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 The place was stuck in time, circa 1976, everything faded and out of date.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?”
Her mouth fell open slightly. “For sure.”
We’d take it slow; the radiator would be fine. We had plenty to eat and plenty to drink. We had one another. We had everything we needed. “To the Big Wide Open it is.”
31
STELLA
The Big Wide Open was even more beautiful than I remembered it. Though I hadn’t been to the ranch in ages, I hadn’t forgotten the old shortcuts that Grandpa had shown me. We took a frontage road that ran parallel to the highway, then an unmarked farm road by a rock that I’d always thought looked like a sleeping dog. We rumbled over the ancient cattle guard, and in the distance the house came into view, poking up from a shallow valley, low and plain with a red tin roof. It hurt my heart to imagine peeking through the windows without being able to go inside. So I had him turn left, on an old rutted washboard road that made everything in the RV squeak as we went down it. A few minutes later, he pulled in underneath the old grove of apricot trees, studded with fruit. Nick set up the generator as I changed out of my bad-girl outfit and back into my normal Chucks and jeans. Then I helped him level the RV. Though helped him was a pretty generous word for it, really. I sat inside and supervised a potato as it rolled around on the table, calling out directions, but he did say it was helpful, so that was good at least. He cupped his hand under his T-shirt and pressed the fabric to his face, showing off the ripples of his abs.
I actually whimpered. Right out loud.
From a storage compartment near the door, he took out a small grill. He caught me staring. “You OK?”
“Totally!” I said. “Just . . .” Oh for God’s sake. The man knew everything about me. I didn’t have to lie about anything with him. “Honestly, I was just watching you.”
He gave me a hey baby lift of his chin and looked me up and down. “I like you in disguise, but I like you just like that even better.”
I looked down at my rumpled T-shirt and my jeans and my old shoes. I’d never felt beautiful wearing this. Until now. I lifted my toes. I was trying to smile, but I think maybe I was cringing. I wasn’t used to all these compliments. “You do?”
“Oh yeah,” he gasped. “One hundred fucking percent.”
He winked, then turned his attention back to the grill. It was brand new, still with the label stuck to the outside. He carried the grill outside and filled it with charcoal. Then, as if all this playing house wasn’t swoony enough, he lit a match using the edge of his boot for the lighting strip. For a second, I just stared at him with a potato in one hand and a fork in the other.
Poke the potatoes and carry on, Stella! Even if he does make you swoon, he’s just a guy. Just a guy covered in tattoos who brought you to the Big Wide Open. Just a guy who knows all your secrets and is totally good with all of it. Just a guy.
Using a little roll of foil that I found in the tiny drawer by the sink, I wrapped up the potatoes and put them on a tray to go outside. I salted and peppered the steaks, and Priscilla walked around the kitchen with her nose up in the air. Realizing the time, I quickly put her dinner in a bowl, then turned my attention to project sangria. I dumped some ice, the peaches, the OJ, and half the bottle of wine into a huge plastic pitcher that said, ENJOY YOUR HONEYMOON!
The smell of burning charcoal wafted in from outside; Nick pushed it farther away from the RV using his boot. He studied the flames with his j
aw flexing and finished off the rest of a bottle of water. But not entirely. What remained, he dumped into his huge palm and splashed on his face. His stubble glistened in the setting sun.
Behind him was the ranch that I had always ached to own. In front of me was the man who made my heart ache. And I realized that even though he was no rancher, even though he wore motorcycle boots instead of cowboy boots, and even though he wasn’t at all what I’d imagined for myself, he looked like he belonged here.
Like he was always meant to be here. With me.
The thunderstorm went around us, and we spent the evening outside on the lawn chairs. We ate, we talked, we laughed, and we ate ripe apricots right off the tree. Nick built a fire in the clearing, rimmed with old river rocks we found by the creek and using dead branches for kindling and old logs split by the dry air for fuel. Priscilla exhausted herself by chasing lemon moths around the clearing, sticking her fanny up in the air and barking at the breeze, finally collapsing in a heap at Nick’s feet, with her tongue lolling out onto his boot.
