by Hart, Cary
I cover my mouth, trying to hide the building laugh. Aunt Dottie has always had a way with words. Crass and
sassy without a care in the world. She is who she is and makes no apology about it.
“How ’bout now?” She flashes me a toothy grin. “Good?”
“I think you got it.”
“She said it was guaranteed.” Dottie shakes her head. “Should’ve known…” she trails off, lookin’ over my shoulder. “Are you gonna introduce me to the groom?”
“To who?” I turn around to see who she’s eyeing on the other side of the street and remember I’m standing in front of the twenty-four-hour wedding chapel. “Ohhh…no, no, no. No way. I would never get married. Not here.”
Dottie raises an eyebrow.
“I mean. I’m sure it’s a wonderful place, you know, to get married. It’s just not my thing. You know, the Vegas-style wedding thing.” I try to dig myself out of the hole I’m burying myself in.
Dottie passes me a bag, waves her hand in the air, and says, “Okay, kid. Have it your way.”
I peek inside the bag and notice the writing on a box: Cube-N-Cigars. Why take just one puff when you can have a box?
“Aunt Dottie, I don’t think you can get Cuban’s at the dollar store.”
“The hell you can’t.” She holds up her bag in front of her. “I have a couple boxes of stogies that say otherwise. Now, how ’bout we cut the shit and you tell me why you’re here.”
That’s my Aunt Dottie. Zero fucks to give.
“I-I kind of…um…” I try to find the words to explain how I flew all the way across the county to the one place I vowed to never return.
“Well? Cat got your tongue?” Dottie tosses me an all-knowing side-eye as she pulls her pack of smokes from her bra and lights one up.
Biting my bottom lip, I stand there, face-to-face with a woman who doesn’t give two shits what the truth is as long as I speak it. Yet, here I am having trouble finding the words.
Taking in a deep breath, I exhale with the truth, “I have nowhere else to go, Aunt Dottie.”
“Whelp, kiddo. How about you come inside and tell me ’bout it?” she asks before hurrying across the street, creating her own crosswalk, making it legal in her head. She zigzags between the cars, giving the middle finger to anyone who tries to cross her path. “You comin’?” she shouts, glancing back.
“Yeah!” I holler back. “I’ll be right there.”
I hate Vegas. Yet, here I am, standing in the center of it all, asking it to save me. Irony at
CHAPTER TWO - VEGAS
“Kid, pay close attention because we don’t have much time.” Aunt Dottie’s husky voice echoes off the glass walls as we walk through the main lobby of the twenty-four-hour wedding chapel. “On the left is what I like to call wedding row.” She points to the tiny shops lining the glass wall. “Florist, photographer, dress rental, bakery…oh shit!” She stops, noticing her reflection. “Gimme a second.” She throws open the door to the dress rental shop and disappears behind the counter.
“Dottie? Everything okay?” I follow her in.
“Yeah.” She pokes her head up over the counter, sporting a new bleach blonde wig that’s been teased beyond recognition. I can’t tell if it’s more bee-hive or big hair band. “How do I look?”
I’m at a loss for words. What can you say to that exactly? “Um, well—”
“Still lookin’ good for forty-nine—don’t ya think?” She finds a mirror and straightens the wig.
I’m not sure what to say. She looks a lot less like forty-nine and more her age of sixty-one. Even though I know her as Aunt Dottie, she was more like a mother to my mom and a grandmother to me. I’ve seen Dottie wear wigs my whole life but catching a glimpse in her au natural state was a sight I’ve never seen before. In fact, I almost didn’t recognize her, but her voice gave her away. One telling of a lifelong love affair with cigarettes. That is something you just can’t forget.
“Well, I thought you looked good before.” I smile, opting to play it safe.
“Nonsense. You’re just being the polite girl your momma raised you to be.” She fluffs up her hair. “With this, I never have to worry about a bad hair day,” she says as she struts by and flips my hair. “Wouldn’t have to worry about this wind-blown look.”
“Dottie!” I gasp. “It’s the style.”
