Welcome to the Slipstream

by Natalka Burian

  “You’re kidding!”

  “Why would I kid about that? Ida can play every Neil Young song ever recorded, pretty much.”

  “Really?” Alex looked at me, all cowed and impressed. “That is so badass.” He started moving again. I had to hurry to keep up with him.

  “Every Neil Young song?”

  “Yeah. She loves him.” I said it matter-of-factly.

  “Wow, you just made my whole day,” Alex said.

  We took the stairs down to the ground floor. It was four in the afternoon, and nobody was at the gaming tables or the machines except the regulars. The regulars, of course, now included Ida. She was perched on a stool at Ovid’s table. She swiveled around and waved over at us. The front of her sequined sweatshirt caught the light in a glittery oil slick across her chest.

  Alex seemed to know most of the dealers on the floor, and the cocktail waitresses, too. He threw up a lot of waves and gave out several head nods. An older waitress, wearing the silver cowgirl uniform, swatted him on the arm and said, “Hi there, handsome.”

  “So this is what you want to do? Manage casinos, like Chantal?” I asked.

  “Don’t sound so disgusted,” Alex said. I could hear the remnants of that smile for the waitress in his voice. “I don’t want to do this exactly. I want to open a hotel. Like a lodge.”

  “For camping, you mean?”

  “Hmm, no. For someone so worldly, I’m surprised by how much you don’t know.”

  “For someone studying hospitality, I’m surprised by how chivalrous you aren’t. Are we there?” I crossed my arms over my chest.

  “Basically,” he said. Alex reached up and popped one of the foam ceiling tiles out of place. It made a grating, definitely not-foam-ceiling-tile noise as he slid it aside. He jumped up and his arm disappeared into the gap.

  A rickety collapsible ladder dropped down with an unreliable-sounding clatter. Alex raised his eyebrows and pointed up.

  “Oh no,” I said. “After you.” I felt like I’d just bumped into something, some ludicrous, mythical thing—a giant sea urchin, maybe. No, it was more than that; it felt like I’d just stuck my hand inside of a giant sea urchin, an intrusion that made my whole body prickle and thrum at the same time.

  Alex laughed and leapt up the ladder, making short work of it with all of that tallness.

  “Okay. You’re going to follow me, though, right?” he called back.

  “Maybe,” I answered. My foot was already on the bottom rung.

  I could feel the dust in the air around me, touching my skin and filling my lungs.

  “So, will you make it up here before dinner?” Alex’s voice floated down in echoing currents from a rectangle of light overhead. I couldn’t see him because I was concentrating on not having a panic attack on the ladder. When I made it to the top, Alex gripped onto my forearms and pulled me up the last few rungs. After my eyes adjusted to the dim light, I saw a room twenty times the size of my old closet. I sniffed the air, expecting a nose full of dust at best, but discovered that it actually smelled pretty good. Lemony. Lemon-Pledgey.

  “Did you dust in here?” I asked Alex.

  “Is that really the question you want to ask? Not, what is this magnificent secret room?”

  “All right, what is this magnificent secret room?”

  “It used to be for surveillance,” Alex said. “They stopped using it in the seventies, I think.”

  The floor was tiled with marble, but not the tacky super-shiny kind—the buttery, natural-looking kind. It looked like the floor of a cathedral, a place where thousands of people had stood and milled around for hundreds of years. The walls, shockingly, were paper-free. The Silver Saddle’s most recent decorator’s penchant for terrible wallpaper hadn’t mangled this hidden place. The walls were painted not-quite-gray, but not-quite-silver, either.

  “Whoa,” I said. I nearly reached out and touched the wall. I couldn’t help myself. “How did you find it?”

  “I was organizing the blueprint archives for Chantal, and I noticed that this room was on some of the plans but not all of them. So I went looking for it.”

  Alex sat down on a long bench that had been stripped of upholstery. The bench was the only thing left in the surveillance room, apart from the bank of dead, old-fashioned monitor screens bunched against one wall.

  “What do you think?” Alex gave me that raised double eyebrow again.

  “Thanks for showing me.”

