Jillian’s acid wash jean jacket caught the wind and inflated like a balloon as she forcefully pushed the gas pedal farther to the floor, the windows rolled down. She glanced to her right and saw Nora’s nighttime silhouette reach forward and turn the radio up as far as the notch could go. Freedom and adrenaline blew out of the car’s exhaust pipe more than the gases from the engine. They left behind their small town in Idaho and headed to Seattle.
Suddenly, Nora jumped to a buzz in her pocket that’s roar resonated in the cab of the car. She pulled it out. “Crap. It’s my parents.”
“God, parents suck, right?” Jillian said tapering off. She snuck a glance at her phone, which was balancing on a thigh, and saw there were no missed calls or text messages.
“They’ve probably noticed I snuck out...” Nora looked at the phone intently before rolling her eyes, “Whatever, I’ll let them freak out for a change,” she punched the decline call button and dropped her phone in the cup holder, letting it land with a dramatic clunk. “So what’s the game plan for the night?”
Jillian looked at her, and Nora’s excited white smile and blonde hair shone brightly in the highway lights’ reflections. “I have no idea. We’ll have to wait and see when we get there.”
“Maybe there’ll be some cool underground concert we can get into!” Nora sat forward in her seat and reached her arm out the window. The rush of the wind on her skin amplified her thrill. A moment later, the rattle of her phone started again, this time against the plastic car interior blaring more loudly than before. “God, I wish they’d stop already!”
Jillian’s lips curled in and eyes rolled at Nora’s melodramatic attitude.
Jillian pulled off the exit and followed what she could remember of the directions she looked up that morning. She drove past Randolph Street but didn’t see what she was looking for. “Hey let’s just park, and see what’s downtown.”
The thumping bass from bars oozed out between the bricks of the buildings, and the abundant street lights glared brightly above. The buildings they walked past were aged yet well kept; their charm and character helped hide their tired, drunk look. Jillian led, and they walked east on Randolph. She was careful to look in each window they passed, as she searched for a specific one. They walked three blocks before Jillian gave up on that direction. “Wait, why are we turning around?” Nora grabbed Jillian’s arm.
“I, um,” Jillian stretched her neck looking down the way at the signs on the building fronts, “dropped something a while back, I think.”
“Oh, what?”
Jillian couldn’t read the signs after the fifth one in the distance; their writing by that point was too smushed into perspective. Her mind was too focused to answer Nora. They continued back for about a block or two when just a little way in the distance something took hold of Jillian’s attention. The glaring neon sign read, “Tattoos: come get inked!”
An enormous smile overtook Jillian’s face as she yanked Nora’s wrist. “Nora, I know exactly what we’re doing tonight!”
Nora looked past Jillian to see what she was looking so fixedly at. “Tattoos? Jillian, there’s no way we can get away with that!” Nora’s voice squeaked in its unsure tone.
“Oh, shut up!” Jillian joked.
When they were under the torn awning with faded letters spelling “Inksanity,” their eyes both fell on the sign in the window that read “18 and older”. Jillian turned to Nora and gave her the look saying “Don’t talk, I got this under control.”
Jillian pushed open the glass door chiming the high pitched bell. Grimy fingerprints clouded the glass so that the multicolored concert posters taped on the other side were muted. As she approached the front desk, Jillian picked at her nails with one hand and twirled her hair with the other. Nora’s eyes wandered the room, and she followed. “Yeah, we’d each like a walk in.” Jillian gestured to Nora who awkwardly stood there scratching her arm until the intimidating man looked at her, at which she gave a nervous wave.
“Um, okay,” the man chuckled, and in doing so his large neck and face became one mass, “and how old are you two?”
“Eighteen.” Jillian confidently let the word roll out of her mouth.
“Eighteen,” Nora answered too quickly.
There was no possible way he actually believed them, but maybe he found it humorous to let sixteen year olds think they’re cool. He scanned them skeptically with his eyes, though. “Alright, Jack will be with you guys in a minute.”
