Altogether unusual

Mothers...

'I think the French have a romantic cliché

that Englishmen have great style, great music,

irony and sense of humour.

Well, sometimes clichés are true.'

Josephine de La Baume

Week-ends are busy for me. All three of us have an early breakfast and then we go to work. I found a part-time job in a tattoo saloon, as I always do, every time we move from here to there. To be a tattoo artist takes a lot of pretty much everything you can imagine. The years of just sitting with a professional to learn the job are long. Ever since I knew what I want to be, I've been working in saloons with all types of people. And I've been lucky. Not many of them would agree to shepherd a teenager under 18, knowing all the time that she is going to take off in a couple of months. It was hard at the beginning. Sometime we would only stay between 4 and 6 months in one place, so I've had to really persuade a tattoo artist to accept me. To have parents like mine is a goldmine in itself, because more than once they had to come with me and explain our particular situation. Some of the guys really liked my portfolio and they agreed on teaching me for free, which was amazing. There was always a contract between us, to regulate my program and the things I had to do during that time. It has always been a sort of a second school for me. Taking notes about everything, doing homework, researching diverse subjects, learning to prepare the colours, the tattoo machine, cleaning the skin and talking to the customers. It's a lot to take in and a big part is based on the relations established between the artist and the client. The patience and the care. Not to never give up, but how to keep it going. The long hours hunched over someone's skin, the fatigue, the unhappy customers, and how to reduce that number to zero. After a while people have given me recommendations, which has eased obtaining a new contract. I have passed through hygiene classes, endless lessons about the best colours, the best ink. I have even wrote essays on the artists of great renown in the business. The small and big tattoos, symbolism, genres and history of the entire industry, ever since it was just a tribal culture.

Last year has proved itself to be a good one from a lot of points of view. It was probably the first time I started the school year with all the other students, even if I was new and they've been knowing each other for quite a while. It has been a big thing for me not to pop in at Christmas, or worse, before the last two months of school. The British education system is awesome altogether, but at first I was afraid I would not be able to finish under the Upper Sixth. As it turns out I have pretty good grades and I've made it. London is the best city to do...anything in, actually. For my "artist heart", as my father calls it, the buildings and the all-around history should be powerful muses. The rest of the attractions kind of depend on me to investigate. And my parents are probably smart enough to realize part of my thoughts, but they just refuse to. You girls know what I'm talking about. Britain, the land of heavenly accents, gentlemanlike guys, accents again, Tom Hiddleston – Man-God. Yeah, you know what I'm talking about.

On my first day in the new school I walked to the only empty table in the cafeteria. I was eating when I heard a profound voice next to me.

"Find another place to eat! This is my table."

I looked up to put a face on the voice. Wow, tall looking fellow! Blue eyes. He had seemed so annoyed by my simple presence, that I felt the need to punch him right in his British face.

"Hi there! What's your name again?"

"Jonathan, but you won't......"

"I don't see your damn name on the damn table." I interrupted him while checking the table thoroughly. It had some names scratched on actually, but not his.