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Aspen stood on the dressing room pedestal, staring into the three-sided mirror. Her reflections stretched on into eternity.
“What do you think about this?” she asked, placing her hands on her hips. She turned around to gauge my reaction.
Carmen stepped forward to arrange the billowy skirt around Aspen’s feet. “It’s...nice.”
“It’s yuppie,” I said flatly.
Aspen’s shoulders drooped. “I know.” She stared helplessly at the rack of dresses the saleslady had picked out.
I followed her gaze, feeling the emptiness on her face in the pit of my stomach. They were all nice dresses, sure, and they looked great on Aspen’s petite frame. The one she wore made her look like Snow White on her wedding day, but it just wasn’t the dress.
Carmen began paging through the dresses on the rack, rustling the taffeta and tulle skirts. “We need something more...more...”
“Edgy,” I offered. “Something that actually belongs on the arm of a tattooed biker.”
“Bingo.”
Just as Aspen began struggling with the zipper, there was a soft knock on the dressing room door.
“Come in!” the three of us said in unison, anticipating the saleslady with another armful of fluffy, white dresses.
But instead, it was Anna’s face that peered through the door. “Can I come in?”
Aspen raised her eyebrows at me, but I was too surprised to speak.
“We said, ‘Come in’,” Carmen said after a few awkward seconds.
Anna cleared her throat and stepped inside. Just before she closed the door, I caught a glimpse of Agent Fields, the man who’d met the Skull Kings at Pete Daddy’s. This time, he was in an official-looking white shirt and tie, staring at the ceiling and trying hard not to look like he was there to shop.
“Logan said we’d find you here,” Anna said. Her face was clean for the first time I’d seen it. I was used to seeing her with makeup, even in the mornings, when she’d rise from bed with a ring of last night’s mascara around her eyes.
“Yeah. This was first bridal shop we found,” I said. “Are you and Adrian coming to the wedding?”
Anna shook her head. “The two of us are actually going away for a while.”
“What? Why?”
Her eyes flicked to Aspen and Carmen over my shoulder. “Do you want to have a cigarette with me?” she asked suddenly.
“Sure,” I said, understanding.
We walked back into the showroom. Anna waved her pack of cigarettes at Agent Fields and motioned toward the exit.
“Make it quick,” he muttered as we passed by.
Outside, we settled down on a cold cement bench by one of the shop windows facing the street. We could see the sign of the wedding chapel from here. Beyond that were the towers of Paris, New York, New York, and the pyramid top of Luxor.
“Who needs the world when we have Vegas?” Anna remarked as she lit her smoke. “I’ll be sad to leave.”
“Are they putting you in witness protection?” I asked.
“Yup.” Anna exhaled loudly. “How about you? Are they making you testify?”
“No. They just took a statement. I’m just going to be one of about a million counts of felony human trafficking against him.”
Anna chuckled. “Nice.”
I stared down at my leg, a burnt gold next to Anna’s pale one. What happens now? I wanted to say. For once, the two of us were safe, but we wouldn’t get a chance to enjoy it together. Anna and I hadn’t ever had a normal friendship. Likely, we never would.
“So did you come to say goodbye?” I finally said.
“I guess so. I don’t know. It feels wrong to say goodbye.”
“I know.”
Anna took another drag and stared pensively at the passing traffic. “You know how people are like best friends in prison, and then when they get out, they act like they don’t know each other?”
I laughed. “Why? Is that what we’re like?”
“I mean, kind of. I can’t exactly keep ties to my old life once I enter the program. I’ll have to start completely fresh.”
I nodded. It seemed fitting. Anna had undergone a change. Her face was clean, and she was well-fed. She was practically a different person already.
“But who knows?” Anna continued. “It’s a small world. We could be like ships passing in the night.” She stubbed out her cigarette and tossed it into the street. “Or whatever.”
“So then it’s more like, ‘See you around’,” I said.
“Yeah.”
We sat in silence for what felt like a long time, both of us waiting for the conversation to end somehow. We watched the light at the intersection change three times and listened to horns blare as a car waited too long to make a left turn. Finally, it appeared that Anna had one more thing left to say.
“There’s something you should know,” she said, her voice dropping ominously.
“What?”
Her eyes darted around, looking for True Northers hiding in the shadows. “It’s about the drugs I stole.”
My stomach twisted. I got the strange sense that this was what Anna had been waiting to tell me all along. I tried to remember what she had told me about the drugs from that SUV haul. Then, I realized that she’d never told me anything at all.
“You sold it?” I whispered.
Anna’s eyes turned dark. “No. The gang caught up to us before we could. But I was the first one to get away, and I took the shipment with me.”
“The whole thing?”
“I had to disappear before they caught up to me, and I couldn’t do that with a van full of bricks.” She smiled. “So I hid it.”
“Where?”
“Someplace safe.” She kicked up one of her sneakered feet in a show of exuberance. “And once I enter witness protection and the heat settles down, I’m going to go back and get it.”
Anna’s hopeful eyes were shining and wide, reflecting back my look of alarm. She saw gold out there, buried in the desert or wherever she’d stashed it. And who knew? Maybe it was. Maybe Anna had the chops and the street smarts to spin that powder into millions. She’d be set for life, so long as nothing went wrong.
I knew there was no talking her out of it. The best I could do was wish her luck. “Does your brother know this?”
Anna snorted. “No. He’d skin me before I went near that stuff. He wants me to get a nice job in a supermarket. But you can’t ball on minimum wage, you know?”
“Yeah,” I agreed. But inside, I hoped that Adrian would stay close to her. As for me, I couldn’t stick around worrying about Anna anymore. I had to move on.
“Don’t tell anyone, okay?” Anna said as we stood up. She held her pinkie out to me. “Promise.”
I hooked pinkies with her. “Promise.”
We smiled at each other.
“Then, see you later,” Anna said.
“See you later.” But I knew that what I really meant was, Goodbye.
It was jarring to walk back into the plushness of the bridal shop after sitting in Anna’s nicotine cloud. She prodded her FBI keeper in the arm and told him she was ready to leave. I found Aspen and Carmen hovering near the exit with their purses on their shoulders, looking defeated.
“Oh, before I forget,” Anna said suddenly, coming back to me. “I heard you guys talking in the dressing room before I came in. There’s this funky little thrift shop just off the Strip where I used to find some cool stuff.” She shrugged. “It might have what your friend is looking for.”
I sneaked a glance over at Aspen, who seemed to be making one last desperate round around the store, just in case she missed something.
I sighed. “I guess it wouldn’t hurt to check it out.”