by Mark Carver
It was stupid, but he felt like a bad friend.
He put the phone down, exhaling slowly and pressing his fingers against his eyeballs. He wasn’t going to do this. He had seen too many friends get all wrapped up in the “maybes” and “what ifs” of a relationship. It usually never worked out anyway, and all they were left with was a patchwork of good and bad memories.
His gaze drifted across the paper and he gasped. He stared at the drawing for several seconds with wide eyes, holding his breath, as if the paper might blow away with the slightest gust.
It was a sword, but more than a sword. It was ferocious, delicate, terrifying... He didn’t know how to describe it.
One word popped into his head, a word that Chucky would certainly endorse: awesome.
Cameron’s heart was pounding. This was it, this was what he loved most in this world. The tattoos, the fans, the promises of wealth and fame...that was all just wrapping paper and pretty bows. Designing and creating handmade fantasy weapons that rocked was the real satisfaction in his life. He wasn’t going to be like the countless clowns that came before him who had the barest ghost of a good idea and tricked the masses into thinking they were hot stuff because of slick marketing campaigns and smooth-talking publicists.
His spirit burned as he stared at that simple yet monumental sketch.
Power and fame and riches were going to be his. But not because of his tattoo, or because Robyn knows the right people, or because the fans thought he was a cool guy.
His lips curled into a hungry smile.
He was going to have it all because he was awesome.
****
The phone buzzed on the nightstand, yanking him out of his warm slumber and throwing him into a freezing pool of reality. He fumbled with the phone and pressed it to his ear, speaking the first name that popped into his mind.
“Mindy?”
There was a pause, and Cameron’s sleepy haze immediately dissipated. Why did he say that? What if it was her?
The voice on the other end spoke.
“Mindy? Who is Mindy? It’s your mother, Cameron.”
Cameron’s stomach sank like a stone. He bolted upright in the bed, his fingers squeezing the phone like it was covered in oil and could slip out of his grip any moment.
The day had come. It was time to face the music.
“Hi Mom. I was going to – "
“What did you do to your face?”
Cameron winced and held the phone away from his ear. His mother’s piercing shriek rattled his brain for a moment, and he took a deep breath to give him time to compose himself and come up with the right words.
“How did you find out?” he asked cautiously.
“Greta Markowitz’s son showed her a picture online. She printed it out and gave it to me. Cameron, what is wrong with you?”
“Mom, listen, let me – "
“There’s nothing to explain! You go and scar your face for life and you don’t even tell me! Greta’s son told her that the picture was almost two weeks old. Two weeks! My son is walking around with a different face and he doesn’t even tell his own mother! The mother who gave him his beautiful face to begin with! I can’t – "
“Mom!”
There was silence on the other end. Cameron’s eyes blazed and he stared at the phone like a bull about to charge. He spoke in a slow, measured voice, commanding the anger flaring in his heart to stay below the surface.
“I know this is a big surprise, but I am an adult, and I have been for a long time. I made this decision with a clear head and I don’t regret it. It doesn’t mean that I didn’t like my face before, and I’m not trying to shock or scare anyone. It’s just something that I wanted to do and I did it. I know I should have called you sooner, but I was afraid of your reaction, and it seems that I had good reason. I’m still Cameron, Mom. Nothing important has changed. I’m still the same person.”
“Nothing important?” his mother cried. “You have a different face! How can I show my friends your picture now? They’ll think you’re a killer or insane! And what about Christmas? Oh mercy, what will the relatives say? Maybe they already know! Nothing stays a secret on the computer anymore. Oh mercy, oh mercy...”
She sounded like she was hyperventilating. Cameron felt a little guilty about his outburst, and he took a more sympathetic tone.
“Mom, please calm down. I didn’t want to cause any stress for you, but you have to believe me that it’s not as crazy as it looks. It’s just a tattoo, Mom. You always told me not to judge a book by its cover, and it’s what’s inside that counts, right?”
