“Oh.” Grady gives her an odd look, then turns. “Oh yeah, so there is. Want—”
Gwen is already dragging him toward the familiar swooping red and yellow sign on the red-roofed building a few blocks down. Inside, it smells like deep-fried grease and charred meat and home. She downs her Double-Double Animal Style and cheese fries like a starving gerbil, moaning obscenely several times, which earns her a few odd looks from the other customers and an amused grin from Grady.
He clears the wrappers and comes back with a hand held out. “Ready, Small Fry?”
Gwen lets him pull her up; she’s deliciously bloated and slow. “Ready. But I’m calling you Double Beef if you’re sticking with the Small Fry thing.”
Grady responds with a loud belly laugh, and someone across the restaurant takes pictures of him in a private moment of genuine joy that feels stolen now. Gwen glances back to scowl at the nosy, intrusive stranger, but Grady has moved on, out the door and back on his way.
On the roller coasters, they climb up steep hills, careen around bends, tear around loops and corkscrews, fly down hills, and spin upside down. One coaster hangs over the edge of a high-rise resort and dangles them nine hundred feet in the open air, and one slides down a track aimed straight at the ground way below, stopping just as they’re sure the car and all of its occupants will end up a mere splat on the pavement.
As they’re getting strapped into a ride that will launch them, at forty-five miles per hour, to the top of the needle on the highest resort in Las Vegas, Gwen hesitates for the first time. She’s lightheaded and queasy after so many rides.
Grady cranes past the padded shoulder straps to ask, “Can’t handle this one? Tapping out?”
Gwen straps her harness between her thighs and responds, “How’s your junk feeling? Little snug? Maybe you need to sit this one out.”
Grady’s reply is a wince and an “Oof,” when the ride makes its first jerky jump.
Gwen cackles, then screams—up, up, up—and has to clamp her mouth closed on the sudden drop down as the contents of her stomach lurch upward.
It only gets worse at the SkyJump, a 108-story free fall off the side of the Stratosphere.
“I see your roller coasters, and raise you jumping off a ledge,” Grady says in challenge. It’s not as though she can back down, not with that knowing smirk he gives her just before jumping, coasting down the building on nothing but a single metal cable.
So she jumps, knees shaking, stomach roiling, heart in her throat. At the bottom, she gives Grady a shaky thumbs-up, gets unhooked from the harness, and then turns and experiences an unwelcome second appearance of the cheese fries and Double-Double Animal Style burger.
“I think I need a break.” Back on the safe, solid ground outside of the hotel, Gwen burps and swallows and stumbles dizzily.
They find a bus stop bench, wave off a guy who keeps pushing flyers into their faces for a jungle-themed strip club, and melt into the splintered, paint-chipped oasis. Gwen takes long pulls of the hot, dry air and blinks at the cloudless blue sky.
If Flora were here, she’d tut and get Gwen water and something bland to eat, then point out, sympathetically, that perhaps a huge fast food meal and a dozen thrill rides are not the best combination. “At least digest first,” she’d say, and kiss Gwen’s forehead.
Then they’d go back to their irresponsibly cold hotel room and read until Gwen convinced her to make out for a while. She smiles at imaginary Flora. When she looks over at Grady, he’s signing strip-club flyers and restaurant napkins for a group of people who stare at him as if he’s a chimpanzee behind glass and they’re waiting for him to do a trick.
“Hey. Shoo.” Gwen stands, blocks him with her body as much as she can and waves her arms. “There’s a tiger living a miserable existence at the Mirage, go gawk at him.”
They don’t. Instead, one of them asks Grady to take a selfie. By the time they’re able to move on, Gwen’s stomach is settled, but annoyance has drawn her shoulders tight, and she’s walking with snappy, stomping strides. She says without thinking, “I’m starting to see why Nico can’t deal with that shit. I’d run away, too.”
Grady’s face crumples before he’s able to get ahead of it and plaster on a fake almost-smile instead.
