Vegas Baby

by Winter Renshaw

  Everything feels surreal. I gaze around the room and the edges of everything blur. This has to be a dream. A nightmare.

  “I need to go.” I release myself from Crew’s hold. I should be thanking him for standing up for me when I didn’t have the strength. But I’m not thinking that way. I’m in fight or flight mode still, despite the fact that Elijah’s probably halfway down the block by now.

  Their sympathy is no good here.

  Nothing can change what happened.

  Nothing can undo the damage of the bomb Elijah just dropped.

  “She’s in no condition to drive home,” I hear Presley say to Crew. Her voice sounds tinny and far away.

  I don’t stick around to argue with them. In an instant, I’m back in my office, grabbing my keys and my bag and dashing out the back door before they can stop me.

  TWENTY-THREE

  Crew

  “Calypso, open up.” I knock at her door, Emme cradled in my left arm. “I know you’re home.”

  Shuffling feet on the other end precede the click of the lock. The door swings open a second later. Her eyes are bloodshot, the inner rims lined in pink.

  “Everything okay in there?” I ask gently. I’m not good at this shit, but I care about her, so I’m doing it anyway. “Haven’t heard from you in days. Presley says you haven’t been in the shop since the other day. Can I come in?”

  She steps back, her hand white-knuckling the door. A crumpled blanket rests on the floor by the velvet sofa. A book is spread open on the coffee table. Two empty coffee cubs with sticky rings in the bottom are paired on an end table. The scent of unwashed hair has replaced the lavender and vanilla fragrance I’ve come to associate with Calypso.

  “You planning to go to work anytime soon?” I scratch the side of my nose and try to keep the tone of my voice as casual as possible.

  I have a million questions for her, but I stuff them down. Now’s not the time to freak out about the fact that we’ve had bareback sex twice now, and apparently she’s fertile as fuck.

  “I don’t know.” Her words are monotonous, her expression empty.

  “Whatcha been doing here?” I pull in another sweeping view of her messy place. Guessing the clutter and chaos is a literal interpretation of the current condition of her insides.

  “Reading,” she says. “Thinking.”

  “Feel like getting out?”

  Her eyes are dead. She drags in a long breath, like it takes all the energy she has.

  “No,” she answers a moment later.

  “I . . . think you should.” I switch Emme to my other arm, facing her out. She sees Calypso and grins, her chubby legs thrashing. “Emme and I were about to head out to check on one of my flip houses. It’s done. Getting ready for the inspection. Want to come?”

  “Not really.” She collapses into a nearby chair. I didn’t notice it there before. Probably because it’s covered in quilts and skirts and God knows what else.

  I hook my free hand on my hip, button my mouth, and exhale through my nostrils. I know she’s just been through hell, but I don’t believe in self-pity.

  “You gotta fight through this,” I say.

  Her pretty eyes lift, holding mine.

  “What happened,” I say, “That was fucking bullshit. It’s fucking murder.”

  She doesn’t move. Her face doesn’t flinch or twist. She doesn’t so much as blink.

  “Sitting around here isn’t doing you any favors. Don’t let fucking Father Nathaniel, or whatever the hell his name is, reign over another moment of your life.” My blood boils. “Don’t give him that power over you.”

  Calypso tucks her chin against her chest and sniffles. She lifts a finger to her left eye, then her right. She nods.

  “Yeah,” she says.

  “Yeah, what?”

  “Yeah, you’re right.” She pushes herself into a standing position. Her skirt falls down her hips enough to reveal a bone poking out. I bet she hasn’t eaten in days. “I’ll go with you, Crew.”

  “We’ll be in the truck. Just come out when you’re ready.”

  ***

  Calypso’s wet hair is swept high on top of her head as she stands in the middle of a two-story foyer in my flip house. She smells of honey almond soap, a welcome detour from the death-warmed-over scent from earlier. She stares overhead at a hanging carriage light. Raw, white-washed oak flooring makes our footsteps echo throughout the empty house.

