STELLA
The hospital smelled like an office supply store, and the cheerful paintings everywhere just made it feel very dismal. With Nick’s hand in mine, I hustled across the entry foyer with only one thing in mind: to get to the girls. Coming at us was an old man pushing an old lady in a wheelchair, and I had to let go of Nick’s hand to let him pass. A deflated metallic balloon that was attached to the handle bobbed along at eye level, proclaiming GET WELL SOON! in the least optimistic way possible. But once the couple had passed and I reached out for Nick’s hand again, I found he’d veered off to the gift shop, where he stood in front of a display of bouquets. I watched him consider a mixed bouquet of daises, carnations, and another flower that I didn’t know the name of but always called grocery store flowers in my head. Those he put down in favor of two pretty bouquets of roses, one bouquet pink and the other yellow. He turned to face me with the flowers cradled in one arm, like the winner of a Mr. American Hunk pageant. I knew there was no such thing, but looking at him there it seemed like a really good idea. As in, someone should hurry up and patent it. Today.
“You pick out whatever you’d like too,” he said.
“How am I going to take it with me on the bike?” I asked, sticking my nose into an open stargazer lily. Best smell ever.
When I looked past the crinkly plastic, I saw he was deadpanning me. I kept my nose in the cool petals and asked, “What?”
“Not for today necessarily,” he said, putting a whole lot of delightful emphasis on that last word. “Just for reference.”
I liked his style a lot. “I like them all.”
“You’ve got to have a favorite.”
I did. I never bought them for myself, but I often dawdled around the floral department of Albertsons just to smell them. I touched the very edge of the velvet petal of the stargazer. “Lilies. Just like these.”
“Noted,” he said, and led me toward the register. There, on a small cake platter, was something that I liked even better than lilies and even better than caramel-dipped apples: chocolate-dipped strawberries, with a sign that said FREE SAMPLE. I picked up the nearest one and sank my teeth into it, which made my eyes flutter shut. The strawberry was cool and juicy, and the chocolate was crisp and velvety. It was so amazing I actually put my hand on the counter to brace myself.
“I like the way you roll, Stella,” I heard Nick say softly. I opened my eyes, still with my teeth in the strawberry. His smile was almost a secret smile, like he hadn’t meant for me to see it.
“Do you?” I said into the berry. The tingles he gave me had nothing on dipped fruit, nothing.
He nodded and watched me a little longer. “I really, really do.”
Ruth lay in her hospital bed with her phone laid horizontally on her lap, Netflix-style. When I knocked on the doorframe, she pulled one earbud out and paused her show. On the upside-down screen, I saw Jason Bateman dealing with a cooler full of ice and catfish. She was watching Ozark for roughly the ten thousandth time. When Ruth found a show that she liked, she didn’t just watch it. She lived it and breathed it, dreamed it. She totally immersed herself . . . it was amazing, and also a teeny bit unnerving when she’d dived into Twin Peaks and mastered the Red Room backward talking exactly.
Netflix was her happy place, but she didn’t look happy now. She looked defeated, and her lips began to quiver when she looked at me. Without her even saying a word, I heard all the things she didn’t need to say. I’m sorry about the Jeep. I’m sorry about Roxie. I’m sorry that this will mess up all our plans for the North Star. I’m sorry about everything.
“Don’t,” I told her, grabbing her hand and shaking my head. “Stop that.”
She hung her head. I ran my hand over her corn silk–smooth hair, and she pressed her forehead against my palm. “They towed the Queen of the Jeeps to A1 Autobody,” she said softly. “I think she might be totaled.”
Inside, I cringed. But outside, I didn’t flinch. Cars could be replaced. Best friends could not. “What matters is that you two are OK.” I sat down on her bed and scooted her phone aside. “Are you OK?” I asked, trying not to stare too long at the cast they’d put her in, from ankle to midthigh.
“I will be. But it’ll take a long time. Six to eight weeks they said.”
It put the North Star right out of the picture. At first, I was crestfallen. But I stayed strong for her. I would not let her see that I was disappointed. We would find more jobs. It meant nothing, I told myself as firmly as I could. But I knew it wasn’t true at all. And yet, here we were. “Then that’s six to eight weeks of me fussing over you, making you Satan’s smoothies and using the wrong mug for your tea.”
Though she made a big dramatic thing of shaking her head, I could tell she didn’t mind the idea of that so much at all.
“This is Nick, by the way,” I said, and leaned back. He was standing off to one side, like he was giving us space, but now he stepped forward and held out one of the bouquets to Ruth.
She studied him carefully, and I was a bit surprised to see a smile begin to show on her face. Normally, she didn’t warm up so fast. She looked over at me and back at Nick, and she smiled even more. He put her flowers on the bed and reached out his hand to shake hers. “Nick.”
“Ruth,” she said, her hand almost disappearing in his. “So you’re the guy who kept her out all night?”
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.”