  “It’s no problem. I think this’ll be more comfortable than your murder closet. I know you’ll take good care of it.”

  “If I don’t die on my way up and down.”

  “Don’t worry,” Alex said. “I’ll help you move whatever you want up here. You’ll be making this climb by yourself in no time.”

  • • •

  I started to spend every afternoon in the surveillance room after my lessons with Erica. Sometimes I just stretched out on that cool, milky floor and counted my breaths. But mostly I played. The acoustics were eerily grand—it was like playing music inside of a mausoleum. Getting that time, to move my fingers over the strings and hum along to the songs I loved, it was the best way for me to feel settled. I knew I should probably tell Mom about the surveillance room. It was exactly the kind of discovery she would have loved, but I kept it to, and for, myself.

  Sometimes Alex left artifacts from the Silver Saddle there to surprise me, I guess, or as a joke. I couldn’t really tell. I was never good at making those kinds of distinctions. I thought, at first, that maybe he was making fun of me. He left all kinds of things: an old blackjack horn, a plastic discard tray, a phonebook from 1988 with a leafy, plastic stem from an artificial flower nestled inside. It felt like what I imagined getting a postcard in the mail would feel like. Like someone was thinking about you.

  Chapter Four

  Our dinners were almost always room service. Sometimes we went down to the restaurant, but either way, the food was the same. I had already eaten everything on the menu, from the BLT to the chocolate fondue. So had Ida. So had Mom. Mom wasn’t a big complainer, but Ida and I were pretty much over it. Even the glinting silver food covers and miniature ketchups had lost their allure.

  The three of us sat at the coffee table in the living area of the suite. Mom and Ida perched on the couch, and I was on the floor.

  “Dolls,” Ida said, “my kingdom for some hot and sour soup.”

  I arranged my fries in a little log cabin foundation on my plate.

  “Or sushi,” I said.

  “Or sushi,” Ida agreed.

  Despite the repetitive food selection, I was glad we were all eating together. Mom looked at us over her glass of sparkling water. I was glad Mom was only drinking water, too.

  “Do you think we could go out to eat some night? Maybe to one of the casinos on the strip? You could write it off, Mom. Research,” I said.

  “Hmm, I don’t know about that,” she answered, chewing on a nail.

  “Think about it, Sofia,” Ida said. “It would be good for all of us to get out of here a little bit. Especially you. I could bring Ovid. I know he would love to show us around. Van, you could bring Antonio.”

  I threw one of my fries at Ida.

  “Van, come on, don’t do that,” Mom said. “You two should go, if you want. I’m much too busy.”

  “Too busy to come out to dinner with us on one night?” I said, surprised by how hurt I felt.

  “There’s something you should know,” Mom began.

  Oh no, I thought. Dread pooled deep inside of my guts. Mom never offered up good news this way—these declarations were always followed by flares of warning.

  “I won’t leave this building for at least three months.”

  Ida and I looked at each other. We had a silent way of communicating when Mom started to get funny. Ida and I gave each other our clearest oh-shit looks. Ida raised her head just the tiniest bit, her sign that I should ask the next question.

  “What do you mean, Mom?” I asked sl
owly.

  Mom folded her napkin in a fan and then tucked and fluffed up parts of the fan shape and set a pale peach fabric swan on the table between us.

  “Well,” she said. “The Silver Saddle wanted someone who takes on-premises management very seriously. Also, this woman I consulted before we arrived confirmed that it would be beneficial to me. For my growth. Creatively and professionally. I decided to really commit to this.”

  “Huh?” Ida said.

  “What woman?” I asked.

  “A lady I hired for some guidance. It was a big decision, to take on this project.”

  “You mean you talked to a therapist? Where? When?” I asked, my heart on a freaking golden wing. God, if Mom was getting real treatment, maybe I’d be able to take really deep breaths and say all of the regular daughter things I had ever wanted to say.

  “Yes,” Mom answered, her face clear. “An astrotherapist. She’s in Cleveland. We’ve been in touch on the phone. Really, she is so helpful. You both should talk to her,” Mom said, looking first to me, then to Ida.

