by Lindsey Kelk
‘We are?’ Hadn’t Jenny said Jeff was supposed to fly home today?
‘I’ll be home tomorrow. Late, though.’
Blowing errant bubbles out of my eyes, my stomach started to drop again. ‘We, um, we really need to talk about what happened yesterday,’ I said, suddenly very aware of the fact that I was naked on the toilet.
‘We do,’ Alex agreed. ‘But we don’t need to do it in Vegas. We can do it at home.’
‘Not if you’re not at home.’ I was very close to wailing. All I wanted was to get on a plane, get into bed, under the covers, and never get back out again, but that wasn’t going to work if Alex wasn’t in there with me. ‘I thought you were on the same flight back as us.’
‘I changed it – don’t freak out.’ He was perfectly calm, the opposite of how I’d last seen him. Someone had had some thinking time. Someone hadn’t been negotiating dress prices with strippers and wrangling puppies. ‘I’ll be home tomorrow, and on Tuesday we’ll sit down and work this whole thing out. Text me when you land, OK?’
Text not call.
It was a little thing, but all I heard was that he didn’t want to talk to me. I was probably overreacting. Being inappropriately naked always made me overreact.
‘I’ll text,’ I said, quashing the gnawing feeling in my stomach. ‘I love you. And I really am sorry about last night.’
‘Don’t,’ Alex replied. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow.’
I was fairly certain what he meant to say was ‘I love you too and am also sorry, let us never speak of it again’, but I gave him the benefit of the difficult-phone-conversation doubt and said goodbye. Replacing the handset, seated on the loo completely starkers with a head covered in shampoo, I pouted into the bathroom mirror. It was not a good start to a week when this was the best you’d looked all day.
Once I’d scrubbed the top seven layers of my skin clean away, dried myself off and packed up all my worldly goods, I went into the lounge to wait for Jenny and Sadie. Who were nowhere near ready. Of course.
‘I’m going to have a walk around outside,’ I called at the doorway to Jenny’s room. She made an acknowledging noise and then went back to swearing at her luggage. I noticed straight away that she had taken off the diamond ring. Leaving my tiny carry-on suitcase back in the middle of the lounge, I picked up my satchel and surveyed the damage. Falling into a fountain hardly ever fell into the category of a Good Thing, but when you were a beautiful leather bag that had, in all honesty, already seen its best days, it was a complete tragedy.
‘I’m so sorry,’ I whispered, stroking it gently. ‘I seem to be saying that an awful lot today.’
The bag groaned with sympathy as I slung it over my American Apparel stripy T and let it hang on my denim-clad hip. Every inch of me was covered. There would be no mistaking me for a stripper, a hooker, a pole dancer or anything else ever again. Hopefully.
The casino was buzzing with people, most clutching a Bloody Mary to acknowledge they were aware it was Sunday. I wished I had my phone with me so I could google the number of churches in Las Vegas. I couldn’t decide whether there would most likely be more or fewer than in your average town.
It was eternal twilight in here. No time, no daylight, no weather, nothing but a constant supply of cocktails and the ching-ching-ching of a slot machine paying out. Those sparkly vampires were so stupid, Washington? I got that they were trying to atone for some perceived sin, but who hated themselves enough to constantly put themselves through puberty? Eternal high school. Jenny got upset when I voiced my issues with her very favourite saga, but it just didn’t make sense. The dad worked, the kids were forced to take algebra over and over and over, but what was the mum doing all day? They should have moved here and opened a hotel. It would have made much more sense. She could have run the roulette wheel.
I gravitated towards the slots, trying not to giggle at the ever-changing screens that declared them the loosest slots in Vegas. Perching on one of the stools, I dug around in my bag for a few quarters to pass the time and stared up at the screens situated all around me. Ooh, Snooki was going to be here for New Year. That seemed sad, I thought; New Year wasn’t a time to be working. I hoped she was bringing some friends. As I’d already proven, I was not a natural gambler, but who could get a slot machine wrong?
‘Honey, you’re doin’ it all wrong.’
I knew a New Jersey accent when I heard it, and when I looked up, I knew exactly where it was coming from. A little old lady shook her head at me so violently, I was very worried she was going to lose her wig. Man alive, that was a vibrant shade of orange. She looked like Lady Gaga after a few minutes in the microwave.
