Page 99 of Malaise
TWENTY-NINE
“Did you wannahear about that job I got for you? Only if you’re keen, that is.” Tanya flicks her finger repeatedly, scrolling through her newsfeed. “Call it a birthday present, hon.”
We’ve been hanging out back at my room in the hostel for most of the day after the unsuccessful conversation with Dad yesterday, celebrating the fact I’ve turned another year older with a cheap bottle of wine and a couple of overiced cupcakes from the bakery on the main drag.
Happy fucking birthday to me. No phone call from Mum, and definitely not Dad, but then what else did I expect?
“I guess,” I answer. “A little cash can’t hurt.”
She looks at me, biting her lip to stop her smile.
“What?”
“It might hurt… a little.”
“What on earth could it be?” I ask with a chuckle. “Jesus, Tanya. You sign me up for some medical trial or something?”
She shakes her head, blonde hair falling into her face. “No. Not that bad. It’s doing a little work for a guy I met the other weekend, at that tattoo convention I told you about.”
This sounds ominous. “Yeah? How come you’ve never mentioned him before now?”
“With everything going on, there just never seemed to be a time.” She sets the phone down, unfurling herself from where she’d been cross-legged on my single chair. “He’s really nice. A bit scary to look at, but you’ll love him. Wicked sense of humour.”
Her gaze goes all doe-eyed, and I snort in my attempt to stifle a laugh.
“You want the work, or not?” she teases.
If it gives me more cash to stay here until Carver’s trial, then, “Yeah, of course.”
“He needs a tattoo model. A blank canvas if you like, for some upcoming competition.”
“Wow.”
“Hon,” she chastises. “It’s free ink.”
“What does he want to draw?” I’d always thought of getting something, but until recently I was the age where Mum and Dad would have had to sign it off, and yeah… nah.
“He does mostly real-life, portraiture kind of stuff. He’d draw it to suit you, but it’d be his style.”
“How big would it be? Like, a little pic, or something huge like a whole arm?”
She shrugs, picking her phone up again. “I don’t know.”
“What does it pay?”
“He said something about two hundred?”
“Wow.” Here I was thinking fifty bucks and a free beer to calm my nerves if I’m lucky.
“When?”
“Um, hang on.” She flips through her phone. “End of the week. It’d be a full-day sitting.”
“Wow.”
“You said that already,” she teases with a smile.
“I’m just… I do want something done, I just hadn’t given it a lot of thought yet.”