“That’s a load of malarkey! Of course appearances matter. Why do you think we haven’t elected a president with a beard for almost one hundred years? Why do people who look like you have a hard time finding jobs?”
“That’s not an issue for me, Mom. Actually, it looks like I’ll be getting even more – "
“That’s not the point, Cameron! When you got those tattoos on your arms, I bit my tongue, even though I didn’t approve. But this...this is going too far.”
Cameron gritted his teeth as he felt the anger begin to boil again.
“Well it’s too late, Mom. I’ve made my decision and we’re both going to have to live with it.”
There was silence again, and Cameron thought he might have heard a quiet sob. Finally his mother spoke with a wilted, pleading voice.
“Oh my son, how could you do this to your mother? Don’t you care about how I feel? Don’t you care about how this makes me look, how it makes our family look?”
Cameron looked up at the ceiling in exasperation. He knew this was only going to collapse even further.
“Look, I’m sorry Mom, but I’ve got a lot of work to do today. We’ll talk more about this another time, but now I’ve got to go.”
“Cameron...”
“It’s nice to hear from you, Mom. I’ll talk to you later.”
He hung up the phone and tossed it on the bed. Frustration clenched his chest, and he was as mad at himself as he was at her.
What did you expect? That your Catholic mother was going to give you a “thumbs up” for stepping outside the norm?
Cameron rubbed his eyes, which still felt puffy from sleep. He knew he was foolish to hope that she would have reacted with anything less than shock and sorrow.
Still, he was glad that she knew. He had been dreading this moment, but it was nice that it was all out in the open now. Secrets were much harder to bear than a cruel truth.
The phone buzzed again, and Cameron grabbed it with a scowl.
“Listen Mom, I really – "
“Mom?”
Cameron jerked his head back and looked at the phone. He saw Robyn’s number.
“Oh, huh, sorry,” he sputtered. He felt an embarrassed blush creep over his face, and he was glad she couldn’t see him.
“Trouble with family?” Robyn asked, a hint of amusement lacing her voice.
“Um, yeah, a little,” Cameron said as he scratched the back of his head. “Just got off the phone with my mother. She wasn’t too thrilled with my recent...aesthetic alterations.”
Robyn laughed. “Can’t say I blame her. She gave you that face in the first place.”
Yeah, she just reminded me. “So what’s up?”
There was the sound of rustling papers.
“Do you know of Inkling Magazine?”
“Yeah.”
“I talk to someone who knows someone over there, and they’re interested in doing a feature on you.”
Cameron’s eyes widened. “You mean, like a cover story?”
“Mm-hmm. Interested?”
“Definitely!”
Inkling Magazine. Shane Calhoun would be green with envy. Inkling’s circulation was much larger than BladeSmith, and they did creative, vibrant photo spreads.
Cameron smiled wickedly. The sourness in his heart from the fight with his mother dissolved away, replaced by the feeling a skydiver gets when they perch on the edge of the
airplane door, about to launch themselves into adrenaline-fueled ecstasy. This was it...this was the beginning of a new dawn.
“Definitely,” he repeated, his voice urgent and serious. “I’m ready when they are.”
He could hear the smile in Robyn’s voice. “Wonderful. I’ll get back to you at the end of the day with more information.”
“Great.” After a moment, he added, “Thanks Robyn. You’ve already done a lot for me.”
“Oh sweetheart, it’s just a job.”
“Well, you’re very good at your job.”
She laughed warmly. “You haven’t seen anything yet. Take care, hon.”
Cameron hung up the phone. His eyes aimlessly scanned the room and came to rest on the travel poster at the foot of his bed. He studied the immaculate beach, the delicious sunshine drizzling through the palms, the mouth-watering curves of the caramel-colored beauty walking across the sand.
He inhaled a deep, strong breath through his nose.
He wasn’t going to waste time dreaming and hoping. He was going to make it happen.
