Ink Is Thicker Than Water Read Online Free Page A

college boys bicycling everywhere who I always pray go to the university down the street and not the seminary next to it. But despite Webster’s many charms, it just can’t compete with South Grand.
    I find parking right around the corner from the shop. The breeze shifts as I walk up to Grand Avenue, bringing with it a rush of aroma from Sara’s favorite Thai place. Always dangerous to walk in this neighborhood on an empty stomach. There are restaurants and markets representing just about every country in Asia, my favorite diner in the world, and Italian so yummy you don’t even mind waiting forever to be seated.
    I walk past the antique shop, where one of the owners spots me through the window and gives me a wave. I wave back before letting myself in Mom and Russell’s shop, The Family Ink.
    “Hey, Kellie.” Jimmy, who works the front desk and cleans the shop and does all of the boring work no one else wants to do, grins as I walk in. Jimmy looks like a rock god from the 1980s, with black hair that grows wild. He’s always clad in T-shirts from concerts that are as old as I am. “How’s eleventh grade going?”
    Jimmy is always so proud he knows what grade I’m in. Like that isn’t weird.
    “It’s fine,” I say. “How’s your band?”
    Jimmy is, of course, in this band that covers heavy metal hits, and even Mom and Russell can’t figure out if it’s ironic or not.
    “Going good, yeah. We got a gig next weekend, but it’s twenty-one and up, so I can’t put you on the list.”
    “It’s okay. Well, Mom wanted to see me, so…” I make my way to Mom’s station, where she’s engrossed in inking a naked Bettie Page on a guy’s bicep. “Hey.”
    “Hi, baby,” she says without looking up. “I’m almost finished, then I thought we could walk down and get coffee.”
    “Crap, don’t let her see this,” the guy says, as if I haven’t seen hundreds of naked Bettie Pages by now. She’s probably the person I’ve seen naked the most times, next to myself.
    “I don’t think there’s anything about a naked woman that’s going to shock her.” Mom sits back for a moment and smiles up at me. “How was school?”
    “I’m on the school newspaper. It’s a long story,” I say, even though it isn’t.
    “I didn’t know you were interested in journalism.” She leans back over the nearly completed tattoo, the buzz of the machine only slightly drowning out her words as she presses it to Bettie’s butt, shading to bring out her curves.
    “I’m really not. It’s a humor column. And, like I said, it’s a long story.” The guy is glancing up at me still, so I figure he didn’t imagine this moment, whatever symbolism the naked pin-up girl means to him, in such a literal family way. So I give them some space and take a seat in the waiting area on the plush red sofa. Two of the front walls (painted the same sunny color as our kitchen because the leftover paint took up space in our storage shed forever) are covered with framed sheets of predesigned tattoo ideas. I can’t imagine being so boring you’d just walk in and point to something on a wall that hundreds of people have already gotten. The other wall holds framed articles and awards for the shop, and a big photo of the five of us where Finn’s arms are covered with temporary tattoos.
    A girl who looks like she’s my age at most but must be at least eighteen, considering how strict Mom and Russell are about the law, and also how savvy they are about fake IDs, sits across from me. She drums the fingers of one hand on the arm of the couch to the beat of the old-school punk playing overhead, while she grasps a piece of paper tightly.
    I figure she might have a nervous breakdown if she sits here alone in her own world of fear any longer. “What are you getting?”
    She holds out the paper, and I examine the hand-drawn flowers looped together in crisp black ink. “Do you think they’re stupid?” she asks.
    “No, it’s a good design. Did you do