  “It’s peaceful here,” she says. “Light. Airy.”

  She steps toward a front window and runs her fingertips along the black metal, nine-square grid.

  “You’re going to love the kitchen,” I say. I’m wearing a baby carrier like some fucking soccer dad, but I don’t care. Noelle brought it over the other day and proceeded to argue with me about all the reasons why I needed this thing. I didn’t try it on until she left, and I still haven’t told her she was right.

  Calypso follows us through an arched doorway toward the back of the house, where a modern kitchen with industrial beams overhead stops her dead in her tracks. Open shelving frames a wide window above a farmhouse sink, and out that window is a sweeping view of a sparkling pool.

  I had the pool tiled in a shade of blue that matches Calypso’s eyes. Complete coincidence.

  “When you said you flipped houses,” she says, brushing up against the sink. “I didn’t know they were, like, fancy houses.”

  “You should’ve seen this thing when I first got it. No other contractors wanted to touch it,” I say. “Cockroaches. Mice. Mold. The AC had been ripped out. Squatters had been living here. For months. With no running water.”

  Need I say more?

  Calypso wrinkles her nose, sticking her tongue out.

  “What is this?” She runs her hand along a gray vein in the counter. “It’s beautiful.”

  “Calcutta marble,” I say.

  “You really went all out here, didn’t you?” She pulls a drawer and pushes it back until it catches then closes softly on its own.

  “I don’t usually. This is a nicer neighborhood than most of the houses I find. It’s gated. Safe. More upscale. I couldn’t do this reno on the cheap. It wouldn’t sell.”

  “It’s funny that you live at the Desert Oasis and you’ve got this McMansion over here.”

  “I don’t need a lot to be happy.”

  Every jackpot win feels like Monopoly money. Like points in a video game. Wasn’t until a year ago that I decided all those zeroes weren’t doing me a damn bit of good sitting in a low-interest savings account.

  “Me too.” Her dreamy smile is accented with an equally dreamy sigh. “I just need my words. My books. My writing. A strong cup of tea. A quiet corner of the world.” She ambles toward a sliding glass door off the dinette. “This place sure is pretty, though. Whoever lives here is going to have their own little slice of Heaven on Earth.”

  The back yard is expansive and deep, surrounded by a thick nest of blue palms and yuccas, a privacy fence, and a shady pergola housing lounge chairs next to the pool.

  “There’s even a waterfall?” Calypso kicks off her sandals and skips toward the backside of the pool, leaning over and running her hands through the rushing waters that spill over rocks and into the lagoon-shaped pool.

  “Let me show you the rest.”

  She’s having way too much fun over there, but it’s good to see her smile again.

  Once we’re inside, I show her the marble fireplace in the two-story great room. Emme’s passed out in the carrier, her cheek pressed against my chest. The scent of baby shampoo wafts into my lungs as we tour this home designed for a family.

  “There’s a library here,” I say a minute later as we pass down a hallway and toward a staircase.

  “You put a library in here?” she asks. “Like an actual library.”

  She pulls open two paned-glass French doors and steps inside.

  “Twelve-foot ceilings,” I say. “Two walls of floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. Custom. Figured it could doubl
e as a poker room if the next owner so chooses.”

  There’s a wink in my tone.

  “Can I live here?” she turns and pleads with her eyes, a teasing grin all lopsided on her lips. “Like right here. In this room. I don’t need the rest of the house, just this room.”

  My breath catches in my throat as an image flashes in my head. I imagine Calypso, hair spilling down her silky shoulders, sitting cross-legged in the middle of the room. Books fill the shelves. Emme crawls beside her, chewing on the pages of a cardboard baby book.

  It’s silly to think about a future with a woman I’ve known less than two weeks, so I push the image away before it has time to evolve into anything else.

  “You can make an offer,” I tease. “Got a million bucks?”

  She rises, her jaw falling. “You’re selling this place for a million dollars?”

  I shrug. “Something like that.”

  “Who has that kind of money?”

