Lady Luck's Map of Vegas

by Barbara Samuel

  “Twins, huh?” The woman put down her beads and picked up a pencil. “I can tell you the place you can write to for a catalog of beads if you want them, but I'll write it down instead. It's in Albuquerque.”

  “Thank you.” I tucked the paper in my pocket. “Is it okay if I keep watching you do it?”

  “Sure. Sometimes I have to take care of customers.”

  “I know. That's your job.”

  She smiled and made a place for me to sit beside her. I don't know how long I sat there, watching her nimble fingers weave tubes of perfectly straight, neat beads. She told me she lived with her husband and children in a pueblo, not far away, and they grew corn and beans, and lettuce in the spring.

  I finally noticed my mother across the street, sitting on a bench by herself, smoking. Her hair was piled up on her head because it was so hot, and she wore a sundress with wide blue-green straps over her shoulders. Her legs were crossed and she swung one foot lazily.

  I waved at her. “That's my mom.”

  “She's a pretty lady. Is that your dad with her?”

  A man in a white suit carried Cokes purchased from a nearby vendor and sat down next to her. I didn't like the way my mother laughed up at him, like a flower turning petals toward the sun. “No. I don't know who he is. My dad is at home.”

  “Hmm.”

  I suddenly remembered Gypsy and looked around for her. She was no longer standing by the pillar, but had stretched out on a bench and had fallen asleep. Why hadn't my mom gone to her?

  “I have to go wake up my sister,” I said. “Maybe my mom will let me buy some barrettes.”

  The woman nodded, her mouth serious. “Thank you for sitting with me today. It made the time go faster.”

  Back in the present day, the skies are dark and the snow is heavy, but I smile anyway at the little girl I was. It was the first time I'd ever done something purely because I was curious. Mostly I held back, observed, made all those little plans.

  I did learn to bead. There was something about the symmetry and order of the patterns that appealed to me mightily. I loved taking the tiny masses of beads and turning them into a thing of orderliness and color. I learned freehand beading on my own from a book, then a neighbor taught me how to use a loom and I made belts and bigger pieces. As time went on, I amassed a huge collection, sorted by color and size into egg cartons I kept in a special box my mother bought me. One year, when we were fourteen, I spent the best part of the summer and fall hand-beading a pair of doeskin moccasins for Gypsy. They were her prized possession.

  It was the beadwork that led, indirectly to the Web-design work. My degree was in graphic design, but because computers were just emerging and I had so much time on my hands, I spent a lot of time on them, learning languages and admiring the ordered world. Computer programming was, in its way, much like beadwork—exacting, orderly, beautiful. As the Internet developed, Web design brought both of my loves into combination. What is a pixel but a bead of design?

  But one does need inspiration. I find, as I sit there in the Plaza Café on a snowy day in New Mexico, that my mind is springing in new directions, flavored by new colors, shapes, relationships of one thing to the next. The café itself is fantastic—the quiet yellow light over the counter in the restaurant, the angles of the waitress's eyebrows and cheekbones, the softness and whiteness of snow in comparison to the dark branches of trees.

  I will never be the artist my sister is, but art has woven the backdrop of my life, too. My mother had been right: I am filling the well on this trip, gathering up images to put in a basket and carry home with me. Souvenirs of color and light.

  And my mother, who birthed and tended two artists into being, what was her art? The question has never presented itself to me before. With it came another, this one a little deeper: If my mother had been mothered herself, what sort of life might she have had? Would she have painted, written, designed clothing?

  A pair of young women come in, wearing knitted sweaters, stamping feet clad in hiking boots. One is ruddy and curly-headed, the other darkly beautiful, her hair sleek as a seal's. Both have an air of Europe about them. I wonder why I think so, and sip my coffee as I try to pick it out: They are both less polished and more—their clothes not quite so up to the moment, but solidly classic. A kind of freshness of skin, a different sort of body language than American girls.

  “Do we wait or go sit down?” one asks the other quietly.

  “Well, you could read the sign, which says, right there, ‘Please wait to be seated.’”

