'Round Midnight

by Laura McBride

  “Rita, may I speak with you a moment?”

  Honorata stepped forward, and Jimbo started to catch on to her arm, but dropped it when June looked at him. The two women walked to a door nearly disguised by the swirling wallpaper that covered it; behind the door was a set of offices. June chatted idly about the weather, about Chicago, about the good time Marshall had had there last summer. The largest office was hers.

  “Please sit down.”

  Honorata sat.

  “Is your name Honorata?”

  “Yes.”

  “Honorata Navarro?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you’re a citizen of the Philippines?”

  “Yes.”

  June said nothing. She looked down at her desk for a moment.

  “Does that mean I can’t win? Because I’m not American?”

  “Oh no. You’ve won, Honorata. You pulled the handle, and according to the Supreme Court of the United States, the person who pulled the handle has won the jackpot.”

  Honorata tried to calm herself.

  “The thing is . . . Are you married to Mr. Wohlmann, Honorata?”

  Honorata stared at the floor. Jimbo was an important person in this hotel. She’d had most of a week to see how important. She thought about how nice everyone had been, how they had all known her name, how they had known what she was doing at all times.

  She was alone now. She didn’t know how to get back to the casino. Who would help her anyway? She felt dizzy, unmoored.

  “Ms. Navarro, are you okay? Please don’t be afraid.”

  Everything swam in front of Honorata. She was going to be sick.

  June stood up and asked someone to bring some water. She placed her arm on Honorata’s back, making her flinch. A woman brought in the water, and June closed the door firmly behind her.

  “Honorata. I can see that you’re upset. I think that you’re probably afraid. But there is no need to be. I’m not going to let anything happen to you. If you’re not married to Mr. Wohlmann, the money’s not his. It’s yours. It’s yours alone. And nobody can do anything about that.”

  Honorata started to cry. She gulped in air and sobbed.

  Later, June and Marshall met to decide what to do.

  “Mom, Jimbo Wohlmann has been coming to the El Capitan since I was fourteen years old. I can’t simply send him home without her.”

  “You can. And you will. And if James never returns to the El Capitan, then good riddance.”

  “It’s not like when you and Dad managed this place.” Marshall ran his fingers through his hair, a gesture that always reminded June of Del. “Our investors are different. They look at our take every month. Jimbo has dropped millions here. We could practically make him a line item in our budget.”

  “The El Capitan may not be the same as it was. But it’s still my casino. So I say, and the law says, that Honorata Navarro has won over a million dollars. She’s a single woman, and she’s the sole owner of that money.”

  “Jimbo isn’t after her money. He doesn’t need another million dollars.”

  “He doesn’t want Ms. Navarro to have it. And we both know why. Now, I don’t know what you’re thinking, Marshall, but we’re not going to be part of keeping that money from her. Whether it is the law or not.”

  “You’ve known Jimbo for decades. He’s not a beast. She’s not a slave. Why can’t we extend the courtesy of a few days to him? He says that’s all he needs.”

  “Because we are not going to extend the courtesy of a few days to him. He’s going to leave our hotel, and if he wants to go down the street and stay in another one, he most certainly can. But Ms. Navarro is staying here.” June rapped the table with her pen. “She’s staying here until she has her money, and her passport, and then we’ll take her to the airport, and she’ll go wherever she wants.”

  “You act like I’m the one getting in the middle of this. You’re the one getting involved. You’re the one orchestrating this.”

  “I’m not discussing this for another minute. I’ll talk to James myself. Do you think your father would have given him a couple of days to persuade that woman that she isn’t free to leave? James had his chance with her, and if she doesn’t go back to Chicago, I’m sure he’ll know why.”

  “Mom, that’s not fair. Don’t throw Dad at me that way. I’m not evil here. I’m trying to keep the El Capitan going. Which I remember as being pretty important to Dad too.”

  “Honey, we’ll keep the El Capitan going. We should have a line of people waiting to play Megabucks tomorrow.” June smiled.

