The Upgrade

by Paul Carr

  A mecca of decadence and depravity, where even the check-in desks have gambling terminals built into them and drunken women on bachelorette weekends line every corridor, clutching two-foot tall plastic cups of alcoholic slush. Any one of the tiara-wearing, screeching, near-topless harpies I’d run into between reception and the fourth floor of the hotel would have eaten a Saudi flirter for breakfast.

  The hotel itself was shaped like a piece of knock-off Disney merchandise. It was supposed to conjure up images of Camelot castle—all red and blue turrets and plastic knights holding injection-molded swords—and yet, for all the millions they’d obviously spent on branding the place as “the Excalibur,” they apparently hadn’t thought to spend $20 on a book about King Arthur’s legend. The hotel’s main restaurant was called “the Sherwood Forest” and the gift shop sold Robin Hood hats.

  I should make clear at this point, that, even after receiving Michelle’s message back in New York, I was still planning to phone the Hotel QT and check in for the rest of the month. Really I was.

  Then I’d decided to have just one more beer—for the road—and, while the bartender was pouring, I’d used the web browser on my BlackBerry to check the cost of flights to Vegas. JetBlue Airways was offering a special last-minute deal: a return flight for $120.

  That meant if I shared Michelle’s hotel room I could fly to Vegas, stay for two days and then fly back to New York and still be under budget. If anything, it was fiscally irresponsible not to go. Four-beer logic.

  301

  My flight landed at a little after 1 a.m. Pacific Time—4 a.m. New York time—and I took a cab straight to the Excalibur, where Michelle was waiting.

  She’d already been in town for six hours, having flown in from London, via Minneapolis—and yet, despite her jetlag and my hangover, we couldn’t help checking out the hotel casino before sleep. By 3:30 a.m., after dinner, a nightcap and a failed attempt to beat the slots, we finally made it to the room, where I’d flipped on the TV and started to unpack for the first time since leaving London.

  All I wanted to do was sleep, but the rest of the hotel was still wide-awake, as if it were still the middle of the evening. Children still roamed the corridors, row upon row of bored-looking fat women pumped money into slots, and the bachelorette girls—those loud, loud girls—seemed like they were just getting started. Sure enough, at 7 a.m. we’d be awoken by them returning to their rooms—happy, drunk and singing Britney Spears’ “Toxic” at the top of their formidable lungs.

  Michelle came out of the bathroom, dressed in a long t-shirt and what appeared to be bed socks, and climbed into one of the two double beds. I rescued the last shirt from the bottom of my bag—its creases now permanent—and laid it inside the wardrobe, on the one shelf that Michelle had left for me.

  “So, how’s the sweepstake going?” she asked.

  “What sweepstake?”

  “Robert’s sweepstake … the one about you being …”

  She stopped. “He hasn’t told you?”

  “No, he hasn’t,” I said. “What sweepstake?”

  “How long you’ll be able to stay in America before you either get arrested, married or seriously injured. Everybody we know in London is playing.”

  “You’re kidding me. Even you?”

  “It’s just for fun.”

  “I’m sure it is. How long did you give me?”

  “Oh, I said it would probably happen this weekend. I mean, seriously, you, in Las Vegas? Ha!”

  Click.

  She reached over and turned out the bedside lamp. “Goodnight, honey.”

  Unbelievable. OK, so I’d only been in the country for a day before ending up drunk and naked in a hotel corridor, but that—well—that was just a glitch. Getting it out of my system. And, anyway, compared to the animals I’d seen in the hotel lobby, I was a saint: a paragon of virtue, celibacy and self-preservation.

  And yet, Sin City or no, after last night’s madness I was definitely going to calm down for a few days.

  302

  The next morning I felt much better—human, almost. Michelle and I had breakfast at the House of Blues bar and restaurant—pulled pork sandwiches, with orange juice with just a touch of champagne. Hell, it was almost lunchtime anyway.

