The Wrong Sign

So here's how my Tuesday went. I'm Rosa, I'm thirty-four, and I distill tequila for a living, which sounds fancier than it is. Mostly it means smelling things and arguing with men in hairnets. But this part isn't about work. This part is about a dog.

I was in San Miguel de Allende for four days, checking out an agave supplier, and I had the afternoon free. Hot, dry, that autumn light that makes everything orange. I was at the market buying a lime popsicle I did not need when I saw him.

Scruffy terrier. Wire hair, one ear up one ear down, trotting through the stalls like he owned the lease. No owner in sight. He had a collar with a metal tag, and when he stopped to sniff a crate of mangoes I got close enough to read it.

Inked & Aroma. An address on some street I couldn't pronounce. And a phone number.

"Hey, buddy!" I said. "You lost, or just rude?"

He looked at me. He finished sniffing the mangoes. Then he walked off, tail going, absolutely certain I would follow.

Reader, I followed. I had nothing better to do and I like dogs more than most people, which says something about my social life. We went half a block, he stopped twice, and I did the whole embarrassing crouch-and-clap thing while a woman selling tortillas watched me like I was the entertainment.

"Is he yours?" she asked.

"No! He's got a tag though. Tattoo place?"

She pointed up the hill. "Cobblestones, then left. The one with the bad sign."

"The bad sign?"

"You'll see!" She was already laughing at me.

I did see. The shop sat in a converted courtyard off the street, big front windows, and above the door a neon sign that read TATTOS. No second O. Just TATTOS, buzzing away in pink, missing a letter like it couldn't be bothered.

Inside, it smelled like ink and, weirdly, coffee and something green. Plants everywhere. A guy in his thirties sat at the counter with a dog towel across his lap like he'd been waiting for a suspect to turn himself in.

"That's Fletcher's problem, actually," said a voice from the back. "But I'll take custody."

She came around the partition and, okay. She was maybe thirty-two, black hair shaved on one side, long on the other, forearms full of color. Sleeve of moths on one arm. She looked at the dog, then at me, and grinned like I'd brought her a winning lottery ticket.

"You found Bandido," she said. "Where?"

"Market. He was working the mango stand."

"That's his racket. He runs cons on tourists all week." She scooped him up and he went limp in her arms, totally satisfied with himself. "Fletcher, my shop manager and this con artist's legal guardian. Your witness is here."

The guy at the counter raised a hand. "Fletcher. Thanks for that, seriously, he's been gone since morning. I owe you a drink."

"You owe me nothing, I had a free afternoon and a popsicle," I said. "I'm Rosa, by the way. I saw the tag."

"Nell." She set the dog down and he immediately flopped under a chair. "Come in, you're all dusty. You look like you chased a dog up a hill."

"I chased a dog up a hill."

"Sit, then. Water or something stronger?"

It was barely four in the afternoon but I was on vacation from being sensible. "Stronger, sure."

She went to a back shelf, and to be honest, I expected a bar fridge. Instead she pulled down a jug with a hand-taped label and poured two small glasses of something cloudy. Mescal, homemade, someone's uncle's batch by the look of it.

"Fletcher's uncle makes it," she said, handing me one. "It's better than it has any right to be."

It was. Smoky, a little sweet, warm going down. "Okay, wow. Fletcher's uncle makes good stuff."

"I'll tell him. He'll be insufferable for a month." She hopped up to sit on the counter, which I guess you can do when it's your shop. "So. You saw the sign."

"TATTOS," I said. "Is it on purpose?"

"God, no. The sign guy made it four years ago and we didn't notice until it was up. He'd already left town. Fletcher says fixing it would cost more than the parlor made that year, which is a lie, but a funny one."

"Locals know it as the Tattos place now," Fletcher added from his chair. "There's a tour guide who points it out. She makes up a ghost story about the missing O."

"A ghost story?"

"She says a spirit took the letter. Tourists love it. We gave up correcting anyone around year two."

The dog snored under the chair. The mescal was doing its friendly work. And I noticed I was in no hurry to leave, which was odd, because I had a hotel with a sad pool waiting for me.

