Time Flies (16 page)

“I’d completely forgotten about that. I couldn’t believe she ratted us out, and when we got there my father was waiting for us and made us ride back with him.”

B.J. shook her head. “Marion, Marion, Marion. Have you called her yet, by the way?”

“I’m working up to it.”

“Anyway, the tattoo parlor is near Plymouth Center, so we stop there first, then we head over the bridge to the Cape and make sure Veronica’s okay. Unless you think we should pick up Veronica first so she can get a tattoo with us?”

“I think it’s safe to assume that if Veronica isn’t answering your calls, she’s probably not up for getting a tattoo with you.”

“I don’t know where you’re getting that. But fine, we’ll stop for our tattoos first.”

“
Your
tattoo,” I said. “I’ll go with you, but no way am I getting one.”

“Oh, yes you are,” B.J. said.

“Not in a million years.”

“Exactly.” B.J. put on her blinker. “That’s the whole point. Not in a million years will any of our boring old high school classmates think of getting tattoos.” She turned and smiled at me. “We’ll be the hit of the reunion, Romy.”

“Michele,” I said. “I mean, Melanie.”

CHAPTER 16

Mustang Sally climbed the entrance ramp like a geriatric thoroughbred and then jumped into the herd of traffic heading south. My heart did a funny little extra beat, and I wondered if my highway thing was escalating again even with B.J. driving.

It was complicated. Sometimes I was convinced that driving with Kurt—his anger, his aggressiveness—had started the whole thing. And then when he left, some self-destructive part of me had transferred all those years of pent-up anxiety to my own driving. But if I looked back honestly, I’d never been a relaxed driver, and being a passenger with Trevor and Troy driving when they had their learner’s permits had freaked me out to the point that I’d turned the whole thing over to Kurt. Maybe my highway anxiety had always been there, like a cold sore, waiting for the next random outbreak, and the more I thought about it the more likely it was to happen.

I held my breath and waited for more symptoms. Nothing. We’d put Mustang Sally’s top back up outside the salon before we headed for the highway, and now she felt shady and safe inside, almost like a cocoon.

I breathed a long sigh of relief.

“I knew you’d come around.” B.J. took one hand off the steering wheel and turned up the music again. Rod Stewart broke into “Maggie May,” and we sang backup on the first chorus.

“So, basically,” B.J. said as Rod launched into the next verse without us, “I think the
where
of the tattoos might be even more important than the
what
, so I’ve done some research.”

“On body parts? Gee, I would have thought that you, of all people, would have those down by now.”

“Cute.”

I ran a hand through what was left of my hair. It was freeing, in a Peter Pan kind of way. B.J. put on the blinker and reined Sally into a faster lane. We passed the sign for the exit to the pool where Trevor and Troy used to go for swimming lessons, a long, long time ago. I could still smell the chlorine and remember the way their fingertips wrinkled like raisins by the end of the class.

“Okay, guess,” B.J. said. “Where is the last place that sags?”

“Your head?”

“Lower.”

“Your feet?”

“Higher.”

“I give up. Okay, where
is
the last place that sags?”

B.J. flipped her hair out of the way and pulled her white, boat-neck top down over one shoulder.

“Upper arms?” I said. “Are you out of your mind?”

“
Shoulders
,” B.J. said, “are the last to go.” She took her hands off the steering wheel and gave hers a quick shimmy.

The Mustang veered over the line. The car next to us beeped, loud and long.

I waited until we were back in our lane and I was sure we were still alive, then I closed my eyes. “Please don’t do that again,” I whispered.

“It wasn’t me,” B.J. said. “That guy’s an idiot. Okay, so we get the tattoos high up on the backs of our shoulders, safely away from upper-arm territory. And then we wear off-the-shoulder peasant blouses—you know, the ones with that big ruffle that goes all the way around the top. A whole lot of sexy with a little bit of retro thrown in.”

I opened my eyes. “Not that I’m even considering this, but where would we even find blouses like that?”

B.J. laughed. “I’ve got them on hold at Macy’s. Two different sizes, just in case. And three colors—I didn’t want you to think I was hogging all the control here.”

One of my favorite things about B.J. was that she was easily distractible. I found the lukewarm water bottle that had been in my purse since Atlanta, screwed open the top, and drank it dry.

“Boyohboy, am I thirsty,” I said. “You know what I could really go for, with all this talk about high school?”

B.J. kept her eyes on the road. “A tattoo?”

I waited a beat to let the suspense build. “A Tab.”

“Tab!” B.J. let out a loud scream, completely drowning out the Ramones, who were busy singing “I Wanna Be Sedated.”

I smiled.

“Tab,” B.J. whispered. “I lived on Tab. I had my first one of the day for breakfast and brought one into my bedroom with me at night. All chemicals, no calories. And if you added a slice of lemon, it was practically a meal in itself.”

I didn’t say anything.

B.J. launched into full rant. “Why the hell did everyone have to get so healthy? I can understand not smoking and using condoms and eating dark chocolate and switching from white to red wine. But what in the name of all that’s retro is so wrong with having a simple
Tab
every now and then? I don’t know about you, but I am so seltzered out.”

She turned to look at me. “Do you think they still make it? I haven’t been in the soda aisle for years.”