“Don’t worry, kiddo,” Dottie reassures as she pulls her lipstick from her brassiere, painting her lips before she continues. “It’s nuttin’ a comb and bottle of Aqua-Net can’t take care of,” she says as she smacks her lips together.
“Oh, jeez.” I roll my eyes, careful she doesn’t catch me.
The last time I let Aunt Dottie near me with a teasing comb and a can of hairspray, I ended up looking like Dolly Parton during her nineteen sixties’ beehive phase. The only problem? It was my junior prom, and I was the only girl who had flammable hair and makeup fit for a drag queen. Best birth-control ever.
“I saw that.” She twists around, her eyes narrowed into the tiniest slits. “And I know what you’re thinking,” she adds. “And I do…”
“You do?”
“Yeah. I do look good as a redhead.” Dottie picks her bag back up and heads toward the door, holding it open for me. “But we save that look for Sassy Saturdays.”
“Sassy Saturdays?” I’m confused.
“Come on, kid, has it really been that long for you?” Dottie looks over her shoulder, letting out an exasperated sigh.
“Sorry, Aunt Dottie. I guess I just left Vegas behind when I moved to New York,” I confess.
“Kid,” Dottie spins around, “you may have left Vegas,” she picks up my hand and places it over my heart, “but Vegas didn’t leave you. It will always be in here.” She nods once and gives me the biggest, hot-pink grin. “Now, let’s go to my office. Sounds like you’ve got a story for your Aunt Dottie.”
“I guess I do,” I whisper.
As I follow Dottie down the hall, she congratulates the newlyweds coming out of the chapels and wishes others good luck as they go in, stopping only to introduce me to a few employees.
“Hey, Dottie! Lookin’ good.” An older man comes limping around the corner. “Well, who’s this fine young thing?” He grins as he runs a hand through his powder white goatee, his dimples barely hidden beneath.
“This is Lola’s daughter, Vegas.” Dottie beams. “You remember her, don’t ya, Harold?”
“Well, I’ll be damned.” He crosses his arms and hollers behind him. “Darla, you won’t believe who’s here!”
“What did you say, Harold?” A fragile, yet feisty, white-haired lady comes around the corner, driving a blinged-out scooter.
“Darla, look who came to visit our Dottie.” Harold goes to stand next to his wife.
Darla eyes me from head to toe, then glances up at Harold. “Is that?”
“It sure as hell is!” he confirms.
I’m not sure what to do. I’m standing in the hallway with a woman I haven’t seen in almost eight years and an older couple who acts like they’ve known me my whole life. I take a few steps closer and introduce myself. “Hello, I’m Vegas Manilow, Lola’s daughter.” I hold out my hand, and Darla clasps it in both of hers.
“Oh, honey, you have grown into such a beautiful young lady.” She glances up to her husband. “Hasn’t she, Harold?”
“She sure has,” he agrees, returning her sentiment.
Darla’s eyes grow bright with excitement. “Vegas, tell me, do you have a boyfriend?” She waggles her eyebrows.
“Reel it back in, Darla. This is not the time nor the place for you to play matchmaker.” Harold gives me an apologetic look. “You build her a wedding chapel and she thinks she’s Cupid.” He winks.
Unsure what to do, I shoot Dottie a wide-eyed, please-save-me look. “Um…Aunt Dottie. Didn’t you say we had to hurry?”
“Oh, yeah, kid. Well, Harold, Darla, I’ve got to get these bags to Burt.” Dottie holds up the sacks from the dollar s
tore.
“Ahhh! Yes, you don’t want to keep that young buck waitin’!” Harold confirms.
Darla, who still has my hands in a vice grip, pulls me in. “Whoa!” I squeal as she yanks me toward her, bringing us eye to eye. “If you’re single and looking to mingle, my Jujube is free,” she whispers loudly.
“Darla!” Harold scolds. “Jujube is out of the country.” He gives me an apologetic smile. “Sorry, Vegas. Please forgive my wife.”
“Well, Harold, maybe if he had something like this to come home to, he would,” Darla fires back.
