The Ink in the Water

The first day of a cruise is always the weirdest one. People board with their rolling suitcases and their frozen drinks and they walk the whole ship like they're checking out an apartment before signing the lease, and I sit in my little studio on Deck 7 trying to look busy so nobody asks me anything.

My name is Rosaline, I'm thirty-four, and I've been doing tattoos on ships for six years now. The studio on the Azure Horizon is about the size of a walk-in closet. One chair, one tray, a sink, and a big window that looks out at the promenade, which means every person who strolls by can watch me rearranging needles I already arranged twenty minutes ago.

I got there at eight that morning to set up. Fresh barrier film on everything, new grips, ink caps laid out in rows, the flash art taped back up on the door where it always curls at the corners by the second day. There's this one piece of a swallow that I drew myself and I'm kind of proud of it, even though nobody ever picks it. People on cruises want anchors. Anchors, hearts, names, dates. I could do an anchor in my sleep and honestly I sometimes think I have.

Anyway. I was squatting down to load the lower drawer and I caught my reflection in the glass of the cabinet, and there it was again, the soft roll at my waist pushing against the waistband of my work pants. I stood up fast like that would undo it. Then I leaned over the sink and looked at my part line and counted at least four gray hairs coming in right at the front where I can't hide them. I've been dyeing it myself in my cabin shower every three weeks and it's starting to feel like a losing battle.

I know thirty-four isn't old. I know that. But on a ship full of twenty-two-year-old dancers and hardbody guests in swimsuits, you start doing math you shouldn't do. My last real relationship was when I was twenty-two, a guy named Dennis who was sweet and boring and we ended it over the phone like adults, and since then it's been me, my machines, and a rotating cast of drunk honeymooners asking if the tattoo will hurt.

At around ten the door did its little chime and I looked up ready to sell an anchor, and instead a man just stopped at the window. Mid forties maybe, tall-ish, gray coming in at his temples too, wearing one of those linen shirts that says I gave up but in a nice way. He was looking at the flash art on the door. The swallow. He looked at it for a good ten seconds, then he looked at me, or near me, and then he kept walking.

That was it. Didn't come in, didn't wave. Just kept going down the promenade like he had somewhere to be.

I told myself it didn't matter. Ninety percent of people who slow down at the window never book anything. I went back to my ink caps.

* * *

He came back at two.

I was eating a sad salad from the crew mess at my counter, trying not to get vinaigrette anywhere near the chair, and there he was again. Same shirt. This time he stopped a little longer. He read the price sheet taped to the glass, I could see his eyes moving, and then he looked in at me and I panicked and gave him what I hope was a normal smile and not a salad-with-a-leaf-in-my-teeth smile.

He nodded at me. Just a nod. Then he walked off again.

"Okay," I said to my salad. "Cool."

The spa manager, a tiny whirlwind named Priti, stuck her head in around four. "First day, any bookings?"

"One consult maybe tomorrow. A woman who wants her kid's birthday in Roman numerals."

"So, no."

"So, no," I agreed. "Day one is always like this. They're all still finding the pool."

"Well, the spa has a welcome event at six, wine and fruit water, you should come stand there and look approachable. It helps."

"Nothing about me is approachable, Priti, I have a skull on my forearm."

"You have a nice face and you're being dramatic. Six o'clock."

She left before I could argue, which is her whole system and it works on me every time.

I closed the studio at five and walked the promenade once before the welcome thing, mostly to stretch my legs. And that's when I saw him a third time, sitting alone at one of the bars with a book. An actual paper book. Nobody reads paper on a ship, they all have their phones out filming the wake. He had a beer and the book and he looked completely fine, which is the thing I noticed. Everyone else out here is performing their vacation, and this guy was just living his Tuesday.

I did not go over and say hi. I want to be the kind of person who would, but I'm not, not on day one when I'm feeling like a soft gray-haired troll in work pants. I went to the wine event instead and stood next to the fruit water and answered the same four questions, does it hurt, how long have you done this, do you do piercings too, and is it true the ink goes to your lymph nodes, and by seven I was done with people for the day.

* * *

Day two was better, business-wise. Roman numeral lady came back and actually booked for Friday. A guy from Texas got a compass on his calf and tipped twenty dollars and told me I did cleaner work than the guy in Galveston, which I choose to take as a compliment. I was closing up around six, wiping down the chair, when I heard the chime.