“I’m pretty sure,” I said, even though I had absolutely no idea. It was the quest for Tab I was going for here, not the actual Tab.

“Wait. There’s an Ocean State Job Lot at the next exit. Do you mind making a pit stop?”

“Pit stop,” I said. “Aww, I completely forgot about that expression.”

Ten minutes later we were loading four cases of Tab into the trunk of the Mustang.

“Can you believe how expensive this stuff was?” B.J. said. “Who knew it was a collector’s item. I think we seriously lucked out to even find it.”

“We sure did.” I reached up and got ready to close the hood of the trunk. “And now I really think we need to head straight over to Veronica’s house so we can get some on ice right away.”

B.J. ducked under my hand and freed two Tabs from their plastic collars.

“Surely you jest,” she said as she handed one to me. “Warm Tab is the only way to go.”

“Do Me?” I said.

B.J. shrugged. “It was either this or Do Me Too at the next exit. I figured the flagship would have the more experienced tattoo artists. Only the best for you, Romy.”

We were parked outside Do Me Tattoos looking at the posters taped on the storefront window. I had some serious Tab aftertaste in my mouth, almost as if I had licked a piece of metal. I reached for a mint.

“You’re certifiable,” I said.

“There was nothing in
Consumer Reports
—”

“You’ve got to be kidding.
Consumer Reports
doesn’t rate tattoos? I am so canceling my subscription.”

“Don’t be fresh.”

“Aww, that’s right, fresh once meant mouthy. My mother used to say that.”

“Mine did, too. Pretty much all day long.” B.J. pulled some sheets of paper from her purse and handed them to me. “I printed off everything I could find on Kudzu and Angie’s List. This place definitely hit the sweet spot between good reviews and right off the highway.”

I glanced down. “ ‘Yo, best tattoo place ever. I’ve gotten four of
my last six tats there—two by Ariel, one by Lenny, one by a dude who I don’t remember the name of.’ ”

B.J. pointed. “Not that one. This one.”

“ ‘Really clean in the scheme of things’? Or ‘I would definitely recommend them if you’re looking for some good if not great artwork.’ ”

B.J. snatched the papers away. I looked up at one of the posters in the window—a heavily airbrushed woman with a Cleopatra necklace tattooed from collarbone to collarbone. And completely covering the area from the base of her neck to the top of her breasts.

“I don’t get it,” I said. “I mean I can appreciate the depth and symmetry of the design, but for me it conflicts with the natural beauty of the human body.”

B.J. sighed. “Jeez Louise, let’s not get all Picasso here. Our natural beauty is practically gone anyway. And we’re not talking about an I-want-to-date-Jesse-James kind of tattoo. We’re talking tiny. And tasteful.”

“Like what?” I couldn’t resist asking. I mean, no way in hell was I getting a tattoo, but it was fun to think about what I would get if I did get one. Not that I was going to.

B.J. reached for a mint, too. “Well, when it comes to tattoos, words are the new black . . .”

“Should I be worried that I had no trouble following that?”

“So if we could find the perfect short phrase . . .”

“How about ‘No’?”

“How about ‘Never Say Never’?”

“Ha,” I said. “What about ‘Work in Progress’?”

“Hey, that’s not half bad.” B.J. opened her car door. “Another Tab?”

“No thanks. One’s my limit.”

She closed her door again and sighed. “I should pace myself, too. What about ‘Well-Behaved Women Rarely Make History’ or ‘It’s Never Too Late to Be What You Might Have Been’?”

“Way too many letters,” I said.

“We could have them start at one shoulder and go right across our back to the other one.”

“ ‘Midlife Rocks’?”

“Too perky. ‘Living Well Is the Best Revenge’?”

“Overused.” Despite myself I was kind of getting into this. “What about an expression from high school? Maybe ‘Lighten Up’?”

“People might think we’ve joined a diet cult. What about a song title? Carole King’s ‘You’ve Got a Friend’?”

“Bette Midler’s ‘Friends’ would hurt a lot less.”

“How about you get ‘Alone Again’ and I get—”

“ ‘Naturally’?”

B.J. laughed her crazy laugh. “ ‘Ball of Confusion’?”

“ ‘Comfortably Numb’?”

“Who
was
that?”

“I’m pretty sure it was Pink Floyd.”

“ ‘Because the Night’?” B.J. sighed. “God, I wanted to
be
Patti Smith. She had such balls. Madonna and everyone who followed would be nowhere today without her.”

A young couple holding hands came out of the tattoo parlor and stopped to kiss on the front steps.

“Wouldn’t you think their piercings would get all tangled up?”
B.J. said, watching them. Then she giggled. “Do you remember when Mack Drummond got his lip caught on Julie Waxelbaum’s braces at that dance and his parents had to come get him and take him to the hospital for stitches?”

“Not really.” My back was starting to hurt from too much sitting, so I put one foot up on the dashboard to adjust the angle. A dusting of sand covered my toes. I started to wipe it off, then decided to keep it as a souvenir. “Well, this is fun. But maybe we should just keep pondering until the perfect tattoo comes to mind. I mean, we can always do it for the next reunion, right?”

“Don’t be ridiculous. Okay, moving on to images. Do you think peace signs have been overtattooed?”

CHAPTER 17