Tattoos: A Novel (10 page)

Luanne popped out of her chair with the grace of a jaguar moving in for the kill. She immediately dropped the wounded mother act. Her eyes glittered with unspeakable rage.
 

“How dare you toss such vile accusations at us, you’re nothing more than a cleaner, one who should know his place,” she spat.
 

Her eyes sparked with venom that might have scared someone who hadn’t gone through the shit I’d lived through. I just grinned and met her glare with one of my own. It was an unspoken challenge that said no matter what she did, she wouldn’t break me. I opened my mouth to speak but before I could respond, Marilee, to my complete surprise, cut in.

“Oh shut up Mom, your lapdog Harold might buy your fake high society snobbery but no one else does. Jax might be a cleaner but at least he does honest work and doesn’t use sex as a tool to get whatever he wants from a sugar daddy. You’re no better than a painted ho, the only difference is that you have a piece of paper that calls it a marriage, not prostituting your body,” Marilee hissed, regaining some of the fire I’d seen before. I squeezed her fingers in unspoken support.

Harold staggered back as if he’d been physically hit. Luanne stiffened, clearly shocked by Marilee’s outburst. But rather than say anything she spun around and walked out of the room. The click of her heels seemed loud in the silence that followed.

Harold trailed behind his wife and only when she was no longer visible did he turn to face us. He sucked in a ragged breath and set his gaze on Marilee, as if I wasn’t even in the room anymore.

“I know you’re dealing with a lot right now but what you just said was cruel and spiteful…”

 
He shook his head and sighed. “What’s happened to you Marilyn? You used to be so sweet and kind and…”

 
Then, without warning I was in his sights like a deer in a hunters’ scope. The look he gave me showed me that he wasn’t the push over I’d thought he’d been, there was power in his stare. I was surprised at how the weight of it actually managed to make me feel a little uncomfortable. It was almost amusing that he’d picked now, when his dimwit wife had been insulted, to actually grow a pair, certainly not when Marilee was being tossed to people he could pay to take care of his problem. It made me wish he’d shown even a tenth of that authority with his overbearing wife.

“I understand, you thought you were helping Marilyn with your comments, but it was extremely inappropriate. I hope this kind of thing doesn’t happen again because if it does I’ll be forced to report you,” he said in a business like tone.
 

I nodded in response. Not that I was actually promising to hold my tongue. If circumstances warranted it and Marilee needed my support, I would say or do whatever it took. But there was no point in mentioning that now. He was right, I’d been completely out of line. He was doing me a solid by not reporting me. Truth be told, even though there was no paycheck at the end of the day, the concept of not working on the ward and more importantly not seeing Marilee every day, was inconceivable.
 

With his piece said, Harold left. Marilee locked on the empty doorway for a few seconds before she spoke.

“She’s right, I am sick and ugly. Sometimes I don’t know if I have the strength to get through this…” She cast her eyes my way. The suffering in her expression made me feel as if something had cracked inside me. Before I could respond she spoke again, and her words left me so cold that I instantly felt encased in ice.
 

“I don’t know why I’m even fighting, who knows if I’ll even be alive at Christmas…” She broke into sobs that filled every corner of the room. I swallowed a few times, trying to make sense of my emotions. It all seemed too much for words.
 

How was it possible to care as much as I did. I’d known her less than a month, but it was quite conceivable that I was falling in love with her. Just the concept of her dying, a reality, in a world where cancer could take anyone away from you, sickened me. I knew that some people escaped cancer while others withered and died, there were no rules. The doctors relied on statistics and predictions for prognoses, but science couldn’t always explain how some people never got a second chance while others did. What if Marilee was one of the people who didn’t make it through?

Without planning it I cupped her chin in my hand, tilting her face to mine. Tears glistened in her eyes. To me she seemed to glow with beauty, pure and untethered. It took the breath from my lungs and I said the only thing that made sense.

