by Joyce Armor
“Oh, shut up.”
“What?”
“Nothing.”
Russell watched several emotions flash across Ellie’s face, from confusion, determination, to a brief look of sadness. She definitely seemed a bit more complex than Tiffy. A bad thing. A very bad thing. Something to stay far away from. “I hear you used to live in Sin City,” he said, more to break her mood than anything else.
She glanced at him warily.
“Wesley told me.”
Ellie shifted uncomfortably, moving Tiffy’s purse to make more room for her feet. “I lived there for a year and a half before I moved to Bella Casa.”
“And now you’re going back to look up an old flame.”
She gritted her teeth.
“Chantella mentioned something. Actually, she was talking to Bonnie, but I couldn’t help overhearing her with my ear pressed against the wall.”
Ellie stared at him with her most critical eye, which even she knew was not very frightening. “Really?”
“It’s none of my business, of course.”
“No. It isn’t.” She tried to say it a little snootily, with a finality that would end the conversation. Yeah, like that’ll happen.
“I’m not the kind of person who pines over the past anyway. What’s done is done. Finito.”
“Hashtag, Tiffy is drooling on you.”
Russell had to struggle not to laugh out loud. She definitely gave as good as she got. He asked Ellie where she had grown up, and she gave him the thumbnail version of her childhood in a suburb of Chicago, where her father was a high-school principal who died when she was 12, and her mother worked as a corporate secretary. Her mother remarried when she was 15, and Ellie didn’t tell him how difficult her life was after that, that her home didn’t feel like her home anymore and she felt like her stepfather tolerated rather than cared for her. Yet her mother seemed so happy, she couldn’t begrudge her the relationship. When Ellie left for college at Southern Illinois University, she never looked back. And ever since she’d left home, her relationship with her stepfather had greatly improved. Why, because you’re more lovable when you’re gone? Just like with Brian? Yeah, bite me.
Somewhere in the middle of nowhere, one of the back tires picked up a nail and went flat. It made that awful flapping sound and Tiffy squealed as Russell pulled the vehicle off to the side of the road. The ground was sandy, and there was plenty of room to get away from traffic, if there had been any. He stopped the truck and they all looked at each other.
“Well?” Ellie looked annoyed.
“Well what?” Russell said.
“Are you going to change the tire?”
“It’s your truck and you’re so take-chargey, I thought you’d want to do it.”
Angrily, she got out of the truck and walked around to the driver’s side, and then a thought occurred to her. She went up to his window “You don’t know how to change a tire.”
“It’s never come up.”
Oh yeah, he was defensive, and she was enjoying it. “You two get out of the truck. Watch and learn.”
It was a grueling and sweaty job, and rather dangerous on shifting ground. Ellie was just about done changing the tire, which was no small feat, with Tiffy talking on her phone to every person she had ever met—how could there even be a cell tower out here—when another thought occurred to her. She was dirty, grimy and perspiring like a faucet, and Russell looked as comfortable as could be in his well-worn jeans and black t-shirt. The man was wearing a black t-shirt in the blazing sun and looked positively refreshed.
“You know how to change a tire, don’t you?”
He just smiled, with a glint in eye. Then he took the lug wrench from her, tightened the nuts on the spare and lifted the damaged tire into the truck bed. She got up, placed the tire iron in the bed—Go on, just whack him over the head with it once—and wiped her hands off on a rag. She opened the little tool box in the bed and added the rag to it before snapping it shut.
“Let’s go,” she said in her pissiest tone.
Tiffy and Russell climbed in and belted up, not saying a word, although she had no doubt Russell was chewing on the inside of his cheeks to keep from laughing. Ellie turned on the ignition, floored it, and listened to the tires spin in the sand. Tiffy began filing her nails, but Russell looked straight ahead, not daring to speak. There was dead silence for a good two minutes. Finally, Ellie turned to her riders. She was reaching the end of her tether.
“Get out of the truck and push.”
Tiffy looked aghast. “I don’t push.”
