Ink

by Sabrina Vourvoulias

  Abbie: OMGWTF

  1.

  Meche’s got more cash on her than I’ve ever seen. Some of it is for me.

  When we get to Smithville I’m turning Blue Belle over to her. I don’t know how I’ll explain it to my mother. If I ever speak to her again, that is. I can’t get past the video memory of her looking straight into Pete Nguyen’s eyes.

  I don’t know Meche’s plan for after Smithville, and I find it bugs me. I think it’s the fifth time I ask that she finally tells me she has no plan. Just to drive until she or Blue Belle gives out.

  I think the whole thing sucks. And maybe because of something other than the affection I have for my beat-up, piece-of-shit SUV. The golden woman in my rearview is, for the first time, just a woman. Frayed with doubt, pleated with uncertainty. I don’t like it. I like my goddesses seamless.

  “What’s that?” I ask as I zip by a truck weigh-in station sign flashing an l.e.d. message somewhere around mile marker 324.

  “Checkpoint ahead,” Meche says.

  “But we’re almost to Smithville. The craziness wouldn’t have reached this far into the boonies, would it?”

  She’s right. Less than five miles on we come to a barrier. First we have to offer our wrists for examination, then the Staties haul us out of Blue Belle for a pat down.

  I expect normalcy when we get to the Burger King sign at Smithville’s town limits, but I’m wrong. Ed Sweeney’s parked the cop car just a few yards behind the fast food joint’s lawn. When I roll down the windows, he takes his time looking at us.

  “Wrists out.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding,” John says. “Do you think anyone cares enough about Smithville to flash mob it? Puhleese.”

  “You never know what inks will do,” Ed says after a moment. “And Smithville isn’t just some sleepy little town. ”

  “Could have fooled me,” John says.

  The cop’s face turns stony. “No more lip, Montgomery. I assume your family doesn’t have the taint to put you on the wrong side of this, but rules are rules.”

  We all stick our wrists out the windows. He hangs on to each a long time.

  “Really, we’ve got to get home before my parents think that someone has been harassing us,” John says as Meche yanks her arm back inside the car. “They’re good friends with Judge Fisher, you know.”

  Of course he knows. Everyone in town knows that piece of business.

  Ed’s eyes go to Meche. “Your aunt going to be staying up at your place then?”

  “Duh.”

  Ed seems to weigh what to do next, then smacks the side of Blue Belle so hard I jump.

  “All right, then,” he says as he waves us through the barricade.

  “What a douchebag,” I say when I’m driving again. “What do want to bet he’s set up multiple roadblocks just to feel important?”

  “Yeah, that way when next year’s budget comes up for a vote he can argue for double the funding,” John says. “My dad says you should never underestimate what people are willing to do for a buck.”

  A couple of minutes later I hear Meche clear her throat. “We’ve got a bit of a problem,” she says.

  Déjà vu.

  “I don’t know what that guy had in his hand when he inspected us, but I’m bleeding,” she says.

  “His class ring. He files an edge on it so when he grabs on during an arrest there’s an added surprise. You’re not getting blood all over Blue Belle?” I ask, suddenly queasy.

  “No, but my instaskin’s torn.”

  “Can’t you stick it back down? You know, smush the edges together?” I say.

  “Tried.”

  “Well, dig out whatever spares you kept for yourself. You need me to stop so you can get them?”

  Silence.

  I swallow the acid rising in my throat. “Could you be more arrogant? You didn’t think you’d need any?”

  “I forgot to count myself in the distribution.”

  Before I can pick one of the many insults I’m thinking, John says. “We probably have enough leftover stuff to pull together a tiny batch.”

  “And who do you suggest she stays with until spring break is over and we can get into the school lab? In case you’ve forgotten, my mother knows who she is. And with my mom’s scruples, that’ll mean we’re handed over to Ed Sweeney’s tender care.”

  “She can stay with me.”

  “I know your parents are laid back and all but won’t they frown at their son bringing home a cougar?”

  “My parents don’t care who I bring home, as long as she doesn’t get into the silver. They’re in England anyway,” he says.

  “Nobody knows their way around this place better than us,” I say after a moment. “If we hit another roadblock we’ll figure it out.”

  When traffic starts slowing at Conestoga Road, John points me to Commons, then River Road. The next time it’s Johnnycake to Chestnut to Manor. We end up circling around the inkatorium. I have the irrational desire to turn up the driveway and be done with it.

  “Just drop me somewhere along this road,” Meche says, after the third time we detour. “I’m making it impossible for you to get home. And home is what this is all been about in the first place.”

  I feel a lump form in my throat. I despise crying. I have to pull Blue Belle over and put all my attention on making sure the tears don’t come through.

  I hear her rummaging around in one of the duffles, then feel her hand on my shoulder. “It’s okay, Abbie. Really.”

  John mumbles something awkward but comforting to me, and somehow we miss it. The moment the door clicks shut after her.

  By the time we notice it’s too late. We get out of the car and shout for her, but there’s no answer other than the yipping of a pack of coy-dogs in the distance. I try to call her phone. The one time it actually rings through it goes dead before she picks up.

