Sun Poisoned (The Sunshine Series) Read online

  “So,” she says, opening a drawer and taking out the very same light blue paper material they use for the gowns in a hospital. She makes her way past me and over to the table, taping the paper over the plastic. “How's life? Still playing piano?”

  “Yeah.” I set my bag, umbrella, and coat down on the floor in the corner. “Actually, my band and I have been playing at this club in Chinatown.”

  Cookie stops what she's doing. “Midnight?” she asks. Her eyes say that she doesn’t believe me, but her smile is proud.

  “You've heard of it?” I laugh.

  “Uh, yeah.” She laughs back, rolling a table she has her ink and tattoo gun set up on over to where I’ll be lying for the next few hours. “I used to go there a lot when I first got to New York. My ex-boyfriend was in one of the bands.”

  “Oh yeah?” I sit on the edge of tattoo bench, the paper crinkling under me. “Does he still play there? Maybe I know him.”

  “No, he doesn't.” Her tone is flat. “He got too big, started touring a lot. Never went back to Midnight.” She begins slipping on a pair of black rubber gloves. “And he never came back to me, either.” She sighs.

  “But,” she says, her tone lighter now. “It's really awesome that you're playing there. I'm all for people following their dreams, especially when it comes to the creative ones like band member, tattoo artist, or contortionist.”

  “Yeah,” I agree.

  “So, you ready?” she asks.

  I swallow what would have been a lump forming in my throat before it gets the chance to make me choke.

  “Yeah.” I start to take off my shirt, not looking at her as I do.

  “Hey.” I see her through my peripherals gesturing to the long line trailing from my chest to my belly button. “Those are new.”

  “Yeah.” I lie on my stomach with my arms cradling my head. There’s nothing between my skin and the paper but the fabric of my black bra. “I was in a car accident about six months ago.”

  She unclasps my bra, quickly taping it at my sides so I’m still covered. I take in a deep breath as she cleans my back with a soapy paper towel, then rubbing alcohol

  “You have some luck, girlie,” she says from above me. I stay as motionless as l can as Cookie traces over the lines that do not connect anymore because of various scars with a marker. “You've been busy,” she comments.

  As far as my friends and family are concerned, they think I just scratch at the tattoo when it's healing, causing a break in the ink. Or that Cookie missed a spot, or that I needed more shading done, or whatever.

  I say nothing. I can feel her breath on my skin. I close my eyes as my heart beat settles and she lets the subject drop. I finally relax when I hear the buzz of the tattoo gun. The rest of the session is spent talking about music and art, the way it should be.

  Sometimes people ask me if tattoos hurt. Most of the time, they're people I don't know, like at the grocery store, or the dentist. And the answer I give them is no, but the real answer is yes, but mostly just at first. It’s always been my experience that the more pain a person is subjected to, physically or emotionally, the less aware of it they become.

  After two hours or so, Cookie's tattoo gun is silenced for good, she hooks my bra again, and helps me sit up.

  “Want to take a look?” She asks, wiping down my back with a soapy solution she squirts out of a bottle and onto some paper towel.

  “Yeah!”

  She hands me a small mirror and I walk over to the full length in the corner. My wings, for the most part, appear the same: each feather is individually done and life-like, starting out small at my shoulder blades, and getting bigger and thicker near the middle of my back where the piece stops. The pale skin around them is red and raised, but the scars are covered; I can barely see them.

  “Cookie,” I say. “This is amazing. It's better than anything I could have expected.”

  “I'm glad you like it,” she says, handing me my T-shirt, which I quickly and carefully slip over my head. I don’t bother re-hooking my bra. It would only irritate me.

  Cookie threads my arm in hers after pocketing the three hundred dollars I was prepared to pay plus a fifty dollar tip. I should be a little unsettled, spending money like this, but the touch up was necessary.

  “Well,” she says. “Let's go see what this surprise is, huh?”

  When we’re back in the lobby, Stevie and Jade are already done and sitting on the same couches as before with huge grins on their faces.

  “So?” I ask.

