Page 17 of Nash
She goes back to her prep. The shop fills with the sounds of her morning. Pencil on paper. The clink of ink bottles. The low hum of the record player.
The coffee sits at her station where I put it. She reaches for it without looking, the way she reaches for her ink bottles. Already muscle memory. Something warm and unfamiliar settles in my chest at that, and I shift my weight against the wall.
The morning passes in the rhythm of the shop. Clients in and out. The bell jingles. The tattoo machine buzzes. I watch the door and the windows. I watch her hands move over the stencil at her station.
The light on Ruby's station shifts when her first client moves in the chair, casting shadow across the stencil. Ruby squints, adjusts her grip, keeps working. I cross the room and reach past her shoulder to tilt the lamp head. The light corrects.
Her hand pauses on the client's arm. She looks up at me. I'm still close enough to smell green soap on her gloves and vanilla underneath.
"Thanks," she says. I'm back at the wall before she adds a joke.
Her second client walks through the door, clutching a tissue in one hand and a photograph in the other. A woman in her fifties, eyes already red. She sits in Ruby's chair, and her chin trembles before Ruby even pulls out the sketch.
"Okay," Ruby says, rolling her stool close. "Tell me about her."
"She loved wildflowers." The woman's voice cracks. "She used to pick them on the side of the road and put them in jars all over the house. My husband hated it. Said it looked like a greenhouse exploded." A wet laugh. "She didn't care."
"That's because she had taste and your husband doesn't." Ruby grins. The woman laughs again, real this time, and wipes her eyes. "What kind of wildflowers? Because if you say sunflowers, those are technically not wild, and I will fight about this."
"Black-eyed Susans. And those little purple ones. Verbena?"
"Verbena is gorgeous." Ruby pulls the sketch from her folder and lays it on the woman's lap. "I did the lettering around acluster of wildflowers. Black-eyed Susans here, Verbena winding through here." Her finger traces the design. "The way it wraps means the flowers follow the natural curve of your forearm. So when you move, they move."
The woman stares at the sketch. Her hand presses flat over her mouth. Ruby waits. Doesn't fill the silence.
"That's her," the woman whispers. "That's exactly her."
"Good." Ruby squeezes her hand once. "Now. I'm going to walk you through every step before I start, and if at any point you need to stop, you tell me. There's no rush. We've got all afternoon and Frankie's got a bottomless coffee pot."
"Does it hurt?"
"Honestly? Yeah. But you already know what that feels like." Ruby's voice is soft. "This one's going to be worth it."
The woman nods. Ruby snaps on fresh gloves, adjusts the machine, and starts.
Her focus shifts the moment the needle touches skin. The jokes stop. Her brow furrows. Ruby's grip adjusts between outline and shading with a precision that's all muscle memory. The design takes shape under her hand. The lettering curves, the petals build layer by layer, and the shading is so delicate the flowers look alive on the woman's forearm.
Her shirt rides up at her hip when she leans forward. A strip of skin at her waist. I track it. Look away. Look back. Look away.
My eyes stay on the window for thirty seconds before they're pulled back to her station.
The memorial client leaves with mascara on her cheeks and Ruby's card in her hand. Ruby cleans the station, wipes down surfaces, and organizes her inks. Quietly. Ruby quiet is something I notice the way I'd notice a missing sound in a perimeter sweep.
Frankie crosses the shop and picks up the reference sketch. Holds it up.
"The petal shading," Frankie says. "Where did you learn that gradient?"
"Nowhere. I just felt it."
Frankie studies the sketch. Sets it down. Taps the edge. "You're past apprentice-level on work like this."
"I mean, we've already established that I'm amazing, so this feels redundant, but I appreciate the reminder." Ruby grins, but her fingers grip the edge of the station hard enough that I can see the tendons from across the room.
"She's right."
Both of them look at me. My jaw tightens.
"The memorial piece. Good work."