‘You gotta pay attention.’ She pointed at the screen in front of her. ‘You can’t just go around pushing buttons.’
‘Well, that’s just good advice in general,’ I said, trying to follow what she was doing, but it was just a fevered blur of nudges, freezes and rolls to my untrained eye. I was mostly disappointed that there was no actual arm to pull on any of these machines, just little bright buttons, all lighting up in no particular order that I was able to discern.
‘Get over here – these are the machines you should be playing.’ She beckoned me over to the one-armed bandit, away from the giant sparkly machines promising all the joys of gambling combined with your favourite chick flick. Who wouldn’t love a Sex and the Cityslot machine? But I felt like I had more to learn from my new friend than Mr Big. I’d always been more of an Aidan girl.
‘You learn a lot about life playing the slots,’ she replied, eyes locked on the prize. ‘You press a few buttons, you twist a few arms, you hope you’re gonna win. Sometimes you lose a little, sometimes you lose a lot. Some people think they know how to beat the system.’ She turned to me and scoffed. ‘They don’t. You can’t beat the slots.’
‘Then why play?’ I asked, watching her press the various buttons in no discernible order. Hold, shuffle, spin. It all looked very confusing.
‘Because sometimes you win big.’ She looked back at the machine, its lights reflecting in her bifocals. ‘Everyone wins sometime, but they don’t know how to quit when they’re ahead. Then you end up with nothing. You get everything, and then before you know it, you got nothing again. You followin’ me? You know what I’m sayin’?’
‘Worryingly, I am.’ A nod for my new friend, a quarter for my machine.
‘I been married four times.’ She held up her left hand to show me an assortment of knuckledusters. ‘And four times I picked losers. They don’t know when to stop. They don’t know how to walk away unless they’re walking away from a woman. Men, they mess up their lives and they blame their wives. They’ll stick with their blackjack dealer longer than their own family, and he’s the one taking their money.’
More quarters in the machine. Press some more buttons.
‘You girls today, you’re no better.’ She paused to point a long fingernail at me, just to make sure I knew exactly who she was talking about. ‘I see you on the floor. You flit from one machine to the next – oh, this one isn’t paying out, so I’ll try another. And another. And another. And then none of them pay out and you want to go back to the first one, but it’s too late. Someone else already got the jackpot. Good things come to those who wait, doll.’
‘Right.’ I had no idea that gambling could be such an accurate metaphor for life. Or at least slutty girls.
‘So that’s it.’ She turned back to her machine, pressed one more button and waited while it spat out a little white slip of paper. ‘You find a machine you like, you stick with it, and you quit while you’re ahead. Shuffle. Now stick.’
‘So you leave your boyfriend before he leaves you?’
Three pineapples lit up my screen and my tutor nodded proudly. ‘There you go.’
I was unreasonably excited. The grim spectre of a life spent dancing for pennies on a New York street corner appeared in front of me. I had absolutely no willpower.
‘You’re saying I should dump my boyfriend?�
�� I looked from my gambling guru to the flashing slot machine. Did I win?’
‘Who’s talking about boyfriends?’ She clambered off her stool and readjusted her ‘hair’. ‘Boyfriends in general are bad news, doll. You got to find something for yourself. You work out what makes you happy, set yourself up in that business, and if you end up with a fella, then whoop-de-do. If you don’t, you’re still happy. And yeah, you won. Five bucks. Don’t spend it all at once.’
‘Do you think you’ll ever get married again?’ I asked, trying to follow the same pattern she’d shown me.
My mentor rattled the chain handle of a Chanel handbag into the crook of her arm and picked up a Big Gulp cup of quarters.
‘Not me, doll. I cashed out a long time ago. Pamela de Lujo,’ She shook my hand with a force that almost made my wig fall off. ‘This place is my husband and it’s more of a bastard than either of the other four, but I can’t tell you how much I love it. I hope you’re enjoying your stay here. Remember what I said.’
And with that she trundled off across the floor while I gaped. A personal gambling lesson from the owner of the casino. Well, that was something.
‘I bet she’s a vampire,’ I whispered to my slot machine and pressed the play button. It chimed its agreement. Then it kept chiming. And chiming. And chiming.
