Chapter 9: The Chair

On Wednesday Isak came to my tattoo shop at lunch with a paper bag and a typed schedule.

The shop was a narrow brick room in Canal Park, with four chairs, a front counter and a wall of flash sheets.

I was wiping down my station when the bell rang over the door.

He stood on the mat in his gray coat and city badge, looking at the flash.

"I brought soup," he said. "And an updated schedule."

"Of what?"

"Our weeks."

He handed me a sheet.

It had boxes for each day, with Sunday supper in bold, and Tuesday and Thursday nights marked in small blue letters, Roz, my place.

I looked up.

"That's a lot of Roz," I said.

"It's a draft."

My coworker at the next station put her head down and shook with silent laughter.

The bell rang again behind him.

Whitney walked in wearing the pink wool coat, with a friend at her elbow.

I remembered that the friend had booked a small matching tattoo for two, with the other artist, at one o'clock.

Whitney saw Isak first.

She stopped, and the friend bumped into her back.

"Isak," she said. "What are you doing here?"

"Having lunch with my girlfriend."

"I didn't know you came to where she works."

"I do."

She looked at the paper bag and at the schedule in my hand.

She looked at the spot where soup had leaked through the bottom of the bag.

"You never came to my office," she said, in a small, odd voice.

He tilted his head, and I saw him decide to be honest.

"I did once," he said. "You told me the elevator was for clients."

He said it without heat.

"I took the stairs to the ninth floor and waited in your lobby for two hours."

Whitney opened her mouth.

She closed it.

Her friend looked at her, and at him, and slowly stepped to one side.

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