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Before: All The Single Ladies (All the Single Ladies)


Nick

I stayed by Brian until the nurses kicked me out once visiting hours were over. Then I wandered downstairs to the waiting area. I stood staring at the seats that Chris and I had occupied the day Zoey was born. The ones he said he and Ashley had occupied the day I was in the plane crash. And it suddenly occurred to me: Brian had successfully served the annullment request forms to Chris, which meant we were one step closer to Ashley being freed from Chris. One step closer to the day when the 'time would be right' and I could ask Ashley to marry me and she would say yes.

I needed a ring.

I called AJ.

We made plans to meet up the next morning. "I gotta guy," he said.

AJ is one of those people who have a guy for everything. He's got the city tapped tighter than if he was Air Force frickin' One. Whenever you need something, you just go to AJ. He has a guy for it. And if he doesn't, he's gotta guy who will get a guy for him for whatever it is. I'm serious. AJ hasn't had to put legitimate work into finding something on his own since... well, I don't know if he ever has.

I mean when you've got a guy to help you find guys, you've pretty much reached the limit.

I stayed at the hospital. It seemed like the safest thing to do. Even if Chris had somehow found out where I was at, I figured he'd never come down to the hospital. And if he did, there wasn't a hell of a lot he could do. And even if there was something he could do, at least I was at the hospital when he did it. So I camped out in this little closed off waiting room that nobody else was in under a blanket I stole from a push cart in the hallway, laying across the chouch.

The next morning, I left the blanket and wandered down the hallway in search of the bathroom. I brushed my teeth with my fingers. I was about to try to find the cafeteria when AJ texted and asked when I wanted to go see about the ring with his ring guy and I texted back anytime was fine and he informed me he was waiting out front.

"Hey," he said as I got into the car. "You see Brok?"

"Yesterday," I answered. "Visiting hours haven't started again yet."

"He look any better?" AJ asked.

"If that was better then I don't wanna know what he looked like before," I replied.

AJ sighed. "Beatin' up BRok is like kicking a god damn puppy," he said.

I nodded.

"Fucking assholes," AJ spat out the window of his car.

He drove downtown to a seedy part of the city, and parked along a narrow street lined with shops that I doubt anyone really went into. I glanced at AJ. "Your ring guy's ...here?" I asked.

"Yeah," AJ nodded. He got out of the car. I blinked at the homeless guys congregating at the end of the street, eye-balling AJ's rather fancy ride. I hesitated. AJ was putting his card into the parking meter. I got out. "C'mon, this way." AJ waved down the street and started walking. If he noticed my hesitance, he didn't say anything about it.

I walked after him feeling nervous, like I was being trailed or something. He led me to this antique shop that was on the lower level of a brickstone building. We went down the steps into the submerged, shop door that looked closed even though the light in the window said open. Inside wasn't much better than the outside. It smelled dusty, probably from the thick layer that coated everything in the damn store. We walked past a row of old chairs, dusty mason jars, half-furless teddies with one eye, and a row of plastic cupie dolls that smiled with their creepy little faces and splayed arms.

In the back of the store, AJ hit a bell on a counter decked with a register that was probably older than half the shit in the store. I looked around. There was a big crate of vintage Playboy magazines by the register, right next to a plastic bin full of old McDonalds Happy Meal toys and an old CB radio. Almost a solid two minutes after AJ had hit the bell, a little short guy that reminded me of a dirty hobbit came out of a back room, whose door was covered by a tapestry. I wondered what the hell was back there. I pictured big Russian guys playing poker and roulette.

"Hey T-Dawg," AJ greeted the Hobbit. "My friend here is in need of a diamond ring."

"Very nice, let me get them," T-Dawg replied, and he ducked back behind the curtain.

I edged closer to AJ. "Are we sure this is - you know, like... Legal and shit?"

"Why the hell wouldn't it be legal?" AJ asked.

I blinked. If I needed to tell him why this whole outfit was sketchy then we had way bigger fish to fry than the fact that I wasn't entirely positiove on the legitimacy of the business being run here. So I let it go. I shrugged.

"T-Dawg buys estates," he said, as though this would explain all the sketchiness.

"Oh," I said.

A moment later, T-Dawg re-entered the room, carrying a box. He climbed up on a stool on the otherside of the counter and put the box down. It unfolded into several trays full of diamond rings. He waved his hands across the assortment of them. "Of course they come in different sizes," he said. He pulled out a stick-like object from the bottom of the box. "I have a sizer. Of course they can all be resized by a professional jeweler."

"Okay." I answered. I looked over the rings. I really didn't want to like any of them. I wanted to humor AJ about his ring guy then go somewhere real like Tiffany's or whatever. But my eye immediately caught on one and I reached for it. T-Dawg swatted my hand away, then lifted it up himself.

"18 karat white gold, a two-and-a-quarter karat diamond. Comes with the matching wedding band set for man and wife." T-Dawg said. He dropped it onto the sizer. "Seven on the womens rings... Ten on the mens."

