Shimmy Bang Sparkle(52)

I mashed my face into my palms and flopped down on the hallway carpet like a snow angel. I neither wanted nor needed a hero.

But I also knew I was going to need some help. With the locks. With the plan. With taking the hinges off the door so I could get back inside my bedroom.

Whatever came next would affect all the Shimmy Shimmy Bangs. So I grabbed a quick shower, borrowed some leggings from Roxie and a hoodie from Ruth, then went out to wait for the bus. With some choice snacks stuffed into my purse.



Roxie was making long, erotic mmmmmmmm sounds as I fed her cheese crackers. The pain meds were still in full force, but at least now she was now out of traction. Her arm was in a terrifying looking cast, though, which held her hand up in a position like she was about to yank on the horn of a big rig. But at least she was enjoying her crackers. “Why are these so goooooood,” she moaned, with her eyes closed and cracker crumbs flying.

I’d found Ruth in her wheelchair in her room and had wheeled her right next to Roxie’s bed so we could talk things over. Now I sat between them, next to Roxie on the inclined mattress, with the snacks in my lap. I was pretty sure that what I was doing was against every single hospital regulation, but that was fine with me. Ask forgiveness after was my life’s motto.

Well, mostly. Except for when it came to the Shimmy Shimmy Bangs. Any change in the plan would need permission from both of them.

Which was why I was there. Now I just had to pitch the idea to them. We’d never brought in outside help, not in all our years together. But then again, we’d never planned on the North Star either. Special circumstances would require some special members. So I steeled myself. I did a mental countdown of three, two, one in my mind, and I just . . . said it. “I want to ask him. To help me. Next week.”

Roxie froze midbite, with cracker crumbs raining down on her hospital gown.

Ruth looked absolutely stunned. And pissed off too. “You what?”

I jammed another piece of mango in my mouth and explained. “The three of us have done all the legwork. He knows what he’s doing.” I pressed on the edge of the Band-Aid to stick it back down to my middle finger. “But I won’t even bring it up unless you two give me the green light.”

Ruth immediately receded into her introvert shell. She grabbed her phone from her hoodie pocket and pecked angrily at the screen. Roxie, meanwhile, stared at me with her big, honest eyes, accentuated by her totally fabulous lash extensions. “Do you love him?” she asked softly.

“Oh for Chrissake,” Ruth hissed, without looking up from her phone. “Love him? She barely knows him.”

When I didn’t answer, paralyzed as I was by the mention of the L word, Ruth stopped pecking at her screen and looked up. In her eyes, I saw a whirlwind of emotions. Astonishment, surprise, anger. Even a sliver of betrayal. It stung to see it, but I knew that in her place I’d have felt the very same way. It was a pretty big about-face for me, a woman who used to draw long hair on all the princes and heroes in our fairytale books and who never really understood why there was a Ken doll at all. But gut feelings were gut feelings, and they hadn’t failed me yet. “I think he is my best chance,” I explained. “Our best chance.”

Ruth slapped her phone into her lap, and I watched the muscles in her jaw flex and release. She turned her head away and looked at the sharps disposal container; she closed her eyes and gnawed on her lip. Once or twice she shook her head—quickly and angrily, like she was tossing aside thoughts. She looped the string of her hoodie around her finger so tightly that it made red depressions on her index finger, alternating with tight white ridges. She let her hoodie string go and looked at me. “We don’t have to do it at all,” Ruth said.

Roxie’s grip on my arm tightened. I felt her stiffen and from the corner of my eye saw her eyebrows furrow. “We do, though, Ruth. Something has to give. We can’t keep on like this forever. Think of all our plans. Think of all the dreams.”

In spite of Ruth’s cautiousness, I still believed what I had always believed about the North Star. It was an investment in a future that we all yearned for but that was just out of reach. Roxie’s son. Ruth’s plans. Mr. Bozeman’s health. And my Big Wide Open. “We didn’t have to take those glasses for Gus either.”

Ruth looked me hard in the eye. In that stare, I knew what she was telling me. All these years together had given us a very reliable sort of ESP. Be careful, Stella. Be so, so, so freaking careful.

I nodded at her and said, “I know. I will.”

For a long moment, she held my stare. Unflinching, unmoving. Then she nodded, just once.

My heart soared, and I found myself doing the thing I hadn’t done since that day in the ice rink. I put my hand into the center of our triangle. Roxie put her hand on top of mine, and Ruth followed.

A better life was waiting for all of us. And damn it, I was going to make sure we got a chance to live it.





24

NICK

It was one of those nights that made it damned obvious why people moved west in the first place—so clear and empty that it felt like everything was possible. After my shift, I took the long way back to her place. Because I needed to think.

I went up by the air base, then north on Tramway. There was hardly anybody out, and way out west there was still a slice of red left over from the sunset. I had this feeling, as I tore down the straightaway, that she might ask me to help her steal the North Star. She was up shit creek, and in every way that mattered—locks, cover, backup plans—I knew I could be her paddle. The question I had to ask myself, though, was how the fuck I was going to answer her if she did ask.