  Michael’s flight was due to arrive at noon, and it was now pushing 1 p.m. so we headed down the Strip to his hotel. He’d texted to say he was staying at the Mandalay Bay Hotel, so that’s where we sat, in the lobby, waiting.

  A stunning waitress—all legs and breasts and hair, she could easily have been a model, or I suppose an off-duty stripper—came to take our obligatory drinks order.

  One of the things you soon realize about Vegas is that there is no free seating; you sit, you drink, you pay. I ordered a Diet Coke. I really meant it this time: no drinking.

  Twenty minutes passed. Half an hour. Where the hell was Michael? After forty-five minutes, I texted him. “Where the hell are you?”

  The reply came in a few seconds: “THEhotel/Mandalay Bay/ Lobby, where you?”

  “That’s where we are.”

  “No, you’re not.”

  I called the waitress over.

  “Another round, sir? Something stronger?”

  “No, thank you. I was just wondering—we were supposed to meet our friend in the hotel lobby—is this the only one?”

  “Yes and no,” she said, “this is the only lobby in this hotel. But it’s not the only hotel in this building.”

  “Um …”

  “Is your friend staying at the Mandalay Bay Hotel, or the hotel at Mandalay Bay?”

  I showed her Michael’s text, and she smiled—this happened all the time. She pointed us the way from the lobby of the Mandalay Bay Hotel and through to the totally separate lobby of THEhotel at Mandalay Bay where, sure enough, Michael was waiting.

  “I hope there’s rum in that Coke, Mr. Carr. There’s a sweepstake, you know.”

  Michael’s voice echoed around the lobby. He was sitting with his feet up on a leather stool, and he was dressed for Vegas. A bright blue shirt—three buttons undone and with a picture of a tiger sewn on the front—blue jeans, and shiny purple cowboy boots, complete with rhinestones. He also had a stack of brightly colored gaming chips in his hand. Had he brought them with him? Is that even allowed?

  Hugs all around. “So what’s the plan?” asked Michael, dropping the chips into his pocket and clapping his hands for some imaginary camera, like croupiers do in films.

  “Nikki’s getting in at seven” said Michelle. “She’s schmoozing some client in town so she’s going to buy us all dinner at Nobu and expense it.”

  “Perfect,” said Michael.

  “Then there’s a club at the Palms that my cab driver was talking about. Let’s see if we can talk our way into VIP there.”

  “Perfect,” I said. I didn’t even think to ask who Nikki was until much later. All that mattered was she was one of Michelle’s friends who was buying us dinner on her corporate Amex. Another budget saving. “And sorry to mess up your precious sweepstake, but I’m not drinking tonight.”

  They both laughed. As well they might.

  303

  Thirty-three hours later.

  I defy anyone to spend two days in Las Vegas and not come out broken—emotionally and physically. My liver felt like it had grown to at least four times its original size and I was pretty sure I’d put on about 200 pounds in weight. I couldn’t feel my legs properly.

  The previous night we’d partied like rock stars, courtesy of our generous corporate sponsor: Nikki’s Amex card. Dinner at Nobu first, then a table at Body English at the Hard Rock replete with bottles of Jack Daniel’s and Premium Vodka.

  The drinking was interrupted only by a live performance by someone called “Fat Man Scoop” whose spirited performance consisted mainly of entreaties to “make some motherfucking noise,” which is surely the worst kind of noise.

  Michael and I had decided to leave the girls to their vodka and head out to anothe
r bar. And another. And another, before eventually arriving at the Palms, as recommended by Michael’s cab driver. Curiously, we didn’t see many people there who looked like cab drivers—but we did meet a group of girls who were in town to promote shoe insoles at a conference. “That’s a coincidence,” said Michael to the second prettiest of the girls,20 “my mother is a chiropodist.” For once, he was telling the truth.

  “I don’t know what that means,” said the girl. Apparently chiropodists are called something else in America.21

  Our next encounter was with a bachelorette party from—I think—Atlanta. We joined them at their table and were soon helping them work through a second bottle of vodka—which is about the time things started to come apart a bit at the seams. Fortunately I had my digital camera with me ensuring that I was later able to piece together more of the night’s events. It seems at one point I got to wear the bride-to-be’s veil. Always the bridesmaid.

