North Star - The Complete Series Box Set

by Tracey Ward

  You wrote me in French?!

  His reply, though short, was immediate and to the point.

  Oui.

  Ass!

  Oui.

  It’s summer! I’m not interested in doing homework.

  Learning never takes a vacation. It’s an ongoing process.

  Thanks, Yoda.

  I think you mean ‘Merci, Yoda’.

  You’re the worst.

  Oui.

  “Ugh!” I groaned, tossing my phone aside and sitting down with the letter.

  It was hopeless. I had to go get my French book out of my closet to translate it and I still made a mess of it, only gathering the gist. It wasn’t until I was halfway through that I realized I could type it into a translator online and get a perfect English copy immediately. But as I sat there with his slanted, sharp handwriting in front of me working on the puzzle of deciphering his message about school, boxing and his life in general, I didn’t want to cheat. I wanted to earn the answers the way he intended. I worried I’d miss something if I did it the easy way. I also worried he’d know and that would be the end of my letters.

  So I worked on it diligently for over an hour. It wasn’t a long letter, but it felt like a novel when I finally finished it. There was nothing profound in it. Nothing to remember years later, but it was nice to hear from him. To feel connected to him again, as though we were sitting in front of the silent TV side by side working through it together. It bridged the three month, six hour gap between us until I was smiling and feeling better than I had in weeks.

  It sounds like you’re eating a shocking amount of Lucky Charms, I texted him.

  Well I am Irish.

  Congrats on the win in your last bout.

  Do you know how amazing it is that you know it's called a bout?

  I've gone to almost every one you've had for years!

  Still though. Amazing.

  Well I am that.

  Agreed.

  My phone fell silent in my hand after that. I didn't know what else to say and he wasn't talking either. It had been nice, though. Between the letter and this quick back and forth with him. It was more than I'd had in months. When I slipped my phone into my pocket and headed for my room, I was smiling.

  I wrote Kellen a letter the next day. In French. It nearly killed me but it wasn't even a week before I got a response. We went on through the summer like that, mailing each other back and forth. Laney found a letter once, one telling me he'd gone on a date with a girl but that it'd been a disaster because she was too much like Laney. She saw her name and freaked out, asking what he'd said about her. I told her he said he missed us all, even her. Yeah, I lied to my sister ‘cause I just didn't need the drama from her right then. I was going through dating woes of my own.

  "Devon's been banging Trisha. Like on the regular," Sam told me one night on the phone.

  I stared at the ceiling trying not to care, but part of me did. I still liked him. He was a nice guy and what happened with us, before my sister and Kellen burst in, had been incredible. It was something I would have liked a repeat performance of, maybe even something a little more X rated, but that show had pulled up stakes and moved on. Apparently now it was the Trisha Show five days a friggin' week.

  "Lucky her," I muttered.

  "You still like him, huh?"

  "He's a good guy. And he was funny. I don't know. Yeah, I guess I still like him."

  "Maybe tell Kellen not to try to murder anymore of your boyfriends."

  "He wasn't my boyfriend and he didn't try to murder him. It doesn't matter. I'm going to die alone."

  "Probably."

  "Thanks."

  "I'll be right there with you."

  "What happened to Mark? I thought that was getting somewhere."

  "Eh. He's a little too surfer boy mainstream for me."

  "Newsflash, Sam. This is SoCal. The majority of them are going to be mainstream surfer boys. Devon is."

  "Kellen isn't. Maybe I need to go slumming."

  I bristled. "Don't say shit like that about him."

  "Whoa, sorry. I didn't mean anything by it. I just mean your boy’s got edge. He has a little bite to him."

  "He's not my boy and he's not edgy. He's just... him."

  "Okay. But I mean it. Maybe I need to go looking outside our area code."

  "Probably not a bad idea."

  "Want to take a drive this weekend? Get out of town for a day, see what we see? Or who we can meet?"