No matter what.
CHAPTER 13
Cameron knew it was going to be a good day when he heard Guns N’ Roses on the supermarket PA system. He couldn’t ever remember hearing a hard rock song played there, but it was a pleasant surprise and a nice start to the day.
He turned and saw a small child staring at him with a blank expression. Not with wide eyes like the Indian kid a couple weeks ago. This little girl regarded him as a squirrel might observe a couple of old men playing chess in the park.
Her parents were nowhere in sight. Cameron wrinkled his brow.
“You okay, kid?”
The little girl cocked her head slightly with a thoughtful gleam in her eyes.
“Are you a pirate?” she asked.
Cameron tried in vain to suppress his smile.
“No, kid, I’m not a pirate.”
“You look like a pirate.”
“Well how do you know? Have you seen any real pirates?”
The girl looked at her pink shoes. “No,” she said in a quiet voice. “Just in the movies.”
“Well there you go,” Cameron answered, feeling like he had just won an important debate. “You can’t believe what you see in the movies. Real pirates wear suits and ties and drive nice cars.”
The girl blinked. “My daddy wears a suit and tie.”
Cameron couldn’t resist. He leaned forward and spoke in a low, secretive tone. “Well then maybe your daddy’s a pirate.”
The little girl’s eyes grew wide and she took a step back.
“Nuh-uh,” she murmured, shaking her head in defiance. “My daddy’s not a pirate.”
“If you say so,” Cameron said with a shrug and he turned his attention back to the song as he browsed the produce section.
As he examined a cluster of grapes, he felt a firm tap on his shoulder and an irritated voice say, “Hey pal, my daughter says you called her father a pirate. Is that tr…”
The man’s words evaporated as Cameron turned around and glared at him like a wolf. His eyes grew wide just as his daughter’s had and he swallowed nervously.
“Come again?” Cameron asked in a voice meant to channel Clint Eastwood.
The man glanced down at his daughter by his side, then looked up at Cameron’s tattooed snarl.
“Nothing, nothing,” he stammered as he grabbed the girl’s hand and backed away. “Sorry to bother you.”
The pair hurried off to the other end of the store.
Cameron smirked as he scooped up his shopping basket. He felt like his skin was glowing. That was the barbarian coming out. As he headed towards the checkout counter, he thought that he would never have dreamed of staring someone down before today. He felt a warm sense of satisfaction. This was what he had wanted – a true transformation. It wasn’t just on his skin anymore.
It was inside.
When he pulled up to his house, he was startled to see Mindy’s car in the driveway. He was even more startled when he noticed her peek her head out the door as he drove into the driveway. She closed the door behind her and walked across her lawn, stepping carefully over the tulips.
“Hey,” she said. A little cautiously, Cameron thought.
“Hey,” he answered as he grabbed the grocery bags from the back seat. “Where’ve you been?”
Mindy licked her lips and her eyes fell away. “I…I went back Tennessee for a while. There was some stuff that I needed to deal with.”
Her eyes sparkled sadly as she looked at him, and Cameron knew that she wanted to tell him more but was afraid to continue without his approval. And that made him annoyed.
“Oh,” he said simply. “Did you get everything taken care of?”
Mindy squinted at him, a little disappointed with his terse attitude.
“Kind of,” she said in a small voice. She glanced around for a moment, then flicked her hair out of her eyes and put her hands on her hips.
“You want to have a cookout this weekend?” she asked, trying to be nonchalant but there was still an echo of hurt in her voice. “It’d be nice to talk with a friend, and you’re the closest one I have around here.”
Cameron looked at her for a moment, sensing the plea in her eyes. Something tightened inside him; he didn’t like it when people opened up to him, and he knew something was going on with her. He was curious about her absence, but he was afraid to open that door, and he didn’t know how far she would come in. He wasn’t ready for this kind of emotional commitment…he didn’t know if he was ready for anything.
