Covered in Ink

“I have a very serious question for you,” Tara grunted. She always sounded like she was engaged in a battle while struggling to pull on something tiny, cropped, or high waisted that she had chosen from the rack.

“Hmm, what’s that?” I asked, sipping my smoothie. I was using my feet to draw invisible patterns on the floor while I waited outside the fitting room.

Tara and I had this unspoken understanding. I understood that she hated going shopping alone, and she understood that I needed to be fed before any retail activities ensued.

She swept the curtain aside, turned around and bent over to show me all of her assets. “Does my butt look big in this?” she asked.

Anybody watching would have been confused, embarrassed, concerned, but this was Tara. Tara was unapologetically herself wherever she went, even in the middle of a clothing store.

I nodded.

“Well in that case, these are the jeans that I will buy,” she grinned, straightened up and pranced back into the fitting room.

I shook my head. She was the source of all my worries.

After purchasing her jeans, Tara dragged me along to the donut store. It was an expensive boutique place with flavours that they designed themselves, but Tara didn't like donuts.

So I sat at a table in the food court and watched her flirt with the boy behind the counter at the donut place. She came back, flushed, giddy and holding a brown bag in her hand

She threw the paper bag at me and plopped into the seat on the opposite side of the table.

“So,” I said, pulling the cinnamon and sugar donut out of the bag. The cheapest and most basic flavour she could have chosen. “How was your encounter with the donut man?”

“I think I’m growing on him," she paused to think of a good comparison, "like athletes foot.”

I almost choked.

“Athletes foot?” the cinnamon I had just inhaled was burning my sinuses.

“Yeah, that grows doesn’t it?” she asked, her forehead crinkling in confusion.

“Yeah it grows." Well it spreads but that's only a minor difference - too insignificant of a difference to correct her on. "But probably don't use that analogy anymore."

“What did I tell you about big words?” she said, narrowing her eyes at me.

“Probably has more letters than analogy,” I told her, crumpling the paper bag in my hand and finishing the last of my smoothie.

She stuck her tongue out in reply.

“How are you not fat?” she asked, eyeing the paper bag and empty smoothie cup as I threw them into a nearby bin.

“Metabolism," I said, using my hands for emphasis.

She pointed at me in accusation. "Hey, what did I just tell you?!"

"Sorry, let me just unlearn all the words that are seven letters and above."

We caught each others gaze and both burst into laughter.

"You're such a bitch," she said, still laughing. "And," she added, "if I ate as much as you I would look like Tammy.”

“Tammy?”

“Yeah, you know,” she leaned back and crossed one leg over the other. “1000 pound sisters, Tammy.”

"You watch far too much reality TV," I told her as we began to leave the mall.

She shrugged. "What can I say, it makes me feel better about myself. I might not be that pretty or that smart, but at least I don't weigh 600 pounds. Things could totally be worse than they are."

"The optimism, I like it."

* * *

“So what did you name your car?” Tara asked as we walked across the parking lot.

"I didn't name it."

“Really?” she replied with a tone of disapproval. “Why?”

"Because it's a car...?"

"Okay, and? If you were a car I'd still name you."

I shook my head. The logic is strange, yet somehow because it came out of Tara's mouth it didn't shock me.

She petted the hood of the car as if it were a real, living, animate thing. "I dub thee, Elmo."

"Elmo? You're kidding."

"I've never been more serious, honey bunches."

She closed the door with excessive force. It was on purpose too. I could tell by the way she looked at me and giggled while I started the car.

I sighed. If they don't make you want to throw them out of your moving vehicle, are they even your best friend?

Tara had ADHD. Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, which made her disorganised to say the least. She was disorganised in her daily life; messy, unable to find things because she was messy, and as a result she was late everywhere. Her thoughts were disorganised too, you could tell by her pattern of conversation.

Sometimes she would stop halfway though a sentence because she had been distracted by something and then she wouldn't be able to remember what she was talking about. Other times she would be listening to background sounds rather than the person speaking to her and they would be forced to repeat themselves.

In the least psychotic way possible, I wanted to see inside her brain to figure out how to best communicate with her.

“You need to get a boyfriend this year,” Tara said.

I had been drawn into my own thoughts while I driving and apparently so had Tara.

“No I don’t.”

The thought had not so much as fluttered across my consciousness.

She sighed a loud, aggravated sigh. "Why though? You're hot, so many people would be interested."

"I am not hot. Besides I don't want a boyfriend."

"You're hot to me," she said, stroking my arm.

I slapped her hand away. "Well I won't date you, sorry to shatter your dreams."

"I actually had someone else in mind for you," she said as she gathered her shopping bags from the back seat.

"What, who?"

She winked. "I thought you said you weren't interested."

"I'm not."

"Okay miss independent woman, if you're really not interested, don't look out your bedroom window tonight."