  I started thinking about a tattoo parlor I'd heard of that was about two hours north of Palos Verdes. It had a great rep, beautiful artwork coming out of it and I'd heard through the grapevine that if you got the right person on the right day with the right amount of money in your pocket, you could get a little ink even if you weren't eighteen. I was almost a year away from being legal and I was itching to get my first tat. And I already knew exactly what I was going to get.

  "Yeah, let's do it," I told her. "There's a shop in Bakersfield I want to check out. The edgy kind, you'll love it."

  "Perfect! I'm working in the stacks in mom's office all this week but Saturday we'll go?"

  "Saturday."

  ***

  On Saturday, despite a two hour drive singing at the top of our lungs to Journey and other classic karaoke hits, Sam was slightly less excited than she had been on the phone.

  "Jen, this is not what I expected."

  I looked up and down the street at the empty For Lease, For Rent, For Free burn it down kind of buildings and I knew what she meant. This tattoo parlor was in the thick of it and by 'it' I meant ghetto. I didn't feel good about standing on the street surrounded by liquor stores and shops with bars on the windows and I sure as shit didn't feel good about having someone inside stick a needle in me. But if I'd learned one thing from my dad and Kellen, it was that you couldn't judge a book by its cover or its zip code. Diamonds in the rough were out there, I knew that first hand, and if you didn't take chances, you'd never find them.

  So with a deep breath, I reached for the grimy doorknob, pulled it hard and took a chance.

  I would forever be grateful I did.

  The inside of the shop was completely at odds with the outside. It was well lit and sparkling clean. Sterile even, exactly what you wanted from a tattoo shop. There were large, round industrial lights hanging from the exposed beams in the ceiling that immediately reminded me of Kellen’s gym. In the waiting area up front were black leather couches and deep chairs peppered over the gray cement floors. There was a tall reception desk with a weathered wood counter. The walls were painted a bright red but nearly every inch of them from floor to ceiling was covered with sketches. Tattoos that had been done or were waiting to be chosen. I was drawn to them immediately, my mouth and eyes going wide with amazement. They were incredible. So vibrant, every one of them different from the others.

  I was in heaven and I wanted to live there forever.

  “Can I help you?”

  I spun around to find a guy in probably his thirties, tall with a tight, uniform haircut, moderate spacers in his ears and tattoos running over just about every inch of his skin. Only his face and head seemed untouched. My mom would have been terrified of him, clutching her purse and crossing the street to pass him by. I wanted to strip him naked to get a look at every inch of his skin.

  “Hi,” I said awkwardly. I realized I had just been picturing a stranger naked. It wasn’t sexual, but now that I thought about it that way, it kind of was. Older or no, his tattoos were hot. I offered him my hand. “I’m Jenna.”

  He shook my hand as he looked me up and down. I was wearing my usual – tattered jeans and a T-shirt. My long hair was down and straight, the makeup around my eyes darker than my mom liked and a plain pair of flip flops on my feet. I had my simple, bulky canvas messenger bag slung across my body. Inside was my most recent sketch pad, one I’d been working on tattoo designs in. One that now felt silly and childish as I looked around at the hundreds on hundreds of professional sketches
on the walls.

  “What can I do for you, Jenna?” he asked politely, but his eyes were wary. He knew I wasn’t eighteen.

  “I was looking to get some work done.”

  “How old are you?”

  I took a quick breath. “How much does it cost?”

  “Depends on the size of the tattoo and also your age. How old are you?”

  “I can pay the fee… and then some.”

  He eyed me again, his face impassive. When he spoke, his voice was annoyed. “Where are you from?”

  “Stockton.”

  He snorted in disbelief. “Where are you from?”

  “Does it matter?”

  “You drove up in a Lexus SUV and you’re what? Sixteen?”

  “Eighteen.”

  “Sure. But I’m thinking you’re not from Bakersfield or Stockton. You’re from where? Laguna Beach?”

  I sighed. “Rancho Palos Verdes.”

  “That’s what I thought. You rich kids come in here throwing your money around to get some tribal arm band to prove you’re badass but the entire time you’re here you’re worried your rims are getting stolen off your car.”

