Shimmy Bang Sparkle(63)
Bone dry.
About fifty feet away Stella was talking to Priscilla, who was actually smiling up at her like a show dog as she pranced along the gravel on the shoulder. I saw the glint of Stella’s smile too, and she put one hand on her hip. The fall sun was blazing, and Stella tucked the edges of her T-shirt up, revealing her bare arm. Priscilla squatted and peed on a clump of grass, and Stella gave a few happy claps. Not too far past her, heat snakes shimmered up in the end-of-the-day shadows. It was like a mirage, and she was in the middle of it. I pulled my phone out of my pocket, and using the one bar that I got next to my roaming signal, I searched for nearby mechanics.
Even though I’d spent a lot of my life in the desert, I was pretty much a city guy. I was more in my element in Phoenix or Albuquerque or even Pueblo than in East Jesus, Arizona. Which is exactly where we were, according to Google.
The nearest mechanic was ten miles away, a lone pin to the west. The map identified it as Alvarado Auto. No stars, no posted hours, no nothing. But they had to have radiator fluid.
I heard the scratching of Stella’s boots on the pavement. Adorably, she had her sunglasses on top of her head and was shielding her eyes from the sun with her hand. “What’s the verdict?”
“Gonna dump a couple of gallons of water into the radiator. There’s a mechanic up that way.” I pointed at the straightaway ahead of us, which faded into the horizon. “You go inside. Have a beer or something. I’ll take care of this.”
But she beamed up at me. “I’ll get the water. Then you can show me what you’re doing.”
She could duplicate jewels, she could cook lasagna, she could make fake IDs, and now she wanted to learn about engine maintenance.
Diamonds were fine and everything. But this woman? What a fucking gem.
Alvarado Auto sat under a peeling billboard with a downward arrow that said FOR SALE. There was a sign in the window, a creased old piece of cardboard that might have been the top of a liquor box, that said BE BACK TOMORROW MORNING.
Cupping my hands to the door, I peered past the sign to see inside. The place was stuck in time, circa 1976, everything faded and out of date. There was even a cardboard cutout of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in short shorts next to a stack of tires. Right in front of the register sat a few cases of radiator fluid, definitely not circa 1976 from what I could see of the label. They were exactly what I needed. I gave the door a shake, careful to hide the move with my body. The pins weren’t fastened at the top or bottom; the only thing between me and what we needed was a single lock. It was hardly more than a bobby pin job.
If I’d been on my own, that shit would’ve been a no-brainer. But in the glass door, I saw Stella’s reflection as she tried to coax Priscilla out of the RV. Stella crouched at the base of the steps and slapped her hands on her knees. “C’mon, cutie! You can do it!” She opened her arms wide, the way moms do when their kids run toward them.
Fuuuuuuuck.
Priscilla tentatively made her way down the three steps, apparently not too pleased about the texture of the nonskid strips on each tread. When she got to the bottom one, she waved her tiny paw out in the air and sat down, as if to say, Can’t!
“You can do it!” Stella said again. “You’re so brave! Try it, little lady!”
Priscilla might’ve been fearless when it came to attacking stuffed hearts, but steps were out of the question. Defeated, she flopped over on her side to ask for a lift. Stella cooed and laughed as she picked her up.
Yeah, it might’ve been a bobby pin job. Except I wasn’t on my own now, and such a stupid risk would jeopardize Stella, the score, and everything else. So I turned around and raked my hand through my hair to think over the next step. Across the street was a closed café, and down the road was a grim-looking Motel 6 with a single car parked in the parking lot, and, inexplicably, a NO VACANCY sign flashing in the window. Fantastic.
But Stella wasn’t considering the motel, and she wasn’t paying attention to Priscilla either. Instead, she was facing slightly east, with the most serene expression on her face. Lost in thought.
“What are you thinking, gorgeous?”
She inhaled hard and turned to me, like I’d woken her up from a dream. “I didn’t realize it until I saw the address of this place on the window. Remember the place I told you about? My grandparents’ ranch?” She pointed out at the looming thunderclouds. “It’s due west. About fifteen miles.”
I looked out at where she was pointing. The far horizon was greener than everything around—the foothills that led toward Flagstaff. Over the hills, the thunder rumbled low and steady, and she smiled a bit sadly. She inhaled, and her eyes fluttered shut. I smelled it too. Desert rain. Hardly anything sweeter in the world. Except her.
A cool breeze kicked up from the west, catching Stella’s hair in the wind.
“Anybody out there at all? On that land?”
She was looking east again. “Nope. There’s the prettiest valley there, filled with apricot trees. I bet they’re full of fruit right now,” she said, like she was imagining something long ago and far away. “Oh well.” She sighed and shook her head a few times like she was shaking off those dreams. “What do you think? Should we see if there’s a campground or something?”
A thing happened in my heart that had never happened before. It was a warm, intense happiness, a peacefulness at knowing that at least for this second, in this place, I could make her happy. Really happy. And I wanted to give her all that and more. “You know how to get to the ranch?”