“Shit, Grady, I’m sorry. My mouth works independently of my brain sometimes, I didn’t mean—”
“Don’t worry about it,” Grady says, in a tone that clearly means he doesn’t want to talk about it, at all. And then, even among the clanging slot machines and shouts of the flyer pushers, the honking horns and the streaming crowds of people hyped up on indulgence and sin, there’s a palpable quiet between them.
They march forward because they’re marching forward. It’s getting dark now; all the harsh lights and signs flash on-off-on like strobe lights—or camera flashes. They stop at a crosswalk, far enough down The Strip that they wait with just a few stragglers for the cross signal. Beyond that is, of course, a strip club.
“Hey. I have a joke for you.” She lifts to her toes and inclines her head toward the white building. Its sign advertises a topless cabaret. “A lesbian and bisexual walk into a strip club...”
And there’s that reluctant, tugging grin again. The light turns green, and the crosswalk signal flips to go. “Well, what’s the punch line?” Grady says, striding up onto the curb.
“Oh.” Gwen scratches the side of her head. “Um, the bartender says, ‘Hey, why the long face’ because strips clubs actually make me very uncomfortable?”
“Not your best joke, Small Fry.” Grady tucks her roughly under his armpit, gives her a squeeze, and spins them around in the direction they just came from.
“Where the hell are we going, Grady?”
“I have no idea.”
They head back, in a comfortable quiet now, Grady’s arm heavy and comforting on her shoulders so Gwen is safe against his solid side. She gets a text from Clementine. What are you crazy kids up to? Meet me at the Hyde in two. XOXO
Two more hours to kill. She is most definitely through with thrill rides for the day, her inner ear canal feels permanently off-kilter, her neck hurts, and her stomach is still burbling its discontent. The shine has worn off of living the highlife and Vegas, here at the very end of The Strip, as if the carpet has been lifted and the filthy, ashtray-scented, skeevy crumbs swept beneath it are on horrifying display.
“I used to go to places like that all the time,” Grady confesses. “Those strip clubs. I was kind of an ass back then.”
They pass a door with a yellow and orange dragon painted on it. “I used to hang out at these a lot,” Gwen says. The tattoo parlor is tucked among a Walgreens, a frozen yogurt place, and a discount souvenir shop with half-price show tickets. “I miss having piercings.”
Grady glances at her, then at the shop. “So get one.”
“Nah. A few of them got infected.” And once she got her belly button ring caught on a loose-weave sweater and ripped it clear out of her skin. That was traumatizing.
“So get a tattoo,” Grady says offhandedly. Gwen laughs and laughs.
“It would be less dramatic if I just murdered my mother straight away.” Rebecca Pasternak has a line, a point of no return, and that line is tattoos.
Grady looks around left and right and up above the crowd, and even cups a hand over his eyes to indicate a long look into the distance. “I don’t see your mama here. Do you?”
“You’re a terrible influence,” Gwen tells him.
“I will if you will.”
“Like I said. Terrible.”
Two hours later, one side of her ribs is taped with gauze and oozing ink and blood. It feels like a smoking brand. She’s trembling with excitement and the rush of pain endorphins, waiting in the front of the tattoo shop for Grady to finish. What will her mother say? What will Flora say? Will it matter that she got the little purple violet th
at curves gently around her ribcage for Flora, and that violets always make Gwen think of her, beautiful and sweet and shy, that she really actually loves the tattoo and doesn’t have a single regret?
Grady comes from the back, a little pale with spots of red high on his cheeks. His hair is in curly clumps as if he’s been holding on to it for dear life.
“What did you get?” Gwen asks after he pays and tips his artist, then gets an aftercare package of soap and antibacterial cream that he tucks in his pocket.
“Swallows.” They stop at the mirrored door.
“Hold on, so many raunchy jokes just popped into my head.”
Grady laughs, then lifts his shirt. “Swallows.” On his chest, inked into the muscled rise of his pecs, Gwen can just make out the outline of two birds beneath the white gauze. Grady looks at his chest in the mirror. “The artist said sailors used to get them at the end of a long journey to show they had survived. That they could survive anything. And it means—” He pauses, letting sadness pass over his features without pushing it down and away. “I wanted something that means loyalty. Swallows always return to the same place. The same person.”