  I raised my eyebrows. “Should I be worried about that?”

  “Probably. But if you’re so worried about it, don’t come here. It’s not a tourist spot. We’re not here so you can take a picture of yourselves outside and post it on your Facebook to prove how brave you are that you went all the way to ghetto to get some ink that will piss off daddy.”

  “I’m not a tourist,” I insisted, getting angry. “I’m serious about getting a tattoo.”

  “Then come back on your eighteenth birthday and bring your whole entourage of giggling girlfriends.”

  I pointed to Sam standing behind me. “You’re looking at my entourage.”

  “’Sup,” Sam said, waving to the guy.

  He gave her the same once over he gave me then swung his eyes back to mine.

  “You’re still not old enough.”

  “Fine. I’ll come back in a few months when I am. But that’s not the only reason I’m here.”

  “Really?”

  “Really,” I snapped. My heart was flying in my chest. I was about to say it out loud. I was about to breathe life to a truth that had only been real in my own mind and on the pages of my sketchbook. “I want to know what I have to do to become a tattoo artist.”

  “What?!” Sam cried, shocked.

  The guy looked surprised as well, but he hid it better.

  “You shittin’ me?”

  I pulled out my sketch pad, opened it to a random page and slapped it down on the counter in front of him.

  “Dead serious.”

  He glanced down at the page in front of him and hesitated. Slowly he turned it to the next. Then the next.

  “You did all these?” he asked, still flipping through the book.

  “Yeah. I’ve been practicing.”

  “It shows. They’re rough.”

  “I know.”

  “Some of it’s not bad, though,” he muttered. “Are you taking art classes?”

  “As many as I can.”

  He glanced up, a smirk on his face. “As many as your high school will let you?”

  “I’m seventeen. I’m going to be a senior this year,” I admitted, though we all already knew. “I’m going to take more art classes in college.”

  “So you do plan on going to college?”

  “To study art, yeah. Like you said, I’m rough. I need to get better.”

  He nodded, his eyes and hands going back to my sketchbook. “That’s good. You’ve got talent, that’s for sure, but you’re right. You need to work on it.” Suddenly the book was slapped closed. He pushed it back toward me. “So what do you want from me exactly?”

  “A job.”

  “An apprenticeship? Cause I don’t think—“

  “No, a job. I’ll run the register, clean bathrooms, mop the floor. Whatever it takes to be here and watch. To learn.”

  “See, now that sounds like an apprenticeship.”

  “Do you charge for one?” I asked, glad I’d done my homework on this already. “’Cause I have money.”

  “I believe that. But no, not usually. I also rarely give them.”

  “Then give me a job instead. Maybe in a year you’ll change your mind.”

  “Maybe after a year of cleaning toilets you’ll change your mind,” he challenged, stepping back and crossing his arms over his chest.

  I shook my head firmly, my eyes hard on his. “Not gonna happen. This is what I want. This is what I’m going to do.”

  He watched me for a long time, his face unreadable. I was sweating all over. My heart was racing with nerves and adrenaline. I was feeling the kind of rush you only get when you’re doing something huge. Something life altering and potentially soul crushing. I wanted this. More than I’d ever wanted anything.

  “Palos Verdes, huh?” he asked.

  I blinked, surprised we were still on this. “Yeah.”

  “That’s a long commute. What are you thinking? Three days a week? Weekends for sure.”

  I could hardly breathe. “I can do that.”

  “Yeah, we’ll see how long you last.” He nodded toward my sketchbook still sitting on the counter between us. “Which one is yours?”

  “My what?”

  “Your tattoo. The one you want the most. There’s a favorite in there, I know it. If you’re as serious about this as you say, you’ve been thinking about your first ink for a long time. Which one is it?”

  I quickly opened the pad and easily flipped it to the page with my favorite sketch. I shoved the book back toward him.

  “A compass rose,” he said, the surprise plain in his voice. “How big and where?”