He took my plastic tumbler from my hand to top up my sangria. I couldn’t help but admire the contrast of thick, strong fingers and the glittery gel between the layers of plastic.
A peach toppled out of the pitcher and plopped into my glass. “So I was thinking about the payout again,” he said.
“I knew it.” I gave him a playful nudge on the side. “I keep telling you, I don’t need a knight, and I don’t need a hero. Fifty-fifty. It’s the best way. Equal pay for equal work.” My goodness. I sounded like some sort of feminist slogan machine. But I wasn’t kidding around. “It’s the only thing that make sense.”
“Stop that with your fifty-fifty,” he said. He set the pitcher back down on the ground between us and put my glass and his beside it. “I’m not talking about money.” He hooked his boot under the leg of my chair and pulled me close to press a kiss to the side of my head. I wrapped my arms around him and felt the steady, strong beat of his heart. And I felt his chest rumble as he said, “I’m talking about something way bigger than that.”
“Tell me,” I whispered, barely louder than the sound of the wind in the trees.
“I want a promise from you that when it’s all done, that won’t be the end of you and me.”
The very idea of it made my heart sink. I tried to pull my head away so I could look at him, but we were wrapped up so tightly together that I couldn’t. So instead, I held him tighter. I pressed my ear close against his chest and focused on that steady thump-thump-thump. He made me feel so happy. He made me feel so good. I never wanted to let go of him, and for a long moment I wished we could stay just like that forever. “I promise.”
“Then I’m your man,” he said, giving me another long and tender kiss on my temple. “For this. For that. For everything.”
After we did the dishes and got Priscilla settled in her bed inside, snuggled up next to the BE MINE pillow, Nick took my hand and led me back outside into the cool, fresh fall air. He guided me around to the back of the RV and climbed up the roof ladder, offering his hand to me when he got to the top. It reminded me of climbing out of a pool, the metal and plastic rickety like that. But on top, it was perfect. From up there, we could see past the apricot trees, and there was not a single light in either direction, an unbroken cloudless night, with a sliver of moon to the east.
He led me to the middle of the rooftop and wrapped me in his arms. He didn’t kiss me; he just held me, like he was cherishing me almost. “When was the last time you really looked up at the stars?” he asked, smoothing my hair off to one side. I looked up at the sky, at the swirls and sparkles. The Milky Way was a smudgy fog in the darkness, visible because there was no big city for miles and miles around.
To me, it was all magical chaos. “All I can find is the Big Dipper. But when I was little, my grandpa used to say this thing.” I remembered it so clearly, I could almost hear my grandpa’s voice in my ears right then and feel the way he’d always make sure the covers were smooth and straight. “He’d tuck me in and he’d say, ‘Go out there and bite the stars. For me.’”
Nick paused, like he was turning it over in his head. It was one of the things I was growing to like best about him—that thoughtfulness. The way he took it all in. “I love that.”
“Me too,” I said. “So much.”
He placed his hand on the small of my back. “Here. Sit down. I’ll show you a thing or two.”
I lowered myself so I was sitting cross-legged, and he came down to a crouch beside me. He took my face in his hands and leaned in for a kiss, cupping my jaw tightly. As he kissed me, both of us inhaled hard and held our breaths. When he let me go, he sat down next to me. He cradled my head and put it in his lap, carefully adjusting my hair so that it didn’t get pinned beneath me too tightly.
“OK, can you find the Little Dipper?”
No chance whatsoever. “I’m a Big Dipper girl myself.”
“Start with the Big Dipper. Trace the lip out, and you’ll find the Little Dipper.”
I squinted and couldn’t find it at first. He took my hand in his and guided my finger to where he had been pointing. Like it was one of those 3-D puzzles, the Little Dipper popped out at me. “Oh, there! Got it!”
“The end of the handle is the North Star.” He traced the line, and that popped out too.
It reminded me so much of when he’d had me find his pulse that it was almost déjà vu. “There it is!”
