by Tim Floreen
Just that morning I’d finished watching the footage Franklin had sent me and setting down everything that had happened in a blank sketchbook. If I’d hoped all that writing might magically erase the story from my head, it didn’t. The memory of Franklin, and of those days, would be like a capsule embedded in my skull and changing the way my neurons fired for the rest of my life.
But at least now I knew what I needed to do with my confession.
I set the sketchbook outside Mom’s bedroom door, knocked, and walked away. The whole week we’d barely talked. She’d spent about as much time in her bedroom as I had in mine. I heard her open the door and pick up what I’d left there, and a couple hours later she came down the hall and returned my knock. When I opened, I had a big speech ready about how even though I knew it wouldn’t be easy for either of us, and even though it was a complicated story, and even though I understood the world didn’t do well with complicated stories, making this public was the right thing to do.
But before I could say any of that, she just pressed the sketchbook into my hands and said, “Go ahead, Rem.”
“So what happened?” Lydia asked now, puffing on a fresh cigarette.
“Don’t worry,” I answered. “You’ll hear about it soon enough.”
A cold wind kicked up, stirring some of the freshly fallen snow. One of the gazebo beams groaned as it resettled.
“This cold’s making my shoulder ache,” I said. “I should probably go inside.”
“Of course.” She put the cigarette out, picked up a couple other butts she’d lined up on the bench next to her, and stepped down from the porch. Before she left, she paused to hunt around in a snowdrift. I couldn’t tell why at first. “We’re moving away too,” she told me while she searched. “My dad’s had enough of Boreal Street. I tried telling him what happened here could’ve happened anywhere, but he’s made up his mind.”
I was pretty sure my mom would’ve liked to leave as well, but I also knew we probably weren’t going anywhere. After returning my confession that morning, Mom had a long phone conversation with her lawyer to find out just how much we’d lose for doing the right thing. It didn’t look like she’d face any actual prison time, but when the shit hit the fan and everything went public, she’d for sure lose her position, her lab, her reputation. Things would get hard, money would be tight, and we wouldn’t get much if we tried to sell our place on cursed Boreal Street.
Lydia picked something out of the snow and held it up: the cigarette she’d lobbed. She added it to the others and started to go.
“Wait, Lydia,” I said. “You don’t have to do this, you know.”
She stopped. The smile dropped off her face. Her freckly cheeks turned pink. “Do what?”
“I went behind your back with Tor. I lied to you. You don’t have to act like everything’s okay. You don’t have to be nice. That’s what I always did with Tor, and it wasn’t a good thing. You can tell me how you feel. I want you to tell me how you feel. I think sometimes you have to let yourself be angry a little before you can really forgive someone.”
She pulled her ponytail over her shoulder and eyed me cautiously while she twisted it in her hands. “Okay, then. I’m P-Oed at you, I guess. Really effing P-Oed.”
At least it was a start. And I needed the practice too. I’d have a lot more people angry at me once the whole story came out. Especially the part about me letting Franklin leave my house so he could go kill Callie. No one would be calling me Mr. Nice Guy anymore.
“I’ll miss you, though, Rem,” Lydia said. “I’ll miss all of us.”
She disappeared around the corner of the house. I got up and moved to go inside, but then I caught a glimpse of something and stopped. In the darkness at the back of the yard, behind the wrecked gazebo, I’d seen a flash of traffic-cone orange. My breath caught. My chest tightened. I ran to the far end of the porch to get a better look.
A fox stood peering back at me, its eyes glinting in the porch lights, as if it wanted to let me know it wouldn’t be leaving Boreal Street either. For some reason it made me feel better to think those dangerous, beautiful creatures would still be there, hidden in the trees. In the distance Mrs. Kettle’s wind chimes sounded. The fox padded back into the woods.
I went into the house with my Tattoo Atlas. Mom had holed herself up in her bedroom again, so I limped straight to mine. It took me about five minutes to take off my coat without causing myself excruciating pain. I pulled off my sweatshirt as well and probed the clean white bandage covering my chest. Then, in front of the mirror on the wall, I unstuck the medical tape and carefully lifted the bandage away.
Underneath, the skin was still pinkish and shiny with ointment, but you could see the image there clearly enough: my first tattoo. I had a feeling I’d get more down the road—for Callie, for Pete, for Ethan—but this had seemed like the right place to start.
