Audre & Bash Are Just Friends(22)
But that wasn’t really me, he thought. She met the real me. The person my dad wouldn’t let me be.
When he first got to Hillcrest Prep, the guidance counselor demanded a meeting with him, to find out his plans for senior year and beyond. It was the strangest interview. For the first time in his school career, he told the truth. He just unloaded everything that had been pent up for years. Stuff he’d never uttered out loud.
Where do you see yourself in five years?
No idea.
Ten years?
Even less of an idea.
You don’t have the slightest idea? No interests, or…
You know what? I do know. So, I’m just gonna say it. I want to be a tattoo artist. I love art and design, and I’ve always been into ink. My heroes are tattoo artists—I know all the greats and I’ve memorized their designs. I close my eyes and see them in the dark. Ever since I could hold a pen, I’ve been sketching designs. Before I even knew what a tattoo was. But I always kept it a secret. A few years ago, I went to a meet in Oklahoma City. And, it seems random, but one of the sickest artists in the country lives there. Keith Littlefeather. I had to meet him. So, I snuck away from practice one afternoon and found his studio. I had to dodge the coaches ’cause they spied on me for my dad. Anyway, this artist was so chill, like he looked at my designs, gave me advice, told me who I should apprentice with in Oakland. And he gave me an old tattoo gun. Ever since then, every chance I got, I’d practice on… umm… on fruit.
Fruit.
Grapefruits, mostly.
Really?
Really.
You don’t find that odd?
Maybe it is. I guess that’s one of the reasons I kept it secret. I even rented a locker at a gym two towns over and kept the gun there so my dad could never find it. So, um, yeah. Long story short, that’s what I see myself doing.
You do realize that pursuing such a… low-status career would be an unfortunate waste of your track and field record. Plus, you’ve received a top-notch education! Greater Oakland High School and Hillcrest Prep are two of the finest institutions in America. Do you really want to throw away everything you’ve worked for?
I do. Pretty badly.
Let’s move on to the next question. What are three adjectives that best describe you?
Creative. Curious. And, I guess, low-status.
Joke all you want, young man, but tattoo artistry is not a respectable profession.
Maybe I’m not a respectable person. Respectfully.
Audre seemed like the kind of girl who had it all together. It was surprising, learning that she, of all people, needed his help. That she didn’t think she was fun. Or didn’t know how to have fun.
The thing was: Bash could relate to this in ways she couldn’t imagine. He was brand-new to being an impulsive, “adventurous” teenager. He wished he could tell her how regimented his life used to be. He’d never even eaten a meal that wasn’t planned by his coaches (who were in cahoots with his dad). His dad approved all his clothes—Republican-coded Polo shirts and khakis because college recruiters and sponsors liked it. He knew how it felt to drown under everyone’s expectations. To feel like a list of accomplishments instead of a real person.
When Audre asked him to be her “fun consultant,” there was no other answer but yes. Bash was all in before she finished asking the question. Audre and her slightly unpredictable energy were exactly the kind of shit he could get into. In her, he recognized a stifled person, dying to break free. Like him.
Besides, the unreal combination of her beauty, boldness, and (accidental?) meanness turned him into an idiot. His anecdote about being half cat? What was that? He was so embarrassing. He said so many dumb things yesterday. But Audre had walked out in a cloud of delicious perfume before he could redeem himself.
When Bash moved to Brooklyn, he’d decided that he was saying “yes” to everything put in front of him, everything he’d always wanted to do. Nothing was off-limits anymore. He tatted up his arm. Wore whatever the fuck felt right. Pierced things. Stopped buzzing his hair. Made out with whoever he wanted to. Partied. Woke up at 4 AM on the weekends and took the train over an hour to Rockaway Beach.
Plus? There was just something about Audre, wasn’t there? It was excruciating, trying not to stare at her at the shop. His eyes were magnetized to her.
But he chased the idea of her out of his mind. This was the exact worst time for him to get a crush. He had nothing to offer.
Just then, the alarm on Bash’s watch went off. Seven minutes were up. He’d given himself that much time to catch his breath after surfing all morning. Time to get up.
Seven minutes, he thought, grabbing his towel and wiping the sand off his skin. That’s all the time it took for Dad to get rid of me.
That’s where his mind went when he was still. Ever since Milton said that he was no longer his son, Bash had been obsessed with timing things, with figuring out what could be done in seven minutes. He timed everything. He’d discovered that he could whip up an edible pan of chicken stir-fry in seven minutes. He could bike half of the Park Slope loop in seven minutes. He could tolerate four highball shots in seven minutes.
And, because there were a zillion clocks in Just Because, and he watched them obsessively—he knew that it had taken seven minutes to say yes to Audre.
Much later, back at his mom’s sparklingly clean apartment, he was slouched down in the only place he felt comfortable—a window nook in the guest room. It made sense that he liked being in the guest room rather than his own hastily furnished bedroom. Bash felt like a guest. He was a guest.