  Hearing their accents, I grin—I'd been correct in my assumption. They were European. Irish. Acting on impulse I say, “Would you like to join me? I won't be here long and the view is spectacular.”

  “Us, you mean?” The dark-haired girl smiles at me, and tugs her friend's sleeve. “That's very nice,” she says, and they settle across from me, disentangling from backpacks and coats. “I'm Orla, this is Kate.”

  “I'm India.” At the slight cock of her eyebrow, I add, “Odd name, I know. My mother said she wanted us to have adventures.”

  “Well, that's a good thought. Have you?”

  “A few. And how about the two of you? How long are you here? What have you seen?”

  “Oh, God!” Kate, with hair as springy as wool, widens her eyes as she leans on the table. “It's been seven—”

  “Eight.”

  “Eight weeks. We've been all over. Started in New York City and we're working our way to Los Angeles.”

  “Are you going to stay there?”

  “No, no. Not I, anyway,” said Orla. She rubs chapped hands together. “I've a boyfriend waiting.”

  “She's being polite,” her friend says with a quirk of her lips. “America doesn't suit her.”

  “Kate!” Orla rolls her eyes. “She's rude. I can't take her anywhere.”

  “It's all right.” The waitress comes over with big menus. The girls order tea and dither over the choices.

  “What should we eat here?” Kate asks me. “D'you live here?”

  “No. I'm traveling, too. My mother and I are driving to Las Vegas.”

  “Ah! We're going there. Is it nice?”

  “I've never been. My mother spent a lot of time there when she was young.”

  “It's nice you're going with her.”

  I smile. “Thanks.” The sound of their accent is weaving through me like a twining vine, growing up green through my chest. “What part of Ireland are you from?”

  “Cork. Do you know it?”

  “No, I haven't been there. To the southwest, right?”

  “Yeah. I'm a nurse,” Kate said. “Orla's a teacher—or she will be.”

  They have the same eyes, I realize. Long, slightly titled upward at the outside corner, vividly blue. “Are you sisters?”

  “We are! No one ever guesses.”

  I nod, pleased. “All right, so you want some help ordering something authentic and delicious?”

  “That would be kind of you.”

  We work out an order, so they can pick and choose through things they might enjoy, and have something bland and ordinary in case they find chiles not to their liking. “It's not that we're not adventurous,” Orla says. “It's just that we haven't got much in the way of this sort of food in Ireland. It's hard to know.”

  “Right.” I've been trying not to say it, but it comes out of my mouth. “I have a friend who is Irish.”

  “From Ireland?”

  I nod, smiling at the faint emphasis on from. “Galway. He misses it, I think.”

  Orla's eyes glitter as she leans over her hands. “And you miss him.”

  I bow my head, a little abashed. “I suppose I do. I want to sit here and listen to you talk so I can hear him in my head.”

  They laugh. “Well, talking is something we do pretty well.”

  Their meal comes and we chat about travel—theirs and mine. I'd spent seven months in Europe at twenty-three, just wandering and exploring. They were shocked I'd not made it t
o Ireland, and I explained that there'd been a Greek who'd captured my attention for a bit.

  In turn they told me what they'd discovered. Both of them had fallen in love with Krispy Kreme doughnuts, hamburgers, and Starbucks. They were bewildered by what they felt was a sparcity of news on American television, intensely disliked pickup trucks and were appalled at the paucity of public transportation.

  They give a thumbs up to tamales and stuffed sopapillas, and a thumbs down to the green chile stew, which they find too hot.

  The light is beginning to fade and I realize I'd better get moving if I'm to check my e-mail before going back to the hotel. “Do you girls know if there's an Internet café anywhere close?”

  “Not three blocks,” Orla says. “We just came from there.”

  I put on my coat and shake their hands, and head out into the close, dark day. Snow is still swirling down, starting to stick in corners, though I'm not worried. The flurries are not unusual this time of year, and it will melt the moment the sun comes out. For now, I like the pinkish wash it gives the sky, the slight sense of hush and expectation.