The room was strangely quiet and stiff. A huge man sat in the corner in a bright red vinyl chair smoking and flipping through the pages of a motorcycle magazine. His size combined with his massive, black beard and hairy arms and legs made him resemble a bear, and his gruff expression and tattoo cloaked arms and neck did nothing but frighten the girls even more. The emerald paint was pealing off the walls, and a few tiles of the ornate tin ceiling looked like they would fall any moment.
Jillian’s observations of the room were interrupted when she heard her name called in a deep voice. She snapped her head around to meet eyes with a broad shouldered man. His body was coated with ink designs to the point that not even the tiniest tattoo would be able to squeeze its way in. He stood with the most bored look pulling on his gloves waiting to take her back. “I’m Jack.”
Jillian smiled at Nora, who raised an eyebrow and bit her lip, then followed Jack down the hallway to a room guarded by a heavy black curtain. Jack pushed it aside and held it for Jillian, “So, first tattoo?” he tried to make small talk.
“Uh, yeah, I guess so,” she looked to ground in embarrassment.
“Sweet,” he walked to the counter in the room and started to gather the tools, “It won’t hurt too bad.”
Jillian hopped on the chair and swung her legs as she waited. The alternative music playing in the background all of a sudden seemed louder in their silence. “Oh, hey, is this Nova Mob?”
Jack turned around. “Yeah, you know of them?”
“Well yeah, me and my dad love them.” She gave a quick look at her phone she held in her hands. “As a matter a fact, how ‘bout them be what I get?”
“Sounds good. That’ll look sweet.” He picked up the needle machine. “Ready?”
Jack was right; in Jillian, the needle injected thrill and excitement rather than ink and pain. When Jack was finished, he took a towel to clean up the excess ink and reveal the words “Nova Mob” written boldly on her left shoulder blade. Jillian jumped up from the chair and spun around in front of the mirror as she admired her new piece of art.
When Jillian came out to the front room, she showed off her shoulder blade to Nora. “It was nothing,” Jillian casually stated.
This time it was her that sat in the vinyl red chair, and Nora went back. Jillian looked up to see a Felix the Cat clock reading 2 a.m. hung on the wall surrounded by example artwork. She reached into her jacket pocket and pulled out her phone by habit. The screen showed nothing but the default background. Nora came out after about thirty minutes and 1800 swings of the cat’s tail. Her face was lit with exhilaration as she tugged at her pant leg to reveal a tiny outline of a flower behind her ankle. Nora was so impressed with herself, but Jillian couldn’t help but give a little laugh, “We better head home.”

***

It was seven in the morning by the time they came to a stop in Nora’s driveway. “I guess I’ll see ya later!” Nora climbed out of the car.
Once Nora stepped inside her front door, Jillian could hear the shrieks and screams of Nora’s parents. Sitting in the car, a grin grew across Jillian’s face as she listened to the pieces of the conversation she could pick out. After a moment though, Jillian caught herself and was disgusted at the fact that she smiled at her best friend getting in a tremendous amount of trouble for something that was her idea. She shook her head and drove herself home.
Next to the house, Jillian parked in front of her dad’s makeshift tool shed; it’s roof was a blue tarp and the walls were made from unevenly cut wood boards. She walked inside the house through the fraying screen door into the kitchen where she came across her dad modeling his Lowe’s uniform as usual. He sat at the table they used for everything (breakfast, lunch, dinner, a kitchen island, and a desk) drinking black coffee and eating eggs while perusing through the pages of the newspaper.
“Hey! You have fun last night?” He didn’t move the paper down to look at her, but his tone was light and friendly.
“Yeah, we had fun.” She took off her jacket and pulled her shirt in the back.
“Well, I went ahead and finished the coffee pot,” he took a moment to finish the end of an article he was reading and still didn’t look up, “Cause, uh, yeah I didn’t know if you’d be back by morning.”
Jillian gave a glance at the coffee maker across the room and saw the morning sun shining through the empty glass pot. “Back from...?” Her eyebrows tilted and she looked at him sternly.
“You know,” he gestured with his hands lazily, now more focused on the local high school sports section than their conversation. He didn’t bother to finish his thought.
The hum of the refrigerator filled the air. “Okay, yeah, I’m going upstairs,” but Jillian was already in the hallway by this point.
And for an unknown reason, frustration overwhelmed her.