“Not only will you be alive at Christmas but you’ll spend it with me,” I said, meaning every word I’d spoken. Then I did what felt natural. I pushed in beside her. I encircled her in my arms, pulling her quaking body against mine. I knew I’d crossed the line, and that there was no going back, but rather than regret it, I felt mildly euphoric.

Marilee seemed too lost in her grief to realize what I’d done. She nuzzled my neck. I stroked her cheek, feeling the wet of her tears against my fingers and her warm breath on my exposed skin. My chin came to rest on the top of her head. When her scarf slipped to the side, I planted a light kiss on her scalp. When I did, all I could think was how her skin felt as soft as the finest velvet that Gran used to cover her tarot cards.

I didn’t know how long we’d sat there only that I was somehow comforted when her breathing steadied, and her body stopped shivering. Then, as if she’d just realized that she was hugging me, she pulled back. A flush of welcome color pinked her cheeks. I stood up, staring into her eyes that seemed to penetrate right into my soul. It felt as if she could somehow see all the secrets that I had kept close to my heart.

“Thanks,” she whispered.
 

She shot me a shy smile, as though she didn’t know what else to say. Somehow just that one word meant so much more when it came from her lips.

I shrugged noncommittally. Giving her the impression that I went off on visitors and hugged beautiful girls all the time. For a change I had nothing to say and was more content to just gaze into her eyes. Finally, I managed to drag my focus back to my cart, abandoned in the hallway.

“I better get back to work…or should I say actually start work,” I said with a low chuckle. She nodded and reached for me. I took her fingers in my hands, squeezing softly.

“I’ll hold you to your promise…for Christmas I mean,” she said with a coy grin. That small act served to light her whole face.

“I expect you to,” I said.
 

I released my hold on her. As I left the room the only thought in my mind was how much I ached to hold her again.

9. Marilee

I’d been more than a little surprised when Jax had rushed in the room, his blue eyes alight with anger, like my dark angel swooping in. I’d never seen him like that before and it frightened me a little, that was until he started to speak. To say his words were like music to my wounded soul would have been an understatement. In my mind it was incomprehensible that he’d risked everything to defend me. Even dressed in his coveralls he had a presence that seemed to fill the room. His unexpected actions had managed to turn my already topsy-turvy world even more off kilter.

 
Then my parents were gone and it was just he and I. What might at another time felt awkward, felt more than right. In his arms I felt safe like nothing, not even cancer could get to me. Being with him made me believe that if he just kept hold of me, it would heal me more than any drug that existed.
 

But even being in Jax’s arms Mom’s words came back to haunt me. Her rejection felt like poison darts aimed at my heart. They had hit the mark, leaving me hopeless. Since I’d been diagnosed, I’d tried to do the right thing. I had listened to the doctors and nurses, taken the medicine, even though it made me feel worse each day. I’d tried to ignore the clumps of hair that accumulated on my pillow and in the shower drain. I attempted to forget the fact that now there was no more hair in the drain at all.
 

It seemed that one day I’d woken up and had realized that it had already happened. Everything that I’d fought to pretend wasn’t real, the extreme weight loss, the pulpy sores in my mouth that hurt even when I drank water and losing all my hair, had become my reality. In my mind there was nothing else that the cancer could take because it had already done it. But I’d been wrong because it had also managed to take my home, my family, and everything that had once defined who I was. Now I was stripped clean.
 

And just when I thought there was nothing left to fight for, Jax was there. In his eyes there was hope, a chance at something new and maybe the first real thing I’d ever known. There was no denying that Jax was different than anyone I’d ever met before. Not only had he met me at my rock bottom, he had looked past the exterior that I’d always worked to maintain, and managed to see me. Instead of being disgusted by me, he’d looked at me in a way that made me feel like I was still beautiful. If there was a silver lining to the disease that was sucking every bit of me away, it was that I’d met Jax.

