sixty-five

Clancy looked up from helping a cropper with a project, took one glance at my face, and made a beeline to my side. “Anya?”

“An emergency.” I had my car keys in hand.

“I’ll take Gracie to your house and wait there.”

“This might take a while.”

“That’s fine. I can sleep on the sofa. You might want the company when you get back. You’ve had a rough couple of days.”

Without a backward glance or a goodbye to the troops, I raced out the door. My hands shook so much I had trouble getting the key into the ignition, but I managed. Then I outdid Evel Knievel in my daredevil attempt to cross 40 into the fancy Ladue neighborhood where the Moores lived. Fortunately, their house wasn’t more than a couple of miles from the store.

I jumped the curb in front of the perfectly manicured Moore house. Didn’t care. As long as I didn’t blow out the tire, I was fine. Turned the car off and sprinted to the front door. Once there, I pounded on it. Anya appeared, paler than a bedsheet soaked in Clorox. “Upstairs. In the bathroom.”

Anya and I bounded up the stairs, faster than I would have ever dreamed possible. She pointed to an open door and I stepped in to see Nicci on the white tile floor, her inner thighs covered in blood. Stevie sat under her, propping her up, squished between the toilet and the bathtub. My first thought was that the girl had miscarried or hemorrhaged. But the blood started three inches or so down from the top of her thighs. She was wearing a loose tee-shirt and knit gym shorts with a drawstring waist. The humidity in the room told me that the shower must have been running recently. Nicci’s hair was wet. Had she slipped, fallen and hurt herself ?

Where was all this blood coming from?

“You called nine-one-one?”

“Y-y-yes,” Anya stuttered.

“I think she’s passed out,” said Stevie as he cradled his sister’s torso.

“Get me a wet washcloth, Anya. Please.” I touched Nicci’s pulse, which seemed strong to me. I could see her chest rise and fall, so I knew she was breathing. Her lips were pink, so I could tell she was getting oxygen. “Stevie, any idea what happened?”

“I was playing video games when I heard a thud.” He wiped away a tear. “She going to live?”

“I hope so. I think so. Looks to me like this blood is coming from cuts on her leg.”

He nodded. “That’s what I think, too.”

“Nicci? Nicci, honey?” I tapped her cheeks lightly and she moaned. A good sign.

It seemed to take forever before Anya passed me a warm, damp washcloth. An area of Nicci’s thigh about six inches long by three inches wide was bloody, but it wasn’t spurting blood. Some of it had actually dried on her skin, forming a rusty border. Very, very gently, I dabbed. As I did, I noticed that the center seemed to be coagulating. Bit by bit, I worked my way from the outside toward that center, discovering as I wiped, a crisscross of cut marks. Working carefully so as not to encourage more bleeding, I noted with relief that the area affected was not nearly as large as it had initially looked.

“Could you rinse that out?” I handed the cloth to Anya and heard water running in the sink behind me. “Nicci? Nicci, honey?”

She roused a little. Her eyelashes fluttered and she tried to sit up. I lightly pinched her nostrils shut. Nicci’s eyes snapped open. “Wh-wh-what?”

“Nicci, are you all right? Where are you hurt? Just your legs?”

She nodded.

“What happened?”

She tried to push herself to a standing position. Stevie and I each grabbed an elbow to help. Metal clattered to the tile floor. I looked down to see a bloody razor blade.

how to use gesso on a Zentangle® tile

Gesso is a primer made of gypsum or Plaster of Paris and glue. It’s used to put a coating on rough surfaces, but we’ve found a couple other reasons to add it to your Zentangle® supply kit.

Black Gesso

Although tanglers are taught, “There are no mistakes. Only creative opportunities,” occasionally we all feel disappointed in how our tiles turn out. Not to worry. You can re-purpose a Zentangle® tile by painting it with black gesso! Black gesso does a wizard job of covering up your mistakes—giving you a new surface to tangle.

One of the outstanding properties of gesso is how quickly it dries. Once it feels dry to the touch, usually fifteen minutes, you’re good to go. You can tangle on your black tile with white ink, white pencil, gray pencil, black pen (for cleaning up or definition) or those specialty pens like the Souffle pens by Sakura.

White Gesso

Gesso also comes in white. You’re probably wondering why would you paint white gesso onto a white tile? Traditional Zentangle® tiles are a very absorbent paper. If you paint the tile with a coating of gesso, you can use markers that would otherwise bleed. In other words, now your markers will deliver a crisp line, giving you more control over your design.

* A tile is a pre-cut square of high quality paper.