"Can I ask you something dumb?" I said.

"Those are my favorites."

"I've never actually been in a tattoo shop. Like, ever. Thirty-four years, zero tattoos, zero shops. Is that weird?"

Nell put a hand over her heart like I'd wounded her. "Never? Not even a bad tramp stamp story to regret?"

"Not one."

"That's almost sad. Okay. Education time." She slid off the counter and grabbed a big laminated sheet off the wall, laid it flat on the counter in front of me. "This is the flash sheet from last month. Small stuff, walk-in friendly. Little snakes, matchbook hearts, a chili pepper that Fletcher insists nobody has ever picked."

"It's a bad chili pepper," Fletcher said.

"It's stylized."

"It looks like a shrimp with ambitions."

I leaned over it, and she stood close enough that I could smell the coffee on her, and her shoulder was near mine, and I had the thought, the actual thought, oh. Huh. Because I'd dated men, a guy named Chas back when I was twenty-eight, briefly, and it had been fine and then it hadn't been, and I'd never once looked at a woman this way. Her arm was right there with all those moths and I was interested in the arm. Interested in a way that was new and very obvious to me.

"Do the moths mean anything?" I asked, to have something to say.

"They eat my wool sweaters, so, revenge," she said. "Also transformation, but mostly the sweaters."

I laughed harder than the joke deserved, and she looked at me a second longer than she needed to, and we both stayed silent for a beat, and the shop got very quiet except for the dog snoring and the neon buzzing its one-O heartbeat outside.

"So what's your deal, Rosa?" she asked, refilling my glass without asking, which felt like a decision I approved of. "Distiller? You've got that hands-busy look."

"Tequila. Work trip. I'm here to taste agave and pretend I understand soil reports."

"Best job at the table."

"It pays in headaches and free samples."

She clinked her little glass against mine. "To free samples. And to Bandido, the best wingman in San Miguel."

"He didn't do anything."

"He got you through my door. That's more than most manage."

Fletcher checked his phone and stood, stretching. "I'm out. Rosa, thanks again for the hound. Nell, don't corrupt the nice tourist before I get back."

"No promises," she called, cheerful, and he laughed on his way out, and then it was just us and the dog and a jug of somebody's uncle's mescal and that buzzing pink sign, missing its letter, glowing over the courtyard like it knew something I didn't.

The sun started going down and the courtyard went orange, then pink, then that purple that makes everything look like a postcard. Bandido, traitor that he is, just stretched out on the tile like he lived here now. Which, honestly, maybe he does.

Nell poured a third round, a thimble each this time, and then, without a word, set two big glasses of water on the counter and made us both drink them. We talked about nothing for a solid half hour while the courtyard went dark. I was buzzed and no more than buzzed, the world a little soft but my mouth working fine.

"So," she said, and I want to tell you, the way she said it, I knew the conversation was turning. "You're here three more days? Nights, I mean. What are you doing with them?"

"Hotel pool. Room service. It's a sad itinerary, honestly."

"Wow. Riveting."

"It's a sad pool. There's a crack in it and a chair with no cushion."

"Okay, real question, then." She set her glass down and looked right at me, and I don't know how tattoo artists do that look, like they've seen every answer a person can give and they'll wait for the true one anyway. "Are you curious about anything tonight?"

I should have played dumb. I want you to know I considered playing dumb. I had a whole plan in my head, like, laugh, change the subject, talk about agave some more, go home, lie in the sad pool hotel bed and think about her arm for a week. That was the plan.

"Yes," I said instead. "God, yes."

"Good," she said, smiling like I'd passed a test. "Because I was going to feel pretty dumb otherwise. And you've had two big glasses of water and a lot of talking since the mescal, so I'm counting that as a sober yes. If you want to take it back later, it's yours to take back."

She got up and walked to the big front windows. The shutter came down with a rattle and a clank, and the neon sign lit her from behind through the gap at the bottom, this pink stripe across the floor. Then she flipped the lock on the door and turned around.

"Fair warning," she said, "I closed the shop. You're trapped."