We head back to Callie’s place. I’m relieved to have been able to prove myself to her, even though she didn’t ask me to. But the whole episode has left me slightly unsettled. So when we get in I change the subject, ask about her day.
She tells me she gave Ben her notice at the café this lunchtime.
“How’d he take it?”
“Better than I thought. He’s going to promote Dot, I think, then find someone to replace her.” A sigh. “He was really nice about it, actually. So supportive. Which kind of made me feel worse—like I’m turning my back on him. Maybe even Grace too.”
We’re sharing the sofa, though only our gazes are touching. Beyond the window, a scallop of moon is suspended in the darkness. The sky is wired with stars.
“He was supportive because it’s a great move for you,” I assure her. “The start of a whole new chapter.”
Callie’s braided her hair, draped it over one shoulder. It exposes her slender neck, the drop earrings she’s wearing set with real pressed flowers. “I guess it’s been a long time coming. I had this weird fear, just after Grace’s funeral. I kept waking up in the middle of the night, wondering what people would say about me if I died. Fixating on it, almost. Esther thought I was trying to avoid dwelling on Grace. You know—blanking out the sadness by stressing about my own failings.”
I think back to my mum. How intently I started obsessing over my dreams after she died. That’s when I began hardcore note-taking, recording every damn thing I saw.
“I was worried my eulogy would read like a CV,” Callie says. “You know—Extremely reliable. Recipient of a long-service award at Eversford Metal Packaging. Punctual, hardworking . . . That was what gave me the final push, I guess. To quit my office job and take on the café. I went a bit mad, I think, for a couple of months.”
“Mad how?”
She shrugs. “Doing loads of ill-advised stuff. Like deciding what I needed was a really bizarre haircut with a fringe, which I absolutely hated, obviously. Then I thought I’d paint my entire flat dark gray, but it looked awful and I had a meltdown halfway through about my damage deposit, so I had to paint it all back again.” She lets out a self-reproachful breath. “What else? Signed up to online dating—disastrous. Got drunk and . . .” She trails off.
“Oh, no.” I laugh. “You can’t stop there. Got drunk and . . . eloped? Got arrested? Racked up a five-figure bar bill?”
Her voice drops to a whisper. “I got a tattoo.”
I grin. “Excellent.”
A pause.
“So what is it?”
“What is what?”
“The tattoo.”
She bites her lip. “Never mind.”
“How, what, and where?”
“It’s a very long story.”
I check an invisible watch. “Oh, I have time.”
“Okay. Well, I got drunk, then . . . I got a tattoo.” She exhales, folds her hands demurely in her lap.
I’m not letting her off that easy. “You already told me that. I’m going to need details, I’m afraid.”
She chews her lip again. Tucks a wayward strand of hair back into her plait. “Well, I had it in my head that I wanted a bird . . . but I was drunk, and I couldn’t quite get across what I meant. I wanted a swallow—it was supposed to be elegant, and beautiful. Delicate, you know? I tried to draw it for them, but I’m a terrible artist and . . .”
“Where is it?”
“On my hip.”
I raise an eyebrow. “Can I see it?”
“Okay, but you can’t laugh.”
“I promise.”
She lowers the waistband of her jeans just enough.
I look down at it. Then up at her. “It’s a . . . Wow.”
“I know.”
It is a swallow. I think. But if it is, it’s on steroids. Bright red and blue, and unexpectedly sizable. Hearty and plump, with cartoon curves. There’s a blank scroll in its beak, and an intensity to its expression I can only presume to be accidental.
Or maybe her tattooist was high at the time.
“It’s quite . . . I mean, it’s . . .”
Her eyes go wide. “You don’t need to be nice about it, honestly. I cried when I saw it sober. I started desperately Googling laser tattoo removal, vowed never to do anything daring again.”
“What was supposed to”—I clear my throat—“go in the scroll?”
“Oh, they thought I wanted that for someone’s name. I’m surprised they didn’t just make something up, stick it in there without asking.”
“Christ. The mind boggles.”
She doffs me with a cushion. “You promised you wouldn’t laugh.”
“I’m not. I think it’s charming.”
“It’s not charming. It’s graffiti that won’t wash off. I’m building up to going back, having it lasered.”
I reach out, take her hand. “I think you should be proud of it. Sod lasering the thing. It’s part of your story.”
She starts laughing, lips pink and full from the press of her teeth. “Are you serious?”
“Too right. You did something crazy, brave. You should see that tattoo and feel nothing but happiness.” I glance down at her hip again. But it’s when I look back up at her that I feel happiness: the full, synaptic rush of it. “Keep doing crazy stuff,” I say, squeezing her hand.
“Really? Crazy like this tattoo?”
I grin. “Why not? So long as it’s a good kind of crazy. Your kind of crazy.”
“I have a feeling Waterfen’s going to be pretty wild. For me, anyway,” she says, laughing. “What’s next—fancy coming with me to Chile?”
She’s joking, I know that really. But being with Callie is the closest I’ve ever come to escaping life as I know it. Because even just getting to know her is like time spent in a foreign country. Somewhere I’ve often wondered about but never had the courage to explore.
We lean forward at the same time. Fall into a kiss, fly into orbit.