It was him. Book guy. Linen shirt. Standing in the doorway of my actual studio for the first time instead of the window.

"Hey," he said. "Sorry, I keep walking past this place. I probably look like a creep by now."

"You noticed me noticing, huh."

"Third time's embarrassing, yeah." He put his hands in his pockets. He had a nice easy way of standing, no performance to it. "I'm Earl. I've been walking past this place since day one. I just like your drawings. The swallow on the door especially."

"Nobody ever picks the swallow."

"That seems crazy. It's the best one in there."

I wiped my hands on a towel even though they were already clean, because my hands needed a job. "It's mine. I drew it."

"See, that tracks. The rest are standard cruise stuff, anchors and whatnot, and then there's one that's actually good." He smiled a little. "You're Rosaline, right? It's on your license on the wall."

"Yes. Rosaline. And you're Earl, which is a name I have literally never heard on a person under seventy."

"I get that a lot," he said, laughing. "My dad's fault."

"So you walk past, you read my prices, you don't book. What's the system, Earl? You collecting studio tours?"

"Mostly I like the promenade at end of day," he said, shrugging. "It's the only time this ship feels like a place instead of a mall. And your window's right here, so." He glanced at the chair, at the tray, at the swallow on the door. "Anyway. I'll let you close up. I just figured after three passes I should say hi like a normal human."

"Well, hi," I said. "For future reference, day passes are free, but the swallow costs extra since I'm attached to it."

"Noted," he said, and he left, and I stood there in my empty closet of a studio feeling weirdly lighter than I had all day, which was stupid, and which I thought about anyway while I finished cleaning the chair.

I should've gone to bed early, but I didn't. I ate another sad salad from the crew mess, alone this time since my tablemate was off somewhere, and then I wandered up to the observation lounge around nine because the crew mess faces inward and I wanted to see water. The lounge is the one good room on the whole ship, two stories of windows, all the chairs angled toward the sea, and at nine on day two it was almost empty. Earl was in one of the chairs by the window with that same paper book.

I picked a seat far off, angled away, and told myself I was just resting my feet. Then I made the rookie mistake of looking over, and he was already looking up from his book, right at me. Not a glance. He held it, two full seconds, and then he went back to his page like nothing happened, and I sat there with my heart doing something I refused to name, staring at the dark water like I had views about it.

Nothing happened after that. We didn't talk. He read, I sat, and at some point I went to bed. But I lay there for a while replaying two seconds of eye contact, which at thirty-four is either pathetic or honest, depending on the night.

* * *

Day three, he came into the studio.

I was restocking ink caps when the chime went, and there he was in the doorway in a different linen shirt, hands in his pockets again. "Hi. Question. The anchor on the flash sheet, the small one in the corner. Can you do that tiny?"

"It's about two inches on the sheet," I said. "You want it smaller?"

"Maybe an inch and a half. Wrist, maybe. Does the detail hold at that size?"

I started explaining line weight and how fine lines blow out over time, and somewhere in the middle of the sentence I lost the thread of it, because he was watching me the way he'd watched the swallow on the door, actually listening, and my brain decided that was a problem. I said the word "needle" twice in a row and had to restart a whole sentence.

"Sorry," I said, laughing at myself. "I explained that much better before you walked in. Usually there's a customer and a counter between us."

"You're fine. Smaller, but it holds?"

"It holds. Honestly the small anchor is the least cruise thing on that sheet. It's a decent little drawing."

"Then maybe someday I'll book it." He said it easy, no pressure, like he was telling me the weather, and then he left, and I stood there annoyed at myself for flubbing a sentence I've said a hundred times over six years.

Priti stuck her head in an hour later. "You're flustered."

"I'm not."

"You dropped three caps and you're talking to the tray. Who was that?"

"A passenger. He asks questions."

"Uh huh. Friday's still on, right?"

"Priti."

"What. I'm asking about the consult." She grinned and left.

* * *

That evening I risked the buffet, the one on the aft deck at sunset, because the crew mess was serving something gray again and I'd earned real food. It's a mob scene at sunset, everybody with their phones out for the orange sky, and I had a plate of pasta and nowhere I wanted to sit when I heard, "There's a free table