  In unison, they both jut out their left hands, turning them so their inner arms are facing Cookie and I.

  On Stevie’s thin wrist is an intricate, cursive “J”. My brother has an “S” in the same style.

  “Aw,” Cookie says. “That’s cute.”

  “Very nice,” I agree.

  “Yeah,” Jade says, wrapping an arm around Stevie. “We thought you should be one of the first to know.”

  “Know what?” I ask.

  “We're going to get married!” Stevie blurts out.

  What happens next can only be described as a mash up of a group hugs, kisses, and excited “I'm happy for you's” and “I love you's.”

  “So when are you planning on?” Cookie asks as soon as the group disassembles.

  “You know,” Jade says, “Whenever we have enough money and all that.”

  “But this is good too,” Stevie says, inspecting his shiny, wet ink. “For now.”

  After a few seconds, Jade turns to me. “Well?”

  “Well what?”

  He snorts. “Let me see yours.”

  Without much hesitation. I spin around and Cookie lifts the back of my shirt, gesturing to my renewed wings like she’s Vanna White.

  “Awesome,” Stevie says first.

  “Just as awesome as the first time,” Jade says to Cookie.

  I turn back around, covering my puckered skin.

  “No itching it this time,” Jade half-jokes, half-scolds me.

  I laugh, and it’s almost an easy sound. “I promise.”

  Once we’re done basically celebrating our new ink and the impending wedding, we say goodbye and Stevie and Jade follow me back to my apartment in the sweltering heat. They only stay for an hour or so before they have to leave so they’ll have time to catch the four o’clock train back to New Jersey for work.

  I’m off today—from rehearsing with my band and with Honus, as well as from working merch—but I agreed to baby sit Leena. Mom and Adam have been seeing a marriage counselor here once every three weeks and then they go on a date. I offered to watch my baby sister whenever I was free because I miss her like crazy and have no time to go back to Jersey to visit.

  Adam drops by around five. I haven’t seen him since he helped us move in a few weeks ago, and I barely even feel the irritation his arms create against my fresh tattoo when he hugs me. His shirt is clean and pressed and he smells like home when my head is against him.

  “Where’s Mom?” I ask when we’re apart.

  Leena squeezes past us to dump the contents of her backpack—which is mainly coloring books, crayons, and markers—onto the coffee table in my living room.

  Adam’s hair is the exact orange as Leena’s, except his is always in place. Leena somehow looks bigger and taller. Her orange hair has gotten longer, and her chubby cheeks have a few freckles on them from the sun.

  “She’s downstairs waiting in the car,” he says. “We’re kind of running late for our session.”

  As far as I can see, the therapy seems to be working. There’s less fighting. There’s less tension. But I’ll keep my fingers crossed. Mom’s brand of crazy isn’t exactly something that goes away overnight.

  “Are you sure twelve isn’t too late to pick her up?” he asks, one hand on the doorknob.

  I wave a dismissive hand. “I’m usually awake anyway.”

  “Alright then.” He hugs me again before turning to Leena, who is busy flipping through a coloring book, already unaware tha
t Adam is still here. “Be good for your sister, okay?”

  Leena doesn’t look up from her coloring book. “Yeah,” she says. “Okay, Daddy.”

  Adam kisses me on the forehead as he opens the door. “Have fun,” he says.

  “Yeah,” I say. “You too.” I try not to sound sarcastic.

  “What do you want to do today?” I ask Leena once Adam’s left.

  Her eyes widen and she slides over a Hello Kitty coloring book. I'm ready to get down to business with a box of Crayola, but when Leena opens it to a specific, folded page, I realize she has bigger things in mind.

  “It's a fort,” she explains as she points to a detailed drawing of boxes and blankets done in orange and blue marker.

  “That's so cool!” I say, and I'm completely honest. “Go grab all of the blankets and pillows you can find.”

  Leena jumps up, her ponytail bouncing almost as much as she does. She heads directly to my room and I go to the hall closet, taking down the three spare blankets that I own. Leena drags the black and white striped comforter from my bed into the living room and throws it on the floor, then runs back into my room to dump the four pillows I have onto the carpet as well.