  My heart sank to the inverse of golden wing. Of course I wanted Mom to be what she was, even if that meant she wasn’t always perfectly all right. What I wanted more, though, was for Mom to be mostly perfectly all right and what she was. It was a balance she’d dabbled in every now and then, but, in the end, the medication and therapy appointments were flung aside to make room for all of her wild soaring.

  “Sure, Mom,” I said.

  “But don’t let me stop you from exploring the town.” She rested a slim hand on her chest, over her heart. “I want you both to feel like you’re getting something out of this experience, too. That’s always what I want.”

  “That’s sweet, Sof,” Ida said as she sliced into her now-cold filet.

  I didn’t answer. I just folded my napkin into an identical peach swan and set it next to Mom’s on the coffee table between our dinners.

  I remembered one of our other, faraway meals together. There was a rug in one of our rooms outside of Chicago. It was the size of a bed, faded and balding, with once-blue curlicues swirling across a once-gold background. While we stayed there, when it got dark, Mom went out.

  “Here, my little one, this spot.” She pointed to a space between three blue spirals. “A protected place. Can you feel the magic here?” She held my hand over the invisible shape.

  I nodded and looked right into her eyes. I’m not sure how old I was. Maybe four, maybe a little older. Old enough to remember.

  “That’s very good. Will you sit there and wait for Mama? Yes?”

  I curled up in the spot, like she wanted, and she kissed me all over—on my forehead, on my eyes, on my chin. I giggled and pushed her away a little, but I loved the feeling of her lips on my eyelids. That light, ticklish pressure made me feel locked into what and where I was supposed to be.

  “I won’t be long at all, and when I get home, we’ll have such a feast.”

  We hadn’t eaten in two days. The rumbling of my stomach had mutated, first into a sharp, stabbing pain that made me cry, and finally a dull hollowness. I believed I would be safe, if I stayed in that magic spot. I knew that Mom would bring a feast.

  “Muffins?” I asked.

  “Muffins!” Mom laughed. “I promised you a feast, little one, and a feast it’s going to be. Like kings and queens have.”

  “Really?” I rested my cheek on my folded arm.

  “Of course.” Mom smoothed an old sweatshirt over my curled-up body, and kissed me again, this time on my tiny shoulder.

  I closed my eyes because I didn’t like to watch Mom leave. The sun had set, and soon the room would be really dark. If I didn’t see her leave, I could convince myself that she was still there with me, just being quiet, just sitting in some other corner.

  Chapter Five

  Ida had been staying out later and later. In the mornings, when I left to meet Erica, sometimes Ida was still in bed. Before, no matter where we lived, Ida was the first one up. Even when I saw her cooing at Ovid during his shifts, she seemed a little less electric, drooping over the green felt table. I thought that maybe I should talk to Mom about it, that maybe she could get Ida to give the late nights a rest.

  I was thinking about Ida’s recent sluggishness while lingering in the Bill Pickett Room. Erica had to proctor a midterm, so I was working through a timeline of Native American history on my own. The tables in the BPR were long and narrow, arranged in an enormous rectangle. The way I was seated, in the middle of the table at the front of the room, it was like I was running an invisible shareholders’ meeting. I looked out at the imaginary shareholders and practiced a few authoritative hand gestures.

  Of course, that’s when Alex walked in.

  I froze, with my hand in a squashed, Bill Clinton–style thumbs-up.

  “Hey,” I said, moving my fist up to my chin in what I hoped passed for I’m-just-thinking-here.

  “Hi,” Alex said. He sat in the chair directly across from me and put a fist under his own chin so that he mirrored me exactly. “Is this what we’re doing now?”

  “I’m just absorbing all of this,” I said. “These timelines, you know, they get complicated.”

  He clasped his hands and set his elbows on the table, tilting his head at me, formally.

  “So,” Alex began. “Do you feel like playing hooky today?”

  “I feel like playing hooky every day,” I lied. I tried to push down the thrill I felt moving through this strange new friendship. Don’t get your hopes up, I told myself. Normal people don’t get this excited. “What about you? Won’t you get in trouble? Or is Chantal proctoring a midterm, too?”