The detailed work on the gold on the rings reminded me of the crown of the princess in Neverending Story. It had gentle leaf-like detail that curved all the way around. Then on the top was the diamond, set in an almost box-like shape, embellished with tiny dimples, encasing the diamond itself, as though protecting it within.

My heart rate picked up. "How much?" I asked, trying to sound nonchalant.

T-Dawg looked me over, considered me. "One-fifty."

"Thousand?"

"Hundred Thousand."

"$150,000?" I repeated.

"It's a big stone, see," he said. "Really it's a steal."

"Yeah, for you," I said.

"One hundred."

I considered this. It was a vintage ring. It was two and a quarter karats. It did have the wedding bands. "Seventy-five," I said.

"You're robbing me," T-Dawg said. He looked at AJ, whose head was bobbing between the two of us like he was watching a tennis match, "You're friends with a robber."

"Eighty."

T-Dawg thought for a moment.

"Ninety-five,"he said.

"Ninety. Final offer."

AJ stared at T-Dawg, as though waiting breathlessly for an exciting conclusion. T-Dawg hesitated. I almost blurted out I'd go with ninety-five, but I caught myself just in time. And thankfully so, because T-Dawg finally said, "You drive a hard bargin." Then he closed the box of diamond rings and quickly whisked it away, returning a moment later with the rings I'd chosen in a ziplock baggie. "Cash or credit, sir?"

Fifteen minutes and a great deal of debt later and I stepped out into the sketchy street with AJ, where the sunlight was so bright in contrast to T-Dawg's shop that I had to squint all the way back to the car, which I was kinda surprised hadn't been stripped for parts while we were inside. The entire way back to the car, AJ was singing under his breath.

"If ya liked it then you shouldda put a rinnng on it, if ya liked it then ya shouldda put a riiing on it.. dont' be mad once you see that he want it...cause if you liked it then you shouldda put a ring on it.. oh ohohh ohohohoh.. ohohohhh ohoh ohhhhh..."

He was still happily singing away when my phone rang. I glanced down at it. It was Ashley. "Shut up," I said, "It's her. She can't know." I swatted at him 'til he stopped. Though he kept humming under his breath.




Ashley

I put off calling Nick as long as I possibly could. It was about ten in California when I finally decided he had to be up and about and I wouldn't be disturbing him from sleeping or anything. It took him several rings to answer and when he did, I could hear AJ in the background laughing. "'Lo," he greeted me.

"Hey, it's me."

"Hey baby," he said.

"Hey." It felt good just to hear his voice. It'd been less than 24-hours he'd been gone and yet it felt like years.

"How's Zoey?" he asked.

It made me happy that was the first thing he asked. I hugged her to me. She was laying on me sucking her fingers and watching the colors move on the muted TV set. "She's good, she finds daytime television interesting."

"How's Patrick?"

I grinned. "Nick, he's amazing. He taught English to kids in India for a year, and he met Mother Theresa. He has a picture with her. No lie."

"No way."

"Way."

"Does he look like a giant next to her?" Nick asked.

"Yes," I laughed. "And even better, he's got all these old pictures of my mom, and letters from her. He has notes she passed him during class in high school and stuff. It's so weird, seeing all this stuff of her. It's ao amazing. I can't hardly even believe it."

We'd spent the entire evening after Nick left for LA talking and looking through boxes of stuff he had left over from when my mother was alive. He'd made salmon and rice for dinner and we'd watched a documentary on TV and he hadn't even laughed when I freaked out over penguins. He'd just smiled.

"That's awesome, babe," Nick said. I heard AJ singing in the background, but I couldn't make out what it was he was singing.

"I'm so excited," I said. "Nick, I finally have a father."

"I'm happy for you, Ashley," his voice was sincere.

There was a long pause ,and finally, I asked the question I'd been dreading the answer to. "How's Brian?"

"He's... they messed him up pretty bad," Nick said slowly. "They broke his ribs. Punctured his lung. They had to do surgery today to patch the hole. His face and chest is all bruised..."

I felt sick. I pictured Brian standing by the terminal hugging Nick, and it broke my heart to picture him- the happy go lucky Brian -maimed and stuck in a hospital bed. A wave of profound guilt washed over me and I ran my finger tip along Zoey's chubby arm. "Did you tell him I'm sorry?"

"He wouldn't even let me tell him I was sorry," Nick said, "He was too proud of himself..." he paused. "Ashley, when he served the papers, he said he said -- are you ready for this? Now picture Brian saying this, 'cos it's only funny if you remember it was Brian... but he said he gave Chris the papers and said 'You've been served, bitch!'"

I choked on a laugh. Zoey looked up at me in surprise. Apparently she hadn't been expecting the chough-choke-laugh that had escaped me. "Oh my God, "I laughed, "No wonder he beat him up." I continued laughing.

Then Nick broke into my words, "He said they were there for me."

I stopped laughing.