  “I don't think this is enough,” she says breathlessly.

  “Yeah. I agree.” I whip out my phone and dial Boo’s number.

  “What?” he answers after the first two rings.

  “You guys busy?”

  “Just trying to figure out your horrible scribbles in order to play these songs.”

  It’s typical that they’d be practicing without me for cover week. When we got here, Jamie handed us this packet of job and gig opportunities. One of them was my merch job, and another was Midnight’s cover week. It’s the last seven days in June, and the bands that sign up play solely covers from one band. It’s An Anachronism’s first “headlining” show where we play an entire set, and therefore, the most stressful. When we picked Radiohead as the band we’d be covering, I was stoked. I learned my parts, converting guitar to piano and so forth, within four days. Boo and Trei are still trying to figure theirs out and it’s driving us all insane. Mainly Boo.

  “So that's a no?” I ask.

  Boo half-growls, half-sighs as a response.

  “Oh come on,” I say. “My notes aren’t completely illegible.”

  Another mumble.

  “Want to build a fort with me and Leena?”

  A pause, then, “Really?” I can't tell if he's intrigued or just mocking me.

  “Yeah, you and Trei want in?”

  “Hell yeah, we do!”

  “Good. Because we need your blankets and pillows.”

  “Whatever. As long as I'm not driving myself crazy with this shit.” Boo hangs up without saying goodbye, so I figure they'll be down soon.

  Leena's expectant eyes meet mine as I place my phone back in my pocket. “We're covered,” I assure her.

  In the meantime, she helps me push the coffee table off to the side so we'll have more room. Without knocking, Boo and Trei enter my apartment, piling tie-dyed yellow, pink, and blue sheets, and approximately ten pillows of different shapes and sizes onto our blanket heap.

  “Let's do this,” Boo says in a surprisingly serious tone that makes me bust out laughing.

  It takes us about a half an hour to get the configuration right, but we drape the sheets over chairs from the kitchen as well as the back of the couch, securing whatever won’t stay with safety pins that Trei brought over as a precaution. Finally, we mash all of the pillows inside to make a cushiony floor that we cover with two comforters. By the time we're done, our fort resembles a weird bouncy castle, big enough for five people to lie in and watch TV.

  We spend the rest of the night eating pizza, watching movies, and asking Leena what she wants for her birthday, which is the weekend before we have our Radiohead show.

  Leena falls asleep at about nine, and Adam picks her up at precisely twelve AM. Boo and Trei leave directly afterward, but not before we make plans to bang out yet another Radiohead practice tomorrow.

  When I’m finally alone, I peel off my T-shirt, remove my jeans and take a shower, careful not to hit my wings with the hot stream of water. My back is just too itchy to wear yet another t-shirt, so I replace it with a black, spaghetti strapped tank top, once I’ve cleaned it.

  It's about one AM when I'm walking into my bedroom and I realize that all of my blankets are still a part of the fort. I contemplate tearing it down, but we worked all day constructing it, and it’s comfy anyway, so I turn to head back into the living room.

  And bump straight into Myles' chest.

  I'm a little startled at first because I thought I was alone. Myles wasn’t supposed to come over today. He said he was busy. Then I’m a little more uncomfortable because I'm only wearing striped knee socks and shorts that barely cover my thighs.

  “I'm sorry,” he says immediately after he steps away. “I should have called.” He holds his hands up in front of him.

  I can’t meet his eyes. Instead I stare at the black and white stripes swirling up my ankles. I tug at the hem of my shorts, wishing they were longer.

  Myles turns around abruptly so his back is facing me. “I've made you uncomfortable,” he states.

  “It's okay.” My gaze travels to his shoulder blades under his white t-shirt. “I just didn't know you were coming over.” If I did, I would have worn a huge T-shirt and pants, itchy back be damned.

  “I'll leave.” He takes a step toward the door.

  I reach out an arm to touch him, but he's too far away. “No, don't,” I say a little too dramatically, which causes me to laugh. “Just let me get under the blankets.”

