Shimmy Bang Sparkle(92)

We could hear the sheikh laughing, and the sound of a champagne cork cut through the cold winter air. Sparse snowflakes had begun to fall, and the steam from the hot pools all around us made the air heavy and warm. Each pool was enclosed in its own unique way—with a coyote fence or an adobe wall or a Zen-inspired sculpted barrier made of river stones—so that everything was private, except for the walkways. In front of the men’s changing room, we waited and watched. I poked my head inside and saw nobody in the anteroom where the guests’ shoes were lined up in neat rows. There, in the midst of the boots and sneakers, I saw them. The golden Crocs.

Ruth stood as the lookout outside the room, and Roxie and I went inside. She took her place by the tiled hallway that led down to the showers and gave me the thumbs-up.

I slipped on a thin winter glove and grabbed the North Star from my kimono pocket. The diamond sparkled back at me, and for the first time since I’d laid eyes on it, I let myself get caught up in its sparkle. The North Star had taken us on a roller coaster. But every roller coaster came to a stop. I palmed the diamond and knelt down. I said a few hopeful words to Johnny Cash and Tom Petty and my grandpa too. To all the rebels and all the thieves. Then I placed the North Star into one of the sheikh’s gold Crocs. It was harder than I expected to let go of the diamond and all the money we could have gotten from it. But as soon as I did, I felt free.

I snapped a photo of the diamond in the sheikh’s shoe on my burner phone. I gave Roxie the signal, and we joined Ruth outside. Together, the three of us headed to the Waterfall Pool. I locked the gates behind us, and Roxie and Ruth slipped off their kimonos and got in the water in their swimsuits. They turned to me, waiting and expectant. Snow fell into the water with a hushhhh. Ruth had her palms matched up together in a steeple shape in front of her lips. Roxie pressed her hands to her cheeks like a little girl.

On the burner phone, I opened Instagram and logged into the account I had made that day. @NorthStarRising. No followers, no posts. No history. No trace.

I uploaded the photo from the changing room and brightened the contrast to make sure the gem inside was sparkling and clear. And to that, I added the caption:

Hey @The_Sheikh_Dude . . . Come and get it! oxox

Once I saw that it had uploaded, I felt a rush of hope and relief for the first time in months. I pulled off my kimono, tossed the burner phone into the water, and cannonballed into the pool to the sound of Ruth’s laughter and Roxie’s squeals. I bobbed back up to the surface and wiped the water from my eyes.

And one pool over, the sheikh hollered, “Holy shitballs!”





46

NICK

The sheikh might’ve been an honest-to-God douchebag, but the operative word was honest. Just as he’d promised, he dropped all the charges as soon as the North Star was returned. Now I stood in the jail parking lot and squinted up at the California winter sun. I didn’t have my wallet, and I didn’t have my phone. What I did have was $153 in cash that I’d had on me when I was booked, a wedding ring on my finger, and eight hundred miles to go until I was back in Stella’s arms.

I walked across the bleached parking lot and headed for a bus stop across the street. The shelter was made of Plexiglas, pockmarked by blowing sand and yellowed from the sun. There, I waited. I don’t know how long I waited, really. Could’ve been ten minutes, could’ve been an hour. I just sat there, with my knees and boots in the sun, and looked up at the sky, so glad to be alive, and so fucking glad to have another chance at life, that I let the tears roll right down my goddamned cheeks.

The bus arrived in a cloud of fumes that smelled like old french fries and possibly shrimp. The side of the bus said THIS VEHICLE PROPELLED BY BIODIESEL!

California. It was the weirdest.

The driver wore pink glasses on a pink chain, and she stared at me over them. “Getting on, or just gonna stand there and contemplate your navel?”

I stepped onto the staircase and pulled my cash out of my pocket, sliding my fare into the automatic slot. The first dollar bill went in fine, but the second kept getting spat back at me. As I smoothed it out, she plunged her hand into a grocery sack that she’d tied to the arm of her chair and handed me a small box of Valentine’s Day hearts. I stared at them in my palm. She took the crumpled dollar bill from me. “It’s Valentine’s Day, hon. Sit down, enjoy the ride.”

Valentine’s Day already. Christ. That was the strangest thing about jail. The days just went on forever, one endless routine of the same damned thing that numbed minutes into hours into days. It had felt like Valentine’s Day for weeks on the cellblock. But now here it was.

And honestly, it really didn’t sound like the worst idea, taking a spin around LA while I ate candy hearts and thought about Stella. But I had shit to do; I had a life to make. I had stars to bite. I’d spent enough time away from her, and I wasn’t going to spend one minute more. So I shoved the box of hearts in my back pocket, leaned toward the driver, and said, “Listen, I need to get to New Mexico. As soon as humanly possible.”

She adjusted her glasses. Affixed to her uniform was a pin that said HELLO MY NAME IS: NOT A LADY YOU WANT TO MESS WITH. “Hon. This is a municipal bus. I can take you to the mall and that’s it.”

I scratched what used to be my stubble but was now a pretty full-blown beard. “I need to get to a pawnshop outside Albuquerque. I need to buy a ring, and then I need to go and ask the love of my life the most important question I’ve ever asked anybody and hope like hell she says yes.”