‘Oh, crap,’ I said out loud, pretending there weren’t dozens of people staring at me. ‘I’ve broken it.’
‘Not quite, honey,’ replied a passing waitress. ‘I’m gonna go get you some champagne.’
Because that was what I needed right now – another drink.
An hour after we were supposed to leave, I let Jenny bundle me into a limo, dazed and buzzed. Sadie barrelled in after me, laying every inch of her five foot ten out on the bench opposite. Beautiful people had no need for seat belts. They did, however, need more luggage for one weekend than I had personal belongings. Why Sadie had three giant suitcases when none of her clothes were bigger than a legwarmer was quite the mystery. I sat quietly nursing my handbag, little blue carry-on case at my feet, not quite sure what to say, not quite sure what had just happened.
‘I can’t believe we’re leaving already.’ Sadie looked out of the window mournfully as we pulled away from the white marble majesty of Pamela’s casino resort. ‘I could live at the De Lujo. It’s like they made it for me.’
It made me smile to think that this super-luxe palace with its beaches, its bars and all its buff bikini babes belonged to a little old woman with orange hair from New Jersey who liked to play the slots. I couldn’t imagine Sadie would be her cup of tea.
‘You have work this week?’ Jenny asked, rubbing Kiehl’s balm into her lips. The pre-flight moisturizing saga began. ‘Will you be around?’
‘Actually, I’m going to be around a lot more, I think,’ Sadie answered, beaming at me. ‘Angela gave me some really awesome advice.’
‘Did she now?’ Jenny turned to face me. ‘And what exactly has Angela been advising?’
It was difficult to say which was more unnerving – the full force of a living Barbie doll’s biggest grin or Jenny’s most threatening glare.
‘Please note that anything I said over the last four days cannot be relied upon or used against me in a court of law,’ I said, pulling my bag closer to set up a barricade between me and my best friend. ‘I’m not in a position to be advising anyone on anything.’
‘No, all that stuff you said about doing something that would make me happy,’ Sadie explained. ‘It made me think. I was like, if I could be doing anything, what would it be? So this morning I sent some emails and I’m going to start shadowing a few people, trying a couple of things.’
‘Such as?’ Jenny gave me another look, one that was mildly impressed.
‘I’m talking to this girl I met at Sephora about a make-up line, and I’m gonna go into the Belleoffice for a few days, see if there’s anything I could do in fashion magazines.’ She perked up and batted me on the arm. ‘Do you know Spencer Media? Maybe I could talk to them about having you do some stuff?’
Did I know Spencer Media?
‘I don’t reckon Belleare going to be into it.’ I really didn’t want to get into it. ‘But you should definitely go and see how it feels.’
‘ Bellethough?’ Jenny didn’t look convinced. ‘I know they’re super-fashion, but they don’t feel like you. I mean, I get it every month and the fashion is awesome, but when was the last time you actually read something in Belle?’
I pondered for a moment. ‘Apart from when I wrote for them?’
‘Well, yeah, of course,’ she covered. ‘But it’s just out of touch. Belledoesn’t know what’s happening in my life.’
‘Their fashion is kind of out there,’ Sadie agreed. ‘I guess I don’t really do that much high fashion. And I kinda hate how big the monthlies are, they’re too heavy. But the weeklies make me feel gross. I don’t want to work somewhere if I’ll constantly be needing to shower.’
‘It does make checking email difficult,’ Jenny said with sympathy. ‘You’re right, though. The monthlies are too heavy and the weeklies suck.’
‘Right?’ Sadie looked relieved to get Jenny’s approval.
‘So then what? Websites?’ I asked, curious. ‘I just really love the feeling of turning the pages on a magazine – it’s the ritual as much as the content.’
‘I’m gonna start my own eventually,’ Jenny declared. ‘It’s all part of the New Oprah plan. My magazine isn’t out there yet.’
‘Can it not weigh twenty pounds?’ Sadie asked. ‘Though I guess it’s a good bicep workout.’
‘You should still definitely do Belle, though,’ I told her. ‘It’ll be a good experience. Even if it’s shit.’
‘Yeah, I’m actually excited.’ She looked surprised. ‘I do love modelling, but I know it’s not for ever. I’d forgotten how much fun it can be to do something new. Like the first day of school.’