  “Like that’ll help.”

  “You’re going to get your chance to make all the decisions. And you’ll be great. But this is my call.”

  The woman had offered Honorata a new room in the hotel. The minute she was alone, Honorata lifted her dress over her head, and crawled beneath the sheets. When she woke up, she was disoriented. The sky above the Strip was dark; she had slept all day. She didn’t remember getting into bed; she barely remembered coming into the room. Little by little, though, everything returned to her. Tossing about in the bed alone. Going down to the casino. Climbing onto the high seat of the Megabucks machine. It couldn’t be true.

  She sat up. Where was Jimbo? Did he know where she was? Honorata struggled to get out of the tightly wound sheets. What would she do with the money? Could her uncle get it? Would Jimbo call him? She stepped onto the thick carpet. Was someone watching her? Could she leave? She didn’t have any money. She didn’t even have her passport. Her heart rattled in her chest. Honorata was alone, and maybe she was worth a lot of money. And Jimbo, who mattered to these hotel people, was going to be angry.

  She had only dresses to wear. Sandals with heels. She had a lipstick in her clutch, and a tissue. Nothing else. She looked around the room, frantic for something more useful. A basket of fruit and cheese was on the table. Next to it was a note, two hundred-dollar bills, and her passport. “Honorata—I didn’t know if you had any cash. Call and ask for me when you wake up, and we can make arrangements to have your winnings placed in an account. You’re welcome to stay here as long as you like—June.”

  She leaned against the table and let herself cry.

  The next morning, someone at the hotel took her to the First Interstate Bank and waited while she set up an account. Later, she walked in her sandals to the Fashion Show Mall, which appeared much closer than it was. At Bullock’s, Honorata stood and looked at the mannequins wearing low-cut metallic dresses and long blond wigs, then bought two pairs of pants, three blouses, and flat leather shoes. She found a travel agent in the mall, and booked a ticket. The agent had to call the bank, because she had only temporary checks.

  Jimbo phoned on Thursday. The hotel operator asked her permission to put the call through. She trembled but said yes. She would not have been able to say no. Also, Jimbo knew her uncle. Her uncle was with her mother.

  “Rita. Thank you for answering.”

  “My name’s Honorata.”

  “Honorata. I’m sorry. I thought you’d like Rita.”

  She was silent.

  “I’d like to see you. I don’t want it to be like this. Could we have dinner?”

  She didn’t want to have dinner. She wanted him to go away, and she wanted to imagine that he had never existed. But she said, “Okay.”

  “I’m staying at Caesars. There’s a beautiful restaurant here. I could send a car. At seven?”

  She wanted to say that she would get there herself. But even these words would not come out of her mouth.

  “Yes,” she said finally.

  Jimbo wanted to get married.

  “I always wanted to get married, Honorata. We got started badly. Your uncle . . . your uncle cheated us both. But I’d like to start over. Please.”

  When he spoke, she was afraid. Her lungs swelled as if they would burst from her chest, and yet she felt as if she couldn’t get enough air. She struggled to speak.

  “I don’t want to marry you.”

>   The room swayed around her, and everything looked blurry. It was a physical effort to say this. To resist. Her heart beat frantically.

  “I understand. I’m older than you. I’m not very good looking. But I’m a kind man. I want a family. We could have a family.”

  Honorata closed her eyes because she did not want to look at him.

  “I don’t want a family.”

  “But you said—”

  “I didn’t write those letters. I didn’t say anything. I don’t want a family. I want to go home. I want to see my mother.”

  It was easier now. Now that she had started. She didn’t have to do what he wanted. She didn’t have to please him.

  “You should go home and see your mother. Then come back. There are so many opportunities in the United States. It would be easier for you to stay if we were married. You could bring your mother here.”

  “I want to go home.”

  “Of course you can go home. I can make the arrangements tonight. But after, please, Honorata, please give me another chance.”