That did it. Ellie was truly out of patience. She looked at Tiffy angrily. “If you want to ride, you push. Now.”
Tiffy was definitely intimidated. “I…I guess I could push this one time.”
Russell looked at Ellie with an expression of reproach that made her so ashamed she wanted to cry. But she tamped it down. She was hot. And tired. And hungry. And grumpy. “Get out. The sooner you push, the sooner we’ll be on our way.”
It took more than pushing. Russell eventually found some flat rocks to put in front of the tires to give them some traction, and after nearly 30 minutes, Ellie got the truck moving. She was only a little tempted to keep on driving and leave Russell and Tiffy in her dust. She realized if she hadn’t gunned it after she changed the tire, they probably wouldn’t have gotten stuck, but that only pissed her off more.
They got back in the truck. While Russell was quite sandy by now, Tiffy looked as young and perky as always. But of course. Ellie’s eyes locked briefly with Russell’s and she knew he knew she had thought about leaving them. And that galled her. She wasn’t used to anybody knowing what she was thinking, and she didn’t like it. The sooner this journey from hell was over, the better.
They made a side trip to Tonopah, where she had the tire repaired and the spare replaced with the good tire. While this was being done, they enjoyed a meal in a little café with picnic tables and peanut shells on the floor. It was just what they needed to soothe the atmosphere between them. Tiffy and Russell ordered big sloppy cheeseburgers, the kind that would add pounds to Ellie and probably wouldn’t add an ounce on those two, and Ellie ate a chicken quesadilla. Tiffy kept snatching fries from Russell’s plate, dipping them in ketchup so sensually Ellie was fascinated in spite of herself, like watching a car wreck, even though you know you shouldn’t, yet you can’t help yourself. Russell, of course, was in his glory, and she wondered if it was because he was turned on by Tiffy or enjoying Ellie’s suffering. Probably both.
That stop made all the difference, Ellie thought. Back in the day, she would drive 10 or 11 hours straight to get where she was going. It would never have occurred to her to stop and eat along the way. It was all about the destination. Oh, she might pack a lunch, but never stop. But just this little respite had renewed her. She felt rested and ready to go. Ready to get to Vegas. Ready to get on with her life. Ready to find Brian. Ready to seize the moment. Ready to live. The Russell fantasy might be gone, dead in a fluff of Tiffiness, but the Brian fantasy was alive and well. Las Vegas, here we come. Way to shift gears and drag in another fantasy, Eleanor.
Four hours later, after two more stops and godawful duets by Tiffy and Russell of “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer” and several other bizarre Christmas carols—just what she needed on a hot summer day—they reached the outskirts of Las Vegas. Not knowing the words to most of the songs hadn’t stopped Tiffy from belting out “la-la-la-la-la-la” until Ellie thought she would go mad. She thought about driving the truck into a ditch. Anything to activate the airbags. It was dusk, and no one had killed anyone or gone more insane than they already were. Apparently, anyway. At the last gas station, Russell had changed into the Muskman costume, and Ellie had to admit Dee had done a masterful job. He really did look like the Muskman cut-out. Amazing.
“Wow. That’s incredible. Was your mom a professional seamstress before she retired?” Ellie had asked when he emerged from the restroom as Muskman.
; “No, she worked in a grocery store for nearly 40 years,” he’d explained. “Wound up as a regional manager for the last decade before she retired.” It was his turn to be proud of his mom, and he fairly shone with it.
Darn it. Stop finding things to admire about him. He’s still a worm.
Then he cleaned the truck’s windshield, garnering several odd looks and a few honks and waves from passersby. Tiffy was texting on her cell phone nearby while Ellie pumped gas. As she was finishing, the little blond marched over.
“My aunt’s mad because I forgot to feed her cat. Hashtag, he’s an Abyssinian and can live without food and water for like a month or something. How much farther is it? I don’t want to pee here.”