  “No bigger than my palm and right here,” I said, putting my hand over my heart.

  “On your chest?” he asked, sounding surprised again. “Okay. I was expecting your wrist or your back. Between your shoulder blades?”

  “No, over my heart,” I insisted.

  He nodded appreciatively. “It has some meaning for you?” I nodded as well. “Good. Then that’s exactly where it should go. That’s what matters about tattoos. It’s not what’s in style and what you think you should get or where you think you should put it. Every time you get inked it should have meaning for you. This shit is forever and you’re the one who has to look at it every single day. You have to really want it and you have to love it. Every last one of them. You got it?”

  “I got it.”

  “You still want it?”

  I felt my pulse fly. “I absolutely want it.”

  He motioned for me to follow him. “Then get your ass in my chair.”

  What followed was three hours of education. He didn’t put the tattoo on me in ink in my skin. He drew it in place with a fine point Sharpy to give me an idea of what it would look like. He also went over my sketch with me, the one I thought I had perfected after the last two years of tinkering. Turns out my drawings did show promise but they had to be adapted for tattooing. What looked good on paper didn’t always work in ink. You had to account for line thickness, shading, color choices changed everything – the list went on and on. Bryce, the tattoo artist who worked with me that day, went over it all with me. We reworked my sketch until it was right for tattooing and more beautiful than I ever imagined it could be. It was simple in all black, nothing ornate but it was intricate. He made that symmetrical, basic symbol into something elaborate. But it was still small and elegant. And most importantly, it meant something to me. It was everything Kellen had shown me I could be.

  Sure. Decisive. Intent.

  It would remind me to follow my heart. To find my True North and never waver. Never falter.

  It reminded me that my life was mine.

  Chapter Eleven

  I spun around the kitchen on my toes, pulling from the years of ballet my mom had insisted on as a kid. I was good, right up until I was too big. Scrawny as I had been I’d
eventually gotten too tall. I towered over the other girls until it got weird and I hated it too much to enjoy it anymore. But it’d been fun while it lasted.

  Now I used my latent skills to rock my ass off around the kitchen to Sublime’s greatest hits. I had the Bose system, the one my mom liked to listen to jazz music on while she cooked, cranked up ear splittingly loud as I baked cookies. Peanut butter crisscross. Because they’re delicious.

  I couldn’t hear anything else in the world. Not the ocean outside or the beat of my heart or the doorbell being rung. I definitely didn’t hear anyone come in so when I spun around again, a spatula raised high above my head in perfect pirouette form, and I saw a big blurred figure standing in the doorway to the kitchen, I instantly thought I was going to die.

  I stopped my spin, faced the intruder and chucked the spatula at him as hard as I could. He ducked quickly and shouted something. I pushed my wild hair out of my face in time to see him stand back up and take a step into the kitchen. I was looking for a new weapon when I recognized who it was.

  “Dammit, Kellen!” I yelled. “What the hell?!”

  He bent down to pick up the spatula. “That’s what I was thinking! Why are you throwing things at me?!”

  “Because you scared the shit out of me!”

  He scowled, looking around the kitchen for the hidden speakers. “Can we turn this down?!”

  I grabbed the remote and quickly knocked the volume down to half. The world seemed strangely quiet all of the sudden.

  He surveyed the trashed kitchen. “What are you doing?”

  “Rotating my tires,” I said sarcastically, still annoyed at having been scared. “What does it look like?”

  “It looks like your mom is going to be angry.”

  “She’s not home.”

  “Where is she?”

  I gestured for him to hand me the spatula. He eyed me dubiously.

  “If I give you this, is it going to end up in my back?”

  “Don’t turn your back on me and you won’t have to worry about it.”

  He handed it over.

  “She’s on a trip with dad,” I told him as I rinsed off the utensil in the sink. “They took a cruise to the Mediterranean. Dad had a really ugly case recently and he needed a break and mom wasn’t about to miss a couple weeks on a cruise ship.”