  Alex let out a short laugh. “Nope. Sick!” He was as gleeful as though he’d been the one to spray streptococcus on her. “Seriously, let’s get out of here.”

  “I promised Erica I would finish this.”

  “I’ll finish it for you.”

  “Thanks, but no thanks,” I said.

  “Van,” he said, lifting his clasped hands in supplication. “Consider this an intervention. Have you even left the building since you got here?”

  The way he said it, and then the way I thought about it, seemed suddenly very creepy. Unhealthy at best. I liked to stay close, in case Mom needed me, but she’d be fine for a few hours. Ida was still around.

  “You’re right,” I said, closing my American history textbook with a decisive thunk. “Let’s go. Do I need a jacket?”

  “Wow,” he said. “You really haven’t been outside.”

  • • •

  I got what he meant once we were under the sun. Our walk to the employee parking lot was vacation-pleasant. I pulled off the green sweater I’d gotten used to wearing around the hyper–air-conditioned Silver Saddle.

  “Is the fall always like this?” I asked.

  “Pretty much, as far as I can tell,” Alex said.

  “That’s right. I forgot. You’re not from here.”

  “Is it that obvious?” Alex looked back at me with a small smile.

  “I don’t know. Would that be a good or a bad thing?”

  Alex laughed again, one of those short, enthusiastic laughs. I didn’t think it was a fake one. Although, I didn’t think all of that laughter was for me, either. It’s just a free day off for him, I told myself.

  “Oh, hey!” Alex called out to a slim girl slouched over a cigarette beside the dumpster at the edge of the employee lot. She lifted her hand in a bored wave. “Let’s go say hi,” Alex said to me. “Have you met Joanna? You should definitely meet her. She’s in a band—you guys should talk music shop.”

  He jogged a little up to where Joanna stood. She was pretty, Latina, all thin limbs and lush mouth, with a halo of short, wavy hair. She looked sexy even in her oversized Silver Saddle uniform.

  “What’s up, Joanna?”

  “What’s up,” she said, as she nodded at me.

  “This is Van. She’s a musician, too,” Alex said.

  “Oh yeah?” Joanna lazily exha
led the last bit of her cigarette up into the sky. “What do you play?” She looked me over. “Clarinet?”

  “Gui-tar,” Alex interjected.

  Joanna perked up a little as she stubbed out her cigarette. “Really? How long have you been playing?” She looked straight into my face, like she was watching the muscles move under my skin when I talked.

  “A few years,” I said, squirming under her examination.

  “Huh,” Joanna said, and then looked over at Alex. He opened his eyes extra wide and nodded at her a little. “Joanna’s band is actually looking for a new guitarist,” Alex said.

  “What happened to the old one?” I asked.

  Joanna flushed a little, and looked back at Alex. He looked down at his feet, and then so did she. When I realized I was the only person looking at anyone, I glanced at my own feet. Were we all standing in something gross? The dumpster was right there.

  “You know,” Joanna cleared her throat and looked back up at Alex, “you should bring her to band practice tomorrow. You should definitely come out,” she said, staring at me again. There was something about her gaze right then that felt good—keep looking at me, I wanted to say.

  “That’s exactly what I was thinking,” Alex said, clapping his hands with an abundance of enthusiasm. Joanna and I both looked at him, at how cheesy his excitement seemed, and smiled faintly at each other.

  “Yeah, maybe,” I said. My tone, the rise and fall of those two words—I felt sure I’d gotten that right.

  “I have to get back to work,” Joanna said, giving me a moderate but real smile. “Nice meeting you, Van. See you tomorrow?” She didn’t wait for an answer and turned to walk back into the casino’s employee entrance.

  I stared after her.

  “Ready?” Alex asked.

  “How long have you known Joanna?” I asked as we walked to Alex’s car.

  “Not too long. What were we talking about again?”

  “Where you’re from,” I said.

  “Right. Texas.”

  “Why did you decide to move here?”

  “UNLV has an incredible hospitality program. I really didn’t think I was going to get in.” Alex shrugged. “So, where do you want to go? You know Vegas has everything.”