  He looked stricken. Honorata didn’t know how he could be saying these things. They frightened her. She wanted to forget the months in Jimbo’s home, the sound of him opening the door to her room, the squeak of the bedframe as he climbed in. She remembered his hands, slippery on her back in the bath. She heard his steady snoring, asleep beside her. The gap between the shutter and the sill would slowly lighten, from deep gray to silver to white, and he would get up, or take her one more time and then get up. How could he imagine this meant something to her? How had she endured it?

  “I love you, Honorata.”

  She looked straight at him, but in her mind she was thinking of the woman in the casino, of June, in her pink jacket and high ivory heels.

  “I never want to see you again.”

  He stared at the ornate candlestick on the table, and she slowly removed the ring from her finger. Her voice trembled.

  “If you contact me, I’ll . . .” She didn’t know what she would do. “I’ll call the El Capitan.”

  She said this, and the floor did not crack open, the ceiling did not fall, he did not stand and strike her. He looked at his plate, and he fingered the leather folder that held the bill, and it was possible that his eyes were wet. Honorata didn’t know, she couldn’t look, she could hardly breathe. She had said what she wanted to say, and she got up fast, leaving the ring beside the plate, afraid to hand it to him. Then she walked as quickly as she could across the great glittering room; she wouldn’t be able to say it again, she had never said something like that before in her life. Would he rise up, would she take it back, would the planet stop spinning? She, Honorata, had dared to resist.

  19

  Coral had been teaching for four years, so she both was and was not surprised at the letter. It arrived in July, and explained that the district would be adding portables to her school, and that she would now be teaching music in portable number five. The unit was undergoing renovation, but all expectations were that it would be ready for occupation a week before school started.

  She called the district and tried to get someone to tell her a little more. She was pleased to hear it would be large—larger than the music room that had doubled as a stage in the cafeteria—but sorry to hear that it had been built “thirty, well, at least thirty” years ago. She asked about air-conditioning, and from the careful way the woman answered, she gathered that the unit had a swamp cooler, which “works really well in our desert environment.”

  Whatever.

  Still, she was unnerved when she saw the unit. There were six portables, and number five was set down right where the kids played hopscotch, four-square, and cat and mouse. The top of the hopscotch frame—a rectangle with the word Home—angled out from the bottom of the unit, giving one the slight sense that the portable, like Dorothy’s house, had fallen from the sky. It was a dirty beige color, with dents in the aluminum sides, and a rickety-looking set of stairs leading to a pressboard door that was also painted beige. The whole unlikely heap appeared as if it had been dumped in a vat of dun paint; there wasn’t a pipe or a hinge or a fitting that was not the same drab color.

  That night, Coral met her friend Paul and some of his buddies for a drink at the Elephant Bar. The place was loud, and Coral tried to avoid the glass eyes of the gazelle head mounted on the wall near her. Paul’s college friend Koji was in from Tokyo—he was going to be doing some work in Vegas—and the guys were in high spirits. Coral told them about the beige portable, and though she meant the story to be funny, her voice shook, and her eyes started to water.

  “Okay, that’s one drink too many for me.”

  “They’ll do anything to kids here,” Paul said. “My nephew just got told that he’ll be in double sessions until at least December. He has to get up and go to school from six to noon, but his sister is at the elementary school from nine to three. So my sister has a week to work something out with her boss.”

  “Can you paint the portable?” Koji asked.

  “Great idea!”

  “I don’t know,” said Coral. “I’ve never seen one painted.”

  “I could design something for you. I’m here till Wednesday. You could paint it this weekend, before school starts.”

  “Koji’s a designer. He does work at all the casinos,” Paul explained.

  “I’m pretty sure I couldn’t get permission to paint it by this weekend. It’s okay. The building really doesn’t matter. It was just upsetting to see it. I mean, who chooses beige paint for little kids?”

  Paul wouldn’t drop it.

  “Let’s do it anyway. What’s the worst that could happen?”

  “I get fired?”

  “Come on. For making it beautiful? I think the worst thing that could happen is that we have to paint it back.”