“Ten or 15 minutes to the hotel, I think.” Tiffy and her hot little body got in the truck. Ellie was swiping her credit card when a dangerous-looking biker in grungy jeans approached. He wore a pitted-out white t-shirt and leather vest with what looked like gang or club patches on it. All that was missing was a cigarette pack rolled up in his sleeve. He appeared to be in his late 40s or early 50s but still looked very strong. And very scary and menacing. Ellie stiffened in spite of herself, looking subtly (she hoped) around for anything she could use as a weapon. Failing that, she was about to scream for help.
“Muskman!” the biker suddenly bellowed. “Wow! I love you, dude. Spray me!”
Russell lifted his arm to expose his armpit in an imaginary spray, and the biker giggled gleefully. Then he handed Ellie his cell phone and put his arm around Russell.
“Can you take our picture? Just press right here,” he indicated.
Russell and the biker put on silly grins as Ellie snapped the photo. She was beginning to understand the allure of Muskman as she never had before. She placed the biker’s phone into his meaty hand that may not have killed hundreds of people after all.
“Go forth and multiply,” Russell said cheerily, waving.
The evil-looking biker chortled again. “Wait’ll I tell my old lady. She’ll never believe it.” He walked off, a bounce in his step.
Tiffy leaned out the window. “Let’s go.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Ellie saluted.
“We have places to go,” Russell said pointedly, looking at Ellie. “And people to meet.”
Ellie avoided his glance, although she could feel his eyes on the back of her head as she had at Em’s Hideaway. She had never felt that with anyone else, like he was sawing a hole into her brain. Why did he affect her that way? Well, she wasn’t going to let him get to her, that was for dingy-dong-dang sure. And who was he to judge anyway, Mr. I-Can-Attract-Any-Booby-Blond-I-Want? As they drove down the Strip, she blocked out all thoughts of Russell Owens and began feeling the same excitement she always did at seeing the bright lights in the city that never sleeps. The city where fortunes are made and lost. The city that sees both hope and despair, love and hate. But was hate the opposite of love, or was it indifference?
She was silently congratulating herself on having several thoughts totally unrelated to the masculine furball sitting next to her. Then, of course, Russell began singing. It was “I Remember You” again, touting that ideal, so unrealistic relationship. Is it unrealistic or are you? Could it be that she’d find that in Brian? Could he be singing that song to her 40 years from now? Could the time finally be right for them? You’re down to one horse now. Don’t screw this race up.
“Is it like you remembered?” Tiffy asked Ellie.
“It seems a lot bigger,” Ellie said. “But it’s as flashy and sparkly as it ever was. There’s no place like it on earth. It’s so alive, tacky and pulsing and impressive at the same time.”
“Sometimes I feel like the inside of my head is like that,” Tiffy said, looking up for some reason.
Oddly enough, Ellie completely understood the sentiment and had a momentary weird feeling of simpatico with Tiffy. What, are you crazy?
Tiffy, sitting shotgun, put down her window and hung her arm out. “It’s so hot.”
“Well, it is summer.”
At the Courtyard Dumont Hotel, a bright flashing sign welcomed the Desert Underground Comix Expo’s and a dotcom convention’s participants and attendees. Ellie found a parking space not too far from the main entrance. She retrieved her own bag from the truck bed, not that she had a choice, and Russell pulled out his duffel and Tiffy’s bag. Of course it was one of those little cases on wheels, like a flight attendant’s.
In the tastefully decorated hotel lobby, with plush Oriental carpets and rather ornate chandeliers, they passed two other non-rodent superheroes and several other weirdly dressed and “normal” people as they approached the counter. The desk clerk, in his pressed tan slacks and snazzy burgundy blazer with the stylish hotel logo on the pocket, looked up. His world-weary eyes gave no evidence that seeing Russell dressed as Muskman was anything out of the ordinary.
It’s Vegas. He must have seen it all. But wouldn’t it be fun to come up with something to shock him? Now where had that thought come from? Ellie wasn’t used to thinking outside the box. She was definitely an inside-the-box thinker. Or maybe just a teensy bit on the line. She really needed to catch a few winks. “Hi,” she said. “Roger Neff of Full Court Press made reservations for us. There should be two rooms, I believe.”
