Shimmy Bang Sparkle(86)

I locked the door behind me, looking at my own reflection in the glass on the storm door. How was I going to have this conversation? Mr. Bozeman thought I was a dog sitter. Mr. Bozeman thought I was a nice, upstanding girl. Mr. Bozeman didn’t need to know the mess I’d gotten Nick into. Turning, I mustered up a smile. It made my skin feel tight and dry. “How do you feel? Are you OK? I’m sorry I wasn’t here to visit you in the hospital.”

“Never fear, my dear! You had Priscilla, and that was all that mattered to me. I feel fine.” He patted his stomach gingerly. “Much better. Miracles of modern medicine. But sit down. Have some circus peanuts,” he said, offering me a half-finished crinkly package.

I did sit, in the easy chair next to the sofa, but I didn’t take any candy. Instead, I undid the sticky plastic ends of his bracelet and put it in my pocket to throw away. Then I looked at Mr. Bozeman and wondered how in the world I was going to come to terms with these feelings and what on earth I was going to do now.

Again, Mr. Bozeman tried to get me to eat a piece of candy. I hadn’t had anything much to eat in twenty-four hours, and the little grumble in my stomach was undeniable. Mr. Bozeman crinkled the package and held it out to me. Reluctantly, I reached out and took one of the foamy, oversize peanuts. I tucked it into my mouth whole, and it began to dissolve instantly. It kicked off a chain reaction somehow, because as soon as I finished one, I reached for another, and then, much to my utter astonishment, I started talking. At first, it was just about Nick. How I’d lost him and how I never knew if I’d see him again. But very slowly I let it all unravel, in vague but still-true terms. That our trip hadn’t gone as planned and that the ideas we’d had for the future weren’t going to work after all. Each word that left my mouth made me feel a little bit better and also worse, lightening the weight inside me but also making the situation so very real. Mr. Bozeman listened to me, nodding and asking only the most crucial questions as he ate his circus peanuts and one episode of his endlessly rerunning Columbo ended and another began.

When I finished, I flopped back onto his easy chair with so much force that the footrest flipped up, and suddenly I was flat on my back and looking at the ceiling.

I was so exhausted, I didn’t even try to fight it. I took a deep breath, hearing Nick say breathe in my ear, and focused on a single gauzy cobweb dangling from the heating vent in the ceiling.

“I don’t know what I’ll do without him,” I said, reaching out for another peanut. “I never ever thought I’d say that.”

Mr. Bozeman chuckled, and I heard what sounded like him smoothing the plastic candy bag on his leg. I lifted my head from the La-Z-Boy and looked at him. I’d eaten the last one, and now he was folding the empty bag into a neat strip, aligning it vertically between his thumbs. He brought it to his lips and tried to blow a note, the way I’d seen people do with bear grass. It didn’t work on the first try. “If there’s one thing I can tell you for sure, my dear,” he said, repositioning his thumbs relative to the plastic, “it’s that you’re going to be OK. One way or another, it’ll all work out fine. You know what Priscilla and I call you?”

I shook my head and swallowed the last of the foamy sweet goodness. Priscilla placed the conversation heart in his lap. “Our girl,” he said and winked. “Our girl can do anything, can’t she?” he said to Priscilla, glancing at me once more. “Our girl is going to be OK,” he said, then he brought the whistle to his lips once more, and an unhappy honking filled the room.



When I got back to my apartment, I found Mr. Bozeman’s faith in me hadn’t been enough to keep me cheerful for very long. I shoved my suitcase through the door and placed Nick’s duffel on top of it. I kicked off my shoes and headed for the kitchen, where I opened the fridge to find a lone carton of sesame noodles.

I took a fork from the drying rack. I shut the door and leaned against the fridge as I jammed a forkful of cold noodles into my mouth. Sinking down, I tucked into a ball on the floor, as all sorts of dirty poetry rained down around me. How strange that only a handful of days ago I’d been here with him and felt so happy. And now I was here without him and felt so utterly adrift. As I plucked the word please from my hair, I heard a key slide into the deadbolt. For one insane, nonsensical, lovesick second I thought, It’s him, he’s come back to me. But before my heart could swell to bursting, the dream fizzled away, and I heard the click-clack of crutches and Roxie saying, “It’s not a race, Ruthie. Slow and steady, OK?”

The click-clacks of Ruth’s crutches got closer. I heard Roxie say, “Why the hell is there a door in the hallway?”

“Stella?” said Ruth, and the click-clacks sped up before coming to an abrupt halt.

Behind her, Roxie’s fresh and perfectly made-up face appeared. “Uh-oh.”

I sniffed hard, and it made a sucking sound in my ears.

“Did you get it?” Ruth asked softly.

I nodded, and a noodle slipped out of my mouth. I sucked it up, and my lips began to tremble again. Using the sleeve of my hoodie, now soaked through with tears and snot, I wiped my nose and looked up at my two best friends. Somehow, I felt like I’d known them as a different woman. In a different time. Before Nick Norton rumbled into my life and into my heart. “But I came back alone.”

Roxie’s mouth fell open. “You mean . . . he took the fall for you?”