  I laugh. Her naiveté is charming, but only on her.

  “A lot of people do, Calypso,” I say. “At least on this side of town.”

  She leaves the library, shutting the doors gently. We amble toward the stairs, her hand gliding along an iron railing that curves along with the bend of the steps as we climb to the second level.

  “Four bedrooms up here,” I say. “Each with their own en suite.”

  She’s quiet, peeking into the doorways of the spare bedrooms.

  “The master’s on the end. Can’t wait for you to see it.” I’m proud of my work. It’s not every day that I get to show it off to someone who isn’t a sub-contractor. Or Noelle. Mom hasn’t seen this house yet. She’s only seen my smaller project on Irvine, the one with the terracotta paint job. Can’t imagine it’d be easy to explain how someone on a “teacher’s” salary could afford a million-dollar reno project.

  Calypso ambles down the hall, pressing open the arched double doors at the end.

  The room is easily the size of her apartment and mine put together. It’s ridiculously large, but I didn’t design it. It’s the way the house came. When the three of us stand in the middle, we’re dwarfed. Swallowed hole.

  “It’ll feel cozier once there’s furniture in here,” I say.

  My furniture.

  Because I decided the other day to move Emme and myself here.

  Calypso moseys to the bathroom, examining the rainfall showerhead, the his and hers vanities and custom closets, the sunken tub and the opaque skylights.

  “It’s pretty,” she says. “Creamy and serene. Whole place doesn’t feel like it belongs in Vegas.”

  “That’s the whole point,” I say. “Remember when I told you I like to be transported?”

  Her mouth inches at one corner. I hope she’s remembering that night on the strip. As awful as it went, I like to think she still had a good time.

  “Yeah,” she says. “You like to be transported without ever having to leave.”

  “Exactly.”

  We head downstairs and somehow end up in the kitchen again. It’s magnetic and magnificent in all its mammoth glory.

  “This kitchen makes me want to cook,” she says. “And I hate cooking.”

  A tickle catches the back of my throat. I need to tell her, and I’m not sure why the words are so stuck. But here it goes.

  “I’m moving,” I say. “We’re moving. Emme and me.”

  She wears a smile that fades as my declaration sinks in.

  “Instead of selling this place, Emme and I are moving in. It’s a nice house. Lots of room for her to run around. It has everything we need, and it’s in a safe neighborhood. There’s a great school right outside the gate.”

  I sound like one of those schmucks on those reality house hunting shows. I never thought I’d find myself researching neighborhood walkability scores and the quality of the nearest schools, but here I am.

  “As soon as I get my certificate of occupancy, we’re moving in.”

  “When?” she asks. One little word, but I hear the disappointment in there anyway. Her expression is sunken.

  “Next week or two, hopefully. I need to get her out of that scuzzy apartment. She’ll be crawling soon,” I say. At least according to those baby books I’ve finally found time to start reading. “My carpet’s filled with spilled beer and cigar ash.”

  And probably some bodily fluids . . .

  “I understand,” she says.

  “If you’re up to it,” I say. “I was going to see if maybe you could watch Emme when we move? Whenever it is. I could ask Noelle and all, but I’d much rather put her to work lifting boxes.”

  I wink. Trying my damnedest to make this lighthearted.

  “You’re welcome over anytime,” I say. “Just because we’re moving across town doesn’t mean you won’t be in our life anymore. Emme still needs you. You’ve been more of a mother to her in the last two weeks than Ava ever was in the first four months of her life.”

  Calypso’s stare meets mine. Her lower lip is tucked in at the corner as she chews on it. The folding of her arms across her chest is accompanied by a heavy inhalation.

  “I still need you around too.” I know I sound like some goddamned sappy asshole from The Notebook or some shit like that, but it’s true. “I can’t raise Emme without you. I can’t do it on my own.”

  Her eyes narrow.

  Shit.

  I said the wrong thing.

  “I don’t mean like, that’s the only reason I want you around,” I say. “You’ve been a great help with Emme, but that’s not why I like you.”

