Lighthouse

“What’s that there, on your wrist?” the man asked. It took her a moment to realize he was talking to her, but when she did, she looked up from her book and across the center aisle of the bus to where he was sitting. He was pointing to the tiny section of inked skin that peeked out from beneath the sleeves of her shirt. Behind him, she saw flat grassy farmland drift past, one field merging seamlessly into another and another, embellished by the sight of an occasional herd of cows or an abandoned barn. It was a pretty landscape, though not unlike the view out of her own window. That is, it wasn’t as though she had a mountain or a river or even a small creek to look at, and so Claire wondered why his eyes had wandered over to her in the first place.

“It’s a tattoo,” she replied, stretching the material of her shirt until it covered her knuckles. Her tone was curt and she gave him a tight smile. She flipped through the pages of her book but couldn’t remember where she had left off. Frustrated, Claire closed the book and set it on the empty seat beside her. She noticed that the man had now turned back to his window. He was old and graying and looked like a Bill or a Roger or an Arthur but probably already knew what a tattoo was despite all of this. She was glad that he hadn’t pried, but if he had, Claire would have told him what she’d told people before: the tattoo on her wrist was of a lighthouse.

It was small, and not large, because her parents had begged for it to be; it was abstract, and not literal, because it had been sketched by two eighteen-year-old girls who weren’t yet the artists that they thought they were; and it was a lighthouse because the girls had met at one when they were nine. The lines of the tattoo were squiggly where they were meant to be straight, and they were thick in the places they were supposed to be thin, so Claire always told people that it was done poorly, and that’s why she would get it removed one day or at least covered up. When they made the appointment at a piercing shop, they told each other that this was the perfect first tattoo. They knew they would always be friends, and even if they weren’t, hypothetically—impossibly—then they could at least promise never to have regrets over the tattoo or the friendship itself. The irony was not lost on Claire that she now hid the inked portion of her wrist from nosy strangers on buses. When she looked up again a few moments later, Bill—or Roger or Arthur—had rested his hands gently in his lap and his head against the back of the seat. His eyes were closed but his head lulled slightly as the bus passed over the dips of the old highway pavement.

*

A few weeks before, Claire ate bagels with her boyfriend and his parents at a shop she’d never been to. The walls of the bagel shop were green and had shelves full of figurines and rubber ducks, which would have been confusing if they didn’t also have the Star of David on them. His parents were quiet by nature and felt that asking questions about people and their lives was intrusive, so Claire hadn’t expected his father to say, casually: “Your friend—Maya, was it?—how is she doing these days? Still living in Ann Arbor?”

The questions were both simple and polite, but that didn’t change the fact that Claire didn’t know the answer to either, so she replied that she didn’t know and that they didn’t talk much these days. They went back to their food, and her boyfriend pointed to the six-pack of beer on the shelf called He-Brew. Claire kept her face composed but began to feel her heart race and noticed that her vision was pulling away at the corners. She struggled to steady her breathing and felt at once very hot and a little chilled at the same time. Through her straw, she sipped the ice water from her cup and then from her boyfriend’s cup too. Beneath the table, he put a heavy hand on her leg as it bounced up and down without her permission. In a bagel shop decorated with menorahs and Shalom, Y’all on the walls, Claire had a panic attack.

*

She had asked Maya once, when they were thirteen and about to move apart from one another, why me? Why are you friends with me and not the other girls in the class who are prettier and thinner and whose parents are young like yours? Why did you choose me and not someone else to be best friends with forever and ever? She’d told Claire simply: “Because. You make me feel brave.” No one had ever said this about Claire before, but Maya was cooler and prettier and smarter than most, and if she said it, then it was probably true.

It was another thirteen years later, during their first fight, that Maya said to Claire: “You cling to me, then explode on me. It’s too controlling, and a little manipulative. I feel like I’m your punching bag most of the time.”

“I’m sorry,” Claire cried over the phone, but thought to herself: “I thought I made you feel brave.”

*

Claire sometimes wonders if the tattoo embarrasses Maya too or if she has a spiel for people who ask, but guesses that she probably doesn’t because she is cool. So cool that she continues to collect delicate tattoos on her arms the way she collects photos with newer, more interesting friends, or the brittle petals of dried flowers inside of heavy leather-bound books, or text messages from Claire that she might answer later, if she has the time.

Claire, on the other hand, still only has the one.