Page 10 of The Trouble with Love and Ink
Chapter 4
With my jammed door, there was no graceful entry into the apartment. I had to channel my inner linebacker, shoving my shoulder into the dense wood to get it to budge. All the while, the neighbors squabbled on the floor below. Once I finally made my forced entry, I could hear every other word hurled at each other. Today, they appeared to be arguing about a comb, of all things.
Hailey detested my apartment. When she first helped me move in, she nearly packed the rental truck back up and made me come home with her. She’d taken one good look at the broken security gate left ajar and told me her older sister senses were tingling. On the outskirts of Houston, my apartment had been on the cheaper side, which, Hailey had informed me, also equated to the more dangerous side. I’d rolled my eyes at her concern. So, the apartment wasn’t perfect. It had character. And though the people in my building could be eccentric, they all had good hearts.
Besides, the price was right. I had student loans to pay off, and I ultimately wanted to save up enough to afford a down payment on a house. I considered living in a less-than-ideal apartment a tradeoff for owning a nice home one day.
I’d finally convinced Hailey to let me stay by saying we just needed to make the place more welcoming, and after a few trips to my favorite consignment shops and dollar spots, we’d made a valiant effort. A vase sat on the coffee table, fake lavender proudly stretching out of it. A print of an adorable café adorned with a wall of pink flowers hung in the living room. And the couch had throw pillows with the same palette as conversation hearts.
I’d been going for a Frenchy pastel vibe, but in the apartment with its bent blinds and the water-stained ceiling, we’d only marginally increased the value of my new living space. Still, Hailey had relented with a playful eye-roll. “You and your glass-half-full vision,” she’d said. At the time, I’d considered it a compliment. But now, thinking about what she’d said about my past romantic relationships, I suddenly didn’t think she intended it that way.
Great. Now, I’d be analyzing every conversation between us to see if she’d been dropping clues on how she really felt about me all along.
I didn’t come home to sulk, I thought, trying to pep talk myself into being productive. I have invitations to address.
First order of business, I reached under the back of my shirt, unhooked my bra, pulled it through my sleeve, then sling-shotted it across the room. It almost made the edge of the hamper.
Bit by bit, I traded my work clothes for pajama bottoms with a garden party—flowers and teacups—and a U of H shirt I’d washed so many times you could barely make out the lettering. Finally, I pulled my coppery, right-at-the-ribs-length hair into a messy bun at the nape of my neck.
Seated at a desk that took up a disproportional amount of space in my living room, I picked up a workbook with pages and pages of drills: upstrokes, downstrokes, turns, loops, curves, letters, and words, words, words. Though I’d never consider myself an artist, I even had pages of embellishments: floral arrangements, leaves, berries, and frames to put words or phrases in.
I fell in love with calligraphy in eighth grade. It had helped me cope—to find some control in my life—after the summer Mom had quit her stable career to pursue her love of painting. I’d learned firsthand that the grass isn’t always greener on the other side. Her paintings didn’t sell as she’d hoped, and we’d been evicted from our apartment just to move in with her emotionally abusive art buddy. I didn’t think things could possibly get worse and then he kicked us out, and only one door slid open—the one to Mom’s minivan.
I’d never felt fear quite as potent: not knowing when I’d eat next or where the meal would come from. Never slept as restlessly as when only a sheet of metal stood between us and the rest of the world.
So, when Mom got a job teaching at an art studio, effectively placing all our feet back on solid ground, I sought out control in any form. Another teacher at her studio taught calligraphy, and I clung to her lessons like they were the last life preserver on the boat. I dedicated myself to the craft, becoming almost religious about practicing my drills.
Only recently, with my job, had I been unfaithful. The entries for my drills had grown farther and farther apart. And though I didn’t think my skills had suffered, I knew they would eventually if I kept abandoning them.
I’d once upon a time dreamed of letting my calligraphy be something more than the occasional addressing of envelopes for friends or quotes daintily scribed and framed as Christmas presents. I really thought one day I could make it into a side hustle. I still had the books about opening a small business, highlighted and tagged with sticky notes, on my bookshelf, but starting my own business belonged among all the other fantasies on the shelf. Because that’s all it was.
Even if I had the time, I doubt I could have done what Hailey was doing. I was too afraid that something I loved deeply might end up being another disappointment, another heartbreak.
Honoring my old ritualistic routine, I lit a nearby three-wick candle—pineapple-scented—before starting an acoustic playlist. Going through these motions put my mind in the right place—like a baseball player tapping his bat in a certain pattern before taking a pitch.
The stack of blush envelopes and the list of addresses waited in my desk drawer. I pulled these out along with all the other tools of the trade: a pencil, a jar of ink, nibs, an envelope stencil, a ruler, and a laser level.
I lost myself in the magic of it all. Hailey had called calligraphy Zen, and she wasn’t wrong. I mapped out each name and address, looking at the descenders of the name to tell me how to best center it, and chose the right nib to place into the holder to make my weapon of choice—the pointed pen.
Then, I took it to the envelopes.
If you watch calligraphy on TikTok, chances are you think it’s quick work—each address looped and curved in a minute or less. However, most of those videos are sped up. In real life, the process is methodical and deliberate. In other words, slow. Calligraphy is slow.
I used a pencil first. For the address, I etched block letters, and then, with careful, practiced strokes, I used calligraphy for the name. I erased imperfections and added embellishing swoops before my pen ever touched the paper.
But when the nib finally connected with the page, the magic happened: heavy strokes going down, followed by the lightest of upstrokes. It reminded me of following music in choir. Every downstroke belted a proud fortissimo, and every upstroke sang a delicate, hushed pianissimo. I loved using the pointed pen. I’d initially tried it because I wanted to feel more like a Hogwarts student, dipping my pen in ink. I’d kept using it over the years because its sharp tip allowed for the slightest wisps of lines—very useful for details—but it also forced me to slow down. To take my time, just live and breathe and enjoy. When else did I ever do that?
Each envelope took me about ten minutes, give or take. With a list of fifty addresses, I finally put the pen down at just ten, eyes bleary from focusing so intently, with still thirty to go. I wanted to do more, but I had work in the morning.
Ugh. Work.
The next day had all but laid itself out in front of me. Meetings that should be emails. A mountain of support tickets. And Beckett—Beck, shirt enthusiast, promotion thief, and a handsome face marred by a smug smile.
I thought of the comment he made earlier.
Well, have a nice swim home.
What an ass.
