Shimmy Bang Sparkle(32)
Here it comes. And we’d been getting along so well. He was bringing her flowers, and she was giving him the third degree. She was like the Doberman of friends. I tried to give her the eye, but she pretended she didn’t see me. She tilted her head forward almost imperceptibly, hiding behind her hair, enough to make it seem as though she couldn’t see me, nope. Not at all. It was the Ruth equivalent of putting her fingers in her ears with a la-la-la.
“Sorry about that,” Nick said, his voice low and serious. “Didn’t mean to make you worry.”
I’d seen Ruth make half a dozen of Roxie’s Tinder dates cry. But she had no such effect on Nick. He knew exactly what to say and exactly how to say it.
Ruth nodded approvingly and ran her fingertip over the edge of her hospital blanket. “Good answer,” she said, studying Nick before glancing at me again. She sank down slightly lower in her bed and put her earbud in. “Roxie’s down the hall,” she told me, and pulled her hoodie over her head.
I knew the hoodie move. It was her inner introvert saying break time, and I didn’t argue. So I slid off her bed and took Nick’s hand. And as we left her room, I heard Ruth say, very softly, “Thank you very much for the flowers.”
We followed the sound of Roxie giggling down the hallway. We found her lying in her hospital bed with her arm in a terrifyingly medieval contraption that was attached to the ceiling. A dashing orderly fluffed her pillow. His identification badge swung in front of her, and she spun it in her fingers. “Come on, Roger. I bet you can make it happen. Pleeeease?”
The orderly seemed to be about five seconds from crawling in bed with her. To break up the canoodling, I coughed, and so did Nick. It was like we were in an ad for Ricola, but the Ricola man hadn’t appeared to blow his horn yet.
Roxie ducked beneath the orderly’s burly arm and looked at Nick. Her mouth dropped open, and she unceremoniously pushed the orderly to the side so she could see Nick better. Then her big, perfectly made-up eyes landed on me and she said, “Oh, guuuuuuuuurl. No wonder you came home with a hickey.”
Oh, jeeeeez. “Nick, Roxie. Roxie, Nick,” I said, shooting Roxie a pleading glance. Easy, tiger!
Without a word, Nick handed over Roxie’s bouquet. She nestled it across her lap and did a shoulder lift and eye-bat that Marilyn herself would have envied. “Aren’t you sweet, Nick.” Roxie raised a precisely groomed eyebrow, cupping her good hand to her mouth to tell me, “He’s caaaaaute!” But it wasn’t a whisper. More of a muted croak.
Nick turned his laugh into a manly cough and put a chair next to her bed for me. Then he pulled up one for himself.
“Like, really cute!” she said, full volume, still into her cupped hand. It was working more like a bullhorn than a muffler.
“Roxie!” I said, between gritted teeth. I tamped down the air with my hand. “Inside voice!”
She snorted. “It’s the painkillers, Stell. I’ve got no filter at all. How’s your hickey?”
It wasn’t the painkillers, and God help all of us when she got to be menopausal and lost her filter permanently. I had to get her off man-mode; only a total subject change would do.
“So what’s the word?” I asked as I took over Roger’s pillow-fluffing duty. He’d made himself scarce, but I knew he’d be back. My bet was on him going to find her some Pop-Tarts. And maybe a toaster. She did have the most amazing effect on men. Like Cleopatra. Give her a black wig and some good eyeliner, and empires would fall.
“The word is laaaaaaaame,” Roxie said, flopping back, but wincing as the movement made her arm shift and the contraption rattle. “I’m stuck here for at least a week. Can you even?”
What I could not even about was why on earth they’d put her arm into that thing. It looked horrible and painful and awful. I kept on fluffing her pillow and said, “Don’t you worry. It’ll be fine.”
But it wasn’t fine. Stealing the North Star wasn’t just another job to any of us. For me, it meant the chance to buy back my grandparents’ land. For Ruth, it meant a new career. For Roxie, it meant getting her life in order for the sake of applying for equal custody of her son. The North Star was emotional for all of us. Almost immediately, Roxie’s eyes filled up with tears. Her nose reddened, and she sniffled. “But it won’t!” she said as the dam broke and her tears spilled unchecked down her cheeks. “What are we gonna do about the . . . ?”
Placing one hand on her leg, I pressed my finger to my lips to quiet her. Do not say it, do not, I tried to tell her with my eyes. Roxie blinked a few times and nodded. Then she pressed her own finger to her lips and said, “Shhhhhhh.”
Phew. Whatever the pain meds were, they were strong. Nick thought I was a nice girl who was a full-time dog sitter. I had no intention whatsoever of letting him know otherwise. Because one day, hopefully very soon, I would be just a nice lady who dog sat. It wouldn’t just be my story; it would be my life. One day.
But Roxie was still in the thick of it, and a fresh wave of tears made rivulets down her cheeks, sending mascara rivers through her blush. The pain and emotion finally overtook her, and her chin dimpled with an upcoming sob. She pushed her lips together in a tight, quivering line. So she didn’t have to hold it in all by herself, I wrapped my arm around her, being very careful not to bump into the contraption that held her arm. She sobbed into the crook of my neck, and her tears ran down into my T-shirt. Somehow, though, I could feel another wave coming. And I was right, because then, with a messy sniffle and a snivel, she sobbed out, “I’m just so sorry that I took the shimmy out of the bang.”