“That’s really sweet, Grady.” She helps him tug his T-shirt back down. “When is Nico getting here? I bet he’ll love it.”
Grady shakes his head, just one quick dismissal. “He’s not answering his phone, but I left him a message and told him not to come.” He pushes the door open; it chimes cheerily.
“Why?”
Grady steps into the darkness, holds the door open and says, “This was always where we were headed, wasn’t it? People leave, Gwen. They always leave in the end.”
23
Grady walks to the Bellagio with all the ease and speed of a running back or a wide receiver or whatever football player position takes the ball and runs it down the field like a dancer the size of a refrigerator. Gwen walks behind him, then jogs behind him, then panics when she loses him on the crowded sidewalk that’s lit up in carnival lights.
Gwen catches sight of him again on the other side of the choreographed water spouts; she sees the bounce of his curls as he goes inside. She yells for him, but either he doesn’t hear her over the blast of “Billie Jean” and the gush of the fountains, or he’s ignoring her.
“Hey, there you are!”
Gwen barely notices the elegance of the exclusive club: low purple lights cast in slanting lines onto long leather couches; a sleekly polished wood bar with every top-shelf liquor imaginable, and many Gwen has never had the privilege to hear of; an all-VIP clientele; bouncers around the perimeter. Clementine is wearing a dress so tight it’s a second skin.
It doesn’t matter, none of this. She doesn’t feel special or VIP; she feels out of place. And Grady is slipping through her fingers, falling faster than she can catch him. What happens when he slips away for good? “Grady,” Gwen wheezes, and pokes at a stitch in her side; the tattoo is still burning on the other. Damn her short legs.
“Relax, he’s right there.”
And he is, on a couch, with an expression so blank it makes Gwen’s heart squeeze. People always leave in the end.
That may be true of Grady’s life so far, but Nico didn’t—well, he did, but not like that. Unless he did leave like that? Like Gwen left Flora. Why is she here if she isn’t running away, too?
“Hey, come dance with me.” Clementine pushes a drink into Gwen’s hand and holds Gwen’s hip, pressing close and swaying to the beat.
The dance floor is small, with spotlights that sweep across tangled bodies. Gwen throws back her drink too fast; her throat clamps down on the sting of strong alcohol. Clementine raises her hands above her head and shimmies.
Gwen looks past her. She recognizes some of the faces on the couches and lingering at the bar; she’s seen them on TV and in movies and magazines. Bouncers are everywhere, on the dance floor, at the bar, at velvet ropes, and in hidden elevated booths. This is a place where people who are always being watched can let loose and do the things no one will take from this room. She’s only here because of Clementine, and because Clementine wants something from her, or to do something with her that no one can know about. Gwen has known that from the start, hasn’t she? She saw the offer to come here for what it was—an open door, a different path.
Clementine brings her arms down over Gwen’s shoulders and wiggles her hips against Gwen’s hips. She grinds up and down Gwen’s body, presses her chest close, holds her mouth next to Gwen’s ear and breathes, hot and frantic and rasping.
Is Grady right? Everyone comes into the world alone and goes out of the world alone, and everything in between is a stopgap measure against the clawing, empty loneliness? Are they better off without her, Flora and the baby? She’s here because she can’t possibly be the mother her child deserves, so she’ll get out now before she mucks it all to hell, before she has to look at the face of the woman she loves—whom she wants to make happy above all—and know she’s let her down the way she always knew she would?
Clementine’s cheek is warm on Gwen’s cheek; her body is slinky and writhes all along Gwen’s. A bass line thumps through her bones and rattles against her skull. She’s still flipped around a loop-de-loop, all upside down, sideways, and scrambled, and she can’t get her bearings. What is she doing?
Stop. Think. Is this how she wants it to end?
Gwen leans back on one heel to find Grady again—Grady, who spent the day getting mixed up and turned around with her—and that’s when she realizes Clementine’s lips are one trembling breath from her own.
“Whoa.” Gwen releases Clementine’s waist and steps back.
