Zed, p.5
Zed, page 5
The first forty-five minutes of the day flew by, and before I knew it, it was quarter of ten already. I started literally counting down the seconds until the kid showed up. Well, his keeper anyway. Kota had been more accurate with her observations than I’d cared to admit. The truth was I hadn’t been able to get Octavia Douglas out of my mind since we’d met.
Despite the fact that the two of us were clearly as different as day and night, she intrigued me. She’d immediately caught my attention in a way that nobody else had for a very long time. Why, I had no idea. She was prim and judgy, and definitely didn’t seem like the sort to have any ink. Not even a flower, eternity symbol, or dolphin on her foot, or anything equally clichéd. Nope, everything about her screamed Ivy League snob, and now I’d locked myself into having her in the shop every Saturday until Richie Rich worked off his debt.
I clearly needed to have my head examined.
7
Zed
A flurry of activity in the front of the shop alerted me to Xavier’s presence, and already I was regretting my decision. The kid couldn’t even make it into the building without causing a fucking ruckus. I headed down the hall to see what the fuss was all about, and to let the little punk know the score in case he had any doubt about who was wearing the long pants in our arrangement.
At the end of the hall, I emerged at the side of the reception desk. Kota looked perturbed to say the least, though she did seem to perk up a little when she saw me, throwing me a relieved look. I took in the scene. Of course Xavier was at the center of it, pacing around the reception area like a deranged circus animal, and again giving me pause to question my sanity in willingly inviting him back into my life.
A couple of feet away, dressed in a crisp white shirt, tight black jeans that hugged her in all the right places, and box-fresh Stan Smith’s stood Weekend Barbie, back to the door of the shop, arms folded. I could tell from her stance that she wasn’t amused, and in all honesty, I couldn’t blame her.
I was guessing she’d had to go get the errant teen from his school. That alone would’ve been enough to ruin a person’s Saturday, and that was before he even opened his mouth. If I’d had to spend forty or so minutes in the car with him, I’d probably have been homicidal, so by that very low standard, she was doing well just for having delivered him to me alive.
I shot an impatient look Xavier’s way. “What the hell is going on?” My tone matched my facial expression.
“Nothing’s going on, apart from her kidnapping me.” He jerked his thumb toward Octavia Douglas. “And now that she’s done me the favor of springing me from jail and giving me a ride to civilization, I’ve got places to be and people to see. I’ll catch you here at four thirty for the ride back to Hogwarts. Oh, and big guy? Thanks for the weekly alibi. This is a sweet-ass deal.”
The kid was nothing if not funny.
I stole another glance at the good lawyer. Based on the way she looked as though she was about to lose her mind, it was safe to assume that she didn’t share my perverse sense of humor. For someone whose job it was to be calm under pressure, she seemed mighty close to an epic flip-out. Lucky for her, I had her back.
I gave a slow sarcastic round of applause, which seemed to take everyone by surprise. Both Octavia and Xavier looked at me as though I was a deranged lunatic. I guessed they weren’t too far off.
“Nice try, kiddo. Really nice try. And what is it they like to say about that at that fancy school of yours? Oh yes: ‘God loves a trier,’ if my memory serves me correctly. It’s been a while. Well, God might like that kind of shit, but your ‘big man’ antics and bravado are completely wasted here, so you’d better save them for someone who’s intimidated or even impressed by your family name. In the meantime, all you have is me. Welcome to SK:eTCH. Here’s your new employee pack.”
I stretched out my hand and opened my palm, showing Xavier the contents. He frowned at the gift before reaching out to take it from me.
“What’s this?” His brows folded together as he tried to work out my angle.
Yeah, best of luck with that, buddy.
“It’s a copy of the security camera footage from Monday. You remember Monday, right? The day you came in here and sprayed chunks all over the place before passing out in that very chair.” I pointed to the chair in question to make my point. “Sounding familiar yet?”
He nodded slowly, clearly still not sure where the conversation was going, but definitely less confident in his manner than he had been mere moments earlier.
Perfect.
“I just thought you might like this as a souvenir, you know? Something to remember the momentous day by. Plus the file is an exact match for the one I have sitting in my draft email, waiting for me to press Send on a copy for your dad and one for the school principal. Speaking of which, I hear Principal Morgan retired a few years ago, right? Good riddance. I hope for your sake Dr. Anthony isn’t half as much of a douche.” I smirked.
“But I digress. You don’t want to fulfill your obligations here, that’s your choice. Nobody can force you to stay. But by the same token, nobody can stop me from sending either or both emails.” I waited, watching the horror as it spread across Xavier’s face.
“You’re bluffing.”
“I could be. Or I could just be the kind of guy who says he’s going to do something, then does it. You could roll the dice and take a gamble that you’re right, but I don’t like your odds.” I fished my phone out of my back pocket and showed him the first image on my camera roll. The color drained from his skin.
I would certainly be reviewing that day’s footage, just to get another look at the expression on his face at the moment he realized he’d met his match in me. It was absolutely priceless.
I let him stew a few moments more, then continued, “Not a gambling guy, huh? You’re smarter than you look. Now that we’ve got that cleared up, you need to stop wasting my time and get on with what you’re here to do.”