After he’d left the room I closed my eyes and remembered his arms around me. I thought about the scent of his cologne, woody with a hint of lemon. And how it had somehow managed to make the medicinal and sickly stench that seemed to seep from my pores, vanish. But as the hours lengthened and night approached and the truth sunk in, that although I’d finished my chemo cycle I wasn’t going home, it seemed more than I could take.
 

I was more than baffled that the hospital had agreed to keep me in too. Obviously Harold had greased enough palms to get what he wanted. Money had a way of opening doors that were usually closed; the hospital wasn’t any different.

I glanced out at the sun as it dropped below the horizon, gold and pink streaked the clouds. Darkness began to fill the space.

“Hey, how are you doing?”
 

I startled for just a second. Then my heart leapt with delicious relief. Jax was back. He’d ditched the coveralls and was dressed in faded jeans that fit him like they were tailor made. His Metallica t-shirt was snug enough that it tugged at the hard lines of his chest. He ran a large hand through his messy hair and it stuck up a little more, and somehow managed to make him look even more appealing. Without his coveralls that did just as the name suggested covered all, his sleeves of tattoos were visible. I felt my gaze immediately travel to them.

“Fine, I guess,” I said, trying for a casual shrug. I felt anything but casual. With the amount of raw sex appeal that Jax exuded, it seemed almost impossible to keep my heart contained in my chest. Now it was beating so hard that I was sure my whole body was vibrating.
 

He strode toward me and perched on the end of the bed, too far away in my opinion. His distance made me wonder if he’d regretted what he’d said to my parents and more importantly, the promise he’d made about Christmas. It was quite possible that he’d said it all in the heat of the moment, a reflex and an attempt to make me feel better, nothing more.
 

 
“I’ve been thinking that since you’re going to be here for the foreseeable future that you need to come up with something to do…”

“Like school work and stuff?” I cut in, deflated by the thought of school work. Somehow Trigonometry and Chemistry and all the other subjects I was taking in school didn’t carry the weight they once had. I’d done some work, but had found that even that little bit, managed to exhaust me. I knew if I made it through to the other side, summer school was in my future. But I couldn’t plan that far ahead.

“No, something fun, something that you get excited about,” he said, sliding down the bed, until his knee was pressed against my hand. I tried to swallow the thrill that threatened to make me grin like a moron. The contact was almost nothing, but somehow felt like everything.

“Like crafts or something like that?”

He shot me a sly grin. “Somehow I don’t see you as the crafty type.”

I stuck out my lip in mock indignation. He had hit the nail on the head, but I wasn’t about to confess that I was so far removed from being crafty that it was like we were in different time zones. Once more Jax had caught me off guard. I didn’t understand how he seemed to know so much about me. Rather than quiz him about his assumptions I let it go.

“Then what?”

“I was thinking more like the whole bucket list thing,” he said. His words made my breath catch. He grabbed my hand and massaged my fingers with his. I was a little amazed at how he’d grasped my hand as if we were a couple.

 
“Bucket lists aren’t just for people who have cancer. As far as I’m concerned everybody should have one because no one knows how long were here for. It’s best to get what we can get done when the gettings good.”
 

I stared at him with what I knew was a dreamy expression. As soon as I recognized that I was swooning like a tween at a Twilight movie, I dropped my eyes. I focused on his tattoos. Even I didn’t understand why I was so taken with them. It wasn’t like I hadn’t seen them before. I guess I was interested because I knew that every tattoo that Jax had, carried a hidden meaning and symbolized some part of who he was.
 

I shook my head, attempting to come up with something that would actually make me want to get out of bed every day, something of value. Out of nowhere Mom and Harold’s faces flashed into my mind. I knew it was childish, but I wanted to make them pay for screwing with my life, for rejecting me. There was no doubting that they’d always provided me with everything material that I needed, but that was where it had ended. Buried in things, I’d somehow been able to cope with the fact that to Mom I was merely a life sized doll. A toy that she could take out shopping, dress in cute clothes and who she could forget when she was bored. I wondered why I’d ever thought that me being sick would change any of that.
 

Then it came to me in a moment of insight that left me grinning.