  “Do you think we’ll ever see her again?” I ask as we get back in the car. I’m letting John drive back because I’m wiped out and still don’t trust myself not to start crying. “Or any of the others?”

  “No,” he answers after a bit. “I think we were just tourists in their world.”

  “Their world is our world too,” I say.

  He drums his fingers on the steering wheel while he drives. I haven’t seen him this manic ever. After a few moments he turns to look at me. “We have our own stuff to figure out, Abs, and who says that’s less important?”

  Then, “When does your mom think you’re coming home?”

  “Sunday afternoon.”

  “If you stay with me instead of going home we’d have two whole days alone together. And we’d be really alone. Not like in Hastings.”

  I give him a look. He’s known about my promise since I made it.

  “We don’t have to do anything,” he says after a moment. “It’s just … you say you love me, and shouldn’t that mean you want to be with me?”

  I’m not an idiot. Most couples who get together in high school fall apart ugly. My parents are the perfect example. They got married when they were 18, and their life went to shit soon after. John’s wanting to be with me is the sweetest thing that’s happened to me. But it’s not the only good thing that’s ever going to happen, and I’m not selling myself for it.

  Like every argument we’ve ever had, I win.

  * * *

  School starts again. Every day for a week John and I drive around in Blue Belle after school looking for Meche. We call her number whenever we hit a live zone. No answer, ever. But after that, it’s easy to forget there’s anything other than our worries in the world. SAT prep, too much homework, and what I won’t allow to happen after our long makeout sessions, fill our days.

  A couple of months before summer vacation, Rose Cantinelli leans against the locker next to mine. “Guess what I did last night?” she says.

  “Picked your extraordinarily large nose?” I say, slamming my locker door shut and moving away from her down the hall.

&
nbsp; She trots after me, then twirls in front. “Ask me, trailer trash.”

  “Not on your life, hoary hag.”

  The next day she even manages to ruin my computer class. Somehow, she’s gotten my e-mail address and though we’re not supposed to be checking during class, I do.

  redrose11134@gmail: You seeing John this afternoon?

  geekbubblegum5@gmail: What’s it to you?

  redrose11134@gmail: Be sure to get him hot before you leave. It makes him so much more anxious to get to my house.

  I smack the keyboard loud enough that Mr. James turns to look at me. I’m his favorite student but even I don’t get away with battering the hardware.

  John finds me at my locker before school ends. He pulls me into a kiss.

  “What?” he says when I push him away.

  “Rose claims you’re sleeping with her.”

  “Since when do you believe anything she says?”

  “I don’t. That’s why I’m asking you.”

  His eyes shift away from mine. Just a fraction.

  “Dickwad.”

  “It doesn’t mean anything.”

  “Then why’re you doing it?”

  “You know why. I’m just using her.”

  I push him hard enough that he slams into the locker.

  School the next day is excruciating. There are only so many ways you can ignore a person. His lying, pleading eyes. His lying, stupid texts. The fucking lying notes he slips through the vents in the locker.

  Then, it just stops. And he’s with Rose for real.

  2.

  I convince my mother to put me on computer work for the duration of my community service so I don’t have to grapple with what the inkatorium is, and my part in it. I particularly don’t want to run into Pete.

  I do some of the work I’m supposed to, but mostly I try my hand at sabotage. First I hack into the state public health consortium’s system, into the human resources department server.

  They’ve got dirt on all of the inkatorium’s administrators. My father’s DUI is in my mom’s file, along with her terrible credit rating and the lien on property taxes she hasn’t been able to pay in full yet. Also the number of inks who have escaped the inkatorium under her watch. I know I can’t erase my mother’s specifics totally, but I riddle them with glaring data entry mistakes to make them seem less credible.

  When I open Langdon-the-sterilizer’s file, I find a report about an annual financial audit that I don’t really understand but looks bad. I send Finn text messages with all the information, and get a return message composed entirely of exclamation marks.

  I make sure to cover my digital tracks so nothing can be traced back to Smithville. My mother doesn’t suspect a thing, though she does ask me from the kitchen why I’m whooping at the evening news the night the Langdon story gets picked up by TV.

  After that I get really ambitious and try hacking into the national health regulatory commission’s database. It’s a lot tougher. Every time I make it in, the system’s security seals off partitions so I can’t follow the tantalizing leads I find. I start each session back at square one. It’s a puzzle that keeps resetting itself.

  At school, John never meets my eyes. Thankfully, outside of Addison’s class, we don’t have any classes in common, and I can almost forget he was a part of my life. Which is not quite the killer I thought it would be. I even get invited to junior prom. Frank Lloyd, another computer dweeb, asks me, out by my locker in front of everyone. When I say yes, I hear a far locker slam and turn to see John’s back as he walks away.

  I might be tempted to fret about the strange ways of boys, but something pretty amazing happens that same afternoon. While I’m on shift I get my toe in the part of the national commission’s server that deals with inkatorium adoptions. Far enough in to get excited before I’m shut out. A week passes before I think about anything but how to bypass the security measures I’m measuring myself against.

  Then one morning, Frank stops me as I’m about to go into Addison’s class.