‘You enjoyed school, right?’ Jenny asked.
‘Sure.’ Sadie nodded.
‘Cheerleader?’
‘Uh-huh.’
‘Yeah.’
‘Figures.’
The traffic was nose to tail on the Strip, leaving us sitting right outside the Venetian for far too long. I stared out of the window and felt my eyes sting and my nose tingle. He was up there somewhere. I flicked my hair forward until it covered my face and breathed in the scent of my shampoo until I had composed myself.
‘Did you speak to him?’ Jenny asked, tucking my hair back behind my ears and brushing away my good work with one hand.
‘He’s staying an extra night.’ There, that wasn’t too hard to say. ‘Did you speak to Jeff?’
She stretched her long legs out across the back of the limo and looked up at the sliding roof. ‘Yeah.’
‘Are you OK?’
‘No.’
She still wasn’t wearing the ring, but it was only when she started talking that I realized she wasn’t wearing any eye make-up at all. Jenny never left the house without mascara. She even made the ambulance wait for her to put eyeliner on when she was taken in with suspected appendicitis. Clearly, we were anticipating tears.
‘Are you going to be OK?’
‘Yes.’
She didn’t sound convinced, but at least she’d said it. Sadie looked at me with her giant Snow White eyes, clearly desperate to know more, but I shook my head slightly. She’d tell us when she was ready. Knowing Jenny it wouldn’t take long.
‘He’s going to see what we have to do to have the wedding annulled.’
Not long at all.
‘He doesn’t think it’s legal anyway because we didn’t get a licence. And he wants to talk when we get back.’ She laughed a little bit. ‘He’s not sure it’s fair to his fiancée to call things off at the last minute.’
‘Wouldn’t it be less fair to make her marry an arsehole?’ I asked. ‘Or for him to marry someone he doesn’t love?’
‘But he does love her,’ Jenny replied evenly. �
�He loves both of us. He’s very confused. Everything got out of hand because we were in Vegas. He needs time to think.’
A common theme of male guests of the Venetian. Clearly the top hotel for self-reflection. I shrugged. Jenny shook her head. Words seemed a bit redundant.
‘Screw that.’ Sadie thought otherwise. ‘Vegas always takes the blame for a lot of dumbass people doing dumbass things,’ she pointed out in another startling display of insight. ‘No one holds a gun to your head and says “hey, you’re in my town, you dumb shit, now do twenty-five tequila shots and fuck a donkey or I’ll shoot”.’
It was a good point, well made.
‘I love this city,’ she said, taking Jenny’s lip balm out of her bag and slicking it onto her own pout. ‘It’s a chance to get away from reality, not an excuse to act like a dick.’
The limo started to move forwards and I said my silent goodbyes. Bye Venetian, bye Bellagio, bye great big volcano. In spite of everything, I was surprised at how sad I felt. Sadie was right. The city didn’t make people do stupid things, they managed that all on their own. Vegas just provided a more colourful backdrop than usual and that seemed to encourage eccentric behaviour. Maybe it was because there was such a high concentration of tigers in one place. Tigers I had not seen. Sad face.
But I wasn’t leaving empty-handed. I had enough material for a hundred blog posts, about seventeen tea bags I’d nicked from the suite and, most importantly, I had an idea. Pamela, Sadie and Jenny had sparked off something exciting in me, and while I desperately wanted to demand we stop at the Mirage so I could play Siegfried & Roy (before the accident), I couldn’t wait to get home and see what it could be. So that was nice.
And then there was the fifty thousand dollars I’d just won on the slot machine. That was quite nice too.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
I didn’t tell Jenny about the win until we were safely on the plane so she couldn’t make the limo driver turn around and make me put it all on red. She stared at the stash of readies for a few minutes before starting a new and revised Christmas list. I tried to explain to her that as much as I loved her, the odds of me ever buying an Hermès Birkin were slim to none, regardless of my high-roller status. We were looking at a Euro Lottery rollover before I spent five grand on a handbag for anyone. Well, for Jenny. The rest of the flight was spent in comfortable silence, Sadie fast asleep, me sketching out my big plan, and Jenny intermittently pulling my handbag out from under the seat in front and staring at my money.