The clerk checked a computer. “Ellie…Lambert?”
“Yes.”
He eyed Russell. “Then you must be…Muskman.”
Russell smiled and nodded as Tiffy blurted out, “I’m Tiffy!”
Ellie watched the desk clerk’s eyes light up before he looked back at her. She was almost waiting for him to pat her on the head. The Full Court Press travelers got their room assignments and card keys after Russell provided his full name. In the elevator, Tiffy and Russell started mooning over each other, chuckling and pawing and gnawing. Holding in her nausea, Ellie bolted when the doors opened at her floor. Free at last. Unfortunately, the lovers got off on the same floor and followed her up the hall, kissing and touching and talking…was that baby talk? Oh God, she really was going hurl here in the hallway.
“I love a man in a uniform,” Tiffy gushed.
“Here’s my room,” Ellie said.
They ignored her and kept on walking, if you could call it that with their hands all over each other. It looked like one person with too many arms.
“You need to be in costume at the convention center at 8 a.m. to help set up,” Ellie called after them. “Meet me in the lobby at 7:40 if you want to ride with me. I’m not waiting for you.”
Russell stopped and looked back at her. “Does Muskman do manual labor?”
“Does Muskman want a ride home?”
Chapter 6
Ellie opened the door to her room and went in, not waiting for his answer. She closed the door behind her, dropped her bag and wearily leaned against the floor. Why did she have a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach? Why should she give a flying fig if Russell Owens, a quintessential example of the Peter Pan syndrome if ever there was one, wanted to bed Tiffy or any other hot little number? They deserved each other. She hoped they’d be very happy together. With that thought firmly in place, she put one foot in front of the other and carried her bag and purse into the room, depositing them on one of two queen-size beds with gold and burgundy bedspreads.
Resisting the urge to flop onto the bed and pull the covers over her head, she went to the bathroom sink and splashed some cold water in her face, trying to drown her thoughts. She dried herself, then sat down on one of the beds, closing her eyes a moment during which she gathered up her moxie, or at least part of her moxie. Finally she grabbed her purse and rifled through it, pulling out her trusty Brian list. She also removed her cell phone, checked her watch, took a deep breath and punched in a number. Her heart fluttered as it rang, but not as hard as it had beat the first time she made one of these calls. She nearly flinched when a woman answered.
“Hello…I’m trying to reach Brian Morgan…BRIAN MORGAN!...And he was how old? HOW OLD? Oh, I
’m sorry for your loss, ma’am. I SAID I’M SORRY FOR YOUR LOSS!” She couldn’t shout any louder without bringing down security on her. “I’M SORRY FOR YOUR LOSS AND I’M SORRY TO DISTURB YOU. THANK YOU.”
She ended the call and willed herself not to get the headache she felt coming on. Now you’ve sunk to harassing widows, a new low. No, sadly, she could still go lower. What would this last call hold for her? Maybe she could torment some orphans. She consulted the paper and entered another number. “Hi…I’m trying to reach Brian Morgan, who dealt 21 at Caesar’s Palace several years ago.” As she listened to the response, her mouth dropped open and, rather than beating out of control, her heart nearly stopped. The woman knew him! She actually knew him. “Really? I’m an old friend, Ellie Lambert. I live in northern California now. I’m in town for a convention and just wanted to say hello.”
There was a knock on the door. Ellie, still on the phone, went to look through the peephole and reluctantly opened the door. Russell, still dressed as Muskman, entered.
“Uh-huh. No kidding? Wow. That’s wonderful. I’m so happy for him. Yes. Yes, I will.” She quickly scribbled down an address. “I’m at the Courtyard DuMont, but I’ll try to reach him there before I leave. Thank you.”
Oh my God, you found him. You actually found him. This could be life changing. Maybe he will be singing “I Remember You” 40 years from now.
Kind of shell-shocked, Ellie ended the call and looked at Russell. Dear, attractive, sexy, shameless, annoying Russell, who looks surprisingly alluring in that furry suit. Evil, evil thought. Get out of my head.