  At the Internet café, there's a computer free in the corner. I sign in with a boy who has on a shirt with a collar and a striped tie, and pointy metal studs the size of bullets through his earlobes. There's a heady scent of coffee underlaid with something else, something vaguely unpleasant I can't quite pinpoint, and the music is alternative hip, as opposed to alternative heavy or alternative girl.

  When I sit down at the long row of machines, there is a sound of click, click, clicking all through the room, and a dozen conversations, many of them on cell phones, conducted while the talkee types away on a keyboard. On one side of me is a businessman in his mid-twenties, balding, with shoes that somehow scream East Coast to me, talking into his cell, and flipping between a game screen, a chat screen, and an e-mail list. It makes me dizzy.

  I sign on to my e-mail server through the Web. There are 122 messages waiting for me. That's the downside of having most of your life on the Internet. Without my usual software, I can only open the mailbox and check the headers one at a time, twenty per page. The connection is fairly slow, and each page takes a solid forty seconds to open.

  There are a handful of notes from friends and some from business partners, but the address I'm seeking is particular, of course: jshea@shea enterprises.com. It is not on the first page, though I have to delete five spam messages. None on the second page, and I delete three spams.

  On page four I find what I'm looking for. Jack. It was sent this morning at twelve minutes after ten. After I called his secretary.

  Before I open it, I click through the rest of the list to see if there are others from him. With a sense of unreasoning relief, I count five.

  Five.

  One e-mail would be cursory. Three would show concern. Five … five might mean that he really does have strong feelings for me. If they're strong enough, maybe we'll figure out how to survive all this.

  I open them in the order they arrived. The first is from Tuesday the day we left, at noon.

  TO: India@indiaredding.com

  FROM: jshea@sheaenterprises.com

  Subject: Tuesday lunchtime

  India, I apologize. I was rude. You surprised me, that's all. Call me and

  we'll talk.

  Jack

  I feel tenseness return. There is no “love, Jack.” Which may or may not mean anything. I click on the next one, time-stamped a few hours after the first one.

  TO: India@indiaredding.com

  FROM: jshea@sheaenterprises.com

  Subject: Tuesday afternoon

  I suspect you have left for Las Vegas and not taken your phone. Please

  call me when you get this message.

  Jack

  Still no “love.” The next one is late the night before. One A.M., his time.

  TO: India@indiaredding.com

  FROM: jshea@sheaenterprises.com

  Subject: Weds night

  Dear India,

  I was a bastard and I admit it. I am worried about you and what you're

  thinking. Let's talk. Phone me anytime, day or night.

  Jack

  TO: India@indiaredding.com

  FROM: jshea@sheaenterprises.com

  Subject:

  This is not fair, to drop the news and run.

  Finally, I open the one he sent after my phone call this morning:

  TO: India@indiaredding.com

  FROM: jshea@sheaenterprises.com

  SUBJECT: Thursday morning

  Penny said you phoned. I should have instructed her to interrupt me.

  I will be home this evening. Please phone at your convenience.

  Jack

  Please phone at your convenience. As if I'm a client he needs to speak with. My gut feels like I swallowed acid.

  Maybe he's just angry which I suppose I can understand. Or maybe his feelings are hurt, which I can also understand.

  Don't get your hopes up, says a little voice in my head.

  I scan the rest of the mail, most of it business, and answer two that seem urgent. Then I pay for the minutes I've used, and hurry back to the hotel in the dark, surprised so much time has gone by. I glance at my watch and discover it's almost seven P.M., which makes it nearly nine in New York. A good time to catch Jack.

  My mother is sitting in the lobby. “There you are! I'm starving.”

  “Sorry! The time got away from me.” I'm quite hungry myself all of a sudden, and I realize it's been many hours since breakfast.

  I glance at my watch, thinking with an ache of Jack's voice, the sound of Ireland in those girls' voices. It's like a physical pain, the hunger to just hear him.

  Eldora says, “The concierge says the Blue Corn Café is very close and very good. Shall we eat there tonight? My treat.”

  I'm not sure if it's the light casting shadows, or just my recognition of a truth, but she looks quite fragile all of a sudden. She's not only Eldora, Bigger Than Life. She's my mother, who is aging, and has lost her husband and a daughter in the past six months. The lines around her mouth are deep, exaggerated. “That sounds good, Mom.”