  The next morning’s hangover was painful; the kind that makes one crave a full English breakfast. You Americans try, bless you, but you just can’t get bacon right. You have a thing you call bacon, but really it’s just thick strips of fat with a faint pink outline that may or may not have once been part of a pig. I settled instead for a pile of pancakes and a Bloody Mary.

  “What time did we get back last night?” I asked, hoping Michael wouldn’t remember either. Some knowns are better left unknown.

  “About four, I think, whatever time Eye Candy closed.”

  “Eye Candy?”

  “Some hotel bar or other; I found the receipt in my wallet. Do you remember the strip club?”

  “No, Michael, I do not remember the strip club. When did we decide to go to a strip club?”

  “We didn’t. You told the cab driver to take us somewhere fun. I wanted to play blackjack back at the Hard Rock—win some of my money back—but you insisted he take us somewhere where there’d be hot girls.”

  “So he took us to a strip club?”

  “You really don’t remember? Jesus, that was only about two, I think. We got in and they said they couldn’t serve alcohol as it was a fully nude club or something. So you ordered two Red Bulls for $20 each and then we had to run away after they tried to force us into a $400 private show.”

  “Interesting,” I said, “all I know is that this morning I had a text message on my phone from a 404 area code—which is Atlanta, apparently. See what you make of it …”

  I handed Michael my phone, and he read the message out loud: “ ‘@ airport flight in half hour u coming …’ Do they not have punctuation in Atlanta? Wait—was this girl—I assume it was a girl—waiting for you at Atlanta airport or here?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “Ha!” said Michael, “404. Memory of last night not found.”

  I didn’t have the energy to laugh at Michael’s geek joke.22 Nor could I muster much enthusiasm when he started talking about his amazing room at THEhotel with its spa bath, home cinema TV and near-panoramic view over the city.

  “You lucky bastard. Are you expensing it?”

  “Wouldn’t dream of it,” Michael replied, looking almost offended.

  “Anyway, it’s only a hundred bucks a night. Booked it online. Vegas rooms are stupid-cheap during the week at this time of year.”

  A hundred dollars. Exactly on my accommodation budget—another sign, surely—and I could really, really use a spa bath right now. I’d just have to figure out some other way to offset the cost of the flights.

  By the time Michael had finished drinking his coffee and flirting with the waitress, I’d booked the room using my BlackBerry.

  304

  After breakfast, I checked into my new room, tested out the spa bath and then slept for the rest of the day while Michael—who obviously hadn’t been nearly as drunk as me the previous night—headed off to play in, and eventually win, a poker tournament in the hotel’s casino.

  The prize money wasn’t much—$500 or so—but it was enough that he’d promised to buy dinner, seeing as I’d bought the $20 strip-club Red Bulls.

  We arranged to meet in the lobby of THEhotel at seven. Michael was still giddy after his win so we decided to walk about a bit to see what our food options were: Michael had heard there was a good Wolfgang Puck close by. In Vegas, you’re never more than twenty feet from a Wolfgang Puck.

  As we walked, Michael started to pitch an idea he’d had between poker games. Rather than him flying to his meeting in LA, me heading back to New York and Michelle going back to London, how did I feel about the idea of the three of us renting a car and driving across the desert from Vegas to Los Angeles? He had a meeting in LA, but apart from that we could just hang out—see some sights, meet some nice local girls before finally driving down the coast to San Diego for ETech, the annual West Coast technology conference that was happening the following week.

  I had to admit, it was a good plan. A bit too good in fact—I suspected Michael might have been working on it since before we’d arrived in town. But no, I’d had my fun; I had to get back to my planned travel.

  “It sounds like a great plan, it really does, but I really do have to head back to New York. I’ve had enough craziness these past few days.”