  “Hey,” I give him a big smile. Outside of the bad haircut, he’s really kind of cute in a young Steve Jobs sort of way.

  “I hate to do this, but I’m not going to be able to take you to j-prom after all,” he says.

  “Why?”

  “I got a call from this guy from Rochester Tech who saw my computer animation in the intermediate unit showcase last weekend. He says he thinks I could get a full scholarship there. He’s going to arrange an interview but it’s the same weekend as the prom.”

  He fiddles with his binder while people push by us to get into class. “And if I don’t get a scholarship I probably won’t be able to go anywhere nearly so good.”

  “Yeah, I know how that is.”

  We chat a few seconds longer until Addison shoots me a warning look and I hurry into class. As I walk past his desk to get to mine, I notice the smug look on John’s face and suddenly remember Rochester Tech is his father’s alma mater.

  I punch him, hard, on the way through. I don’t care a bit when Addison sends me to the principal’s office.

  * * *

  When I get through, I’m prepared.

  I take notes. Ingloriously low tech, but completely untraceable. And quick. I’m gone before the system knows I was ever in. Then I sit and fill out the details before time does its number and I forget what my abbreviations mean.

  I go out and buy a throwaway phone, then lock myself in my room and call Finn.

  “Abbie?” He sounds so surprised he doesn’t even sound like himself. “I thought I had programmed your number into my cell.”

  “Temporary phone. Got a notebook handy?” I ask.

  “Sure. But why didn’t you just text me, like before?”

  “Because I’m not leaving a trail.”

  I read him the full contact information. I make him read it back to me twice.

  “I got it,” he says, a little exasperated. “What I don’t have is why I have it.”

  “They’re the ones who adopted your kid.”

  Silence.

  “Finn?”

  When he comes back on his voice is all over the place. I’ve never heard a grown man cry.

  “I can’t repay this,” he says finally when his voice is almost back to normal. “I’ll owe you for the rest of my life.”

  “Just get him back. And you and Hello Kitty never split up after you get him, you hear?”

  I buzz around my room after I hang up, feeling giddy on good.

  The next call is a little different. I feel a shiver go through my body even before I key in the number.

  “Speak,” he says when he picks up.

  I give him a tiny taste of the information I’ve gathered before I finagle free assistance for Finn and Mari, should they need it, for the next six months. Then I’m on for an hour giving Toño what he needs to cut into the adoption racket. He asks questions about things I wouldn’t have known to note, but no dealbreakers because he seals the transaction with an honor oath. I have nothing but intuition to base it on but I’m convinced he’ll be good to his word.

  “Well, damn, America,” he says. The teasing familiarity is utterly distinct from the business tone that preceded it, and I feel its electricity pulse through my body. “I’m going to make a shitload of dough. You should have asked for a percentage.”

  “There is one more thing,” I say.

  “Deal stands as is.” All business again.

  “Aside from the deal.”

  I take a breath, then ask.

  “Okay,” he says, neither businesslike nor familiar this time. Guarded.

  “There’s something else,” I say it before I can think about why I want this to end on my side of the wall he’s put up. “I won’t be jailbait then.”

  I hear him inhale. “You’re dangerous.”

  Then he hangs up.

  I ditch the phone the next day at school.

  * * *

  A lot happens in the next few weeks.


  Langdon steps down as head of the Deliman inkatorium. I get a message from Finn that he’s gotten a paternity test as the first step in reclaiming his son. My mother gets a job offer to become the head nurse administrator at Community Hospital. She turns it down, but only after she negotiates a raise at the inkatorium with the offer as leverage. My father comes up for my 18th birthday. Frank and I go bowling.

  A few days before j-prom, my mom takes me shopping for a dress. We still don’t have money to spare but she spends almost half her paycheck on the one I fall in love with. It’s the color of toffee; short and made of some material that slides even as it hugs the body. From the front it looks elegant, a tease really because it’s backless to the dimple between booty and back. There, in its only nod to glitz, are three brilliant rhinestone buttons.

  The afternoon of the prom I let my mother pull my hair back into a high, sleek ponytail and give me a pair of earrings I’ve never seen before. “Your father gave those to me,” she says with a funny look on her face. “They’re real diamonds. They’re the only thing I wouldn’t sell during that bad stretch. They’re so tiny they probably wouldn’t have fetched much. But they’re yours now, honey.”

  I like the way they sparkle against my skin. My hair looks like a sleek mink pelt, and for the first time, I see my father in the features on my face. Not half bad.

  All right, only half good. But that’s a lot better than normal.

  She hasn’t asked about John, but she knows he’s not the person who pulls up in the limo with the hawk painted on its door.

  He’s looking pretty fine, I have to say. He’s in a dark suit instead of a tux, but it sits perfectly on his body. He’s clean-shaven now, and his hair is even closer cropped than it was when I saw him before. Hot. Edgy. Older. What else can you want for a prom date? Of course, I’ve paid for this perfection with the information I gave him, but I try not to think too much on that because it makes me feel the worst kind of skeevy.

  He gives me a cocky smile when notices me checking him out, but he’s perfectly well behaved when he steps up to meet my mother.

  He opens the door of the limo for me, then gets in the other side to sit beside me.