Say it Louder Read Online Free PDF Page A

It trembles. “Shit.”
    “Exactly.” I turn to Nancy. This is her third tattoo, and her bravest so far. “I know this is a really personal tattoo, but I still thought it would be worth asking if Dave could sit in. Maybe you could tell him about Ivy?”
    Nancy looks at him, back to me, and shrugs. “Why not? The last time a guy looked at my breasts, I was Willa’s age.” She laughs—a warm, embracing sound like she doesn’t have a care in the world.
    That’s a total lie, though. She’s in her late forties or early fifties, and when I first met her she walked in my shop straight from her partner’s funeral. I tattooed a pink ribbon on her inner wrist, and she cried and told me about her life with Ivy.
    Now, as I prepare Nancy for her third mark, she hoists a pant leg to show Dave her second tattoo: a winding wreath of flowers and ivy leaves. Each flower was in the garden she and Ivy grew, Nancy explains as I prepare the transfer paper for today’s design. Each flower symbolizes one of their eleven years together.
    Dave listens and nods, asking a few gentle questions. Nancy’s eyes glisten with tears but they don’t fall.
    “Time to get naked,” I say with a grin, and Dave’s eyes bug out. I tip my head toward him and ask Nancy, “You want me to tell the pain in my ass to get lost?”
    Nancy shakes her head. “He can stay. We’re good.”
    She removes her shirt and bra, and I drape her left breast with a sterile sheet. A curved pink scar arcs across her chest where her right breast used to be.
    “If Ivy hadn’t forced me to get a mammogram before she passed, I would have never known about the lump,” Nancy tells Dave. “She saved my life even though it cost her hers.”
    I place the transfer paper over Nancy’s scar, an original design of curling ivy and birds that I created for her. I give Nancy a hand mirror and we fiddle with the angle of the design before she tells me it’s just right.
    I’m ready to begin and I look up at Dave. He still looks rough, but I think Nancy got through to him the way I’d hoped: the pity party is officially over.
    “You staying?” My question is a challenge.
    “I’m here for as long as you’ll have me.”

    ***

    Four hours and two clients later, Dave’s still hanging around my shop. I’m spent—physically, tattooing is hard work because it requires such concentrated focus and physical precision.
    I stand and stretch, feeling a cord in my neck pull down past my shoulder blades. I’m too tight, but I’ll work it out in the shower unless the hot water’s off again.
    At my apartment, there’s a good chance of that. That’s not too bad in the summer, but it sucks balls in the winter.
    “Go home, Dave.”
    He frowns. That kicked-puppy look is back. “Do you have any more clients today?”
    “No. Just going to hang around and draw in case we get a walk-in.” The lead artist for Righteous Ink, Thomas, is at the Sturgis rally this week, so I’m stuck here. “Seriously, go home. You got sober, you got some perspective, and now you’ve got to sort out your shit. No time like the present.”
    “I could help you—”
    “No.” It comes out harsher than I intend, but seriously, if he volunteers to do one more thing, like picking up the break room in back or fetching us more coffee filters or sweeping, I’m going to scream. That man’s hovering like a mosquito, and I’m hyperaware of his presence.
    I backtrack. “Sorry. It’s not that I don’t appreciate your help. But I want to draw. And I can’t do that with you just … here.”
    That’s half the truth. The other half is that he watches me in a way I’m entirely unaccustomed to. He looks at me like he really sees me, like I matter. When you spend your whole life trying to be anything but invisible, that kind of attention is arresting.
    It’s also exhausting. I run my hand through my short hair, the pink strands sticking up at odd angles. My art is a drama-free zone, and Dave’s got a truckload of