  Michael wasn’t letting it go, though. “Who said anything about craziness? I have serious work to do when I get to LA. I’ve just always wanted to drive through the desert in a convertible. It’ll be like Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. You know, with the bats.”

  “First of all, Michael, don’t think for a second that I don’t realize you’re trying to play into my Hunter S. Thompson fantasies. Second of all, Raoul Duke and Dr. Gonzo were on their way to Vegas when they saw the bats. And third, as you well know, there weren’t any actual bats: they were on a shit-ton of drugs. Is that part of the road trip, too? Because I have to tell you, the last twenty-four hours in Vegas have nearly killed me, without any narcotics.”

  “No, of course not, I just meant it’ll be fun. You know I’m right. I’ll even let you drive.”

  He was right, of course, especially as I could probably parlay the trip into some work—convince an editor back home to pay me to write about ETech or some technology companies in LA—and cover all of my costs at a stroke.

  The problem was, the way I was going I might also end up having an actual stroke. I could feel myself getting hooked on the buzz of having no responsibilities.

  Whatever Michael said, a trip to LA—especially with Michelle coming too—would surely mean more drinking and partying and madness. It would also trash my already shaky-looking budget. I already had flights to recoup.

  “I just want to stay on the right side of ridiculous—that’s all,” I said. “You’re good at knowing when to stop but I’m really not. I just don’t want to make the sweepstake too easy.”

  “Dude, look …”

  “I know what you’re going to say, Michael, but …”

  “No,” said Michael, “Dude. Look.”

  “Holy shit.”

  Walking towards us were the three most beautiful women either of us had ever seen. Dressed head to toe in black—knee-length black skirts, black shirts, black jackets—they looked like spies. Sexy female spies, with the most perfect hair you can possibly imagine. Men aren’t really supposed to notice hair—boobs, yes, butts, yes, but not hair. And yet there was something about these girls that just screamed it: LOOK AT MY HAIR.

  And so we did. We looked at their perfect hair, and then we looked their perfect faces and their perfect, young—maybe twenty-two-, twenty-three-year-old—bodies, all dressed in black, as they walked towards and then past us, chattering excitedly about whatever it is that girls like that talk about.23

  “I can’t believe we didn’t say anything to them,” I said. But Michael couldn’t speak either.

  “I know, but, I…I mean … did you … the hair …”

  “I know.”

  We carried on walking, Michael still pitching our working road trip and me still demurring on the ground
s of sanity, and us both still thinking about the girls with the hair. And then, as we rounded the next corner—still no sign of the Wolfgang Puck—there they were again.

  Except they weren’t the same girls. They were dressed the same—head to toe in black—and their hair was just as perfect, but this time one of them was a redhead and the other was Asian. And they kept coming. More and more of these girls, in little groups of two, or five or six. All the same; all with the perfect hair.

  We finally found our courage, and our voices, just as two blonde girls—they could easily have been twins, had one not been a foot taller than the other—came into view.

  “Excuse me, ladies,” said Michael, being sure to exaggerate his accent. Strategy. They giggled.

  “Ohmigod, are you English?!” asked the taller girl.

  “Good ear,” I said. “I’m Paul and this is Michael. We couldn’t help but notice that there were so many beautiful women in the hotel tonight. We just wondered whether you were here for some kind of convention? Do they have beautiful women conventions here?”

  “Yes!” shrieked the shorter one. They both talked in exclamation marks.

  “Not beautiful women conventions, I don’t mean!”—giggle—“We’re here with the Paul Mitchell Hair and Beauty School. It’s our annual conference!”

  “Goodness,” said Michael, “so you’re all hairdressers?”

  “Stylists!” said the taller girl. “Yes, all of us from all the schools across America. There are, like, two thousand of us!”

  Holy. Fucking. Shit.

  “No way!” said Michael. “What an amazing coincidence. I’m Michael, and my friend Paul and I are hair stylists, too.”

  He caught himself. Two male hair stylists? Idiot. We might as well have been holding hands. Also, we do not have the hair of hair stylists.