I could see in his eyes that Xavier was pissed off. He opened and closed his mouth several times like a guppy out of water, but had the good sense to say nothing. He was obviously a smart kid, and learning fast.
“First off, if I don’t get a coffee before my first client of the day gets here, there will be hell to pay. I’m going to introduce you to the other artists, you will take their coffee orders, and then you and Ms. Douglas are going to go to the coffee shop next door and grab them.”
Octavia shot me a questioning look, to which I mouthed, “Sorry,” over Xavier’s head as he walked toward me. She shrugged but gave me a look that very loudly conveyed “I would like to stone you to death in the streets.” Today was going to be fun. Like having each of my pubes tweezed out by elephants.
I took him to each treatment room and did a quick introduction to the resident artists. We didn’t officially open until ten, so everyone was just doing last-minute prep—extra cleaning, reviewing and refining sketches for clients, and generally getting in the “zone” for the day ahead. All except Harley, who never did anything ahead of schedule, and was more likely to be late than anything.
I realized it was a good thing that Octavia had bargained me down from a nine o’clock start. I had wanted Xavier to help with setup, but now was glad of the calm I’d had before the inevitable storm he brought with him.
First up in the meet and greet tour was Kian. He was our most experienced tattooist, even more so than me. He was also our resident traditional Japanese-style artist. His work was off the chain—bold, colorful, powerful, and yet somehow totally understated. He wasn’t about all of the latest trends and fads; he focused on tradition, authenticity and real meaning.
More than any artist I’d ever worked with, or even known of, he believed in using the body as a canvas and the art as narrative. We’d met through a mutual acquaintance while he was working at another shop and I’d stalked him for years, both aiming to soak up his essence by osmosis and trying to convince him to come work with me when the time came.
I wasn’t in awe of many things or many people, but Kian had my utmost respect. Even more so once I got to know his story. He had been forced to leave home at fourteen, which had landed him on the streets for a few years. He’d stumbled upon tattooing as a way of life during that time, then worked hard for a long time to get back on his feet, find somewhere to live and begin his journey as an apprentice tattooist. After his apprenticeship, he established himself as one of the most insanely talented artists in the city.
He wasn’t the most effusive of guys; in fact, he was very much about keeping himself to himself. He greeted Xavier with little more than a grunt, ordering a triple-shot cortado. A look of confusion flashed across the kid’s face, but he said nothing.
Next up was Jorja, our resident gypsy—which was kind of an oxymoron—and our only female artist. Originally from San Diego, she’d suffered an extreme case of wanderlust and had spent years touring the globe, staying in different cities for anything from a couple of weeks to a couple of years, taking up residencies as a guest artist at incredible studios as she went. She seemed to have outgrown her itchy feet phase and now called NYC, and more to the point, SK:eTCH, home. Her style was at pretty much the opposite end of the scale to Kian’s—light, intricate, geometric, and floral designs in almost exclusively black and white. She had a largely female client base, attracted to the delicate, barely there nature of her work.
She graced Xavier with her brightest smile and greeted him like he was an old friend, hug and all, before chattering away about life, the universe and the best açaí bowl she’d ever eaten. When she ordered a unicorn latte, I stifled a snort. Contrary to my initial assessment, I was beginning to think I was going to enjoy the day after all.
Next he met Spider, who was a street artist turned tattooist, who’d gained his name risking life and limb scaling impossible heights to adorn buildings, bridges, trains, and even cranes with the beauty of his work. While his tagging days were mostly behind him, he was still breaking boundaries with his art and leaving a permanent mark on the city in his chosen way.
You could tell his work—graffiti and now ink—from a mile away, his style was so distinct. He was a force of nature, a total whirlwind of a person. When he walked into a room, suddenly he became the center of gravity for the space. People migrated toward him like iron filings to a magnet. And by people, I meant women.
Spider was a talker. Far more of a people person than I could ever dream of being, or would ever want to be in my wildest nightmares. He often played the role of the “face” of the studio, and I was happy for him to do so. I wanted to keep my life as private as humanly possible.
Second only to the celebrity cache of Arlo Jones, Spider was a rock star in the tattoo world, and the world in general. When the press came knocking for interviews and other PR opportunities, they were inevitably way more interested in Spider’s story than my own. His was definitely more press-appropriate than mine, and I was sure the fact that he was tall, blond, and built like a Norse god didn’t hurt matters.
Much to Xavier’s bewilderment, Spider had welcomed him warmly, beckoned him into the room and asked him to take a seat. I glanced surreptitiously at my watch, wondering if this was going to be a brief chat or if we were in it for the long haul. If, unlike me, he didn’t have a client first up, there was a strong possibility that he intended for the conversation to go on until he did have an appointment. I, for one, didn’t like everyone’s chances of survival if the rest of us didn’t get our coffees until then. I made a “hurry the fuck up” face at him over Xavier’s shoulder and hoped for the best.
Five minutes later, and we made what I considered a lucky escape. Things could have been worse. A lot worse. Xavier, on the other hand, looked like he was in need of urgent resuscitative care. I kept a straight face on the outside, but on the inside, I was laughing my ass off. Armed with Spider’s order of an extra-large, extra-hot latte with half a sugar, we moved on to Harley’s space.