  “Listen, I don’t even know who to ask.”

  It went on like that for a while, with Coral’s protests getting weaker and weaker, and the guys getting more and more excited about doing it.

  And that’s how P5 came to be the sunflower portable. The whole thing was covered in huge yellow blossoms that draped over the sides from the top, and down the rickety stairs, and across the door. It made one smile just to see it.

  Three months later, she got a call from Koji.

  “I don’t know if you remember me?”

  “Remember you? Are you kidding? The sunflowers are incredible. I’d love for you to see it.”

  “Oh, I’d like that. I’m going to be in Vegas in two weeks. That’s why I was calling.”

  “Are you in Tokyo now?”

  “Yes.”

  “What time is it there?”

  “About noon, Thursday.”

  “It’s Wednesday night here.”

  “I know. Is it a bad time? Are you eating?”

  “Oh no, it’s fine.”

  “Well, I’m going to be in Vegas, and I have tickets to this show. It’s a preview of Mystère. Have you heard of it?”

  “Of course. I loved Cirque du Soleil last year. In the tent? It was amazing.”

  “Yeah, that’s it. This is a Cirque show, but it will be permanent. Treasure Island built a theater for it.”

  “I read about that.”

  “So, umm, Mystère opens Christmas day, but there’s a private showing for special guests on the twenty-third. I have two tickets. I was wondering if you’d like to come.”

  Coral felt flustered. She couldn’t remember very much about Koji, other than how wonderful his design for the portable had been, and she certainly hadn’t been thinking about him as a date.

  He filled the silence. “It sounds like maybe the answer’s no. Sorry.”

  “No.”

  “Well, it was nice talking to you.”

  “No. The answer’s not no. I just—I’m sorry, that was stupid of me. I’d love to go. It sounds wonderful.”

  “Really? Well, great. I get into town the twenty-second. I’ll call you, and we can figure out the details?”
>
  “That sounds good.”

  “Thank you, Coral. It was nice talking to you.”

  And just like that, he was off the phone. She hadn’t asked him why he was coming to Vegas, or more important, told him how the kids had reacted that first morning of school. One mother started to cry. Some children had jumped in the air, yelling “flowers!” The principal didn’t even get angry. She told Coral that the district wouldn’t maintain it, that Coral should have gotten permission to change school property, but she didn’t say anything about changing it back, she didn’t ask Coral to tell her who had painted it. Coral was taken aback. She’d been steeling herself for some sort of formal discipline, wondering whether the union would back her or not.

  But the sunflowers were terrific. The kids were proud of P5. Coral watched them crossing the blacktop from the main building in their mandated rows and saw them grin as they approached the sunflower portable. Students were always suggesting ways to paint the rest of the school. Some fourth-grade girls had started a petition to have every portable painted as a different kind of flower, and Coral overheard children talking about the various ways they would paint the school or their classroom or their own homes. The portable became so popular that the kindergarten teachers started walking their kids out there for music class even though Coral had always gone to their classrooms instead.

  At the end of December, Koji picked her up in his hotel limo, and they rode to the Strip a little bit awkwardly. Coral couldn’t quite remember what he looked like, and she had hesitated before choosing her highest heels. She wasn’t particularly tall, but would she tower over him? Would he care? The Strip was wildly crowded, and there were so many people jammed onto the sidewalk to watch the pirate show at Treasure Island that the driver dropped them off a block away, and Coral tottered on her heels as she and Koji wove between the cars and the tourists to get to the casino.

  It turned out that Koji’s company had something to do with the huge drums that anchored Mystère’s musical score. He explained to her that the largest one had to be built on the stage and that there wasn’t a door big enough to remove it. The casino surprised Coral. Treasure Island really was all about pirates, and it looked more like Disneyland than Vegas, but it was fun. Everything about Vegas was fun right now. The whole city rocked with the energy of the casinos, bigger and better and wilder every year. A lot of money was being made, and people were popping between LA and Vegas like it was a morning commute; anything seemed possible.