“We’ve been over this before, honey. He’s helping that country dig holes for water…” Harold continues to rein in his wife. “He’ll come back…” Harold places a hand on his wife’s shoulder.
“I know, Harold.” Darla reaches up to pat his hand. “I know,” she agrees.
That’s when Aunt Dottie pulls me off to the side. “Kid, this is our only break. Let’s go.”
“Do I know them?” I ask as we race off.
“When you were just a bratty kid with pigtails, you would sneak out to the bar and beg the customers for quarters for the gumball machine.” Dottie’s voice is a little wheezy from walking and talking, but she continues. “Hidden between those gumballs were little plastic diamond rings, and you wanted one so bad.”
“Ahhh! I remember,” I follow her down the long hall weaving in and out of the hustle and bustle of the twenty-four-hour chapel. “My mom told me if I stayed backstage, she would give me a bag of quarters at the end of the week.”
“That’s right, kid. Harold and Darla only came in for the Sunday buffet, but when they saw you trying to get those plastic money suckers, they wanted to help.”
“The bags of quarters?”
“From Harold and Darla. Each week, they would give your momma twenty dollars and a bag of quarters and told her to treat you both to something nice.”
“I can’t believe it.” I smile at the memory. “You know, I still have one of those rings to remind me of…” I look around as we finally reach a door—the back door—to the outside—not her office. “Dottie, correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m pretty sure you didn’t invite me in to send me right back out.” I nervously chuckle, unsure of what to think.
I just admitted I have nowhere else to go. If she sends me out this door, and on my way, I’m done. Coming to Las Vegas was a gamble, and unfortunately, I lost it all.
“Kid, cool your tits. This…” Dottie opens the steel back door, and a young man comes running past her shouting something about babysitting and not his job, “is my office.”
Following her out, I throw my hand over my shoulder. “What’s his deal?”
Dottie shrugs. “Eh, he’s always complainin’.” She sets the bags down before she grabs her pack of smokes and begins to light up.
Taking a step forward, Dottie’s eyes get big as she shouts, her cigarette somehow hanging from her mouth, “Get the door!”
Using my super stealth ninja reflexes, I grab the door just in the nick of time. “Geesh, Dottie. You scared me.”
“Well, you scared me.” She fiddles in the bag as she continues to puff and talk. “If that door would have shut, we would’ve been locked out.”
Grabbing a box of cigars, she unwraps the plastic and pulls one out.
“Um…Dottie? I’m not sure how to say this, but smoking those…” I point between the two death sticks, “at the same time…I’m not sure if it’s—heathy?” I watch in amazement as the ash grows longer and longer and still doesn’t fall.
Dottie is standing there, talking, and in between sentences, she puffs on it a couple times, the cig burning, the ash still not falling. How in the… Seriously, this has to be some kind of world record. She hasn’t flicked it off once, and the cig is almost half gone.
“Ehhh,” she grunts. “It’s not for me.”
“Oh…um—well?” I wrinkle up my nose at the thought of smoking one myself. “I’ll have to pass.” I wave my hand in front of me. “Not my thing.”
“It’s not for you.” She flicks her stick, lighting the cigar from the cigarette butt before she tosses it to the ground, stomping it out. “It’s for him.” She takes a couple puffs before she steps around me.
“Who?” I peek around the door and come eye to eye with a massive bearded beast—with horns.
“Baaaaaah!” The beast shouts his battle-cry and begins to charge.
What the…? “That’s a goat!” I scream like a little girl.
“Kid, the door!” Dottie croaks out.
“Shit.” I reach my hand out and barely grab the handle before it latches.
“What’s wrong? Never seen a smokin’ goat before?” Dottie places the cigar in the beast’s mouth.
“He tried to kill me and eat me for dinner.” I’m yelling, pointing at the thing that just tried to attack me. “And he smokes. A smoking goat tried to kill me and eat me for dinner.”
“Don’t flatter yourself, kid. Burt, here—” she adjusts his cigar, “is a vegetarian.”