Harley was hands down the most versatile artist I knew. He’d gotten his start in the industry at a street shop in the Bronx, serving out his apprenticeship and then running his own station there for years. He would deal mostly with people walking in from the street and picking a random design from the book—it could be anything from a dolphin one moment to a detailed portrait of a celebrity the next. He was self-taught—copying cartoons, drawing portraits from photos, that kind of thing.
What he’d been working on since he joined us was finding his own unique style, his “voice,” after years of churning out generic tats. It turned out that what he loved was portraiture and anything with a lot of detail—if you wanted an exact replica of a first fleet ship or the Tower of London, he was your man. He took his coffee long, strong, and black, which was a running joke in the shop.
Introductions over with, we headed back into the reception area to take Kota’s order of an almond milk chai latte with honey and extra cinnamon, then added my double espresso to the mix, and he was ready to go.
Except he wasn’t.
“The coffee shop is three doors down to the left. Tell Max you’re making an order for SK:eTCH and he’ll add it to the tab.”
Xavier hesitated. I could see the concentration on his face as he tried to remember the complex array of requests.
“All good?” I probed. He nodded slowly, and nowhere near convincingly, but I made like I had no idea there was a problem.
“Great.” I turned to Weekend Barbie. “If you wouldn’t mind going with him to make sure he gets there okay, and to help him carry it all back?”
She looked at me as though I was the Devil’s spawn then turned on her heel, following Xavier out the door without dignifying my comment with a response.
Well good, then. Thanks.
8
Octavia
I quietly fumed as the two of us walked back through the shop doors, each armed with a tray of coffees. I hadn’t been there when most of the orders were placed, but I just knew a majority of them were wrong, I mean, what even was a unicorn latte, and who in their right would think to order one?
Xavier looked as confused and pissed off by the whole exercise as I was.
“I’m not doing your dirty work again. Next time you all want a drink, you can get it yourself, because I won’t be doing it.” He stormed up to the reception desk and slammed down the coffees he was holding, just in time for Zed to appear in the doorway that led out the back to the treatment rooms.
Zed laughed, except it was less an actual laugh and more a snort of derision. Still, in my limited knowledge of the man, I was willing to bet that it was as close as he got to expressing actual mirth.
“Guess again, princess. You’re not in Kansas anymore, Toto. In fact, you’re so far out of Kansas that you might as well be on another planet entirely.”
“Kansas? The fuck?” Xavier spat out tersely.
I held my breath.
You didn’t have to be a genius or to have known Zed for very long to know that that kind of attitude wasn’t going to fly with him. I waited for the inevitable boom of his angry voice, but when nothing was forthcoming after a few seconds, I looked across at him expectantly. He seemed to be staring into the distance, looking just beyond Xavier’s left ear. Yelling would almost have been less scary.
More time passed, and Xavier shifted nervously from foot to foot. If the big man was trying to psych the boy out, he was doing a brilliant job—the teen was quite rattled.
Finally Zed spoke, stepping toward Xavier. Not close enough to have invaded his personal space, but close enough to let him know who was boss.
“I guess I need to update my pop culture references, but suffice it to say that ‘the fuck’ is that this is my house, and in my house, you show me and everyone else here respect. ‘The fuck’ is that if you say that word in here again, you’ll wish you’d never heard it in your life, let alone ever uttered it.” I was glad not to be on the receiving end of this lecture. Zed kept his voice low and even the entire time, which was somehow more powerful and menacing than yelling would have been.
“‘The fuck’ is that in my house, when I ask you to do something, you do it, and you do it right. You come here every week prepared to work, and by work, I mean whatever tasks I deem fit for the day. ‘The fuck’ is that the first job every day, and as many times throughout the day as is necessary, will be to get the coffee order, and to get it right. Because it’s your first day, and I’m feeling generous, I’m going to give you a do-over, but just know that if you don’t approach it in a professional manner this time, you’ll be doing it again, and again, until you get it right. We clear?”
Xavier looked shell-shocked, like he couldn’t believe his eyes and ears. It was a pretty safe assumption that nobody had ever spoken to him in such harsh terms. If nothing else, almost everybody he’d ever come into contact with was in his employ in one way or another—housekeepers, drivers, nannies, tutors, even his teachers to an extent. Everyone except his notably absent parents, of course.
He addressed the floor, scuffing the rubber toe of his Converse on the white floorboards.
“Yeah.” It was an almost-inaudible mumble.
“What’s that?” Zed’s tone was still as flat and even as the surface of a lake on a windless day.
“I said yes.”
“Yes what? Yes who?”
“Yes, Zed, I understand.”
“Good. Now go out back and take the orders again, only properly this time.”
“Bu—”
“You’d better not be about to ask me how, because I know you have a two-thousand-dollar phone in your pocket. Work it ‘the fuck’ out.”
Xavier scurried away, and I stifled a laugh. The whole scene was like something out of a cheesy teen movie.
“Should I be calling you Miyagi from now on?”
Zed’s eyes snapped to meet mine. “Huh?”
