceling my subscription.”
“Don’t be fresh.”
“Aww, that’s right, fresh once meant mouthy. My mother used to say that.”
“Mine did, too. Pretty much all day long.” B.J. pulled some sheets of paper from her purse and handed them to me. “I printed off everything I could find on Kudzu and Angie’s List. This place definitely hit the sweet spot between good reviews and right off the highway.”
I glanced down. “ ‘Yo, best tattoo place ever. I’ve gotten four of my last six tats there—two by Ariel, one by Lenny, one by a dude who I don’t remember the name of.’ ”
B.J. pointed. “Not that one. This one.”
“ ‘Really clean in the scheme of things’? Or ‘I would definitely recommend them if you’re looking for some good if not great artwork.’ ”
B.J. snatched the papers away. I looked up at one of the posters in the window—a heavily airbrushed woman with a Cleopatra necklace tattooed from collarbone to collarbone. And completely covering the area from the base of her neck to the top of her breasts.
“I don’t get it,” I said. “I mean I can appreciate the depth and symmetry of the design, but for me it conflicts with the natural beauty of the human body.”
B.J. sighed. “Jeez Louise, let’s not get all Picasso here. Our natural beauty is practically gone anyway. And we’re not talking about an I-want-to-date-Jesse-James kind of tattoo. We’re talking tiny. And tasteful.”
“Like what?” I couldn’t resist asking. I mean, no way in hell was I getting a tattoo, but it was fun to think about what I would get if I did get one. Not that I was going to.