At the top a pair of my imps held a banner with FRANKLIN printed on it. Below that stood two stylized laboratory mice, but with huge human heads, locked together in an embrace. One had a shaved skull and a twisty nose and glasses. One had a blue smudge of paint on his cheek. They faced each other, just like in that optical illusion where you look at it one way and it’s a vase, and you look at it another way and it’s two profiles. Except you could tell these two were moving closer together, so pretty soon they’d meet right at the spot in the center of my chest where that Philip Glass song always tugged at me. Pretty soon there wouldn’t be a vase at all, just two profiles locked together in a kiss.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
In the acknowledgments of my first book, I described how I got a two-book deal and found out my partner and I were pregnant with twins in the very same month. That good news jackpot came with a terrifying realization: I was going to have to write a second book at the same time my partner and I were preparing for, and then taking care of, two newborn girls.
I was right to be scared. For me, 2015 involved lots and lots of running back and forth between my laptop and the changing table. Fortunately, I had plenty of help with the babies, and I know Tattoo Atlas wouldn’t have gotten finished without it. So to Rosa Willis, Jessica Sorenson, and my partner Duncan Kerr, I owe a huge thank-you for making it possible for me to write.
As for Tattoo Atlas itself, it wouldn’t be the book it is now without the input of beta readers Cat Vasko, Meghan Thornton, Tamim Ansary, and especially Kevin Wofsy, who commented on multiple drafts and knew just how to articulate his feedback in a clear and kind way.
And then there’s my editor, Michael Strother. Michael, your positivity, your always calm and friendly demeanor, and your generosity with your time (and your exclamation points) made working with you once again a joy. You gave me the freedom to explore in my writing while still knowing when to rein me in. I loved every minute of my time with you. And big, big thanks to the wonderful Liesa Abrams and Sarah McCabe for their editorial work too.
Thank you to everyone else at Simon & Schuster who helped get this book on shelves: Mara Anastas and Mary Marotta in publishing, whose warmth always makes me happy; Lucille Rettino, Carolyn Swerdloff, Catherine Hayden, and Tara Grieco in marketing; Jennifer Romanello and Jodie Hockensmith in publicity; Michelle Leo and her ed/library marketing team; Christina Pecorale and the rest of the sales team; managing editor Katherine Devendorf; production editor Amanda Veloso; and cover designer Regina Flath, who took Tattoo Atlas’s cover in a direction I never would’ve expected but immediately knew was exactly right.
Lots and lots of gratitude go to my agent, Tracey Adams. Tracey, I adore and value you more with every passing year. I still can’t believe my luck in having you as my agent. I also remain enormously grateful to Quinlan Lee for landing this book deal for me in the first place. And Josh Adams and Samantha Bagood, thanks for helping to make Adams Literary the warm, welcoming literary family it is.
Speaking of warm, welcoming literary families, I’d like to say a special thank-you to Amie Kaufman for taking me under her wing, championin
g my writing, and showing me how to be a writer while staying sane. And thanks to all the other writers who went out of their way to make a scared new writer feel welcome in the young-adult fiction world, including (but not limited to) Shaun David Hutchinson, Kristin Elizabeth Clark, Jim Averbeck, Jay Kristoff, Cindy Pon, Heather Petty, Suzanne Young, Delilah S. Dawson, and Margaret Peterson Haddix. Writing is a lonely pursuit, and it’s wonderful to feel like I’m at long last becoming part of a community of writers.
Most of all, though, I’m thankful for my family—and especially little Lucy and Ada, who were the best excuses for a writing break ever.
TIM FLOREEN lives in San Francisco with his partner, their two young cat-obsessed daughters, and their two very patient cats. In a starred review, Kirkus called his first novel, Willful Machines, “gothic, gadgety, and gay,” which is an accurate assessment. You can find out more about Tim and his secret infatuation with Wonder Woman on the Internet at timfloreen.com and on Twitter at @timfloreen.
ALSO BY TIM FLOREEN
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ALSO BY TIM FLOREEN
Willful Machines
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
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First Simon Pulse hardcover edition October 2016
Text copyright © 2016 by Tim Floreen
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Jacket photo-illustration by Regina Flath copyright © 2016 by Simon & Schuster, Inc.
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Jacket designed by Regina Flath
Interior designed by Mike Rosamilia
The text of this book was set in Minion Pro.
This book has been cataloged with the Library of Congress.
ISBN 978-1-4814-3280-1 (hc)
ISBN 978-1-4814-3282-5 (eBook)