“OK.” He put his hand over my heart and said, “So let’s say this is the North Star.” The weight of his palm constricted my breathing, ever so slightly. “In Latin, it’s called Polaris. I put good odds on you already knowing what it’s called it Italian,” he said, glancing down at me.
That was one Italian word I knew, yes indeed. “Stella . . . something?”
“Stella’s the only part that matters.” He moved his fingertip along my sternum and made a zigzag over my chest, still looking up. “Right there, that’s Orion. Looks like this,” he added, and pointed to the warrior on his biceps, just visible in the moonlight.
“Oh my God.” Suddenly all the tattoos began to fall into place. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t seen it before. I followed the edge of Orion’s shield on his biceps and the line of his spear. I spotted a handful of the zodiac signs—the Gemini twins, the Aries ram, the scorpion of Scorpio. “You’re just full of surprises.”
He smiled and shook his head. “Once in a while.”
Using my body as a map and his tattoos as illustrations, we moved across the sky. He showed me Taurus and the Argo Navis and the Piscis Volans. With each new constellation, he led my finger to another tattoo on his arm, to the Centaur and Ursa Major and the undulating lines of Draco the snake.
“How did you learn all of this?” I asked as he made a triangle with one corner from my belly button, to show me the big and little triangles underneath Andromeda’s feet.
“It’s always fascinated me,” he said, two fingers on my abdomen. “All the shit in life can change, all the shit you think you know can fall apart. But you look up in the sky? And you can still find your way home.”
“Home.” I trailed my fingers up his forearm.
“Home,” he said again, and slowly slid his palm down my stomach, until his fingers passed the edge of my panties. He groaned when he touched them, and so did I.
With the night sky twinkling behind him, and without ever breaking my stare, he undid my jeans and slipped his warm and strong hand down farther, groaning again when he felt the wetness that was spilling out of me. I relaxed into him, my neck supported by his leg, his lap a perfect pillow that I never wanted to leave. But the more he touched me, the more I needed to leave it. The more I needed him all over again. Carefully, he moved my head out of his lap and stood above me, peeling my jeans off as he did. He took off my shoes and my socks and tossed them to the side. As I pawed for his jeans, he undid his belt and dropped his pants as well as his boxers. He lowered himself down on top of me, and the heat of his
skin cut the chill of the cool night air. The wind shifted, and a hush spilled through the apricot trees.
Without looking away, he pressed into me. He didn’t talk. He didn’t tease. Very slowly, with that unshakable confidence and clarity, he got to the place where I needed him to be. It felt so good that the once-clear stars became blurry and dim.
It was heaven. I drew him as close as I could, entwining myself with him so fully that each shift of his body drew mine off the warm plastic roof of the RV.
He pressed his forehead against mine and cradled my face in his hands. “I’m fucking falling for you, Stella,” he said, all gravelly and hoarse.
Hearing the words made my heart tighten, almost. Pinch. Contract. As if it had skipped a beat, or maybe two. I hung on even tighter; I didn’t want even the cool night breeze between us. I wanted to make him understand that he was safe with me, that he could be vulnerable with me. To fall for me, as I was falling for him. “I am too, my love. I am too.”
He kept me still with his arms under my body and his hands hooked over my shoulders. “I’m fucking falling for you,” he said again, this time from between gritted teeth. “I need to fall for you. I need this. I need you.”
I pressed my thumb to his lips. He kissed it at first, then took it more deeply into his mouth, biting down on my finger as he drove into me. The pain echoed back through the pleasure, and even the North Star itself grew fuzzy and distant. It was only him and me in the universe. Nothing else mattered. Not the future and not the past. All that mattered was him. And us, right there, in my favorite place in all the world.
Eventually we made our way back down the ladder, naked under the stars. My legs felt like they would go right out from under me, but halfway down he scooped me up and twirled me, placing my bare feet gently on the soft desert soil, still warm from the heat of the day. We found Priscilla sound asleep inside, still tuckered out in her bed. I slipped on my nightie and he put on fresh boxers, softer than the ones he wore during the day, and together we got ready for bed in the tiny bathroom, hardly bigger than an airplane’s.
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