  She stands and smoothes her sweater down over her hips. “Will you have a margarita with me?”

  “I don't know. I'm not feeling that well, to tell you the truth. My stomach has been a little off all day.” Though I don't know what difference it will make if I drink since I've made up my mind to have an abortion. “We'll see.”

  She gives me a long look, then loops her arm through mine. “You don't have to be shy with me, sugar-girl.”

  I laugh. “Believe me, Mother, I do know that.” I glance at my watch. I'll call Jack when we get back to the hotel. “Let's eat.”

  Chapter Twenty-two

  India

  The Blue Corn Café is a touristy spot near the plaza, but it's pleasant inside, with low lights and attractively tall booths and lots of Southwestern touches on the walls. The smell of chiles is promising as we settle in and my mother orders a margarita. “Do you want one, India?”

  In fact, I would kill for one tonight. Something tells me they'd be very good here. “I think I just want iced tea.”

  The waitress notes my hesitation with a smile. “Sure?” she coaxes. “We have a lot of varieties of tequila.”

  “Oh, I'm sure.” I pat my tummy with a regretful shrug. “They give me indigestion.”

  The girl hurries away, taking a pencil from behind her ear, and my mother dips a chip into chunky salsa. “Since when?”

  “I don't know. Lately. Lots of things have been bothering me.” I dip a chip, too, and widen my eyes. “Hot!”

  “Margaritas bother you, but salsa doesn't?”

  “Weird, huh?” I bend over the menu eagerly. “Oooh, it's going to be hard to choose.” In the air, again, is a faint scent I can't quite identify, a whisper of vaguely unpleasant something. “What is that smell?”

  Eldora inhales. “It smells like a Mexican restaurant to me. Meat and onions
and spices. Yum. I think I'm having the rellenos. I'll work them off when we get back home.”

  “Sounds wonderful.” I nibble on another chip—buttery blue corn. “You can't get blue corn enchiladas anywhere else. Maybe I should have enchiladas. With beef and cheese. And sour cream.” I slap the menu closed. “All right.”

  “Good choice.” She looks around happily. “This is nice. Your daddy would have loved it, but I would have had to fight—nicely of course— about him not eating anything too hot.”

  I smile. “He would have liked the whole trip, probably.”

  “He did discover a love of travel at the end there. It was that cruise that did it, when we went to Mexico for our thirtieth anniversary. We had such a good time! Slot machines and dancing, and lots of chances to dress up.”

  “Maybe you'd enjoy another cruise, Mom. There's nothing to stop you.”

  Her gaze flickers away. “I've given it some thought. It felt disloyal at first, to think about going without your dad, but—” She lifts a pretty shoulder, meets my eyes. “I am only sixty-three. I could live a long time yet, and I guess I have to figure out what my life is gonna look like.”

  “Good for you.”

  “I'd like to get a little healthier. Walk, maybe, or something.”

  “You'd have a better chance if you'd give up those damned cigarettes.”

  “Well, now,” she says smoothly, tapping the table with a long fingernail, “believe it or not, I have also been thinking about that, too. It's getting to be pretty hard to smoke freely these days and I really would rather smell like perfume. Not to mention, I've got enough wrinkles. Smoking gives you more.”

  I chuckle. “Leave it to you, Mom, to make it an issue of vanity.” When she starts to protest, I wave a hand. “That's fine. If it makes you quit, I'm all for it.”

  “I didn't say I was going to, you understand. Just that I'm thinking about it.”

  The waitress brings our drinks—a big frosty, salt-rimmed glass for my mother. “Oh, look at that. How beautiful!”

  The girl smiles. “Can I take your order now?”

  We tell her what we want. When she leaves, my mother pulls the margarita toward her, admiring the salt, touching the pad of a finger to a perfect crystal. “This is when I'd like a cigarette.” There is no smoking indoors in Santa Fe. “But it's funny that you don't die of the wanting. It can be pleasant anyway.”