For a split second, Clementine’s eyes widen. Then the look of shock and guilt is gone, replaced by the same toothy smile she gives her fans who come to her in pushy mobs. “That was fun! I’m gonna get another drink. You want?”
Gwen blinks and shakes her head. Everything is so surreal and glittery, and purple-pink-blue flashes of light make her head spin and her vision tip from side to side as vertigo narrows the world to Clementine’s shining locks, bouncing as she walks. At the bar, Clementine bends over the counter to order, looks back over her shoulder, and gives Gwen a very clear come-hither look: hair tossed, eyelids lowered, lip bitten, long throat stretched in invitation to take whatever she wants.
On some level, in this place of “what happens here stays here,” this place of “all that matters is this moment,” Gwen does want; she can admit that now. Clementine is sexy and pretty, confident and brash and determined. Gwen could step right into her glamorous world of A-list parties and a waiting list of top celebrities begging to work with her. She could take trips to the real Venice, or anywhere else she wants, with a snap of her fingers and a private jet on call. Her life would never be boring, would never be anything less than busy and thrilling, with any luxury she could ever want. She would never disappoint anyone, because her life would be hers alone.
All she has to do is walk across that dance floor, and it can all change in an instant.
It’s Grady who pulls her from her twirling, multicolored, club-remixed trance; his golden curls are cast in purple, and then shadows, as he makes a quick exit from the club.
Her choice is easy, watching Grady, who is so sure he’s already been left behind that he’s taken himself out of the equation—as if that didn’t break him into jagged bits. As if she could ever do that to Flora or to herself. As if Nico would ever do that to Grady.
The bubble has burst. Vegas is bizarro-land; she needs to get the hell out of here and take Grady with her. The only problem is, now she has to find him again. She runs, calling his name.
She checks the bathroom first. Nothing. She checks the spa and salon, the dozen or so restaurants, all five pools, the casino, the art gallery, the botanical gardens, and the cavernous, ornate lobby.
By the time she’s outside of the Bellagio, an entire kingdom unto itself, the fou
ntains are still and quiet and waiting. She’s out of breath and her feet hurt. She wheezes and presses against the stitch in her side, then winces when she remembers. She got a tattoo.
Gwen doesn’t know what else to do, so she lets the flow of people on the sidewalk sweep her away; it’s so loud and chaotic and crowded with lights and people, so many people, everywhere. Where else could he be? Every single hotel is a rabbit hole of possibilities and just as strange as Wonderland. It’s impossible.
One of the pushy flyer guys follows her for a foot or two, waving an orange flyer in her face and yelling things she can’t understand through all the other noise.
If Grady’s as mixed-up and messed-up as she is, he could be anywhere by now. She pictures him at a seedy, dark bar, all alone and brokenhearted, only this time the glass in his hand is full of fiery clear liquor, and at his feet are the tattered remains of everything he worked so hard for.
“Piss off,” she finally snaps at the flyer pusher, angrier at herself than anyone else. She was supposed to be helping Grady, not making things worse. She and Flora are supposed to be a team, and her running off like a rebellious, snotty teenager while Flora takes on the burden of everything else is shitty.
An orange flyer hits her face and flaps to the ground, and Gwen stops and stares at it. Club Ammunition is written across it in sharp black letters, and it shows a woman clad in only a gun belt and a bandolier of bullets with a smoking pistol in one hand. She’s advertising a strip club with a thirty-foot pole, three floors, and three dozen exotic dancers. Gwen takes off at a run.
She knows exactly where he is. She just hopes she’s not too late.
24
The strip club they passed earlier is dark inside, creepily so, and Gwen can’t tell if Grady is there; she can’t really see much of anything but the topless, G-stringed dancers moving under hot stage lights. The music is loud and fast; the dancers are skilled, flexible, and captivating. Gwen’s eyes adjust, and she squints not at the strippers, but at the men watching. She doesn’t see Grady. Another glance around and she notices the private back rooms with black curtains hiding exclusive “services.” She approaches the bar with a sense of sinking dread and a desire to crawl out of her skin.
Burning Tracks (Book Two: Spotlight Series) Page 13