  He faces the fort, not so much as glancing at me. “Wow.”

  I side-step behind him and through a slit in the fabric. I feel like I'm acting dumb, but if Myles thinks so too, he doesn't mention it. I rearrange the pillows and climb underneath my black and white comforter.

  “Are you covered?” Myles asks.

  I tuck the blanket under my arms. “Yup.”

  His dark blue jean-covered legs move toward the main opening and he kneels down. “What is this?” he asks.

  I pat a patch of pillows near me, and he crawls inside, lying next to me. “You've never seen a fort before?” I ask.

  He shakes his head.

  “Well, Leena's pretty into them.”

  Myles laughs, but his face falls slightly when I shift the wrong way on my side and my sticky, healing back grazes the blanket under me. “Does it hurt?” he asks.

  I shrug. “Nah. It just itches.”

  “Can I see it?”

  Slowly, I turn onto my other side so my back is facing him. He's not too close, but I can feel his breath on my raw skin, and he traces the outline of the tattoo that's visible to him, never grazing the edge of raised ink.

  “Did you have fun with Stevie and Jade today?” he asks.

  A wide smile spreads across my face when I think about it. “Yes. Lots of fun.”

  A chill runs through me as his touch brings goose bumps on my skin. I don’t exactly hate it. “That's good.”

  “They got matching tattoos,” I say. “Each others’ initials.”

  His hand stops moving for a second. “I had a feeling.”

  I snort. “Of course.” I readjust myself so we’re face to face again. “So what brings you here so late?”

  His hand is hovering in mid-air, like I took my new tattoo away from it too soon.”I thought you'd be awake.” His finger begins tracing around the Jack-o'-lantern near my elbow. “I had a nightmare. Couldn't sleep.” He shrugs.

  “Oh.”

  “When did you get this one?” he says to my arm.

  “Uhm.” I glance down at the pumpkin with the happy cutout smile, the top of his head a little bit open so a few cartoon pieces of candy can poke out. “I guess I was about eighteen. I got a lot of tattoos when I turned eighteen.”

  Myles' eyes glow in the dark, illuminated only by the TV to the le
ft of us. “Except for your wings,” he says softly.

  “Yeah. Except for the wings, all of the other tattoos I have were legally obtained.”

  We both smile briefly before he looks again to the pumpkin, tracing the round shape over and over. I close my eyes, taking in how much I’m not afraid and I don’t pull away. His fingers trail up my arm a little, outlining the portrait of Frankenstein’s Monster I got for a Halloween present a year ago.

  “And this one?”

  I keep my eyes closed as I relay the story of how Jade showed up at my house and drove us to White Dragon, where Cookie tattooed the black and white likeness of the monster from the 1931 movie.

  “Oh.” He hesitates for a second, his hand not moving. “Do you have any others?”

  “Besides my arms and back?” I open my eyes and see him. I pretend I'm thinking, but I don't have to. “Mmm. Nope.”

  “None?” he asks teasingly, playing along with my I-have-so-many-tattoos-I-can't-keep-track-of-them joke. His hand resumes moving lightly around; his arm envelopes me in a hug so my head is against his chest.

  His head rests slightly behind mine as his arm moves around to my hip. His breath is on my neck. I can feel his eyelashes against my skin when he blinks. I never want to move again.

  “You don't have any more?” he whispers. His hand runs along my leg hesitantly, waiting for me to stop him. “You don't have any here?” His fingertips brush slowly over my knee and stop just as they reach the top of my thigh. He knows there aren’t any. He’s just being cute.

  “No,” I say, trying to ignore how my heart has started pounding a little louder. “Well, I used to have one.” I blurt out.

  He stops moving. “Where?”

  Oh what the hell? Might as well make the most out of this comfortable mood. Before I can reason with myself, I shed the blanket just enough so my upper leg is showing. I feel stupid that I made such a big deal about being covered up only minutes ago, yet here I am, shedding the covers and showing him my thigh. The same thigh he's seen before, gushing blood in a bathtub on Halloween. That's where it used to be.