And then there was Robyn. He didn’t know what that was about, but he knew Mindy wouldn’t be happy if she found out. Not that he would ever, ever tell her.
But the way she was looking at him now, trying to appear strong but looking so vulnerable… His shoulders slumped, and he spoke with obvious reluctance.
“Yeah, sure. Whenever.”
Mindy didn’t seem to notice his lack of enthusiasm, and her grateful smile was so dazzling that he immediately felt remorse for being so selfish.
“Thanks Cameron,” she said as her whole body relaxed. “I don’t want to put you on the spot or anything. I just…it would be really nice to talk to someone I trust.”
Cameron was quiet for a moment. “You really think I’m your closest friend?”
“Well, yeah. I left all my friends back home when I came out here, and to tell you the truth, I’d been drifting away from them for years now. A lot of girls don’t know how to act around guys, but I feel like I don’t have to worry about what you think of me. Maybe it’s because you don’t worry about what others think of you.”
Cameron tried to return her smile, but he could only think about how wrong she was.
“So…maybe this weekend?” she asked.
“Sure, maybe,” he said with a shrug.
“Great.” She took a deep breath. “So how’ve you been? Do people clear a path when you walk down the street?”
Cameron’s thoughts flickered back to the confrontation in the supermarket, and he smiled to himself.
“Nah, nothing like that,” he said, “just been busy with work. I’ve been looking into how to ‘maximize my brand’ as you put it and I’ve made some promising connections.”
Connections, huh? So that’s what you and Robyn were doing at the Bennington? “Connecting?”
“Hey, those weren’t my words,” Mindy pointed out. “That’s what the power-tie crowd calls it.”
“Well, it certainly helps to have a distinct appearance. People are showing a lot more interest in me recently, and my designs have gotten a bit of a boost as well.”
“That’s great! I’m proud of you, Cameron. I’ll be honest with you – I was a little freaked out when I first saw you with that tattoo on your face. But I realized that it doesn’t change who you are inside. It’s just like wearing a different colored shirt. The important thing is what we look like without our shirts.”
Cameron blinke
d.
“That’s…very true.”
He realized that he was still holding his grocery bags, and his arms were getting tired. “I should probably put these things away,” he said, hoisting the bags to prove their heaviness.
“Okay,” Mindy said. “I’ll let you get to it.”
Cameron nodded and turned to go.
“Cameron?”
He stopped and looked back at her.
There was the faintest glimmer in her eyes, like tears threatening to spill over. “I’m not a bad person, right?”
Cameron frowned. “What?”
Mindy smiled quickly. “Nothing. Sometimes I’m too girly. Go inside and get your food put away.”
She waved her hand impatiently, though Cameron could clearly see that she was frustrated with herself. As she turned her face away from him, he wondered if he should ask her if something was wrong. It would be a stupid question because the answer was obviously “yes.”
A callous fist closed over his heart again, and he turned and walked up to his front door. He didn’t look back to see if Mindy was still standing in the driveway or if she had gone to her own house. As he opened the door and dropped his keys in the bronze lobotomized skull, he exhaled with annoyance. Why did women have to be so…so…
He didn’t even know how to finish his thought, but he knew what he felt. This wasn’t good, but at the same time, he saw that she was clearly distraught and she had turned to him for help. She had even called him her closest friend. Whether her feelings were misguided or not was beside the point; she felt that Cameron was the only person she could turn to.
Affection like that shouldn’t be thrown aside.
Cameron hauled the bags to the kitchen and began unpacking the groceries. Women always complicated things. His mother was probably expunging his name from her will at that very moment, Robyn was probably putting a smile on someone’s face, and Mindy was probably thanking God that she had a male friend she could confide in.
Life is much simpler when you’re a dude, he thought as he moved some boxes of pasta aside to make room for the beer.
Unless you’re a dude with a huge tattoo on your face. And you purposefully hire one of these life-complicating women to help you become more visible in the public eye.