  Fuck.

  Now I just admitted that I like her.

  I’m off my game. I’m a bumbling fucking idiot. I threw cool out the window two minutes ago, and he’s never coming back.

  “You . . . like me?” Her head tilts to the left.

  “I don’t see how that’s so hard for you to believe.”

  Emme stirs in the baby carrier, rubbing her face back and forth and scrunching her nose. It’s almost time for her to eat again. She whimpers, and I turn to grab the diaper bag I left by the front door.

  While I make Emme’s bottle over the kitchen sink, Calypso disappears. Leaning against the counter, I spot her out by the pool again, her feet dipped in next to the waterfall.

  I leave her alone with her thoughts.

  Maybe I shouldn’t have dropped this bomb on her, but in my defense, it wasn’t planned.

  And it’s not like I told her I loved her.

  I mean, it kind of is—for me.

  I’ve never told a girl I liked or loved her. It’s just not my style. But in that moment, with Calypso looking like she already had one foot out the door, I had to say it.

  Emme finishes the last drop of formula, and I stick my head out the back door.

  “Ready to go?” I call out.

  She rises, slowly, and steps back into her Birkenstocks.

  The ride home is quiet.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Calypso

  “I got into Havenhurst.” I blurt the words as we walk toward our complex.

  The drive here took forever, especially since neither of us has the foresight to avoid leaving around rush hour.

  “What? When?” Crew stops. His face twists. I can’t tell if it’s selfless excitement or selfish disappointment. Maybe both? “That’s great. Good for you.”

  “The letter came yesterday. They want me to start in June. It’s a one-year program.”

  “So you’re going? For sure.”

  I nod. One tight, tiny, completely uncertain of myself nod.

  “My shop closes in May. I’ll move to Chicago during Memorial Day weekend.”

  “Where are you going to live?”

  “On-site housing.”

  “Who’s moving you?”

  I shrug. “Me, myself, and I.”

  He studies me. Somewhere between the parking lot and the walk to our building, we stopped walking, but all I want to do is run to my apartment and shut out the rest of the world.
>
  Yes. Yesterday my letter came. The one I’d been waiting for. The letter I needed to make all my precious little dreams come true.

  The first thing I did when I read it was cry.

  Sad tears.

  I picked up my phone to text Presley and then stopped halfway through typing a message. She was going to be excited for me. She wouldn’t understand my tears. I could hardly understand them at the time.

  Calypso No Last Name was born to be weightless. To float through life on a breeze that carried her to meaningful places. She wasn’t meant to be tied down to a damn thing. Everything she needed in this world, she was already born with.

  I was so sure of my convictions, my truth, until I saw that letter.

  Reading the words, “We are pleased to inform you that our committee has chosen you to attend our exclusive program beginning June seventh of this year,” my heart ached. Literally ached. Life wrung it, twisting it until it could hardly beat in my heavy chest.

  My fingers traced the words on the paper. Smooth. Real.

  What should’ve been a joyous moment was clouded with an intense storm of fear and doubt. And beneath all of that was a flooding of the kind of emotion I’d only felt with one other person: longing.

  I wasn’t even gone, and already I was longing to stay here. With Crew. With Emme. With Presley and Bryson. In this big little neon city.

  I can draw a line down my center. Half of me wants to leave, hop on the next cloud and float to Chicago with my pen and notebook in hand. The other half of me is rooted.

  Me.

  Rooted.

  That rooted part of me digs her heels in the ground, refusing to leave. Reminding the rest of me that I finally found a place to belong. People who need me. The free-spirited part of me barks back that Crew and Emme aren’t mine to keep. That people have agendas and ulterior motives. That they won’t always need me. This is a phase. We’ve known each other a whole two weeks. You don’t make life decisions based on two weeks of your life unless you’re absolutely certain.

  “Calypso.” Crew’s voice is a sobering slap across the face, bringing me back to the present. “I’m happy for you. This is what you wanted, right?”