I drove him through the red taillight streams of stop-and-slow traffic down the Strip and then west on I-95 past the dark golf courses of Summerlin. I turned onto the 215 and was heading east for Henderson, wasting time until this drunk in my car passed out.
We passed a few darkened jewelry stores because he insisted on buying wedding rings, but I didn’t even stop because I was afraid he’d break his hand on the bulletproof glass windows, trying to bang his way inside.
Instead, we ended up at the very pawn shop where I’d ditched Jimmy’s engagement ring, though mercifully, a teenage clerk I’d never met was manning the cash register.
My ring from Jimmy was gone, but Nico insisted that we buy the best rings in the store, a wedding band for him and a double set for me, which were a whole lot prettier than the diamond-chip engagement ring Jimmy had proposed with.
I haggled with the clerk until he wroteReturnable for a full refund within forty-eight hourson the receipt, and then we were off in search of a church in the wee hours of the morning.
Nico was out of his ever-lovin’ mind, but okay.
“There has to be a Russian Orthodox church around here somewhere,” he muttered as I tipped the steering wheel to change lanes on the dark freeway under the wide night sky as a semi-truck barreled past us in the fast lane.
For a drunk, Nico was persistent.
He took out his phone and typed.
One quick internet search and his GPS app later, we were sitting in the parking lot of a Russian Orthodox Church,dammit.
It didn’t have enameled onion domes like a Moscow cathedral. It just looked like a small brown church, blocky, desert-colored. Arrow-slit windows made tall dashes on the walls.
We stood in front of the medieval, locked wooden door while Nico pounded on it.
The church was dark because it was past midnight and getting later.
His fervent knocking echoed like there was no one inside.
I kind of suggested to him, “I don’t think anybody’s in there. There aren’t any lights on.”
He pounded again. “Someone must be.”
“Since this is an actual church and not a Vegas Elvis chapel, they probably have rules about who can get married in there. Like, you probably have to be a church member, or they have to do counseling or something.”
“I’ll bet I can get them to marry us.”
“Awfully sure of yourself, are ya there, buddy?”
Nico might still be drunk, but the flick of his eyebrows was nothing but arrogance. “I’ll pull rank.”
Bad thoughts wafted into my brain. “You aren’t a priest or anything, are you?”
“Not at all,” he scoffed.
“But you said you’d ‘pull rank.’ Wouldn’t you have to be a priest in order to pull rank over another priest?”
“There are other kinds of rank. Besides, Orthodox priests can marry if they want to. Maybe he’s in the residence.”
Nico stumbled down the sidewalk that ran around the building toward the back.
The heat of the desert night settled on my arms, and I was sweating inside my enormous froufrou wedding dress. “Hey, Nico! Maybe we shouldn’t be waking priests up in the middleof the night? That has to be a sin, or at least bad luck or something.”
“It’ll befine.”
I trudged along behind him, my hands full of fluffy white lace lifting my dress where it was sweeping dirt off the sidewalk. “If he yells at you, I’m going to let him. I am going to stand right there and nod andlet him.”
“He won’t,” Nico said.
My pretend fiancé was marching ahead of me, but he turned back and held out his hand for me to hold. “Trust me.”