“But he growled and bared his teeth. He was ready—to—attack.” I’ll be damned if I get eaten by a massive goat who needs to shave. His beard is out of control.
“That’s his smile?”
“Oh-kay.”
Dottie bends down and whispers something in the goat’s ear.
“What are you doing? That goat is armed and dangerous.” I look around. “We should call animal control.”
“Animal control?” she repeats. “For a smokin’ goat?”
“Fine—a smoking goat that tried to kill me.” I take a step back to give myself a head start…you know, just in case Burt tries anything fishy.
“Kid, you’re scaring Burt Reynolds.” Dottie, who is on #TeamBurt, is now standing in front of him, shielding him from me. Me! “He’s had a rough couple of years since Sally Field left him at the altar.”
“Let me get this straight. Burt Reynolds, a smoking goat, was left at the altar by none other than Sally Field, another goat.” I tilt my head back and laugh. “Let me guess. Was there a black Trans Am involved?”
“Kid, this isn’t Smokey and the Bandit, but you’re close!” Dottie reaches out her hand. “Now, hand me that box over there. Burt here needs another stogie after what you put him through.”
“Me?”
“Yes, you.”
I look at the two in front of me. Dottie, a forever forty-nine, wig-wearing, fake-baking, smokes way too much, doesn’t give two-shits, has a shot for breakfast kind of woman, and this goat—who smokes—and now that I’m getting a good look—is smiling.
Only in Vegas.
Continue reading Honeymoon Hideaway...
PROLOGUE - AUBREY
WHAT HAPPENS WHEN HAPPILY ever after isn’t so happy? When all your dreams and plans dissolve into the chaos of everyday life, and are swallowed up by obligations...
Absolutely nothing.
Hollow.
Empty.
Unhappy.
I’m void of all emotions. Struggling to breathe, walking through life as if a cinder block is tied to my chest. I’m falling deeper into the unknown.
Drowning.
Dying.
I’m tired. This isn’t what life should be all about. It’s exhausting trying to fight my way to the top when all I seem to do is sink further down.
Is there something wrong with me?
Can he see it? Feel it?
I told myself we weren’t obligated to get married. We chose to become a family. Getting pregnant was a surprise, but we embraced our new reality and accepted our fate for what it had become.
Ignoring all the signs that pointed to the obvious.
Oblivious.
He was the perfect husband.
Was he?
He was there when we lost the baby. Took care of me in all the ways a husband should take care of his wife. Reassured me that it wasn’t our fault, that it wasn’t the right time and we would be blessed when it was. He could have left. He had an
out, but he stayed.
He always stayed.
Something was off. We were never the same after that — or maybe we were never right to begin with.
Routine.
I did what any good wife would do. I supported him while he finished his degree and built his career. I put my education and dreams on hold for him. Volunteered at local charities, kept a clean house, had dinner on the table nightly and made sure I worked out daily.
He was there for me every step of the way when I finally got pregnant again six years ago, accompanying me to most of my appointments, making sure either my mom or his would fill in when work called.
He was a hands-on dad, relieving me of some of the late-night feedings even when he had to work the next day. I was lucky.
He was on top of things, never forgetting a special day and always making the moment perfect. I felt perfect...
Until I didn’t.
A couple years after our daughter was born, he became distant.
Cold.
Late nights at work. Business meetings out of town.
Absent.
Then the fights came. An argument here and there escalated to daily quarrels. In front of our friends, family and our daughter. The fight within me was fading fast.
Distance.
I begged and pleaded for things to change.
Nothing.
The tension became unbearable. He wasn’t the same man I married and it was changing me.
Lost.
I tried everything to get his attention, to reverse the damage that had already been done, but he just told me he was working on it. I believed him.
Try.
My days were filled with dread, always waiting for the other shoe to drop. Knowing with every good moment a bad one was quick to follow. It wasn’t a what-if, but a when.
Dread.
I threatened to leave; he begged me to stay. I asked him to leave; he refused to give up. I finally left; he begged me to come back with promises of how this time things will be different.